Chapter 40
JEREMIAH
“You need to eat something.” Holly smacked my abs with a protein bar. “Keep your strength up for that twenty-four-hour fuckathon you’re going to have when you find her.”
Mateo rubbed his eyes under his glasses. “Jesus, Holly. Now is not the time.”
“What? I’m being a good friend! Seb, back me up.”
I ignored them and kept staring at the map we had tacked to the wall of my living room. Sheriff Sherwood had put out a BOLO on Cecily’s van. Law enforcement all over the state had their eyes peeled. I doubted Cecily would drive far. Too risky. She’d hunker down somewhere.
Amos had provided the missing puzzle piece there.
Cecily lived in a built-out camper van. He didn’t know where, but he did know that the day Lennon and I got back from camping, Cecily had driven it to work.
My guess was she’d planned on grabbing Lennon the second she could.
She hadn’t been expecting Lennon to get attacked, but it provided her with an opportunity.
I tore open the protein bar and took off the corner with my teeth, still contemplating the map. I didn’t taste a single bite.
Right now, we were focused on secluded areas where Cecily could park her van. Trailheads, campsites, back roads, rental cabins. Green tacks denoted areas we had checked. Red tacks were places we hadn’t gotten to yet. Right now there were more red than green, but we were making progress.
Wyoming was a big state and sparsely populated. They could be anywhere.
But this was what we did. Holly, Mateo, Seb, Liam, and me. We found people. The only difference this time was that it was personal. Fear for Lennon’s safety clouded my head. I couldn’t think straight. Couldn’t see the clues that I knew were right in front of me.
I had to find her. Desperation clawed in my chest. We’d been at this two days now, and it already felt like a lifetime since I’d had her safe in my arms under the stars.
I’d promised her she’d be safe, and I’d failed her. The knowledge of that nearly buckled my knees. The only thing that kept me upright was knowing that wherever she was, Lennon was alive. Cecily—Dana Matthews—didn’t want her dead.
But Cecily wasn’t exactly in her right mind, either, and that worried me.
Two years ago, her boyfriend had beaten the crap out of her, causing her to miscarry their baby at twenty-one weeks.
Cecily had landed in the hospital. I had no idea how she had stumbled onto Lennon’s camming account, but she had, and best as we could figure, she’d developed a fixation.
A parasocial relationship, Ciaran called it.
He believed it was platonic in nature, but that didn’t make it any less dangerous.
“There’s an illusion of intimacy,” he’d explained.
“Cecily feels like they’ve had this very real, very emotional bond for much longer than Lennon has even been truly aware of her existence.
If Lennon denies the bond, it is very possible that Cecily will treat it as a betrayal.
There’s no telling how she’ll react. But we do know that she is capable of violence. She’s already proven that.”
“I think I’ve got something,” Mateo said. We all crowded around. “Cecily has an unpaid speeding ticket for Millhouse Road.” He shoved his chair back from the kitchen table and moved to the map. “Right here.” He pushed a yellow thumbtack into the spot.
“There’s no campground near there,” I noted. “Maybe she was on her way to somewhere else.”
“No campground, but there’s a fire road that turns off from there. See? I checked it out on some hiking websites. Apparently there is a single campsite there. From there, hikers backpack the rest of the way to a fire lookout tower.”
My brow furrowed as I studied the map. “Could she get her van to the campsite? Some fire roads are only passable by four wheelers.”
“Hikers say yes. It’s not very popular because it’s so hard to get to. Remote, not enough room for more than one vehicle.”
“Perfect for Cecily,” I muttered.
“Exactly.”
“Let’s go.”