CHAPTER TWO
One day ago
GIVEN THE FAMILY I come from with its bloody and violent history, it’s a surprise that this week marks my first encounter with cops.
Or that this is only the third time I’ve seen the inside of a police station.
It looks exactly like they show you on TV—with a desk in the front that serves both as a reception and for booking arrests; rows of desks beyond it; a hallway beyond that where they have private offices, their interrogation rooms, and presumably holding cells—except much scarier and colder because it’s real.
So real that the cop at the front desk, an officer named Grant not much older than me I suppose, knows everything about me.
He knows my name is Peyton Turner and that I go to Montana State University.
He knows who my father and my brother are and all the things they can do to him and his fellow officers if I just say the word, so they better do what I want them to do.
He also knows I live with a roommate and as of five days ago, she went missing.
Missing.
My best friend, the only person I have in this whole wide world, has gone missing and no one will do a thing about it.
First, it was the fact that it hadn’t been seventy-two hours since I last saw her.
So they wouldn’t consider it a missing person’s case.
Because God forbid they do their fucking jobs.
And then, it was about her writing letters to a prison inmate for the last six months.
It doesn’t matter to them that, on his insistence, she went to see him after he was released on parole.
Or that a day after seeing him, she never came home.
I mean, it’s all there, isn’t it? It’s obvious what happened here.
An innocent college girl goes to meet a parolee, a goddamn convicted criminal, and never comes home.
It means that said criminal is responsible for her disappearance.
It means that he’d been lying to her all along, scamming her, and now he’s taken her away.
It means that my best friend has been kidnapped, and no one will believe me.
Because according to the cops, she might have decided to leave with him of her own volition.
It’s not unheard of, they say. Girls do this all the time.
They often disappear with men they’re in love with.
They go away, leave everything behind for one reason or another.
It’s crazy, they admit. Why leave without telling anyone; why make your loved ones worry?
But apparently, not everyone thinks of these things, and from the looks of it, Reverie is one of those people.
Never mind that she’s the most responsible girl to ever exist; she never misses a single class without first emailing the professor to give them a heads-up about it; she texts me even if she pops over to the deli down the street.
She’s the most careful, the most cautious, the most responsible person in this entire city, and everyone here is trying to convince me otherwise.
They want me to accept the fact that she may never be found because she doesn’t want to be found.
Because she’s not missing; she ran away.
Which is why I’m here—third time in five days—waiting for the detective in charge of Reverie’s case to show up.
Officer Grant at the front desk tried to send me away, said Detective Pearson is out on another case and that if they get any updates, they’ll give me a call.
But I’m not leaving this hellhole until I talk to him and demand he take me seriously and find my friend.
As if on cue, Detective Pearson strolls into the station and Officer Grant jumps up from his seat.
I do, too, and before he can say anything to Pearson, I call out, “Detective Pearson, do you have a second?”
He’s probably in his mid-thirties or so and sports a bushy mustache and a Stetson.
Apparently, in addition to being a cop, he also has a ranch at the outskirts of the city that he runs part-time; an intel I got from overhearing one of the cops.
It also means I’ve hated him since the moment he walked into the interrogation room five days ago to go over the statement I gave to Officer Grant.
I’ve never trusted cowboys, and the way he’s been dismissive of me and my concerns, I was right to consider them the bullheaded pricks they all are.
I’m not happy to be in his presence, and I guess the feeling is mutual.
Because as soon as he turns around and sees me charging toward him, he frowns in displeasure.
I come to a stop in front of him and raise my chin. “I’d like to have a word with you about my friend’s case.”
“I’ve tried to make her understand the protocol, sir; that if we had any updates, we’d give her a call,” Officer Grant chimes in from the side. “But she—”
“She,” I say, cutting him off and shooting him a glare, “is not going anywhere until she gets to talk to the detective in charge of a sensitive case.” I snap my gaze over to Detective Pearson.
“A girl is missing. Missing. She could be halfway across the state.… She could be halfway across this country by now, and we’re standing here talking about protocol?
You know what this is, don’t you? Police negligence.
You’re ignoring the concerns of a citizen you swore to protect on account of your own biases.
That’s wrong on all levels. How do you think my father is going to feel if he finds out you’re not taking his daughter seriously? ”
I pause here, trying to let that sink in.
Also because I’m bluffing. I will never ever involve my father or my brother in this.
They’re both cut from the same cloth, and they’ll only use this situation to somehow hurt me and in turn, Reverie.
I know that because my father has tried.
He knows how much Reverie and her friendship mean to me so over the years, he’s threatened to send her away.
A way to keep me in line. The only reason he lets me stay with her in the city is because he knows I’ll never go against him.
I’ll never let him do anything to hurt my best friend.
I’ll die first. And my brother? Well, in many ways, my brother is a bigger asshole because he likes to pretend he cares about me.
He likes to call me like a concerned brother and act as if he doesn’t know what our father is doing to me.
As if he doesn’t know what our dad has done to our mother.
So no, I’m not going to involve my shitty family. But these people don’t know that.
“You know he knows the mayor, don’t you?” I continue, keeping my spine straight and my voice threatening and loud. “He knows everyone who’s anyone in the state of Montana. My brother too. And I don’t want to have to play the Turner card, but I will if I have to, so—”
Detective Pearson sighs sharply, cutting me off. “Follow me.” Then, glancing over at Officer Grant, “You and me. We’re gonna have words.”
Officer Grant blanches, and despite my annoyance at him, I do feel bad.
It’s not his fault I got stuck with an incompetent cowboy cop.
But before I can do anything about that, Detective Pearson spins around and strides through the bullpen to the hallway that leads to their offices and interrogation rooms. Thank God.
I follow him to one of the interrogation rooms, the same one where he went over my statement with me.
The first time they brought me in here, I was too shaken up to use my head.
Too jittery and scared. Terrified about Reverie.
They’d made me wait hours before they processed everything and took my statement.
A thousand scenarios were running through my mind, all bad, all more panic-inducing than the last. Where was she?
Was she okay? What did he do to her? Where did he take her?
I wanted to tell them everything I knew, everything that could help them find her.
I told them it was my fault. I made her do this; I made her write to him and now she was gone.
I didn’t even stop her when she finally decided to go see him after all.
Instead of talking sense into her, I helped her pick out dresses.
God. But I thought… Jesus, I don’t know what I thought except if Reverie loved this guy—and she did, it was plain to see—then maybe, just maybe, he might be different.
He might be good, better than all the other men in our lives.
But I was wrong, wasn’t I? He’s probably just as bad as the rest of them. Worse even.
I knew the cops had trouble keeping up with me.
I was talking too fast. I was too distraught.
That was my first mistake—or rather, second, after not being able to protect Reverie from the monster who took her.
I should’ve been calm and collected, threatening like I was today rather than hysterical.
I should’ve used my head and powered through like usual.
It’s one thing to act like a ditzy, overemotional, rich college girl who only cares about partying and herself, but to actually dissolve into panic when Reverie needs me the most is the worst thing I could’ve done.
So this time around, I’m better at hiding my emotions.
I walk inside with all the determination in the world and head to the white table at the center of the room.
I take a seat in the dark blue plastic chair, ready to convince him to finally listen to me.
But he gets there first. “Checked out the café you mentioned. Asked around, showed them pictures.”
My heart starts pounding, my composure slipping slightly. “Y-you did?”
He pulls out the chair on the opposite side and takes his own seat. “Yes, ma’am.”
“And?” I prod, coming to the edge of my seat. “Did you find out something? Someone must’ve seen her or heard something… I mean—”
His expression hardly changes when he informs me, “No one remembers seeing your friend.”
“And Bo? Did they—”