Chapter Nine Cole #2
She pulls up to the curb near the front, and I park behind her. When she gets out, she looks exhausted, the twinkle in her eye from earlier completely faded.
“Thank you for following me,” she says. “And for dinner. I’m sorry it ended like this. I don’t need you to come up. If you’ll just wait here, I’ll text you when I’m inside and have all the lights turned on.”
“Don’t apologize. None of this is your fault.” I want to touch her again, to pull her close and promise everything will be okay. And I want to walk with her to her door, go in before her to sweep the apartment and make sure it’s safe for her to go inside.
But I can’t overstep.
I can’t invite myself inside if that’s not what she wants. Instead, I say, “Get some rest. And text me when you’re inside. I’ll wait right here until I know you’re settled.”
“Okay.” She hesitates, then presses a quick kiss to my cheek. “Good night, Cole.”
Before I can respond, she’s hurrying toward the entrance, opening the door and disappearing inside.
I’m frozen in place, eyes locked on the building until I see lights come on in a second-floor apartment—hers, I assume.
I try not to notice it’s the last window on the left and the easiest to access from the fire escape.
A few seconds later, a text comes through, and I let out a sigh of relief.
Hailey: I’m inside. I checked all the closets, and there’s no one here. Thanks again for tonight.
The drive back to my apartment passes in a haze of barely contained fury. My knuckles are white on the steering wheel, and my jaw aches from clenching it.
Lars fucking Winters. Or, as I will now think of him, Shitbag Lars.
The name circles in my head like a vulture. Menacing. Despicable. Disgusting.
Once I’m inside my apartment, I don’t bother turning on the lights. I go straight to my desk, power up my laptop, and pause.
Don’t do this.
Tyler’s voice echoes in my head. His earnest expression looks back at me where my own reflection should ghost the dark screen in front of me.
Tracey’s warnings play on repeat like a catchy song I can’t forget. This is exactly what you’re supposed to be working on.
But this is different. This isn’t some paranoid need to gather information. This is a real threat to someone I care about. The police won’t help. The system is failing Hailey.
Like it failed Emma.
Someone needs to protect her. And I have the skills to do it.
My fingers move across the keyboard almost involuntarily, muscle memory taking over. I start with the basics—accessing the network on the street where she was parked. Most commercial buildings have laughable security, relying on cheap wifi-based systems a competent fifteen-year-old could bypass.
These are no exception.
When I find the footage of the two of us with the officers, I pause.
Is this what people always see when they look at me?
My jaw is clenched so tight, it’s a wonder I didn’t crack a molar.
My hands are shoved deep in my pockets for most of the conversation with the police, and the menace in my expression is almost… violent?
I back up the footage a few minutes more, then let it play, watching the way I hold Hailey close to me, like I never want to let her go. I play it over and over again, memorizing how small she looks in my arms. How perfectly she fits tucked against me.
I play through our interaction with the officers again, noticing how the male officer shifts his weight, angling himself slightly in front of his partner. A subconscious move. Protective.
Was he…afraid of me?
I watch myself say something to Hailey. Whatever it is makes her shoulders relax a fraction, like I’ve made her feel safe. The male officer scribbles in his notepad while his partner keeps stealing glances my way. Like she’s waiting for me to snap.
I didn’t. But watching this footage, I’m not sure how.
Lars Winters touched her car. He wrote that ugly word where she and the rest of Fort Collins would have to see it. And I had to stand there making small talk with cops instead of immediately hunting down Shitbag Lars.
I pause the footage and drag a heavy hand over my face.
This is why you’re in therapy, asshole.
I continue winding back the footage.
Cars come and go. People walk past. Nothing unusual until—
I stop the feed.
A man walks away from Hailey’s car at 7:32 p.m. White. Fifties, maybe. Jeans, black jacket, baseball cap pulled low. He’s in a hurry. I keep rolling the footage back.
I zoom in as much as the low-grade resolution allows. The image quality isn’t great, but I can see him dragging a screwdriver along the driver’s side door.
It takes him less than thirty seconds to carve that word into her car. He doesn’t even stop to consider the missing T.
The footage rolls back farther until he’s approaching her car, hands low at his sides, screwdriver gripped tight near his right thigh.
Got you, motherfucker.
I save the footage to my hard drive, then start tracking his path backward to his point of origin through various camera systems mounted by businesses along the street. He entered and exited from the same direction. I find him just around the corner.
And there’s his car. A gray Toyota sedan, roughly ten years old.
I zoom in on the license plate, adjusting the angle and resolution until I can make out every character.
Colorado plate: brT-5749.
My fingers fly across the keyboard. Accessing the DMV database is technically illegal, but a former colleague showed me a backdoor years ago that hasn’t been discovered yet. I don’t use it often, but it’s the kind of thing I keep in my mental toolkit just in case.
For times like this.
In all of fifty seconds, I learn the vehicle is registered to Lars Peter Winters, last known address at 233 Alder Road, Fort Collins, CO 80525.
I lean back in my chair, staring at the screen. There he is.
I have his name, his address, his vehicle information.
The smart thing to do would be to give all of this to the police. Let them handle it. Stay in my lane.
But the police already made it clear they don’t care enough to look into this more than they already have. Not without more direct threats or physical harm.
By then, it might be too late.
Too late.
The words echo in my skull, dragging me backward through time. My apartment fades away, replaced by a memory from three years ago that I’ve tried to bury a thousand times.