CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE #2
I didn’t. My mind replayed yesterday in the office.
“I’ll ensure justice is served. Tell me what happened. It’ll make a difference. Do this, Willa. Hop up on the chopping block, and all will be well. I’ll keep you safe.”
At least, that was what I read into his interview.
I hesitated. Any thoughts I’d entertained about divulging the mayor’s identity evaporated. Why would I put myself or my loved ones at further risk like that?
The FBI couldn’t arrest a man who’d threatened me not once, but twice, in a room full of witnesses.
If Veritas couldn’t touch Ben’s dad, then what hope did I have of him being able to move against the mayor, of whom I possessed no hard proof of wrongdoing, just a lot of claims and nudges beyond the grave that I couldn’t explain?
I blinked, pulled from the paths carving through my mind by Veritas’s voice.
“—ello? Hey, Willa? Are you there? Willa?”
“I’m here,” I whispered, though it was a close call. A significant part of me was tempted to end the conversation there and then.
Even from a distance, Veritas must have sensed this.
“Listen, I realize this looks bad. Pierce charged into the school and tried to detain you for questioning without your parents’ permission.
His case wouldn’t stand up in any other town but here.
It’s only because he has friends in the right places—”
“Yes, he does.”
But the law was still supposed to matter when outside federal agents were involved. What would I do now?
Veritas paused, as if waiting for more. When the silence stretched, he added, “Would you care to elaborate?”
“No.”
He huffed. “Okay, I deserve that.”
“You make it sound like I’m doing anything just to be petty.”
“That’s… That’s fair. I’m sorry. So you’re doing this because you’re worried about talking.”
Veritas definitely sniffed up the right tree.
That could be very dangerous.
“Um, so, hey, listen. I should—”
Veritas interrupted, “Come on, Willa. Just tell me names.”
I bit my lip.
“My team’s here, but we’re hitting wall after wall. Just give them a chance. One name. Give us a heading, and we can go from there. If it makes you feel better, I can assign a protection detail as well. My men are all excellent at guard duty. You’d be safe. I guarantee it.”
Except, I’d already endangered myself enough.
No, I’d poked the bear, pointing fingers at the chief of police while he watched.
I’d grabbed a shovel and began digging my own grave.
Although, knowing then what I know now, I still might have taken the gamble because I’d been worried Pierce would act against Manuel too, since he’d witnessed the entire thing.
Adults could be bought or convinced into believing things hadn’t been half as bad as they’d perceived at the time because they were programmed to overlook impossible truths.
But teenagers? We caused a ruckus. We strove to eke out our paths in life, still na?ve enough to believe in a black and white world and good versus evil.
I’d wanted to protect Manuel as much as myself, and look how it’d turned out.
My eyes rounded in horrified realization.
If Ben’s dad hadn’t been detained long, then he might have already tried to murder me for talking.
The black truck that’d chased me down… It’d somehow been both in town and stopped on some county road—a notoriously accident-prone intersection.
Who else would have information like that? Furthermore, the truck didn’t have plates. What if the chief took them off in case a random passerby witnessed the hit?
He also could not be definitively identified as the culprit due to the tinted windows.
It would have been the perfect crime. The driver had been careful not to hit my car and leave any evidence behind. Paired with road’s history of causing accidents, nobody would hesitate to rule it as accidental, even if the instigator didn’t stick around to leave a witness statement.
My heart pounded, and my hands grew clammy. “Wh-When did Pierce walk free?”
“Around noon,” Veritas admitted begrudgingly. “Why do you ask?”
I hadn’t left Manuel’s place until after two. He could have easily assumed where I’d be after witnessing Manuel defend me in the office. It wouldn’t be hard for him to track me down…
The chief of police, Ben’s dad, almost killed me, premeditated this time.
Running on more sleep and marginally less irrational with fear, my logic might have reasoned that if I was in this deep, my best bet was to go all in and see where the chips would fall.
If the FBI had more pieces of the puzzle, then they could cobble together enough evidence to do something, cover-up or not.
But…
But I was sleep-deprived from a dangerous and restless night. I wasn’t thinking about logic and odds. My body seemed doomed to replay the way the Jeep rocked as the tire dipped onto the gravel shoulder. One false move would have been the end.
If there’d been oncoming traffic, if there’d been sharp hazards in the dirt, if I’d been slightly less experienced with driving off road…
If, if, if…
“No,” I repeated, resolution filling my decision. “I’m sorry. I can’t—”
“Wait!”
Something, I wasn’t sure what, but something prevented me from ending the call.
“Are you familiar with George Orten?”
The floor might as well have vanished beneath me. That was what it felt like, as if my foot had slipped off the narrow width of the joist, sending me crashing to the story below.
“W-What?”
A few unbearable beats of silence passed.
I reiterated my question. “What’d you say?”
He cleared his throat. “I asked if you knew George Orten.”
My ability to reason fractured into a million pieces and scattered across the slats. “W-Why do you ask?” That sounded too evasive, like I was guilty or hiding something. I tacked on, “Isn’t he the mayor? I think I heard my mom and dad mention that once or something.”
Talk, talk, talk, I mentally urged Veritas.
He took his sweet time doing so. Either he detected the sudden alertness leaking into my nervous answers, or he wanted to pick through his words carefully before responding.
Maybe both. He was a trained FBI agent.
Why in the world did I expect it would be easy to gain information while not giving anything away?
“Well,” he began, “I was attempting to make a connection between you and that abandoned construction site they arrested you at.”
He’d uttered the golden words.
The dream’s ending, where the mayor had been rooted at the edge of the dangerously windy second story, hit me so hard that it felt as if I’d been phased into some altered state of being for half a second. “He’s connected to the construction site?”
Did that sound too interested? How many secrets was I giving away without realizing it?
“Connected? Yeah, I’d say so. He’s the owner, well, the latest owner anyway. He bought it several years ago before they halted the construction. Then the place was abandoned, doomed to waste away.”
Mayor George Orten owned the property. He’d bought it for unknown reasons and called off the job, also for unknown reasons. Because it was haunted, perhaps?
Why was he after me though? Only one other person knew about my affinity for the dead, and he’d only found out yesterday.
Just like that, another piece of the puzzle dropped into the scattered mix.
The problem was, in the style of Kolton, where the fuck did it fit?