Chapter 29
Dash
Brielle returns a minute later, carrying a tray with two tall glasses of iced tea, tiny beads of condensation racing down the sides of the glasses before dripping onto the polished wood.
Under any other circumstances, I would probably have appreciated the gesture.
She is trying to help, trying to be a decent host, even though the last time members of my club came anywhere near her house, two of my brothers had turned up on her doorstep to threaten the man she lives with, convinced he was stalking the woman he used to call his wife.
Today, though, the tea barely registers.
My attention keeps drifting back to the phone lying on the little table between us, its black screen seeming to mock me every time I glance at it.
Every few seconds, I find myself checking it without meaning to, convinced I’ve felt it vibrate in my pocket or heard it ringing over the distant hum of traffic.
Each time, I’m disappointed. Nothing. No one has found anything. The silence is becoming unbearable.
I’ve always been the one who keeps everybody smiling.
When things get tense, I crack a joke. When the atmosphere gets too heavy, I do something stupid enough to make the others roll their eyes and laugh despite themselves.
It is the role I’ve slipped into for so many years that I hardly think about it anymore.
Today, I can’t think of a single joke, which unsettles me more than I care to admit.
Brielle lowers herself into the chair opposite me, wrapping both hands around her glass as though she needs something to steady herself.
“So…” Brielle says at last, breaking the silence. “What exactly are you looking for?”
“Anything.” The answer leaves my mouth before I have time to dress it up into something more useful. “I know that’s vague.”
She offers a small, understanding smile. “I suppose I’d be looking for anything too.”
I lean forward, resting my forearms on my knees, trying to organize the chaos in my head into something resembling a logical investigation.
“I’m trying to work out whether we’ve missed somebody,” I admit.
“Somebody who had a reason to become obsessed with Sadie. Somebody she crossed paths with without ever realizing how dangerous they were.”
Brielle frowns thoughtfully, her eyes drifting across the quiet street as she searches her memory. “I honestly can’t think of anyone.”
“What about at her work?”
She shakes her head.
“Neighbors?”
Another shake.
“What about after the divorce? Did Ethan ever mention anyone she dated, anybody she saw a few times? Anybody who didn’t take rejection particularly well?”
She sits quietly for several moments before answering, and I can almost see her mentally leafing through conversations she’d had with Ethan over the past couple of years. “Not that I’m aware of.”
I nod slowly, trying not to let my disappointment show.
Every question I ask seems to close another door, and with every closed door, the picture becomes a little more frightening.
Chief keeps sending updates every few minutes, each one more discouraging than the last—nothing at Sadie’s house, nothing at the hospitals, no sightings, and no witnesses.
It is as though she has simply vanished into thin air.
I rub a hand across the back of my neck, feeling every sleepless night of the past few weeks settling into my shoulders.
Think, Dash. You’re missing something. There has to be something.
I start mentally replaying every conversation I’ve had with Sadie since she first stumbled into our lives by accident, every offhand comment that had seemed insignificant at the time.
I’m halfway through thanking Brielle for her time when another memory nudges quietly at the edge of my thoughts—the man from the gym.
The man Sadie thought she’d been texting before she accidentally messaged us instead.
It probably isn’t relevant. Sadie certainly never said he made her feel uncomfortable or unsafe, but I remember Chief telling me that he’d been sniffing around her at the nightclub.
I brushed it off as Chief being territorial but at this point, though, I’m running dangerously short of better ideas.
“One last question.”
Brielle looks up expectantly.
“You ever hear Ethan mention a man from the gym Sadie attends?” I ask.
She frowns. “What, like a trainer?”
“Yeah.”
“What was his name?” There’s a strange look on her face.
I search my memory for a second. “Tyler.”
The color drains from her face, and for a moment she simply stares at me. “What gym does Sadie go to?”
“Club X Gym.”
She slowly shakes her head. “I didn’t know he’d ended up there. Didn’t think he’d get hired again anywhere in this town.”
Every muscle in my body tightens. “You know him?”
She lets out a humorless laugh. “I wish I didn’t.”
I lean forward. “Tell me.”
She takes a long breath before speaking.
“I used to go to Riverside Fitness before Ethan convinced me to move to somewhere closer to the house. Tyler worked there.” She wraps both hands around her glass, though she doesn’t drink from it.
“At first, he seemed lovely, friendly, funny, the sort of trainer who remembered everybody’s name and made you feel welcome the second you walked through the doors.
” She pauses. “Looking back, I think that’s how he got away with it for so long. ”
A cold feeling begins spreading through my chest. “What happened?”
“He asked me out.”
“And?”
“And I said no.” She gives a small shrug. “I was seeing Ethan by then. I told Tyler I was flattered, but I was seeing someone else.”
“Did he leave it there?”
Her laugh is short and bitter. “What do you think?” She stares down into the untouched tea. “For a while, he acted as if he’d accepted it, but then little things started happening.”
“What kind of things?”
“He’d somehow always be working near whatever machine I was using. If I moved, he’d move. He’d find excuses to touch my shoulder when he was correcting my form, even if I hadn’t asked for help.”
I don’t interrupt, holding my breath.
“He started waiting outside the women’s changing rooms so he could ‘accidentally’ bump into me when I left.”
My jaw tightens.
“He’d tell me we’d be perfect together. That Ethan wasn’t right for me. That eventually I’d realize he was the better man.”
The words sound painfully familiar.
“He wasn’t threatening,” she continues quietly. “Not at first. That’s what made it so difficult to explain. Every individual thing he did sounded harmless when you said it out loud.” She looks up at me. “But altogether…” She doesn’t finish the sentence. She doesn’t need to.
“So why did the gym fire him?”
“Because he escalated.” Her fingers tighten around the glass. “I started finding little notes in my locker.”
My pulse kicks. “What did they say?”
“Mostly compliments. That I looked beautiful. That he’d dreamed about me. That we belonged together.” She swallows. “Then he started telling me things he couldn’t possibly know.”
I lean forward. “What things?”
“What I’d been wearing when I wasn’t at the gym.” Silence falls between us. “Or one time he knew where I’d had dinner one weekend.” Another pause. “He once asked whether my mom was feeling better after she’d been ill.”
I feel every muscle in my body go still.
“He’d been watching me,” Brielle whispers. “I knew he had.”
“So you reported him.”
She nods. “The manager brushed it off the first time. Said Tyler was one of their best trainers, and that I’d probably misunderstood.
” She gives another humorless laugh. “It wasn’t until two other women came forward with similar complaints that they finally believed us and checked the CCTV.
” She looks me straight in the eye. “They caught him following female members into the parking lot after his shifts had finished. They fired him that afternoon.”
“Why didn’t you report him to the police?”
Brielle’s straight face tells me all I need to know.
“We did,” she says bluntly. “They didn’t take us seriously, said there wasn’t enough evidence.
They spoke to him, and he charmed his way out of it.
A handsome guy like that isn’t exactly the stereotypical stalker.
As far as they were concerned there was no case.
He’d been fired and had stopped bothering us.
They told me to contact them if he bothered me again, but in essence, they didn’t plan to do a damn thing.
It was clear they thought we were overreacting to a nice guy who was just trying to ask us out.
One cop even said something about how guys can’t compliment a woman these days without fear of her calling it sexual assault.
” Her voice laced with bitter disgust. “He said, wasn’t it enough that we’d lost him his job and tarnished his reputation? ”
I grind my jaw in irritation. All too often, this sort of thing happens. The charming man gets away with it, and the police assume the woman is being hysterical, dramatic, or lying. They care more about the man’s reputation than about believing the victims. “I’m sorry that happened.”
She nods her acknowledgment. “Do you think Tyler has taken her?”
“I think so. He was definitely interested in her…”
I feel sick. Hate myself for doing exactly what those cops did.
Underestimating Tyler, not seeing him as a danger.
I just figured he was some egotistical jock who likes to flex his muscles.
I thought he was acting the macho protective man.
I didn’t think he’d become obsessed with Sadie, even though his possessiveness was staring me right in the face.
I pull out my phone and call Chief, quickly relaying everything Brielle told me.
There’s a long silence on the end followed by a quietly hissed, “Shit. I should have figured it out. Should have known. The creep was trying it on with Sadie the other night at the bar when she was out with Dani. He acted the typical macho dude, posturing and acting tough, but he quickly backed down. I didn’t think…
” The helplessness in his voice echoes my own turbulent thoughts.
I’m now convinced that Tyler is the man we’ve been looking for all along. Which means we’ve spent the last five days watching the wrong man while a predator has been getting closer and closer to Sadie.
We failed her. I failed her. If anything happens to her, I’ll never forgive myself.
“We need to find him, and fast. He must know that it won’t take long for us to figure out he’s behind this.”
The words on the last note left at Sadie’s house ring in my ears. If I can’t have you, no one can.