Twelve
We arrive in Kingston several hours after the national park closed to visitors.
Something I accounted for in the planning, figuring we could just sleep in the car for the night.
I’d considered us getting a room at the motel where we’re supposed to meet the texter or at the cute Gold Rush-themed inn a few blocks down, but I’ve never had to book travel arrangements prior to meeting someone to discuss a potential murder case.
Especially given what they said about the town knowing about Paisley’s death before the ISB did.
If this is the kind of town that did that, well, I don’t know if we want to make our presence known quite yet.
“I guess it’s…sad.”
Beck taps on the wheel. “And I thought the ghost part was only in that mining town Paisley said you found.”
I know it’s a small town, but it’s also so strange to see a place with literally no one out on the streets. No one walking dogs, no one getting in a late-night run, no delivery vehicles. Hell, I haven’t even seen a stray deer or black bear lumbering through.
It’s like something’s waiting in the wings, and everyone knows to stay away.
But we do find the motel, the only neon sign as far as the eye can see.
It’s called KINGSTON MOTEL, the letters in a flickering red, the outline of a mountain done in purple.
The doors on the five or so rooms are purple as well, but the whole place is liminal and lifeless, like an old movie set.
I can’t imagine people sleeping behind those purple doors.
The sign says vacancies, but something deep in my gut tells me we shouldn’t go any closer.
Motels have bad raps from classic movies and everyday news headlines and social media.
It all has to come from somewhere, some sort of truth.
I didn’t feel unsafe in the parking lot for the campground, but here…
people are more likely to hurt young girls within civilization than outside of it.
We don’t even make it into the parking lot before I say, “Let’s give ourselves a little distance from the motel.”
Beck exhales. “Oh, thank god. That place looks like we’d get murdered in a second.”
A pang hits my stomach hearing Beck use murder in an exaggeration. I know the texter has all but said the word, but it still doesn’t feel real. I wonder if either of us will break the habit.
We end up parking in one of the farthest out spaces in the local supermarket parking lot, a few delivery trucks our only silent companions.
I’ve seen a handful of videos of women who solo drive around the country, and as Beck falls asleep from the driving, I black out our windows and triple check that the doors are locked like the videos showed.
The last thing I notice before I go to sleep is that the service on my phone shifts to SOS.
I can only hope that the texter will show up in person.
* * *
The next morning, we drive to the motel and stake out our spot in the parking lot.
Beck scans the rooms as I pull out my phone.
My chest squeezes as I check the bars, and sure enough, still no signal.
Our exact meeting time passes with other cars pulling into the motel lot.
As much as my anxiety buzzes louder in my brain, I repeat the facts until I can’t hear the anxiety anymore.
The texter and I confirmed a time and date and place.
They must be aware that service is shitty here and know to just show up in person. One minute late isn’t actually late.
Five minutes isn’t either.
Ten, not in LA, at least.
Fifteen and I’m starting to wonder.
It’s when we hit thirty that I have to say something.
“Hey, Beck, are you getting any service?” I ask as I lean against the side of Beck’s car. Beck paces from the car to the motel sign with nowhere to put her energy.
She pulls her phone out of her hoodie pocket and frowns. “Damn, barely a bar.”
“They were supposed to be here half an hour ago,” I say.
My unease only grows as the minutes pass by. Beck’s leg bounces so fast the car shakes with her.
What if this really was all a prank? Do we just go home? How could we begin to accept that this was all actually a hiking accident after being put on this path? How could—?
A single bar pops up on my phone. A text arrives. I stop breathing.
UNKNOWN: I have to get rid of this burner phone and can’t come into town. Ask about the witch.
My heart hangs by a string, but it plummets when I try to send a ??? message.
Message cannot be sent.
“Shit,” I say, handing Beck the phone. “We came all this way and they’re not gonna show up.”
Of course this person wasn’t going to show up!
It was all too convenient. What were the odds that someone would reach out to only me with a live grenade claiming that my friends were murdered right after Paisley’s body was found?
And if they have her phone, there’s no way they want me to be able to get it back. It was an impossible fantasy, and now—
“Are they…okay?” Beck asks.
My gut goes cold, guilt biting at my skin. Of course it’s possible that this person is flaky, but we’re talking murder. If my friends were murdered, then of course it’s just as possible that this person was murdered.
What if this person isn’t okay? Beck and I are just two high schoolers with a couple pocketknives and some pepper spray, facing what might be something so much bigger than us.
And that damn witch again. I think back to the video of my friends the texter had sent us.
What is with this place and putting a witch on everyone’s mind?
It’s like a horror movie town come to life, a slice of something I never thought could be real.
Witches aren’t real, so why does one have a chokehold on this town?
I look to Beck, waiting for her to say we should just go home. I’ll just live my life with the voice note thing hanging over my head. Maybe the texter has Paisley’s phone, or maybe it’s broken in the woods anyway. The risk of it being found seems better than death.
I think. I hope.
I look to Beck, hoping, in some twisted way, she tells us to stay.
“I guess we should set up camp,” Beck says. “We did come all this way. We can ask a few people about the witch like the texter said and if we get nothing or people start acting creepy, we can go.”
“Okay,” I say as my mind flashes back to that woman staring at me in the parking lot, then to the one on the road. I don’t want to think about what either of them would do to us if we found them again. “But we have to be smart about this. If anything feels off, we need to go.”
“Deal.” She glances at my phone. “Any word from the forest FBI, by the way?”
I’ve got one bar back, so I check my email.
Still nothing from the ISB.
“Nope.”
Beck exhales and turns the engine back on. I fasten my seatbelt, pretending that’s all the protection I’ll need this weekend.
We drive into the national forest and campground, truly just us against the world.
The concrete road gives way to dirt, a humble welcome center with an apartment up top greeting us.
It’s all wood, the kind of place that seems too dangerous to be in fire country during fire season in California.
I half expect this place to be overrun with reporters and investigators, but it’s got fewer than five cars parked in the lot.
A couple minivans, a dusty pickup truck.
Beck kills the engine and I take the time to really get a good look at her. She looks tired, far beyond what our uncomfortable sleep last night would bring. But once she catches my eye, she throws me a smile.
“Let’s go find this witch?” she says.
“Let’s do it.”
A chill runs through my flannel as soon as we step into the crackle of gravel.
Despite the moment of decent weather, I know I’ll be tearing off this flannel before the clock hits noon.
This is the kind of heat that has me sweaty and dry and hits earlier and earlier in the Southern California mountain regions.
I can already feel the force from the few rays of sun bursting through the clouds.
Wind whips through the evergreen trees, makes the welcome sign creak as it blows.
I search for footprints in the gravel. Or really, any physical sign of the lady I saw that night, as if there’s any chance it’d still be here.
Beck pulls off her hoodie, revealing her white tank top underneath.
My chest hiccups at the jut of her collarbones and the soft curves of her shoulders.
She’s got a couple black-and-white tattoos scattered across her visible skin.
When she rubs her thumb along the floral tattoo on her deltoid, I flush—and look away.
Because I cannot be thinking about this right now.
She keeps in stride with me despite her height. The air only seems to grow hotter, the promise of an air-conditioned inside pushing me toward the visitors’ center as much as our investigation does.
The visitors’ center’s door is heavy, leading into what looks like the saddest museum I’ve ever seen.
A single map with a glass pane over it, a taxidermic bear and gopher standing around it.
The counter takes up the length of the room, but only one ranger stands watch over the area.
Some kind of acoustic guitar and mumbling indie rock plays over the speakers, making me wonder if the ranger is younger than the forties I would’ve otherwise placed her in.
Her dark hair is tied up in a bun, brown arms tight against the sleeves of her uniform.
She’s got the tiniest scar along her mouth, tugging the left side of her lip down.
Her name tag reads NATALIE B. MEDINA, ENGLISH/ESPA?OL.