Chapter Nineteen

Lennon

Authors Note: Hey! Remember me? I finally have Act III sorted, and am thrilled to be posting chapters for you again :). I’m sorry it took me so long to follow up that tense ending to chapter 18, and I’m sorry in advance for the pain we will all be feeling from here until the finish line lmao. I appreciate you for being here, and if you choose to continue on with me and my story, I adore you <3

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I could hardly hear Travis as he spoke quietly on the other side of the wall. My heartbeat was loud in my ears and the fear I’d felt yesterday as I watched him drive his boat towards Nora––with that awful expression on his face––swam through my veins again.

“What the fuck do you want?” Travis barked. “You know not to call me when I’m at work.”

Brooks stared at me as we listened, unable to hear who he was on the phone with and waiting for him to say more.

“Yeah, I’m gonna go over there right away.” A pause. “No, you do not need to get involved. I’m dealing with it. Stay in the city.”

I frowned.

“Nobody has made the connection, okay? Chill out. I’ve got it handled here.” Another pause. “What do you mean you’re already here?” Travis cursed under his breath and I could almost picture him in my mind, pacing the room next door with his hand running through his hair. When he spoke again, his voice was devoid of the anger it had held a moment ago, and had been replaced with that charming tone he used on everyone else. “Look, just let me be the one to go and then I’ll meet you afterward. It’s better if you aren’t seen in town.”

My heart pounded harder in my chest as an awful feeling spread through me. I didn’t know what he was talking about, but my gut reaction was to get as far from him as I could.

He sighed on the other side of the wall and a chill shot down my spine at his next words. “Don’t go anywhere near my girl. You told me to trust you with your end, so trust me with mine.”

Brooks inhaled sharply and moved to brush his hand against mine, accidentally knocking his knuckle against the wall gently as he did. We froze, listening to the loaded silence in the next room.

“I’ll call you back,” was all we heard, and Brooks cursed under his breath.

The door to the room Travis was in opened as Brooks shoved his coffee cup into my empty hand and dragged me across the room with him. Footsteps sounded in the hallway and Brooks yanked open the sliding closet door. It was obviously being used for storage, and there was a very narrow space waiting for us next to a stack of boxes.

There was no way we would both fit.

Fear slid its thick hand around my heart and squeezed as I heard Travis stop just outside our closed door. He knocked once and Brooks backed into the closet first, slinging an arm around my waist and hauling me in after him, cementing me to his chest as he shut us in. His broad hands were gentle but firm where he held me.

The office door opened a second after the closet closed and I held my breath. I was standing with my nose almost pressed to the door, a coffee cup in each hand, and every inch of my body pressed against Brooks. I didn’t know how the hell he’d managed to fold his tall frame into this little space and pull me in with him, but I was thankful for his quick thinking. His chest rose and fell in quick, silent breaths against my back. I swore I could hear his heart pounding just as loud as mine as we listened, not daring even the smallest of movements for fear we would be discovered.

I could hear Travis step into the room, and imagined that his eyes were scanning the space. Had we left any sign that we had been in there? Muffled footsteps crossed the space and I stared at the wood in front of my face in horror. 

He was going to look in the closet.

The wood door shuttered slightly, and I heard it slide against the metal track it sat in. Brooks’ hand came around me to rest on my thigh and he squeezed. I slammed my eyes shut, not prepared to see the look on Travis’ face when he found us tucked into the closet. A moment passed, and I opened my eyes again. There was light flooding into the darkness but it was coming from… my left?

He’d opened the other door.

Brooks stayed frozen at my back, the two of us barely dragging in enough breath. I wished I could see his face or hold him closer, but I couldn’t move.

Would Travis check our side too?

“Travis?” the sound of Carson’s voice reached us and I could’ve wept with relief. “What are you doing in here?”

“Oh, hey. I… was just grabbing something out of the closet.” His voice was tense to the trained ear, but that false calm was back.

I watched as his hand stretched into the space, followed by his arm less than two feet from my head, and pulled a brown box off of the pile. There was a pause, before he set it back. His arm withdrew and I swore I could see his shadow as he made a show of checking his watch. My lungs burned for a full breath, but I dutifully ignored them.

“But I have to head out so I’ll come back for this later.”

“Oh,” Carson said, not sounding entirely like he bought the excuse. “I came to tell you that the printer is finished.”

“Thanks, man,” Travis said.

There was a pause, as if Carson was searching for the right phrasing. Apparently he decided to be blunt, as he said, “Why did you print off Alicia Marsten’s file?”

My blood ran cold at the mention of her.

What purpose would Travis have for her file?

“Oh, that.” Travis chuckled and the wrongness of it sent ice into the pit of my stomach. “I was going to go have a chat with one of her friends.”

“I didn’t know you were helping out with her case,” the other man said slowly.

“What’s with the interrogation?” he snapped, that mask slipping slightly. “I’m a part of this community just like you are, is it a crime to want to help find answers for what happened? I didn’t know I reported to you all of a sudden.”

I could practically hear Carson’s hands come up in surrender. “Hey man, it’s all good. I was just going to offer to help.”

“I’m good,” Travis said coldly, his footsteps receding from the closet. “I’ll see you in a bit.”

There was a beat of silence, before someone walked to the closet. Carson’s hand reached for the box that Travis had just grabbed, and I must’ve moved or something, because his head poked into the closet a second later and he stared at us in surprise. My finger quickly flew to my lips before he could say anything. His brows drew together, before he tossed a look over his shoulder to make sure Travis was gone.

“Lennon?” Carson mouthed.

“Is he gone?”

He nodded, before hesitating and holding up a finger as he retreated out of the room. I heaved a full breath and felt Brooks do the same at my back.

“That was so close,” I whispered, letting my head fall back against his shoulder so I could look up at him.

He lowered his head and pressed a kiss to my brow. “We’re okay.”

I looked at him for another beat, feeling the adrenaline pumping in my veins and willing my heart rate to slow down. His forehead rested against mine and the arm that he had in a vice grip around my waist loosened.

I immediately missed the weight of it. 

My heart was hammering in my chest, the adrenaline still coursing through my veins as we waited for Carson to come back. His footsteps came a few moments later, and Brooks straightened before my friend’s face popped into the closet.

“He’s gone.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“I just watched him get into his truck and drive away,” he said.

I glanced at Brooks again, and he reluctantly let go of me, one of his arms coming up to slide the closet door open so we could get out. I stepped into the office and Brooks collected his coffee cup from me. Carson held his in his hand as well, clearly having found it where I’d set it down in the lobby. Without a word, he drifted back to the closet and lifted the lid of the box Travis had been about to grab. He frowned.

“It’s a bunch of old receipts. There’s no way he needed these.” His eyes landed on me. “So, are you going to tell me why you two were sardined in that closet and hiding from Travis?”

I felt the way his eyes passed between Brooks and I, and I realized how this must look. Me and the guy everyone in town wanted to know about, squished into a closet while my ex-boyfriend nearly caught us. 

“It’s not what it looks like,” I offered. “We were waiting for you in the lobby and heard him coming. We ducked in here to avoid him, and overheard a really weird phone conversation.”

I picked at the skin around my thumb, my mind wandering back to it.

Carson frowned. “That still doesn’t explain why you were in the closet.”

“I accidentally made a noise and we heard him coming, so I pulled Lennon in there after me.”

My gaze shifted towards Brooks to find his eyes resting on the thumb I was worrying over. Suddenly self-conscious of my nervous tick, my hands stilled.

“I guess I still don’t understand why Travis is worth hiding from,” Carson said with a confused smile. “I mean, I heard about the prank that went wrong, but it feels like I’m missing something.”

The energy went out of me, and I suddenly needed to sit down. I walked towards the desk and flopped down into one of the chairs. They followed me over, Brooks sitting next to me and Carson across from us—eerily similar to how we’d sat when we’d filed Hailey’s missing persons report.

Carson looked at me with a worried expression on his face, and I steadied myself before jumping into the story. I explained how it wasn’t a prank, why I’d decided to go along with that narrative, and a bit about my previous relationship with Travis.

Now that I’d shared a bit of the abuse I’d suffered, it felt good to talk about it. The weight of it had been a lot to carry over the years. I had no desire for it to be a hot topic in town, but talking to people I trusted felt good.

When I was finished, Carson was looking at me with a sympathetic look on his face. He rose from his chair, crossed around to our side of the desk, and pulled me up and out of mine, wrapping his arms around me.

“Len, I’m so sorry you went through that, and I’m sorry you never felt like you could talk about those things with any of us.” He pulled back so he could look at my face. “You didn’t deserve any of that. And I’m so glad Nora is okay.”

“Thanks, Carson,” I said quietly. “I wanted to tell you about it so that someone knew what was going on. It’s safer this way.”

His brows furrowed. “Truthfully, I’ve felt like there was something off about him for a while now, but I wasn’t able to put my finger on it.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

We separated and he returned to his seat on the other side of the desk. I sat and took a sip of my coffee, willing it to calm my nerves.

“Well, ever since he got in shit for not reporting Hailey missing properly, he’s had a chip on his shoulder. I’ve kept a bit of a closer eye on him since then, mostly because I was curious if he’s skirted around protocol before, and I’ve noticed that he pokes his nose into a lot of files that he’s not involved with.”

Thinking back to what I’d overheard them talking about, I decided to press him on it. “I heard you say that he printed Alicia Marsten’s file?”

“Yeah, which is weird because he hasn’t offered to help with it until now.” He brushed the hair out of his eyes, and met mine. “What was this call about? Did he say anything about this friend of hers that he told me he’s going to visit?”

I glanced at Brooks with a frown on my face. “I’m not entirely sure, but he just told them to stay out of it and that he’d meet up with them when he was done.”

We stared at each other for a moment, before Brooks leaned forward in his seat slightly. “What cases does he involve himself in?”

Carson shifted in his seat. “It’s strange, but they mostly involve women from Elmwood and Fort Havre. It ranges from anything from speeding tickets, to sex work, to domestic violence calls. Some of them don’t even escalate to charges being laid, but he’s been the responding officer to several of the cases.”

I frowned. “When we were together, he mentioned that he liked to be on photo radar duty. I remember him being kind of lazy and wanting to just sit in the police cars or give out speeding tickets.”

Carson nodded, “Yeah, that’s what I find weird. It’s like a shift happened in him. From what I can tell, it was a year and a half ago that something changed, but I have no idea what it was. He went from barely doing his job, to getting involved in things he never showed an interest in before.”

A year and a half ago.

That would’ve been around the time Hailey got sober for the second time.

There definitely wasn’t enough to make me think it was related yet, but something in my gut told me that we were heading in the right direction.

What was really bothering me though, was that Travis was on his way to talk with one of Alicia’s friends.

“What was in Alicia’s file that he printed?” Carson hesitated, and I hurried to reassure him. “I don’t need specifics, I promise. I’m just trying to figure out why he would’ve printed it off.”

“Well, it had her previous arrests and her basic information in it.”

A commotion from the hallway drew that line of questioning to a halt as Carson quickly excused himself from the room to help with what sounded like an upset resident. I looked over at Brooks to find him frowning at his phone.

“Everything okay?” I asked.

“Yeah, it’s work. I forgot I have a phone call scheduled. I’ll have to pop into Hailey’s place to take it in half an hour if that’s alright.”

I nodded. “Of course.”

“I don’t want to sound like a broken record, but I really don’t want you to stay at your place alone tonight. Will you consider coming to stay with me for the night?” His eyes searched my face, concern painting his expression. I didn’t exactly want to allow myself to be pushed out of my home, but something in my chest warmed at the sight of him and my hand came up to cup his face. A memory of the fear I’d felt last night at the sound of footsteps outside my cabin came to me, and I knew it wasn’t smart to be alone there overnight.

“Fine, but only if you cook me dinner,” I teased.

He grinned, “That sounds like a good deal to me.”

“And kiss me senseless,” I added.

“Is that all?” he asked, his eyes dipping to my mouth as he leaned slightly closer.

“Hmm,” I mused, pretending I was deep in thought. “I should probably throw coffee and breakfast in there too.”

“If feeding and kissing you is all that’s required, I’d say this is the easiest negotiation of all time.”

I laughed. “I have to go back to the Lake before we go to Fort Havre though. I should pack a bag and leave some extra food out for Maple. It’s also my day to check in on some of the resident’s cabins. How about I drop you at Hailey’s and I’ll run home and do that. I can drive back here and meet up with you after your meeting and I’ll follow you home on the highway.”

His grin faded and I knew he wasn’t pleased about splitting up. I closed the distance between us and pressed a quick kiss to his lips. “You should’ve made this plan this morning while we were still there! I’ll be quick, I promise.”

I was met with a hard look before he dipped forward and kissed me again, his hand gripping my waist and pulling me in. His mouth was warm against mine, and my body instantly reacted to the way his tongue swept across my bottom lip. I was just about to open for him, when he pulled back, earning him a disappointed sound that he chuckled at. “You better be.”

Footsteps came from the hallway, and we separated quickly. Carson popped back in the room, and I hoped it wasn’t obvious we’d just been kissing while he was gone.

“We should be going,” I said to him as we stood. “Brooks has a work meeting and I have to run back to the Lake.”

He tossed a file onto the desk. 

“What’s this?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at him as I picked it up.

“Our printer has a reprint function,” he said with a shrug and a knowing smile. “It’s not much, but it’s all I can do for now.”

Before I could answer, he turned and we had no choice but to follow him. At the door, he pulled me into another quick hug. “Call me if you need anything Len, and I’ll be there. I’ll let you know if anything else pops up or if I find anything else out, okay?”

“Thank you,” I said as I hugged him back. “Really, it means a lot to know I have you on my side. I’ll check in with you later.”

We said our goodbyes and headed back onto the street, the file Carson had given me tucked under one arm. It practically burned a hole in my side where I held it, begging to be opened, but I waited until we were back in my car.

Brooks leaned over so that his shoulder rested against mine as I flipped the file open and we read the pages inside. There was one complaint filed by an Elmwood resident, detailing a drunken interaction with Alicia in a public place, and the rest of the pages were marked Fort Havre Police Department and Confidential. I had no clue how Travis had gotten his hands on these, but we read multiple police reports that Alicia had been cited in. All of them were drug related—mostly possession and public intoxication. She’d been taken into the station a few times, but was released before any charges were filed.

I looked at Brooks and found him wearing a confused look that matched my own.

“That’s a lot of drugs to have on your person and not get hit with a drug trafficking charge,” he said. “Alicia was either the luckiest girl in the city, or she had someone looking out for her and cleaning up her messes.”

That was an understatement.

Flipping through the pages again, I let my mind wander. Why would Travis have printed all of this off? Was it just another case he was suddenly showing an interest in, or did it go deeper than that? And when he’d told Carson he was going to visit one of Alicia’s friends, was he telling the truth?

“You don’t think that the friend he’s going to talk to would be Cadence, do you?” I asked Brooks.

His frown deepened. “I sure hope not. She barely wanted to cooperate with us before when we mentioned Matt. Having a random small town cop show up and ask her about it won’t help open her up.”

That heavy feeling was back in my gut again. Something didn’t feel right.

“Maybe we should stop by, just in case.”

A thoughtful look crossed his face, and I knew I wouldn’t like his suggestion. “Maybe I should go alone. If Travis is paying her a visit, I don’t want you to be involved in a confrontation. It’s plausible that I’d be visiting one of my sister's friends while I’m in town. She was terrified about drawing attention, and if both of us show up it’ll be obvious that we’re there to talk about the case. I’d like to apologize to her as well, now that I’ve had some time to think since the last time I spoke to her. It’ll be more sincere if I’m on my own.”

I sighed, letting my head fall back against the seat. “Is this how you felt when I suggested going back to the Lake by myself?”

He laughed softly, his hand coming to rest over mine in my lap. “Yes.”

“I hate when you use logic.”

“No you don’t.”

I turned my head towards him and shot him a look.

“Fine,” I pouted. “We will divide and conquer.”

“I’ll make you something delicious for dinner,” he promised. “It’ll be worth it.”

We buckled our seatbelts and I drove him to his car, which was still parked at Hailey’s apartment. We were quiet for most of the drive, our anxiety mingling in the close quarters. I didn’t have to ask to know that his mind was racing about the pages in that file and the possibility that Travis was looking more and more like he knew something was going on in our town. When I pulled up to his sister's apartment, Brooks grabbed his stuff out of the backseat, gave me a quick peck on my cheek after checking to make sure nobody was watching, murmured a low be quick and careful, and jogged over to his car.

I watched him pull out of the parking spot and drive towards Cadence’s street. Travis had had a head start—if that was even where he was going—but considering he’d told his own coworker that he was visiting a friend of Alicia and that I knew Cadence lived in a populated area, I felt surprisingly less anxious about us splitting up than I thought I would.

We would be quick and careful, like Brooks had said.

I may or may not have sped on the way back to the Lake, feeling impatient about making the trip again. My mind wandered to the logistics of a relationship with Brooks if we lived in different towns. Things would be different than they were now while we looked for Hailey, but there was no way this kind of back and forth would be feasible with the cost of gas on the rise. The pang of sadness I felt in my chest at the thought of seeing him less surprised me. We’d figure something out, I knew that, but I wished I had a better idea of what that something would look like.

When I pulled into the community, there were even fewer people than there’d been when we pulled in last night. The campsite was almost empty, but my eyes lingered on a black SUV. It hadn’t been there last night, or this morning when we’d left. I slowed, noting the license plate, before stopping at Mrs. Shaw’s and popping in to do my errands.

Fifteen minutes later, I jogged up my front steps, unlocked the front door and pulled it open.

Before I crossed the threshold, my eyes landed on my front porch, and I froze.

There were muddy boot prints that definitely hadn’t been there when we’d left this morning. I whirled around to look over my shoulder, heart thumping in my chest. Nobody was there, but the feeling of being watched coated my skin and sent a shiver down my spine. I turned to hurry into my cabin, and was met with a streak of orange sprinting out the front door.

I reached for her—and missed—as Maple launched herself off of the porch and took off running into the trees next door. I swore, loudly, as I called her name.

But, before I could run after her, the wind blew and something rustled next to me. A piece of paper was wedged into the frame of my door. I reached for it with shaking hands. 

Unfolding it, I sucked in a breath as I read the single line printed on the paper.

Who will look for you when you go missing?

My phone rang, and I yanked it out of my pocket as I ran into my cabin and slammed the door behind me, locking it as fast as I could. Praying it was Nora or Brooks, a fresh wave of panic washed over me as I read Travis’s name on the screen.

I debated answering, but decided against it and sent him to voicemail. With shaky hands, I created a new group text with Nora and Brooks. Snapping a picture of the note, I sent it to them.

Nora’s reply was instant.

Nora: Um, what the fuck is that?

I started pacing as my fingers flew over my screen.

Me: I found it by my front door.

My phone rang as Travis tried to call again. I declined it just as Brooks replied.

Brooks: Len, I think you should get out of there. Come back to Elmwood. I’m at Hailey’s now, we can leave as soon as you get here.

I bit my lip, hard enough to hurt, and looked back at the front door.

Me: Maple got out, I don’t want to leave before I can get her back inside.

Nora: She will be fine. I’ll get my dad to drive over there with me and we will see if we can find her. You shouldn’t be there alone right now. She’ll probably just hunt all the mice living under your porch and I’ll find her fat and happy.

Tears pricked my eyes and I hated that this was what was breaking me. I knew that they were right, but the thought of leaving my cat out there alone was gut wrenching.

Nora: If it was busy season I’d agree with waiting for us, but it’s a ghost town over there right now with everyone going to the city for the off season. Please Lennon.

Brooks: I agree with Nora.

Me: Okay, I’ll get back in my car.

They both replied telling me to be careful and to let them know when I was close to Elmwood. Nora said she’d be on her way shortly with her dad to look for Maple. I hated leaving, but something felt wrong. I’d been feeling it since this morning.

I stood on my front porch after locking up behind me, without even bothering to grab the overnight bag that I came for, and called for Maple again. There was no response from her.

With a heavy gut and a heavier heart, I hurried to my car and locked the doors before they even closed behind me. That feeling of being watched was back, and I drove back to the highway with my eyes searching my rearview mirror the whole time.

Travis tried to call me twice more, eventually leaving a voicemail. My mind was racing, going over everything I knew about this case, Alicia, Hailey, Travis and this Matt person. There were still holes in the story, and I knew I was missing something.

I was more than halfway back to town when the SUV appeared behind me. I recognized it immediately as the car I’d seen in the parking lot at Lake Lunelle. 

I’d been the only one on the back road for the last fifteen minutes, so it must’ve taken another back road to catch up with me. My heart sped up as I watched it close the distance between us. My eyes flicked to my dashboard to confirm I was going the speed limit. Pressing my foot to the gas, I tried to make more space between us, but the vehicle remained on my tail.

Confusion bloomed in my mind, and I turned on my signal and pulled closer to the shoulder, giving them room to go around me.

What was this guy's problem?

I tried, and failed, to see what they looked like in my mirror.

Instead, I watched in horror as I heard the engine accelerate again.

The impact came, and I felt my tires catch on the side of the road. My head emptied as I jerked forward, my forehead cracking against the wheel. 

My vision was a blur of blue sky, green hills and brown roads as my car rolled into the ditch.

Images of Nora, my father, Maple and Brooks flew through my mind before everything went black.