AllFreeNovel
Share Us
April
“Hey! Too far!” I’d gotten up to grab myself a bottle of water, but as I sat back down on the bed beside Amber, who’d scooted over next to Caitlin, I realized how far Caitlin had scrolled through my message photos as she and Amber searched through those between Jamie and myself. I was blushing from my head all the way to my feet as she quickly scrolled back down, both of their eyes wide. Caitlin dropped the phone into Amber’s hands, and Amber looked slightly traumatized. Caitlin probably wasn’t as traumatized as she was simply surprised.
“I did not need to see either one of you like…that,” Amber said in a near whisper.
“We missed each other,” I muttered, but we all suddenly burst into laughter. It felt amazing, because I realized I could still laugh, and it was the first time in what seemed like forever. A small weight had been lifted from me because finally someone was listening.
Even though they’d gone back to looking for clues, Amber, still holding the phone, piped up, “I’ve even seen him on the pole numerous times, but I still didn’t realize he was that flexible.”
Caitlin cracked up again. “That was too much,” she laughed, “That caught me off-guard. You know I love both of you, and we all know that you are both scorching hot, but I still did not need to see either of my friends doing…either of those things.” She paused, then said, “You know what, wait, Amber. Scroll back up to Caden’s picture. Maybe I do need to. I can take some pointers on how he does it to himself for the next time I get my hands on a dick.”
“Caitlin!” I knew I was beet red. I wanted to shake her. She needed to focus, and not on the photos of Jamie or myself in which I was jacking off and he was having fun with a dildo.
She held up her hands. “Ok, ok, sorry.” She looked down at the phone again as they both re-read the messages. She suddenly looked back up at me. “Hold on a second. He mentions taking Jamie to his hometown more than once.”
“I know,” I sighed, “But I can’t even figure out where his hometown is. They took down all his social media accounts, and I don’t really know where else to look. Google doesn’t give me anything. I don’t think it’s where his mom lives now, and they’ve already checked around there pretty carefully. They told me they checked his hometown but won’t tell me where that is as long as there’s an active investigation happening. They said there was no evidence he went back there, or that Jamie was ever there. I have a hard time taking that at face value. How hard did they really look? I know they were focused here. A beach town. I would assume here in Florida, since he and his mom both live in the state, but you know what they say about assuming.”
“Why would he even emphasize that it’s a beach town?” Amber mused, “Like, there are a million of those here, so who cares?”
“Maybe just bragging that he was from one?” Caitlin suggested, “I mean, he knew so much about Jamie, and he knew Jamie was a Marine Biology major. Maybe he thought the beach would entice him?”
“I’m sure he knew Jamie was from Florida, too, though,” Amber put in, “He mentions hidden spots you’d have to have a local show you. You guys, I’d be willing to bet he wasn’t talking about restaurants.”
“I know,” I said sullenly, “Which is why my faith in the police search that supposedly happened there is not a strong faith.”
Amber shuddered. “It still creeps me out how much he knew. How did he even find all the info he had? How long was he lurking, watching, digging for information? It’s a weird feeling that he was there all the time, and none of us knew. I don’t like it.”
“Yeah, me either,” I muttered. He knew everything. I honestly had no idea how he’d garnered all the information he had, and it was extremely disappointing that I couldn’t even figure out what town he’d grown up in. He knew who Jamie’s adopted family was, and when he’d been adopted. He knew Jamie had grown up in foster care. He knew where Jamie’s mom and sister currently lived. He knew about Amber, and how long they’d been friends. It had all come up as he'd talked to the police, and in the evidence they found in his home.
He knew everything about me, too. He’d done his research on me, and he knew more than he ever should have been able to find out. I knew I was an easy target for info because I was prominent in college sports, but some of the things he knew were things he never should have been able to find. I was on some sort of shit list that they found in his apartment and refused to go into detail about. His plan was most likely to eliminate me after he got Jamie to fall for him. Come at me, bro.
When I looked back at the girls, I realized they were looking at pictures again. I started to panic but then realized they were in my camera roll instead of my messages. I was about to yell at them for snooping, but the sadness on their faces stopped me. I glanced down at my phone where they’d paused their scrolling. Seeing his smiling face looking back at me forced out a quiet sob. He was on his bike, giving me a peace sign as I took a picture before climbing on behind him.
Amber scrolled slowly through the photos, obviously lost in the memories herself. There was a selfie of us as he was driving down the road. I couldn’t even remember where we’d been. I knew taking the photo wasn’t really safe, but neither was Jamie just living his life, apparently.
There was a photo of us in the kayak at sunset. A picture of him across the table from me at dinner on our first date. There he was, ready for a hockey game. Leaving the club one of the times I’d come in an Uber to ride with him. That had happened too many times, and though he wasn’t as happy in general in that picture, he was happy to see me.
There was a photo of him smiling with his mom and sister while pretending nothing was wrong so they wouldn’t worry about him. A mirror selfie of us on my bed in my dorm room, while he was half asleep in my arms. A photo of him falling off the inner tube at the end of the slide the day we’d gone to the water park with our friends. One of him sitting in the snow with skis strapped to his feet while they rested at awkward angles as he almost cried from laughing so hard. A photo of him in the school store holding up a jersey with my name and number on the back.
I looked away and put my head in my hands. It was overwhelming me. I just wanted him beside me again. I just wanted him back. “Sorry,” Amber said softly, clicking out of the photo album, “I didn’t mean to make you sad.”
I told her it was ok, that it was fine for her to look at pictures and remember him. I told her that she hadn’t made me sad because that was the truth. I was already sad. The thought that he may have been stabbed and cut to pieces horrified me, traumatized me. The thought that I might never see him again broke me. The thought that even if I was right, and he was out there, he may not be able to survive in the location and condition he was in ripped my soul out. What if I was right, but I was too late? Had I failed him more than once? Had I failed to protect him, failed to find him, and then failed to save him?
I didn’t think I could go any longer without answers. I had to do something. The police weren’t doing anything else. I knew the missing signs all over town weren’t going to help, because I was pretty sure he wasn’t anywhere near us. I had to find him, no matter his fate. I had to have closure, even if the story everyone believed was true. I could not leave him out there. I could not let him down again. I’d told him I’d be there, that he didn’t have to worry. I’d already catastrophically failed him, and I could not do it again.
If all I found in the end was his body, then at least he could rest, at peace and loved. Not alone somewhere in some shallow grave all alone, the people who loved him still wondering if he was out there somewhere. He couldn’t be alone, dead or alive. He’d spent too much of his life feeling unloved and unwanted. I would not let his death be the same.
Amber handed me my phone and stood up. “Let’s go check the library. We aren’t going to find anything else here, and that seems like the best place to start. Maybe the librarian can help us find some records and we can figure out where this asshole is from.” It was something, because Amber rarely swore. She wasn’t easily angered, and she was pretty innocent in general. Being besties with a flamboyant stripper had probably loosened her reins a little bit, but still. You had to really piss her off to get her to call you an asshole.
I glanced at Caitlin, our resident journalist. She nodded in agreement. “Yeah,” she said, glancing around at my side of the room, “I think you have everything covered here that you can possibly cover. We need to find out more on Wally.”
I knew she was calling me a little off my rocker, but I had hope that Caitlin would find something. She was going to be great at her job if she continued on her career path and didn’t change her mind again. She was one of those girls who could take a guy’s first name, age and description and get back to you with his number of arrests, which STD’s he’d been treated for, and what his ex-girlfriends thought of him. She could surely do something with the information I had. Now that she had something to look for, and I’d given her enough reason to do so, she looked pretty confident that she could find something for me.
The police would release the information on Wally eventually, but with the investigation still being active they wouldn’t be doing it any time soon. I didn’t have time to wait for them. They were still looking for a body, albeit not very hard, so that they could get Wally on a definitive murder charge. They weren’t telling anyone anything more, including me, even when I begged and pleaded with the detective. He’d already told me more than he was supposed to, and he wasn’t giving me anything else. By the time they released anything useful, it would be much too late.
I stood up with Amber and Caitlin, throwing on a hoodie. Anything was better than nothing. Sitting in my room and looking at pictures, wallowing in my misery, was getting me nowhere. I was just glad I wasn’t alone anymore.
Caitlin was texting someone on her phone as we left my room. I wondered who. Did she still think I was crazy? Were the girls just humoring me, while also sending concerned text updates to our friends? I supposed it didn’t matter as long as they helped me while they were humoring me.
