Fai
It needed to be a misunderstanding.
The barista had to have misunderstood my explanation of where the cabin was. She couldn’t know everyone who lived here. Gabriel could have kept to the outskirts of town. But after a while… there were too many signs flashing danger to continue ignoring.
I parked my truck, turned off the engine, and waited. I had a few choices here. I could confront Gabriel directly to find out what the truth was. But he could lie, and if he had been lying this whole time, he was good at it. The best.
I could call Will and Jackie to see if they had any news, or wait for them to call with the news. But I didn’t know if we should wait.
Because if it was all true, if Gabriel Gomez didn’t exist, if he didn’t own this cabin… why were we here? Why was he going through the trouble of coming up with such an elaborate lie, bringing us out here, and spending the last few days pretending to be someone he wasn’t?
No, I couldn’t wait. I couldn’t confront him. But I did need to know the truth. I looked out the windshield toward the cabin. It was early enough that he could still be asleep, giving me time to try and find the truth. I jumped out of the truck, closing the door behind me and leaving the forgotten coffees in the center console. I stepped carefully and quietly up the porch steps, opening the front door without a sound and closing it just as quietly. I looked down the hall toward the room I shared with Sarah, seeing the lights were on, but no sounds of life leaked through the closed door. A quick glance up the staircase showed his door still shut. I didn’t know how much time I had, but I knew I didn’t have an abundance.
I made my way to the office and attempted to open the door, finding it was locked.
“Shit,” I muttered under my breath and fished my wallet out of my back pocket, pulling out my debit card. It was an easy way to get into a door with a basic push lock. I slid the card into the crack of the door, swiping it down carefully until I felt the door unlatch, and I pulled it open quietly and closed it with the same amount of care.
Sarah had mentioned she had found his diary on the desk, but it was now cleared off, with nothing on the smooth wooden surface. I rounded the desk and opened the drawers and cabinets, finding them empty. I turned to the bookshelf. The bottom half consisted of cabinets, while the top housed books and various framed photos. At a closer look, none were personal. They were all generic stock photos of scenery. Thinking back on the house, none of it had a personal touch. There were no photos, no knickknacks. Even the bookshelves weren’t personalized, instead housing a collection of various genres—books to please the renters of the home.
I began opening the cabinets. The first was locked, and I left it untouched, moving to the second where I found stacks of papers.I began pulling them out and scanning the documents, hoping to find anything to explain who Gabriel was.
There wasn’t anything specific: credit card statements, junk mail, and a few phone bills. I kept rifling through papers, my heart rate picking up with each minute I stayed in the office, knowing Gabriel could wander down at any moment.
The next cabinet didn’t have loose papers, but neat file folders similar to the one he had given me on my father. They were all labeled and alphabetized. I pulled the one at the top of the stack.
Acharya, Faizal.
He had a whole fucking folder on me. I flipped through the pages, finding details of my business, my address, my degrees, and even copies of my documents from the foster care system. The last few documents were filled with handwritten notes detailing everything I had told him over the past few days. There were stories from our hikes and anecdotes from what I assumed Sarah had told him. Even unimportant information, like my inability to swim, was listed. The parts he must have deemed important were circled.
Alcoholic, divorced, introvert, alone.
It was a harsh description, but not entirely inaccurate.
I placed the folder down and looked at the rest. They were all names I recognized: William Bly, Oliver James (né Bosede), Jackie James… Sarah Martin.
Hers was the thickest, much thicker than mine. I picked it up, opening the first page, and my stomach dropped. While mine resembled a dossier, hers was filled with photos, news articles, and his internal ramblings.
I picked up a photo, recognizing it as the headshot she used for most of her work. Another was a clipping from an academic journal discussing her work with a serial killer named Griffin Whitley. It continued on: photos printed from online articles, others cut out of magazines and newspapers. Sarah was highly respected in her field, though she had limited public-facing work. Yet, Gabriel seemed to have a copy of every piece of her work and had notes about all of it.
Bile rose in my throat, my mind hyper-focusing on what he would want with her.
Goddamn it, I brought her here. Was that his plan this whole time?
The writing was nearly illegible, scribbled into the margins of photos and documents, even writing over itself. It seemed to be gibberish—the ramblings of a man not sound of mind. I slammed the folder shut, unable to take another minute, but I had the wherewithal to hide the folder from him, slipping it under the area rug, deep enough that it was concealed beneath the desk.
I needed to get Sarah out… now. It wasn’t safe for her here.
I went to close the cabinet when I saw one folder with a name I didn’t recognize—the only name I didn’t recognize. While the rest were handwritten, this folder had a clean, printed label, the white of the folder yellowed from time.
L. Silvia
I picked it up, opening it to see a photo of Gabriel. He was younger, maybe ten in the photo. What was strange was that he wasn’t smiling as any other child should. The photo reminded me of the personnel photos taken of me during my random rehab stints. He looked pained, not wanting to be there. Underthe photo was a doctor’s note. I checked the date in the top corner, seeing it was nearly twenty years old.
I closed the folder, sliding it back and place stood as looked around the office for any more details, anywhere else I could search. While the cabinet showed me that something was incredibly wrong, I still didn’t know why we were here or who Gabriel was.
Was that even his name, or was he this L. Silvia person I found in the cabinet?
What I did know was that Sarah was in danger, and I couldn’t let her be hurt. I would never let her be hurt. I needed to get her out of here, and I needed to get her out of here fast—preferably before Gabriel woke up.
