by D. L. Wood
“But I want to know what’s going on. What did Trip do?”
Jacob knelt down. “Nothing, Tyler. Probably nothing. So could you go hang in your room for a minute? I promise to catch you up when we’re done.”
Reluctantly, Tyler went. Jack held up a finger, then slipped out to make sure Tyler’s door was shut. When he returned, Holt fired off a question, sounding much more like an attorney than a concerned friend now. “Why wouldn’t that be crazy, Jacob? Why would you say that?”
“Trip hated Philip Donner. He talks about it all the time. He won’t say why, and if I ask him he gets angry, so I don’t anymore. But he was really happy when that building went up in flames. Said Donner deserved it. He was even happier when he heard the guy was dead.”
“And he never said why?” Chloe pressed.
Jacob shook his head. “Just that Donner had hurt people. He said that if my dad did it, Donner really deserved it.” Though the adults’ eyes lingered on Jacob, clearly inviting further elaboration, the teen had nothing else to offer.
Chloe took a deep breath, steadying herself after the torrent of information just unleashed on them. Trip had red concrete on his shoes. He hated Donner. He had access to Kurt Sims’s house whenever he wanted it. And he knew the code to Reese’s house, which meant he could get in there whenever he wanted to without actually breaking in. Like the afternoon Reese went home and found an intruder. And was attacked by that intruder. Her stomach plunged.
The laptop had been left open to an incriminating photo. The lights were on. The doors unlocked. As if someone had run out of there fast. As if they were running from someone. Had Emma stumbled onto the photo and Trip panicked? Had Trip pulled it up and Emma stumbled onto him? Did he chase her out? Or worse…had he done something to her?
“We have to find Emma,” she said. “Now.”
“How?” Holt asked desperately.
Chloe turned in the room, looking for something. Anything. “I don’t know. I don’t know what to do. Jacob?” she asked, scrutinizing the teen. “Where would they go?”
He groaned. “I…I don’t know,” he stuttered apologetically. “I mean, there are a couple places we hang out. There’s an old house, a shack, about a half mile down the railroad line from her dad’s office. And we kill time at Sonic when we’re bored. He likes that old cemetery by Kroger…”
“It’s not going to be somewhere obvious. Not if this is what we think it is,” Holt said.
“Her wallet is still here.” From the foot of Emma’s bed, Chloe picked up a small black fabric wallet attached to a lanyard. “She doesn’t go anywhere without this. And that,” she pointed emphatically at the computer screen, “that’s a problem. She figured something out and now he…” She caught her breath, squeezing her eyes shut, forcing out the thoughts in her head that were accusing her of failing another sibling.
A sharp ding, like a glass mallet striking a bell, cut through the air in the room. All eyes flicked up, as the question, Whose phone is that? ran through each brain.
“It’s mine,” Jacob said, ripping his phone from his pocket. After a quick glance down, he held the phone up for all to see. “It’s her. It’s Emma.” He pulled it back to read the text. “‘Come quick. I need help. It’s Trip,’” Jacob read, his voice quivering slightly, as he finished the message. “‘Overlook.’”
Jack grabbed Jacob’s phone, scanning the text for himself. “What does she mean, ‘overlook’?”
A new level of gravity punctuated Holt’s features as he answered, “Wilton Hollow Overlook. It’s a trailhead in the woods, several miles southeast of town. It’s where they found Phillip Donner’s body.”
* * * * *
The sound of the car peeling out of the driveway startled him, jerking his attention up from the gun range video he was watching on YouTube.
“What the—” he muttered to himself as the car that had been parked in McConnaughey’s driveway raced down the street, followed closely by a second car, the one that had been parked in front of McConnaughey’s house.
What were they doing? He had just followed them home from that maze. He had expected them to stay put for a while. Where were they headed in such a hurry? Tossing the phone aside and depositing his half-finished Budweiser between his legs, he cranked the car and slammed it into drive.
* * * * *
They followed Highway 96 west out of Franklin for nearly ten miles, past most commercial developments. The utility street lights drifted farther and farther apart, until ceasing altogether.
“Okay, you’re coming up on it,” directed Chloe, who was watching Google Maps while Jack drove. “Turn left here!”
“I see it,” Jack told her, wrenching the wheel to turn onto Butcher Road. The sharp turn threw everyone to the right, especially Tyler in the back seat.
“Hey,” Tyler yelled, sounding excited and a little annoyed at the same time.
Chloe spun to check him. “Sorry, hon. We’re trying to get there fast.”
“I’m good,” he promised, and offered another salute. This was an adventure to him. A real-life superhero adventure. There was no point in telling him otherwise. The fact that he was there sickened Chloe, but they couldn’t leave him at the house and there hadn’t been time to take him anywhere else or call Mrs. Brinkley.
“Anything?” Jack asked, and Chloe knew he was referring to the dozen texts she had sent Emma.
“Nothing. No response.” Her jaw set tightly. “I don’t know why she just texted Jacob. I mean, okay, if not me, then why not Holt? She trusts him. If she’s in trouble—”
“I don’t know. Who knows how teens think? I mean, she might be just as worried about Trip getting in trouble as she is about her own safety. Holt’s a lawyer. Maybe she’s afraid of what that would mean for Trip.”
“But she said she needs help, so that has to mean…I don’t know…” She let the tail end of the thought hang without resolving it. Because there wasn’t a way to resolve it. None of it made sense.
She cast a determined look at Jack, whose eyes were riveted to the road, his face flushed. An electricity she hadn’t felt in him since the days in Miami seemed to be radiating from him now. An invisible powering up that both beckoned and warned off any danger that might be looming. He was in his element. This was Jack in his truest form. No matter how gentle, how kind a man he was, he was and always would be a soldier waiting for deployment.
But it wouldn’t do any good to have him there if they were too late. Gravel and dust spit up off the road as they flew through the increasingly wooded countryside. The poorly paved secondary road was clearly never meant for vehicles traveling over thirty-five. And they were already going sixty-five.
“Faster,” she told Jack, ignoring the speed limit sign that flashed by. “Faster.”
He pressed on the gas just as Holt, following right behind in his car with Jacob, whipped out and passed him, then swerved back in front.
“He’s leading us. He knows where they are,” Chloe said.
Jack nodded, then braked suddenly as Holt flipped on a turn signal and made a sharp right. Jack followed, tires squealing as they followed the road that dipped in a stomach-dropping lurch before inclining again. They followed the gravel lane that was barely more than one car length wide for about a half mile, into what was an undeveloped, forested area. Thick brush and trees too high to see the tops of in the dark lined the lane, like something out of a Brothers Grimm fairy tale. Finally Holt turned off, following a dirt road about thirty yards before slamming on his brakes.
They were in a dirt-covered cutout, a parking lot more in theory than reality. The ground was well beaten down by the hundreds of cars that had come here over the years seeking hiking opportunities or privacy.
Emma and Trip’s cars sat side by side at the back of the lot, haphazardly parked catty-cornered to one another. Two cars was a good sign. He couldn’t have done something to her if she drove here. But why would she follow him? Or did he follow her? Chloe thought, panic rising ag
ain.
“Stay here!” Chloe ordered Tyler, her tone harsher than normal. “I’m serious, Tyler. Do not leave this car. Jacob,” she commanded, as the boy reached her, “stay with him. Give him the keys,” she told Jack, who threw them over the hood to Jacob. “If we aren’t back here in one minute, you call 911. Got it? And if anyone comes out of here other than us, you drive off. You hear me? Don’t wait for us.”
Jacob shook his head. “No. Look they’re my friends. I need to go in—”
“She’s right, Jacob,” Jack insisted. “We need you here and we can’t risk something happening to you. Please.”
Jacob’s jaw was set hard and it was obvious he was not okay with the plan. Nevertheless, he nodded reluctantly and got in the car with Tyler. Satisfied, Chloe, Jack, and Holt charged down the narrow dirt path leading out of the back of the lot into the wooded darkness.
The worn path was well-traveled, and led to a small grassy clearing surrounded by towering evergreens and birch and ash trees. Multiple hiking paths branched off the main clearing. The rear of the space ended at a ledge that plunged off to the valley below. There, silhouetted against the inky sky were Emma and Trip, facing off against each other, the weak moonlight highlighting their features—as well as the gun Trip pointed at Emma.
“Trip.” The voice was Holt’s, but both deeper and softer than usual. He stood beside Chloe, whose heart had frozen at the scene before them.
The teens turned in unison. Trip’s face was stricken, tear tracks dragged through his costume makeup, creating the odd illusion of a bawling zombie. Emma’s gaze locked onto Chloe’s with wide-eyed fear, as Chloe tried to telepathically send the message to the girl that everything would be okay. To not panic. But as she wasn’t sure she believed it herself, she wasn’t confident the message got through.
“Trip,” Holt repeated, stepping towards the boy. Trip matched his movement with a defiant step backwards and raised the gun a half inch, reasserting his aim at Emma.
“You don’t want to do that,” Holt insisted, grabbing Chloe’s arm and holding her in place when she instinctively lurched towards Emma. “Why don’t you put the gun down?”
“She followed me here!” Trip spluttered, angry tears starting again. “I didn’t…I told her to go, but she won’t!” he barked, jabbing the gun at Emma again.
“Emma, why don’t you step away from Trip,” Chloe said encouragingly, reaching a hand out to the girl. “He doesn’t want you there.”
“No!” Emma shouted, her backbone straightening as she held her ground. “He’ll just hurt himself.”
“Emma, we don’t want you getting hurt, either,” Holt explained, gesturing for her to come to him. “Trip will be all right—”
“No, he won’t! He’ll kill himself. He said so before you got here. It’s what he drove out here to do!”
In that moment the scene reoriented for Chloe, and understanding pierced the chilly Halloween air. Trip wasn’t holding Emma at gunpoint. He was holding her off at gunpoint.
“Just let me be, Emma!” Trip hollered, choking back a sob. “I can’t—I just can’t anymore. I just want it over.”
“But you don’t, Trip,” Holt insisted. “You don’t. You want a way out. That’s not the same thing.” Holt directed himself to Emma. “Emma, I need you to trust me. Can you do that? Can you trust me?”
Emma’s doe-like eyes flicked to Holt and stayed there. “He’ll shoot himself, Holt. Or throw himself over,” she moaned, jerking her head towards the outcropping’s edge, just beyond Trip’s back foot.
“No, he won’t. Will you?” Holt asked, now firing a look at Trip. “You wouldn’t do that while Emma stands six feet away, and force her to relive that over and over for the rest of her life.”
Trip’s shoulders dropped incrementally, and the gun shook in his outstretched hand.
“You wouldn’t do that to Emma, or me or Chloe. Because whatever’s happened, whatever you’ve done, you care about the people here in front of you and you wouldn’t do that to them.”
The boy’s head swiveled left and right, his gaze drifting over each onlooker.
“Good. Okay,” Holt said, taking Trip’s silence for acquiescence. “See, Emma, it’ll be okay. Just go to Chloe. Now.”
Emma bowed up, uncertainty seeming to plague her resolve, until finally she hesitantly followed Holt’s instructions and moved towards Chloe.
“Okay, good. Okay,” Chloe cooed, taking the girl’s arm as soon as she was near enough, and pulling her in close. Barely a moment passed before Trip reacted, jerking the gun to his temple.
All three of them screamed at once, bellows of “Trip,” “No,” and “Stop!” ringing through the backwoods. Holt charged him, bending low to take him out like a lineman sacking a quarterback, when Trip brought the gun down and fired.
SIXTY-SIX
“What are they doing in there?” Tyler asked, fidgeting in the backseat of Chloe’s car, which had grown chilly in the dropping temperatures. “I’m getting cold.”
Beside him, Jacob bounced his leg nervously, answering without looking because his eyes were trained on the entrance to the path to the overlook. “They’re helping Emma and Trip. They’ll be back any minute.”
“Are Emma and Trip hurt?”
“No,” Jacob assured him, hoping it was true. “Trip’s just upset, we think. It’ll be—”
The resounding, unmistakable crack of a gunshot shattered the air, causing them both to jump.
“What was—” Tyler started.
“I gotta go,” Jacob said, already unlatching the door. He stepped out, then spun around, leaning over into the backseat. “Here, take this,” he said, tossing his cell to Tyler, “and dial 911. Tell them you’re at Wilton Hollow Overlook and to come quick, okay?”
“Yeah, okay, I know 911. But I don’t want to stay here alone,” Tyler whimpered.
“Just lock the doors.” He slammed the door hard, yelled a muffled, “Lock it,” at Tyler again, and took off running.
* * * * *
As the thunder of the shot reverberated around them, Holt skidded to a stop, nearly going down altogether when his back leg slid on some loose rocks.
“Stop!” Trip yelled, as Holt raised his hands in surrender. “I mean it.”
Holt caught his breath. Trip had aimed high and to the right at the last minute, firing into the night sky. He wasn’t aiming at him. Yet.
“Just talk to us, Trip. Okay?” Holt begged. “Just talk. I won’t come any closer. But you’ve got to keep that gun down. Please. You don’t want to shoot anyone by accident.” Holt waited, and when Trip lowered the gun slightly, he continued. “Tell us what happened. None of this makes any sense to us.”
“She saw,” Trip said, and it was obvious he meant Emma. “She wanted to go get her phone, and I thought maybe I could find a way to finally get to her computer. I had to delete that photo. It was the only thing I did wrong. My only mistake.” His eyes seemed distant, as if seeing, not the people in front of him, but something else far away. “She grabbed the phone from her room and said she wanted to use the bathroom real quick before we went back to the maze. I knew her password for the computer. I’d seen her use it at school.” He cut his eyes at Emma. “I had tried to erase it straight from your phone,” he started to explain. “That’s why I took it that night in the alley. But your phone password wasn’t the same as your computer password.”
“You broke her arm?” Chloe interrupted, trying to make sense out of his disjointed story. “That night in the alley? It was you that attacked her?”
“I didn’t mean to,” he whined, and the devastation on his face suggested he truly meant it. “It was an accident. I just wanted the phone. My photos go right to the cloud and I figured hers did too. If I could delete it from there it would be gone everywhere. I didn’t think she would chase me down.”
“It’s okay, Trip,” Emma said softly. “I get it. I’m fine—”
“No!” Trip shouted, beginning to rock back and forth on his
heels. “It’s not fine.”
“Trip,” Holt interrupted soothingly, “finish telling us about tonight. Help us understand.”
Trip nodded. “I opened the computer right to her photos and found it. That first photo Chloe took with our feet propped up. See, that night, when you,” he nodded at Holt, “were there talking to her dad, I heard you. I heard you say they had concrete evidence, and I knew. Because I’d had to scrape it off my shoes. It had gotten all over the outside. I got it off the sides real good, but I was in a hurry and didn’t bother with the bottoms and then I forgot about it once I got in the car and drove off. When you said it at the house, I checked, and it was still there, all caked in the treads.
“I panicked, went home, and scraped it off. After that I thought I was good, but then I saw the photo of the three of us in Starbucks on the night of the fire on Emma’s Instagram, and remembered the bad photo with our feet in the air. I knew it probably showed the caked-on concrete. I was scared that eventually someone would see it and figure it out. I knew I had to delete the bad one.”
“What happened tonight?” Holt pressed.
“I’ve been trying to get on that computer all week, but everybody’s always been around. If I’d just…” he shook his head hard, as if chasing the thought away. “At the maze, when she said she needed to run home I thought, you know, maybe, maybe I can get on it if it’s just us. And she did, she left me with it. She went in the bathroom and I found it, zoomed in on the photo real close, just to see how bad it was. It was so obvious. And I just froze, thinking what could’ve happened if Mr. McConnaughey had seen that. I should have just hit delete that second, but…I don’t know. And then Emma was behind me, asking me what I was doing, looking over my shoulder at it, asking what that red stuff was on my shoes, and I freaked. ‘Cause now she knew, and if she ever mentioned it to you or she ever heard any of you talking about red concrete,” he said, tossing his head in Holt’s direction, “it would come out and it would all be over. So I just took off. I didn’t think she would follow me—could follow me—I was driving so fast.” He glanced around at everyone, the weight of his confession seeming to sink in. “And now I’m trapped. I’m out of options.”