CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Holden
I felt like a complete ass for leaving Michaela the way I did, but something wasn’t right with Delilah. Even though she’d accepted what I told her the night before, she had woken the following morning and refused to come out of her room. Anger had filtered across her features at the mention of Michaela, and worse, she’d reverted back to wanting to sleep all the time, wanting to wait for our parents to return.
The entire walk to the diner was made in aggravating silence, my worries once again rushing back to suffocate every step forward I’d made with this new relationship with Michaela. All the happiness I’d felt, the hope I shouldn’t have had, the belief that for even a brief stretch of days I could relax, was gone. Reality had returned when Deli had walked through the front door, the home I’d believed it was becoming returning back to the house it had always been.
Four walls. Silent. Empty. Crumbling down around me, trapping me within a town that had only treated me poorly.
More guilt flooded me because I understood that Deli’s presence was the only thing left holding me to this town. A horrible thought filtered in to mingle with the rest:
If I hadn’t stayed to take care of my sister, would I be facing prison now?
And if that thought weren’t bad enough, the scene I walked into at the diner was the final nail in the coffin of my shitty day.
Cop cars.
Officers in uniform.
Angela standing in the center of the diner speaking to them as her eyes glanced out the window.
I should have gone around back. Should have snuck away silently. But running wouldn’t hide me for long. And in truth, I didn’t know why the cops were there. It could have been about anything. I walked through the front door, stepping out of the freezing cold and into a roaring fire.
“Holden,” Angela called out, “could you come here a minute?”
Clenching my eyes shut, I ignored the spark of pain shooting down my jaw from grinding my teeth. Crossing the diner to where Angela stood with three officers, I kept my hands balled up in my pockets, my eyes scanning their faces with concern hazing my eyes. “What’s up?”
The red color dusting Angela’s cheeks was the first clue she was angry, the way her eyes locked to mine with disgust written behind them the second clue. “These officers are here asking about Jack Thorne and Michaela Paige.”
Fear and anger traced down my spine, my muscles tightening over my bones to realize that the future I’d been dreading had arrived. “What about them?”
Glaring at the officers before returning her attention to me, she informed me, “I asked the same question when they came trotting in here, but they insist that those two kids are missing and that the last time they were seen in town was when they attacked you in my diner.”
The oldest of the officers held up his hands as if to stop her tirade. A couple inches shorter than me, but with a belly that hung heavy over his belt, the officer had brown hair that was thinning on top, his eyes darting to me before locking on Angela again. “Ms. Barrett, if you wouldn’t mind, we’d like to speak to Mr. Bishop alone. We’ll get back to you once we’ve had an opportunity to get his statement. If you wouldn’t mind giving us a list of the other employees who were on duty that night, we’d like to talk to them as well.”
Angela huffed out a breath, her hands shaking as they balled into fists at her sides. I knew she was only trying to protect me, but I couldn’t let her get in trouble as well. Not for this. Not for what I’d done. I was thankful my hands were still stuffed inside my pockets. I was shaking as badly as her.
It was typical of Angela not to take shit. Just like she did with her employees and her customers, she would give these officers a piece of her mind if she felt they deserved it. Pointing a finger in the face of the only man who’d spoken since I walked in, she suggested, “Maybe you should check those drug dens on the other side of the tracks you’ve ignored over the years. If we’re all lucky, Jack Thorne will be lying dead in one of them from overdosing.”
My jaw ticked at the comment, the woods coming to mind where I knew Jack’s body lay waiting.
“Ms. Barrett. We’ve had enough of your comments. If you could please go get us that list, we’ll talk to Mr. Bishop without you.”
Another burst of air shot over her lips, anger drawing a line between her narrowed eyes. “I’ll go get you the list. Not that it will help you any. I kicked those spoiled, rich assholes out of my diner and nobody here has seen them since.”
“Ms. Barrett!” By the tone of his voice, nobody could miss that it had been his last warning. I stepped forward at that point, realizing that if I didn’t prod her along, Angela would be leaving here in handcuffs.
“Angela, it’s okay,” I said softly. “They just want to talk to me. There’s no need to get so upset.”
Her lips were trembling, the anger filling her so thoroughly that she couldn’t keep her body still. Thankfully, she took a second to calm herself and listen to me. Nodding her head once, she stormed off, slamming her office door behind her as she disappeared from view. The windows shook on that side of the diner.
The officers exchanged a look before focusing their attention on me. “Mr. Bishop,” the oldest man said, “my name is Officer Timothy Shay. This is my partner Kirk McDonald and a new member on the force who’s in training, Jerome Shelton. We’d like to talk to you regarding the whereabouts of Jack Thorne and Michaela Paige.”
My stomach rolled with dread, bile creeping up my throat that I had no choice but to swallow. “Okay, what would you like to know?”
Officer Shay’s brown eyes locked to mine, the other two officers watching me far too closely for it to be comfortable. I stood in place, too nervous to make a move they might misconstrue as evidence of my guilt. “When was the last time you saw Mr. Thorne?”
Thankfully, I could answer that question without outright lying. “The night he was in the diner screaming at me.”
His eyes searched my face for any hint of deceit. “And what happened that night?”
I could still answer this without lying. So far, so good. “He came into the diner and caused a scene. He was screaming and attempting to start a fight. I never came into the dining room, and Angela forced him out the door. He took off after that.”
“And then, what happened?”
Shrugging, I said, “I worked the last couple of hours of my shift and walked home.” Still the truth.
“And did you see Jack Thorne at all after the incident at the diner?”
Damn. Technically I never saw him alive. He came at me from behind. I didn’t remember anything until after I came to by the tree and he was dead. “No.”
The officer’s eyes narrowed on me. “You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
I wanted to ask why he was questioning me, wanted to point out that, for years, I was the victim of Jack Thorne, not the other way around. But rather than opening my mouth and giving them reason to look at me a little closer, I kept my answers short and to the point.
Thankfully, they hadn’t yet mentioned Michaela’s name.
After studying me for several seconds, the officer asked, “Aren’t you curious as to why we’re asking you these questions?”
“Because Jack and Michaela are missing, I assume.”
His brows shot up. “And why would you assume that?”
“Because that’s what Angela said when I walked in here.”
Stepping back so that he could look me fully up and down, his lips pulled into a thin line. I didn’t move, didn’t flinch, didn’t shuffle a foot or turn my head. I simply stared back at him without giving one indication that I was nervous. Technically, I was about to piss myself, but I refused to show it.
“Son...”
My hackles rose to hear the term. Nobody had called me son since Coach Granger on the day I was expelled from school.
“...are you telling me the truth?”
“Yes.” Again with the short and simple. I’d save the panic attack for after they left.
Thankfully, Angela came storming back, slapped the list against the officer’s chest, crossed her arms and asked, “We done here? I have a diner to run and I don’t appreciate my employees being harassed because a selfish, entitled little drug addict thought he could come into my diner and attack one of my employees. And when you find the little shit, you should remind him that the next time he pulls some crap like that, I won’t bother to open the glass door before throwing his ass out of it.”
My eyes widened, as did those of the other officers. Officer Shay merely smirked. “Maybe I should be questioning you a little while longer. You seem to have a reason to make someone disappear.”
Angela smiled. “Go ahead and question me all you want. While you’re at it, why don’t you cross the train tracks and question some of the drug dealers living in the abandoned houses. If you knew how to do your job properly, that would have been the first place you looked. I can tell you all of the rich and entitled around here keep those bastards in business. Also, while you’re at it, why don’t you stop in to one of those wild parties the kids like to throw? I can promise you that you’d have your hands full of underage children drinking and doing drugs. It’s not a secret around this town and if you were worth a shit, you’d put a stop to it. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get back to doing my job and being a law abiding citizen.”
Staring Angela down, Officer Shay’s jaw ticked with irritation. But rather than cuffing Angela and hauling her to the squad cars, he nodded his head toward the door. Without saying another word, all three walked out of the diner, got in their cars and left. Angela and I didn’t move a muscle until they were out of the parking lot.
A breath blew out of me as soon as they were out of sight. “Damn, Angela, were you trying to get arrested?”
Her eyes pinned me where I stood. “No. I was saving your ass from a prison cell. You know if something happened to that kid, they’ll blame you. It doesn’t matter if his bloated husk is found lying face down in vomit in one of those drug houses. So let them worry about me. I don’t care. They’ll look like idiots when they realize I was at the diner all night.”
The mixture of relief and guilt was toxic in my veins. Angela had no idea how dangerous it was for the police to look in her direction, especially once they discovered Jack’s body. Not responding to her because my throat was clogged with worry, I stood still, my expression blank, my heart pounding and my hands clenching into tight fists in my pockets.
“Now get to work. Dishes are piling up and I don’t have time to be standing around staring at each other all day. I don’t pay you to stare.”
Hesitantly, I grinned, the tension easing inside me to be back to the usual. “Maybe I can’t help staring at you. I mean, look at you. You’re a goddess.”
Her eyes rolled, but I didn’t miss the smile that tugged at her lips. “If you don’t get your butt in back in the next five seconds, you’ll be the third missing person in Tranquil Falls. Now get!”
Walking away, I heard her soft laughter behind me and I knew if I turned to look, her cheeks would be blushing. Once I was in back, I stripped off my coat and hoodie, pulled on the vinyl apron and got to work. Unfortunately, running dishes through a machine wasn’t enough to distract me from the fact that the stakes had just been raised in this mess with Michaela.
Wondering how long I had left before I was caught, I did my job while wanting to rage over how fucked up my life was about to become.