Alex
October 15, 2017
I feel as though I were hit by a truck last night. My body feels beaten up. My shoulders hurt. I know it’s from the stress. I’ve never been confronted like that. Never hit the trauma head-on like that. I know that’s what Dr. Elizabeth, my therapist, called it—trauma. The word sounds so awful. Scary even.
After Kyle died, I needed to talk to someone. I knew that was the healthy thing to do. Our sessions went as well as could be expected. I didn’t continue though.
She said things like, “Pretend you’re a dragon. Confront the dragon head-on. Tell the dragon how you feel.”
All I kept thinking about was the dragon scalding me with its fire.
When I told her that, she said, “Think of it as a sign of your subconscious mind telling you something.”
When I asked, “What?” she said, “That’s for you to figure out.”
I’d paid a therapist good money to tell me to talk to dragons.
But it felt good to tell Eli about Kyle in the weirdest way possible.
I look over and watch as his jaw flexes.
“What are you thinking about?” I ask.
“You.”
“Why?”
His thumb taps lightly on the wheel. “Haven’t been able to get you out of my head since I met you.”
My heart grow to strings. Long, lyrical strings that move with the unheard beat of my heart.
Eli spots an ATV on the side of the road, and he pulls over.
I reach over and touch his arm. “Wait. While we’re working, you can’t open the door for me. Treat me like one of the guys. Like Ryan or Aaron or Ethan.”
Eli tilts his head back and laughs. “There is no way in hell I can think about them the way I think about you. But, when we work, you can get your door.”
“Thank you.” I stop. “You realize that I’ve been opening doors since I was two years old, right? Like, it’s not foreign to me.”
But something has Eli’s interests piqued as he motions me out of the truck. I get out and come around to the ATV alongside him.
“This ATV has been here for a while. See how the tires are sunken into the wet mud?” He points out. “Pools of water are in both the front rack and the cupholder.”
Eli writes down the registration number, and I follow him back to his truck.
“Going to run the number in the system.” He types on his computer, and I walk back to the ATV to examine it.
“Hey, Eli. There’s some front-end damage underneath. Maybe the rider got stuck?”
He hops out of the truck, handing me my backpack and then grabbing his own, a pencil and small notebook in his hand. “Could be. John Richardson, the registered owner, is up-to-date with the tags. Why would he leave his ATV on the side of the road? Why not have it towed?” Eli looks down the trail. “In for a hike, Cali?” Eli lets Rookie out.
I try not to smile. “Your words are not funny, Maine Man. Keep your Cali jokes on low today.”
Eli laughs, catching my eye as he takes the lead, and Rookie and I follow.
We follow a trail off the road to see if there are any ATV tracks that the rain hasn’t washed out.
Eli explains, “Just going to check things out and see if we can find anything. Tolman Pond is up ahead. We’ll go up there and check things out.”
After a few minutes of walking on the muddy trail, we find a semi-submerged canoe on Tolman Pond’s shore. A backpack, two fishing poles, and a tackle box full of water. Eli opens the backpack and finds a Ziploc bag full of tackle. He bends down and unzips a side pocket, only to find a thin piece of plastic.
“Bingo. A fishing license.” He closely examines it. “John Richardson. Same guy who owns the ATV.” Eli stands and looks at me. “There could be a body in this pond.”
I try not to impede on his thoughts. I know he’s talking more out loud than to me.
“Clearly, I’m not certified to handle this information, but I do watch Dateline. Anyhow, if you need my expertise, I’m here.”
“I’m all ears, Cali.” Eli smiles his smile, the one that can only belong to him. The one that makes my heart beat faster and harder.
I roll my eyes, enjoying the banter, though the word Cali still makes me cringe. “Richardson’s ATV was pointed toward the road, right?”
Eli nods.
“So, it could be possible that he made it from the boat to the road and jumped off his ATV—maybe to catch a ride?”
“Possibility, Warden Fisher. Let’s keep looking.”
Once again, Eli takes the lead as we continue to the left, along the bank of the pond, and then north about seventy steps. Something catches Eli’s eye. Now, I see it—a tent. We walk to the clearing, and the stench of death is upon us.
Eli covers his nose and looks down at me. “Smell that?”
I nod, covering my nose, trying not to gag. To be honest, my stomach drops and grows twisty, but I’m not sure if it’s because of the stench or more because of fear of what we might find. Rookie sniffs the perimeter of the makeshift campground.
Two tents, a propane tank, a cooler.
“Hello?” Eli calls out. “Maine Warden Service.” The stench gets stronger as we approach the tent. “Maine Warden Service. Anyone in here?”
I gently place my hand on the small of his back, peeking over his shoulder as he unzips the tent, knowing what I’ll see could be both traumatizing or nothing, all at the same time. It’s like watching a scary movie, and you can’t stop. Even though you’re peeking through your fingers, the sick part of your brain can’t wait to see what happens next.
Although the tent is a mess with socks, sleeping bags, and a few soda cans, there’s nothing that indicates a dead body.
We walk to the next tent. The stench gets unbelievably strong—so strong, I gag.
Eli glances at me. “Rookie.” Rookie’s ears perk up, and he lifts his head. “No, not you, buddy. The other rookie.”
A propane tank sits just outside the tent, and it’s connected to something inside the tent.
“Are you kidding me?” Eli whispers under his breath. “Ninety percent of Maine’s land is privately owned, and one guy has to mess it up for the rest of us. He abuses the land—then the land owner has every right to shut access off for recreational use.”
Eli unzips the tent, and I prepare myself. Even though, at this point, I want to chicken out, go hide in the truck, there’s no way in hell I’m leaving Eli behind.
I swallow the bile that creeps up into my throat.
I breathe a sigh of relief, only because it’s not what I envisioned. Blood. A massacre. A gutted dead body.
Too many episodes of Dateline, I tell myself.
Eli says something under his breath as he sees the propane tank connected to a camp stove inside the tent.
After he examines the makeshift campsite, there are no signs of foul play or of a person, alive or otherwise.
“Let’s go pay a visit to John Richardson’s address.”
We load back into the truck.
“Are you hungry?” Eli asks.
I grimace. “Not yet. It might take a while for me to recover any appetite after the fumes we inhaled back there.”
Eli laughs. I watch as his Adam’s apple dances up and down.
I like the way he laughs, I decide for the ninth time.
“Where does Mr. Richardson live?”
“South Hope. It’s about five miles west.”
Eli flips on his turn signal, looks behind his shoulder, and places his hand in the same spot he did last night, touching my shoulder, sending chills up my spine. It takes me to last night. After he brought me home. How intimate we got. Naked—in more ways than one. Allowing another man to see not only my body like that, but also see me in that state of mind. Obviously, I care for him. The way that I felt when I watched him walk toward the fire—it was as if I were losing Kyle all over again. But it wasn’t Kyle. It was Eli. A different man. A different man that I have begun to really care about.
I do something out of the ordinary. I reach up and touch his fingers with mine. Immediately, my face grows hot. I’m not sure if this is right or wrong, but I know how it makes me feel inside.
His fingertips intertwine with mine, and I pull his hand to my lap. Holding hands can be an intimate act. It can also be an act of compassion. Of kindness. Of love. It can be as simple as a mother holding her daughter’s hand. But it can also be an act of something more.
I look up at Eli, whose eyes are on the road.
“You’re grinding your jaw again,” I say.
The lines form around his mouth.
“What are you thinking about? Is this okay with you?” I look down at our hands, fingers tangled together.
“Yes.”
There’s a long silence that sits between us, allowing us to feel this moment.
“South Hope is the name of a town?” I break the quietness. “It’s cute. I hope the town is as cute as the name.”
“It’s not Granite Harbor, but it’s nice.”
I look over at Eli again. “You’re still grinding your jaw.” I take his hand and leave it on my thigh.
He sighs, as if he’s not okay and okay at the same time. He leaves his hand there, expanding his long fingers so that they’re now covering my thigh, his pinkie and ring finger lingering between my legs. I’m well aware of how close his hand is to my opening, and I’m sure he is, too. I’d never make him do something he didn’t want to do, especially while in uniform and in his work truck of all places.
Stop thinking about sex, Alex.
We pull up to a house with an American flag on the outside. It’s white with green trim and a screened porch. It seems that most the towns we’ve visited in Maine don’t have housing developments. They’re plots of land with space between houses. Most of them have a certain look to them. Shutters. Two-story. A-framed. A steep roof, not a flat roof. John Richardson’s house is no different.
“What’s with the steep roofs on the houses?” I ask Eli.
He doesn’t remove his hand from my leg but instead leans over, close to me, looking out my side of the window. “The snow. We usually get a lot of snow in the wintertime. So, this way, the snow slides off and won’t collect, causing the roof to fall in.”
Eli’s eyes meet mine. And, for a moment, I think I see what his heart is made of. Not that I didn’t before, just by the way he carries himself. But, now, I see regret and honesty and hope.
“Let’s see what Mr. Richardson is up to.”
Staring at him, I think maybe, just maybe, I was supposed to end up in Granite Harbor, Maine. And maybe, just maybe, I was supposed to meet Clay and Randall on my flight that day. And maybe, just maybe, Eli was supposed to walk into Hello, Good-Pie that morning.
I watch as he climbs out of the truck.
“You ready?” He looks back at me. His words aren’t just asking me to pay a visit to Mr. Richardson’s house. It’s more. His question is about life and love, second chances.
“Absolutely,” I say with fear, and I open my own door.
We knock on the front door and wait. Nothing. We knock again. Still nothing.
Eli walks to the carport, to a side door, and he knocks again. “A lot of times, family members don’t report missing family members out here. Sometimes, they don’t have family to report them missing.”
“Mr. Richardson has a wife.”
Eli stops and smirks. “Why do you think that?”
I peek in the side window of the carport. “There’s a stained glass hummingbird hanging on the refrigerator and vitamins on the counter. Two sets. But neither has been taken. See?”
“They could be together,” Eli says, now peeking in the window, too. “We’ll come back to the house tomorrow. If anyone isn’t home by then, we’ll go from there.”
Eli’s phone rings. He gets it on the first ring after he glances at the caller ID. “Warden Young.” He stops and places his free hand on his hip. “Yeah.” But then silence. Eerie silence. Silence that you could slice a knife through. Eli’s eyes slowly meet mine. “You’re kidding. What the fuck? Yeah. All right. Gotta run Alex home, and then I’ll be in.” Eli hangs up.
“What?” My curiosity gets the best of me.
His eyes burn into mine. “That was Ryan. Got a DNA match on Jane Doe’s body parts. Matches back to a Lila Richardson.” His eyes narrow as he stares at the house.
“As in John Richardson, who lives here?”
There’s more he isn’t telling me.
“Don’t know yet.” Eli grabs my hand and walks me to the truck. “Get in.”
“Eli—”
“Alex, get in the truck.”
I do.
He shuts the door, and he’s already on the phone. I can only hear his side of the conversation, but judging by the look on Eli’s face, he’s not happy. He hangs up.
“Eli, what’s going on?”
He’s driving now, deep in thought, his jaw grinding harder than I’ve seen it. His left hand rests against his face. “I’m taking you back to the Malcomb Place. I want you to call Lydia to come sit with you.”
“Eli,” I whisper, “is all this necessary?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because”—Eli’s voice is calm, but there’s a tone I haven’t heard before. Fear? Anger?—“there was a picture of you at the latest crime scene, which consisted of another finger and this time a moose. I’m going to the scene to make sure this fucker doesn’t get away with it. You have social media accounts?”
I give him a deadpan look. Immediately, I realize he isn’t from my world of work, so he doesn’t know most all authors must have social media accounts. I hate mine. I loathe them. I adore my readers, and that’s the only reason I keep them.
I nod.
“How many followers? Roughly.”
“Eli, I don’t know. Roughly?”
“Roughly.”
“Maybe two hundred thousand followers.”
His eyes grow big. “Holy shit. That many?”
I shrug. “Women like their romance, Eli. What can I say?”
We turn on to the road and head back toward the Malcomb Place.
The state of Maine, I’ve noticed, is covered mostly by water and trees. I start to think about how easy it would be to get lost in the north woods of Maine. How easy it would be to hide a body. How cold it gets in the winter, how deep the snow gets. Until the spring comes. The snow melts. The land becomes saturated in mud. Maybe that’s when law enforcement can find a body.
But how on earth would you find the killer? Months would have passed by then.
He, or she, might be long gone to Mexico. Evidence linking the killer to the scene would be long gone.
And all that would be left was a trail of fragmented parts.