“They might know he did it, but they can't just throw him into a cell and toss away the key. It doesn't work that way. They have to charge him and have him indicted. He has to face trial. It's a process and one they really only get one good shot at. I've seen a lot of cases where the evidence is completely clear-cut, but they don't hold the suspect because they believe there's even more evidence they can find. Especially these days, with the way lawyers can talk circles through just about anything, the more evidence, the better. Usually, police can only hold a person for about twenty-four hours before they have to either file formal charges or let them go,” I explain.
It's not until I notice him staring back at me that I realize the spiel I just went on.
“What do you mean you've seen cases?” he asks.
I shrug. “I like to watch a lot of true crime TV. It's kind of my guilty pleasure. But anyway, that's probably what's happening here. They got up to that time limit and didn't want to file charges yet. They believe a defense attorney could talk his way out of the charges, or at least minimize them. So, they let him go until they find more to go on and can be absolutely positive the charges have the best chances of sticking.”
Jake nods and reaches for my hand. He holds it carefully, avoiding the bandage over my cut. The injury has started throbbing, and as delicious as the food is, I don't want to eat any more of it. I lean back and draw in a breath. Jake tilts his head to look into my face.
“Are you alright?” he asks.
“I'm just feeling a little lightheaded. It's been kind of a long day, and I didn't get much sleep last night. I'm really sorry, but do you mind giving me a rain check for dinner?”
“Of course. Let me bring you back to the cabin,” he offers.
I shake my head. “No. You don't need to do that.”
“It's not a problem,” Jake insists.
“I don't want the hassle of coming to pick my car up again and everything, either,” I reply. “It still feels a little isolating being out there so close to the woods, and I like knowing my car is available.”
“That makes sense. Well, I'm still going to drive behind you to make sure you get back safe. There are enough staff here to keep an eye on the bar while I'm gone.”
There's no point arguing with him. I'm not going to be able to convince him I don't need him to come home with me. It will be easier just to ease his mind by letting him follow me. He guides me into the office so he can get his keys and pauses by the desk to flip through a small notebook I didn't notice the first time I was in here. Taking his phone out of his pocket, he glances at the screen, then leans over the notebook and makes a notation on the last page.
“What's that?” I ask when he puts his hand on my lower back and steers me out of the bar.
“The log of people who get escorted home from here. I like to keep track of them. It helps me know who to really keep an eye on and maybe offer a ride to the next time they come in. It also means if one of them ends up wandering back out of their house and gets into trouble, they can't possibly blame me. A buddy of mine owned a bar a few towns over and ended up having to shut down because a man got drunk at the bar, he escorted him home, and that guy then left and got hit by a car.”
“Oh, my lord,” I whisper.
“He survived, but the car that hit him swerved and got mashed up on a tree and hurt the driver. They blamed my buddy, and the insurance totally knocked him down. He couldn't face the charges and ended up closing down his bar. It devastated him. I'm not looking to have anything like that happen to me. I started escorting people home because I want them to be safe if they drink too much. And when people started disappearing and getting killed, I did it even more to make sure people weren't hurt heading home from my place. I care about them, but I also need to cover my own ass,” he explains.
“I definitely understand that,” I nod.
Jake pulls into the driveway right behind me, and when I climb out of the car, I see him standing beside his, staring at the broken light.
“That wasn't like that the last time I was here,” he says.
“I know. It just broke today,” I tell him.
“You need to call Clancy and have that fixed. It's too dark out here for you to not have that light,” he insists.
I nod. “I will. First thing in the morning, I'll call him.”
He walks with me into the cabin. I'm about to offer him a hot drink to thaw him out before he heads back to the bar when I notice him staring to the side. I follow his eyes and see them locked on the coffee table. And the pictures strewn across it.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Jake walks over to the table and stares down at the pictures. The one on top is a particularly gruesome close-up of Cristela Jordan's body. The blood makes her hair dark red, the tumble from the train tracks leaving the skin along the side of her face torn and discolored.
“What is all this?” he asks. “Why would you have all this?”
His hands gesture over the pictures, falling back down to his sides like he can't believe what he's seeing and is at a loss for words.
“I've been researching the disappearances and murders around here,” I explain.
“Why? What's going on here, Emma?”
I can understand his suspicion and scramble to come up with a way to answer him.
“When I first came here and you told me all about what's been happening, it intrigued me. Like I told you, I'm fascinated by true crime. If I'm thinking about moving out here, I should probably know everything that's going on, don't you agree?” I try, already cursing myself. I could have come up with something way better than that.
He looks at me with a distant, almost pained expression in his eyes. There's something in that look that hangs heavy, dragging down the usually vibrant, alive blue. It's close to betrayal.
“Everyone around here is doing everything they can to ignore this. It's horrible, and none of us want anything to do with it. We want nothing to do with our town going from barely showing up on maps to being splashed around on the news because of all this horror. But you want to do everything you can to experience it?” he asks.
“That's not it. I'm not trying to experience it. It's not like that, Jake.”
“Then what is it? Because it seems to me you came here telling everybody you wanted to move somewhere peaceful and quiet, to start a new life for yourself somewhere without the burden of your past. But what you really wanted to do is come gawk at the town of the damned and make a spectacle of us.”
He sounds angry, and I find myself wanting to calm him down and reassure him.
“No, Jake. That's not it at all. That's not what's going on here. I came here because I want a new start and am thinking about moving into the area. I thought this would be a calm, easy-going place to take some time to myself and decide what I'm going to do next. But then I found out about everything, and I just needed to know more. So, I started studying it and found more and more… I just got swept up in it,” I say.
I reach out for his hand, and our fingers intertwine. As they do, his knuckle nudges the ring Greg gave me, and the edge of the gold knot presses into the side of my finger. This isn't the way this is supposed to be. I'm fighting to keep Jake from thinking badly of me, not to maintain the secrecy of my mission. I don't want him to be upset or hurt, or to change his opinion of me. I shouldn't have let myself make this connection with him in the first place. It's unfair to both of us, and it's unfair to everything I have in my real life. The ring is a reminder of that. Maybe not of what I will one day have, but of what I did have and what I know is the way it should be. Greg wouldn't have just walked away from his life. Something happened to him, and I feel obligated to find out what.