I’m a little more thankful for Eric every time I leave the airport without having to join the throng of people gathered around the rental car counter, going to battle over the taxis, or playing ride-share roulette. I get to stroll past them and slip into a familiar, comfortable car driven by someone I actually know. It’s one of life’s little luxuries I never lose sight of, no matter how many times it happens.
The drive back to my house takes just over an hour, and he refrains from asking me any more questions about my trip. Instead, he plugs up his phone and plays a stream of his eclectically mixed music. When we get to my house, I head directly for the shower.
Eric is waiting in the living room with a bottle of rum and two glasses. He knows this isn’t a dignified bottle of wine situation. This is a soak me like a fruit cake conversation. Not that I’ve reached a point where I need to drink myself into oblivion. Just one where I’d like to dull a few of my sharp thoughts and make some questions forget about themselves.
He offers up a glistening glass to me as I settle into the corner of the couch and lean back against the arm to look at him. We touch the rims of our glasses together and take simultaneous sips.
“Alright,” he starts, setting his glass on the table. “What happened? Give me the full Iowa rundown.”
I take a second sip, steeling myself for the distinctly not thrilling story I have to tell him.
“It’s very quiet. And there’s a lot of corn,” I tell him.
“The scene-setting is inspiring. What about the field?”
“The Field of Dreams?” I ask. “As in, the movie filming site, the dead man who was apparently good friends with my parents wrote down as his address at the hotel he checked-in to, the day he died on my front porch?
“Well, you got bitter really fast,” he says. “I thought the rum would mellow you out.”
“I’m sorry. It was just so frustrating.” I reach over and set my glass on the table next to the necklace box. “I went there hoping… I don’t even know what I was hoping. Was it completely ridiculous for me to go there?”
“No. He knew your parents. It might have been a long time ago, but he knew them. That means he might have known something about who killed your mother or where your father is. It’s not ridiculous to chase after anything you might be able to find. It’s been a long time. If there’s any chance of you finding out something about either one of them, you should go after it. No matter where that is,” he tells me.
I stare at him, one of the two best friends who have seen me through everything. Eric knows me better than anyone, in some ways even better than Bellamy, and he’s never judged me. That’s a lie. He judges me constantly. But in the ways that I need to be judged. He’s there to tell me when I’ve gone off the rails or am making a bad decision. He’s there to tell me when I need to take a step back from something and look at it a different way. But he’s always there for me. Whether I listen to him or not, he’s there.
When I give him the chance to be. I haven’t this time. Not completely. He knows the man showed up dead on the front porch of the cabin the Bureau rented for me in Feathered Nest on the first night I was there for my undercover assignment. He did the research when I questioned the name the man wrote on the registration card at the hotel. Ron Murdock. It wasn’t his name, though I haven’t found one yet to replace it when I think of him. I told him about the hotel and the strange fake address he gave, about the surveillance camera footage of him checking in. Eric found me the picture of the man with my parents.
But I’ve been hiding something from him. The first piece of the puzzle that told me this was more than just the accident the police wanted me to believe it was. I kept it to myself. From the moment I found it, I didn’t show it to anyone else or tell anyone it existed. I should have. It was compulsive and arrogant to keep it tucked away, but it was what I thought was right at the moment. Now I have to share it.
“I’ll be right back,” I tell him.
“Emma?” Eric calls after me. “Are you okay?”
“Just give me a second.”
I go into my bedroom and open the drawer in my nightstand. The book tucked there is the same one I’ve had there since I was young. It was my mother’s favorite, and after she died, I found it in the spot where she last read it. Since then, I’ve read through it at least once a year and kept it beside my bed. Now it has another purpose.
Gently opening the book, I take out the piece of paper tucked in the spine. I do my best to smooth it out, but it still shows the wrinkles and lines from being clutched so tightly. A single drop of blood darkens one corner of the paper. I stare down at my name for a few seconds before putting the book away and bringing it into the living room. Eric has gotten through his first glass of rum and is refilling it when I sit back down on the couch. He looks at me strangely.
“What’s that?” he asks.
“You need to let me get the whole story out before you react,” I warn him.
“It’s always good when you say that.”
“Just… let me talk.” I wait until he nods in agreement before I continue talking. “The first night I got to Feathered Nest, someone knocked on the door to the cabin, and I thought it was the guy who owned it coming to check on me.”
“I know. Then you opened the door, and the dead guy was on your porch.”
“I thought you agreed not to talk,” I deadpan to him.
“Go ahead.”
“I leaned down to check his pulse and noticed something in his hand. It was this.” I hold up the paper. Eric takes the note from my hand and glances down at it. He looks like he’s going to burst, so I jump in before he has a chance. “I didn’t show the police because I was undercover. This has my real name on it, and they’d realize I wasn’t who I said I was. It would have completely compromised the entire assignment. Then I decided not to tell anyone because, like you said, I’ve been doing this for a long time. I’ve been trying to understand my mother’s murder and my father’s disappearance for so many years. I didn’t want anyone to try to stop me or get in my way when this could be the thing I’ve been waiting for. This man could be the link I’ve tried to find that might actually tell me what happened. I couldn’t risk someone, anyone, deciding to butt into it.”
“Do I get to talk now?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“What in the hell were you thinking? You were undercover. No one was supposed to know you were there except the Bureau. Then a man shows up dead on your porch with your name written on a piece of paper in his hand, and you keep that to yourself? Look, Emma, I understand how much it means to you to find out what happened to your mother and to find your father. And Greg.”
“This has nothing to do with Greg,” I snap with more intensity than I intend. “This isn’t about him. I want to know what happened to him, of course. I want to know where he is and that he’s safe. But that’s completely separate from my parents.”
“Alright. It’s not about Greg. But it is about someone who shouldn’t have known where you were at all showing up dead in front of you when you had barely even gotten there. Did it never sink in what that could have meant? Or how much danger you were putting yourself in? How much danger you were already in?”
“I understand, Eric.”
“Do you? Emma, you have made some seriously questionable choices in your career…”
“Eric, I know. I didn’t show you this to give you a reason to lecture me. This was not a great choice; I get that. But this had nothing to do with the case I was on there, and it would have gotten in the way. That man, whoever he is, was there for me. Not because I was in Feathered Nest and not because I was investigating the disappearances. He was after me, and I didn’t want either one of those issues to muddle the other. Can you honestly tell me if I had handed the note over to Chief LaRoche when I first found it, he would have done anything? That it would have made any difference at all?”