Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 89840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 449(@200wpm)___ 359(@250wpm)___ 299(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 449(@200wpm)___ 359(@250wpm)___ 299(@300wpm)
“No, Jo! You can’t—”
She hangs up the phone and I want to slow-clap for her and sing bravo. Her eyes find mine and I lower the gun an inch. Seconds later, her phone buzzes with a text.
“What does it say?” I ask.
“He’s going back to Briggs Lane too.”
I sit up straighter as she places the phone back on the stand, then turns the steering wheel to get back on the road.
“You know what Briggs Lane is, right?” I ask and she shakes her head with an empty look in her eyes. “It’s his mom’s cabin. The place he grew up.”
Her eyes dart to mine quickly and she nearly veers off the road.
“He never told you about it?”
“No,” she murmurs.
“Well, now you know.”
FIFTY-FOUR
JOLENE
Of course, I know about Briggs Lane. As soon as I saw it pop up as his location, I knew why he was there and I wanted so badly to ignore it.
There was a time, right before my father died, when he told me he’d hired a private investigator to look deeper into Dominic and his past. We were eating dinner—me, dad, and my witch of a mother—and I was so angry to hear him confess this information. I did it for you, Joey, he’d said.
He told me there were things I needed to know about Dominic, and that I shouldn’t be so quick to marry him. Daddy said Dominic was no good for the family. At the time, I just assumed my father was being overprotective and overbearing and was willing to throw any information at me in order to get me to leave Dominic, so I chucked my fork on the table and left.
I flew straight home to Raleigh that night. Dominic had business in South Carolina. But my father wouldn’t have been, well, my father, if he hadn’t mailed the documents to me the following day. Inside it were news clippings about a woman who’d been abducted for months and then returned. This woman was heavyset and appeared older than her actual age listed in the article. Her hair was gray, and her eyes were big and familiar. There were more news reports about this same woman killing herself. And then a picture popped out of the envelope of a young Dominic and his mother. She had her arm wrapped around him as they faced a camera. He was smiling. She was not. Below the photo were the words: Missing local woman Beretta Baker reunites with her son Dominic Baker. More info was inside the envelope, like the title to a house with the address 4951 Briggs Lane in Raleigh, North Carolina.
I couldn’t believe what I was reading. Dominic told me his mother was in a psychiatric facility. He said I could never visit her because she was unwell, and he was worried she’d lash out at me. But all this time, she’d been dead, and he lied about it. Why did he lie?
I took it upon myself to find this house on Briggs Lane, so I grabbed my keys and drove to the address, only to find a cabin that was in horrible shape. It was surrounded by enormous trees and covered in vines. Dusty rocking chairs were on the porch. To my surprise, the cabin was unlocked so I took a peek inside. The house was dirtier inside, particles floating in the air.
I stepped into one of the bedrooms, and one of the floorboards wobbled beneath my feet. I found pictures tucked beneath that floorboard as well as a note. To this day, that note haunts me because even though it was a suicide letter, it’s written in Dominic’s handwriting.
When I saw the app pull up Dominic’s location at that address, I couldn’t figure out why he’d go there of all places. Now I’m here, sitting next to a scorned woman and making my way back to that haunting place.
It doesn’t take long for me to find it. I drive along a dirt path that winds upward between massive trees, and spot the cabin perched on a hill. I park near a tree and out of sight, like Brynn insists, and we sit for a moment, staring ahead. Lights are on inside the cabin and a husky silhouette passes by the window.
It’s Boaz. I know it is.
“What’s your plan?” I ask.
Brynn keeps her eyes ahead, focused on the cabin. Then she grabs my phone, pops open the passenger door, and says, “To get my friend back.”
I watch her run through the grass and find a footpath that leads to the house, peering around as she goes. Her hood is on her head, making her look like a thief in the night.
When she’s far enough, I lean forward and reach under my seat until I feel something hard and cold. I pull my other phone out that only one other person knows about, power it on, and make two necessary calls.