Page 52 of The Night I Lost Him

The only thing that gave me hope was the fact that to every heartless comment, there were tens to sometimes hundreds of replies by angry people who also didn’t know Jamie personally. “I hope when something happens to you, people who don’t know anything about you aren’t so cruel and heartless to the situation. Even though you deserve it.” “If you didn’t know this young man, then you have absolutely no right to speak of his life or character.” “No one deserves a stalker, no matter their profession. I’m sure you’re one of the ‘she deserved it’ crew who does nothing but perpetuate rape culture.” “I’ll pray for whoever I want to. I’ll pray for you, too, because you need it almost as badly as this poor boy does.” “If you looked into the whole thing a little more, you’d find out from his friends that he was an amazing person, working his way through college to make a real difference in the world. What are you doing with your life, besides being an asshole on social media?” “My cousin volunteers at a youth center with him. She says he’s a great guy. He genuinely cares about people even though he gets treated like crap a lot. You could probably learn from him.” “Hate is ugly, and definitely not as ‘Christian’ as you’re claiming to be. You’ll get what’s coming to you, as well.” “My friend volunteered at the oil spill in January. He said this guy was there, working 24 hours a day sometimes in the medical tents to help those animals, not even able to stop to eat. How are you going to tell me he’s a bad person?” “I am so sorry to any of this person’s friends and family who have to read these ugly, ignorant comments. I hope he’s brought safely back to you soon.”

I exited the app. I couldn’t look at any more comments. There were many more encouraging than hateful ones, but the hateful ones still jutted out like daggers to the people who cared about him. They still hurt, more than the people who wrote them would probably ever know. The kind ones couldn’t make up for them, because it didn’t make them go away. I was just glad that there were people out there who weren’t judging Jamie. People who cared.

I looked out the window as we passed a colorful but slightly faded sign that said, “Welcome to Crystal Shores.” None of us spoke as we rolled slowly into the town. We were there, at the place that had grown the person I despised most in the world. The place where evil had been born.

It looked like a typical little beach town. It wasn’t overly touristy, but there was a small, quaint downtown area with shops, cafes, boutique stores, and souvenir shops for the tourists who found it. Right outside of that, there were bungalows with flower gardens along the streets. A couple of restaurants near the coastline. Huge houses lining the beach line for the people who could afford to live with an ocean view.

“Are we looking for a cabin, then?” Amber finally spoke up.

We all just shrugged. We didn’t know what we were looking for. A cabin in the middle of town seemed like an odd place to take Jamie, but cabin was all we had to go on. We’d driven around, looking at houses and coming up with nothing useful for about ten minutes when Caitlin spoke up suddenly. “There! Stop there.”

We all looked to see where she was pointing, and I raised my eyebrows incredulously. Tourist Information and Historical Society Museum. She noticed the look on my face. “First of all,” she said, “We might be able to find info on his family in the historical society part. And second, we can find out if there are any cabins around here. We’re going on basically nothing right now. All we really have is a comment Wally made to some guy in a gas station. He could have been lying through his teeth to make it look like he was on vacation and not kidnapping the guy he was obsessed with. We have to start somewhere.”

I shrugged. She had a point. Jeff parked and we all headed inside, trying not to look as downtrodden as we felt. There was only one person working there, an older woman who greeted us exuberantly as soon as we stepped through the door. She no doubt thought we were just a bunch of college kids who’d chosen her little town to vacation in for some reason. Her name tag said Dolores.

Caitlin smiled brightly and greeted her like we were just a bunch of college kids there on vacation. She put on a grand show of excitement, babbling about how cute the town was and how we’d just arrived. She said we were excited to learn about it and explore and a bunch of other bullshit I was only half listening to. I heard her tell Dolores we were from Ohio, which was where Caitlin was from, I guess to sell the whole vacation thing. The rest of us just went along with it and let her talk, even though it was obviously neither the time for spring break nor summer vacation.

Caitlin got pretty deep into her story about how someone had told us we just had to come to Crystal Shores, because it was an amazing little undiscovered gem in Florida. But she talked about our trip like it had been on a whim and we hadn’t planned it at all, which was actually the truth. She finished her story with, “I was wondering if there are any cabins around here that we could stay in?”

Dolores shook her head, and my heart sank. “No, there aren’t any cabins in town. There is a state park about oh, fifty miles or so from here. They might have cabins, but I’m not sure. I know they have campgrounds. I don’t know of any cabins that would be closer than that.” She pulled out some brochures. “We have some nice hotels, though, especially if you want to enjoy the downtown area.” She handed Caitlin one of them. “This one is a real favorite. You can walk everywhere. To the beach, the shops, and several restaurants.”

Caitlin politely took the information and kept Dolores talking about the town as the rest of us started wandering around. It wasn’t much of a museum, but there were some things in glass cases on one side of the building, with some oversized older pictures of local places on the walls. The other side, where Dolores’ desk was, was full of information on the town as a tourist destination with more recent photos and a whole section dedicated to the local restaurant that had made it into a national culinary magazine.

As I was pretending to look at some of the brochures, I heard Caitlin ask about the state forest. Dolores told her we were able to hike there, but there was no camping at all, not even tent camping anymore. I wondered if that had stopped when there had been a bear attack long ago. Dolores didn’t elaborate on the why. She did mention that the forest was very thick and dangerous, that there were only a few paths designated for hiking, and that if we did go, we should stay together, bring a compass, charged phones, food, water, and bug spray. Noted.

I wandered over to the historical museum section, glancing in the cases as I moved over to the spot where Amber was looking at some old photos of the town that were all piled in a wooden box. There were names on the photos, but even on the newer ones I didn’t notice the name Givens on any of them. I glanced at her questioningly, and she just shook her head. They probably weren’t a very prominent family in the town, just some random people who lived there and no one really cared about. I’d bet their biggest claim to fame was the bear attack.

Amber moved over to a large black-and-white photo of the state forest from above that took up a good portion of one wall. The trails were mapped out in the photo, and there were plenty of printed maps available below it. Caitlin had finished her enthusiastic tourist act and was wandering around the room, looking at things with fake excitement. Dolores joined her as everyone slowly merged toward the spot where Amber and I stood, and she was pointing out touristy things she thought we might be interested in.

“What’s this?” Amber suddenly asked, poking her finger at the big photo, and turning toward Dolores. I looked where she was pointing and noticed what looked like it could be a path but wasn’t marked like the others. I’d glanced at the maps below it but hadn’t noticed it on them at all. On instinct, I grabbed one to take with me, and turned to Dolores, too.

She walked over to us, Jeff, Jesse, and Caitlin all hovering behind her. She squinted at the photo. “I’m not sure what that is,” she finally said, “Not somewhere I’d advise going, since it isn’t marked. The picture is older than the maps, and it doesn’t even look like a clear trail in that. I’m sure it’s all grown up by now, whatever it is, and probably not safe.”

“Oh, of course,” Amber said, sounding nearly as enthusiastic as Caitlin had, “I wasn’t planning on looking for it.” Lies. “To be honest, I’m not sure I’m planning on hiking at all.” She gave a little laugh. “If they all go, that might just be a shopping day for me. I’m not very outdoorsy.” Dolores laughed with her as she went on, “I was just curious, since I’m fascinated with conservation. It makes me sad to see what people have done to destroy nature, building in forest areas and logging, things like that. But I love learning about the conservation efforts people are putting in to try to bring nature back. I’m majoring in environmental science.” My friends were such good liars when they needed to be. “Every time we go somewhere, I’m the one driving all of them crazy trying to learn what the place was like before people got ahold of it.”

Dolores looked appreciative of this curiosity, and Caitlin gave Amber a proud little smile behind her. “Well, let me see if I can find anything,” The older woman said, heading back to her desk. She started pulling out maps of the national forest and Amber followed her, pretending to be enthralled about the history of the area. The rest of us tried to pay attention to them while pretending not to care. I knew the town backed up to the forest at its northernmost point, but we hadn’t seen it yet. I had a feeling, though, that we were getting ready to be well acquainted.

Dolores searched through a few maps, shaking her head before putting them back while Amber waited patiently. Finally, she held one up as she squinted at the big picture the rest of us were still hovering around while trying not to look at her. “Oh, here it is,” she said, standing up, “That explains it.”

She motioned to Amber and headed back over to the big photo. Amber followed right behind her as the rest of us pretended to be only half interested in their conversation. We were all watching as we attempted to hide our eagerness at what she had to say. She held the old map up to the photo on the wall. “It’s an old ranger trail,” she said, “That’s all. It’s no longer in use, and it wouldn’t lead anywhere. It’s been so long I’m sure it would be nearly impossible to find by now, anyway.”

I couldn’t pretend to be uninterested any longer. I looked at the big photo. “What does that mean, exactly? An old ranger trail?” My heart-rate picked up as I stared at the barely visible trail in the photo.

“Well,” Dolores explained, “the trail would have gone to the original ranger station. They built a new one a few miles from the original site, and they would no longer need to use the one on the old trail. I think they wanted it more central in the forest. I do remember when they tore down an old fire tower somewhere in the forest about fifteen years ago. It must have been back on this trail. The new tower is bigger, and the one on this trail would have been too far east to do as much good.”

I took a shaky breath. Were my friends all hearing this? Were they remembering what I was remembering? Did they remember the article on the bear attack? Upon reaching park rangers, the child was rightly traumatized but uninjured. Had Wally and his mother reached rangers who’d been called out to look for them, or had they reached rangers who were working at an old fire tower that no longer existed? And did the rangers stay in the tower, or somewhere else?

Jeff took a step forward, all of us abandoning our fake disinterest by then. “So, are you saying that they tore down any structures that would have been on that trail back then?”

If she wondered why we were all suddenly curious about the vague trail in the photo, she didn’t let on. She shrugged. “I’m not sure. They built a whole dorm for the rangers and interns in the new location. Back when the old tower was still in use, they would have had rangers staying out there, both in the tower and on the ground. There was probably a living space of some sort back there. The tower they tore down wouldn’t have been large enough for a kitchen or a bathroom, and they usually worked long shifts and took turns keeping watch, so there must have been somewhere to sleep, as well. I doubt it was anywhere near the size of the new one they built, though.”

“Oh, how interesting,” Amber said, sounding nothing more than curious, “So there was probably a dorm back there at one point, too? Or a cabin, or something for them to live in back then?”

I tried not to give away everything I was feeling right then. My friends obviously did remember, and they were thinking the same thing I was.

“There was probably something back there, yes,” Dolores replied. “Doubtful it would still be there now, because even if it wasn’t torn down when the tower was, there have been several forest fires and hurricanes since then. I know the tower was torn down so hooligans didn’t try to climb it and accidentally kill themselves, but I don’t know if they’d have bothered with the living structure or just let the elements take care of it.

Amber changed the subject smoothly like the sleuth she apparently was and started asking about some of the houses near the forest in the old pictures, then some in the town to throw the lady off our trail. Our overgrown, no longer existent trail. Dolores was happy to answer and even though we were literally wasting her time, she wasn’t suspicious and ready to call the cops on us.

---