Page 19 of The Guilty One

Most of them are simple and easily explainable—an invitation to an alumni game, a wedding invitation for a classmate.

What’s strange is that Tate hasn’t replied to a single email from what I can tell, though Dakota kept sending them.

The most recent emails are a bit more confusing. Five days before Tate went missing, Dakota emailed him with a single question mark. Two days before Tate disappeared, he sent an address without an explanation.

Interest piqued, I copy the address and paste it into the internet search bar, but I find that it’s the address of an insurance firm a town away. Nelson Insurance Company. Could this be related to work somehow? Was that why Dakota and Tate were in touch again? Maybe it is somehow related to the bad appraisal Tate told me about before.

If that was even true.

I hate that it’s come to this. That I’m now having to question everything Tate has ever told me. We were never that couple. We trusted each other, had faith in each other. Before the text I confronted him about last week, I can count the number of times I questioned him about anything on less than one hand. He never gave me any reason to doubt him. Or maybe I just saw what I wanted to see. Maybe I didn’t look hard enough. Have I just been foolish all this time?

I know for certain now that he was lying about more than I knew. That he took a vacation and lied to me about where he was going every day. I feel so stupid. I must look so stupid. I rarely questioned anything, and Tate took advantage of that.

I scroll back through his emails and scour each line for anything that might stand out, but there’s nothing. Who was this man? Why wasn’t Tate responding to him?

If he was simply just an old classmate that Tate had no interest in speaking to, why was he in my husband’s car? It’s another piece to the puzzle, yet I can’t seem to place it. It doesn’t seem to fit anywhere inside this mosaic of solutionless clues.

I click on one of the invitations to an alumni game and realize Tate was CC’d to the email with two other guys. It’s no surprise to me that I don’t recognize either of these names any more than Dakota’s. Aaron Bond and Bradley Jennings.

Opening up my browser again, I search Aaron’s name first.

It takes seconds for the results to load, and when they do, my heart stalls. Aaron Bond works for Nelson Insurance Company. What are the odds this isn’t all related somehow?

Without second-guessing myself, I grab my phone and dial the number listed on the website.

“Nelson Insurance, Kristen speaking. How can I help you?”

“Hi, Kristen. I was hoping to speak with Aaron Bond, if he’s in.”

“Sure,” she chirps happily. “Can I tell him who’s calling?”

Shoot. I can’t be honest here. Somehow, I just know I can’t. “Um, Melinda Jones,” I say, spouting off the first fake name I can concoct.

“Okay, please hold, Ms. Jones.”

Within a few seconds, I hear the trill sound of a phone ringing and then, “Nelson Insurance, thanks for holding. This is Aaron.”

“Hi, Aaron.” I take a deep breath. “This is Celine Thompson. You don’t know me, but I believe you know my husband, Tate?—”

“I don’t want anything to do with this.” His warm tone turns cold in an instant.

“Anything to do with what? I’m sorry, my husband is missing, and I thought?—”

“Please don’t call here again,” he says firmly. “Don’t contact me.”

“But—”

The line goes dead before I can utter another word. What in the world was that about? Chills line my skin as I think back over the way he spoke to me. Something upset him. I upset him, but why? And what did he mean about not wanting anything to do with it?

Hoping I’ll have better luck with the second name, I type it into the browser.

Bradley Jennings.

The first result holds answers, just not ones I was hoping for. It’s yet another mysterious piece of this unending puzzle. One that just got a lot more serious, too.

Because Bradley Jennings, just like Dakota Miller, and potentially just like Tate, is dead. Stranger still, he died a week ago today.

CHAPTER NINE

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