Page 52 of Shattered Veil

“Laptop!” Zoey shrieked. “Leave the other shit.”

“Grab and go, Colt. You have to leave,” I called out. “Cops. Pulling up. Now.”

Luke spoke to the ceiling, “That was not five minutes.”

“Fuck,” Colton cursed. “Grabbing. Going.”

There was a general rustling over the speaker as I assumed that Colton rapidly moved. The air in the car felt as though it had turned even icier than the blizzard had already made it, and we all watched as the single police car leisurely stopped. A man exited the vehicle, beginning a slow descent for the stairs.

Claire yelled, “Where the fuck are you, Colt?!”

“It’s been four fucking seconds,” he retorted. “I’m passing the kitchen.”

“Cop’s on the stairs,” she warned him, her tone deep. “Make a call.”

“God fucking dammi—”

With an odd, static noise that was akin to a vicious crunch, Colton’s voice was cut off.

The wind blew once again—this time, with a gnarly howl—and then, for a moment that I would likely revisit in a future nightmare, all was silent.

With the feel of everyone’s rapid heartbeats thrumming in the air, we stared at the entrance of the complex with an anxious anticipation. Snow continued to fall. The windshield was occasionally needed to wipe the accumulated flakes away.

Per Liam’s surveillance, the hallway remained empty. The policeman had entered 2D, the only sounds to be heard on the camera from him were indeterminable murmurs of code numbers into his radio, and then, after what felt like a mind-numbingly long amount of time, Mister Milkovich made an appearance. We saw him slowly begin to hobble up the stairs—heard him on the camera feed grumbling about the cold, the break-in, and the general time of day—and he wandered inside. Not a word was said between us all as we just…waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And then, Mister Milkovich left along with the police officer.

Colton, however, was nowhere to be seen.

Chapter 11

We had several theories, all of which were discussed within the confines of Henry’s as we awaited Colton’s potential return. Claire thought that he had found a place to hide within 2D, and Liam and Zoey agreed. I brought up the possibility that he found another exit from the apartment, perhaps via a window, despite the space being on the second floor, and Cassie wordlessly nodded. Luke bitterly rambled with gumption that Colton’s personal road to redemption could have led him to be in cahoots with the police, and Colton could have placed evidence directly in the cop’s hands along with the mention of all of our names. His scorned viewpoint was quickly dismissed upon Claire’s stern reminder that Colton was currently, in her words, ‘fucking missing,’ and that he hadn’t, ‘waltzed on out of 2D skipping and holding hands with the cop.’ Furthermore, we rewatched the camera footage and realized that neither Mister Milkovich nor the policeman were carrying a laptop upon their exit.

Our back and forth nervous ponderings eventually petered out, and regardless of how adrenaline coursing through my veins had forced me to be alert, exhaustion hovered over me in a heavy cloud, and my eyes felt as though they were bleeding. Even the dim bar lighting burned my retinas as we occasionally glanced around our usual table seating. Purse-lipped, defeated looks were all we exchanged with the exception of when I would look at Cassie. Her dark gaze was guarded, our eyes would linger for far too long, and she would break our contact with a rapid downshift of her head time and time again.

Over an hour had passed by the time that we all decided to call it for the night or, rather, the early morning, and we all said our adieus because there was nothing to do at this point other than wait. Liam offered Cassie to sleep on his couch due to the questionable condition of the roads. She insisted that her Jeep would make the short trip with ease, and he argued with her for but a moment before Zoey nudged him with her elbow and gave him a curt shake of her head. Cassie set off, and I watched her as she trekked through the snow back to her vehicle—she didn’t bother to look back as she went on her way.

It was when I had returned to my own abode, sitting on my couch without having even taken my snow-soaked boots off, that I realized the similarities between this very moment and the one from months ago. The one after Peter was no longer. The one when I had raced to Cassie’s house so we could simply exist in one another’s presence and not be alone. The thought made my pulse race—not because of the skin crawling, stomach sinking feeling of the memory of Peter that would never die. Not because I was thinking of her, though I most certainly was. Because this moment, as similar as it was to the one that I tried to push out of my brain, was so different.

Of all the reasons that I had yearned to be around Cassie—the simple companionship in the face of terrors past, the itch to know her…really know her, and the thought of all things steamy, hot, and unattainable—this was the worst. The threat of potential evidence being outed regarding Zoey’s stalker’s murder wasn’t gone in the least. It wouldn’t be unless Colton turned up and whatever he found was inevitably destroyed, incriminating or not…and because that had now turned into a waiting game, I was entirely focused on his reasoning for being in Salem. The idea that Cassie was linked to women who have gone missing and could potentially become one of them herself was tearing me up from the inside out.

It was a disjointed thought. I mean, for all we knew, her work was a perfectly fine place of employment despite anything we had heard from Colton, but the nagging thought of her reality being tied to his with an invisible string was gnawing at me. Truthfully, I knew nothing for certain, and neither did she…but I had felt her nervousness earlier, and that made the idea feel real. So very, very real.

And it was because of that that I was only sitting for approximately five minutes before I stomped right back out into the cold, praying that my car would muster the drive. Just like earlier, when Luke had called, I hadn’t even bothered to grab a jacket or my glasses. I just left. I drove sitting on the tip of my tailbone, peeling my eyes to follow the road that was obscured by the storm. With each gentle turn making my tires spin out from beneath me, the drive was slow with my grip on the wheel white-knuckled, but it was all pushed out of my mind the second that I arrived.

The alarm on my phone went off as I pulled up to the left of her Jeep. The sound of a gently played piano rang throughout the car, and I let out a ragged exhale because that noise was typically the start to my day. From Monday through Friday, the quiet tune would wake me at six o’clock on the dot. It called to me now as if this morning were no different, and I groaned an exasperated:

“Oh, Jesus Christ.”

I quickly removed my cell from my pocket, dismissed the alarm, and opened the door to be greeted with a brisk, icy breeze washing over me. I shook my head, wiping the snow from my face and leaving a damp trail in its path, and before I was even able to shut the car door, I saw her.

The light from inside her home illuminated her porch. She was barefoot despite the cold, standing just beyond the several inches of snow that had already piled high. A baggy orange t-shirt draped over her body to her upper thighs, black shorts peeked out just below, and she had let her hair down. With her messy bun having left the long strands kinked and frazzled, the air condensating in front of her with every exhale, and her eyes wide as she watched me, her expression was one of shock mixed with something wild.

I took slow, purposeful steps through the snow, and it wasn’t until I halted directly in front of her that she asked:

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