Page 98 of The Guy Next Door

Leif chuckles, which makes me think of that first discussion, when he was still adjusting to my sarcasm.

“So you hung out with Mike some,” Leif says, “but you weren’t friends?”

“We were both taking what was supposed to be a basic graphic-design class, and the teacher was kicking our ass. Nothing brings people together like a crappy teacher. So we’d study a little. Then chill and drink, get high, play video games. He was easy to talk to. We both had weird stuff in our childhood. Oh shit. Maybe that’s not stuff I should be bringing up.” He glances between Leif and me again.

“It’s fine,” I say. “I’ve talked to Leif about how we grew up.”

“I was raised in a New Agey religious group,” Wes continues. “I figure most people would call it a cult. Didn’t get out until I was in my teens and went to live with my mom, so both Mike and I had daddy issues to bond over. Long story short, even though we didn’t get into the details much about our experiences, he felt like a kindred spirit.”

“And he told you about a note he received?” Leif asks.

“One day, after we ate some brownies and were playingFortnite, he mentioned this weird-ass letter he got. He thought it might have been from me, but I don’t write weird-ass notes when I’m into someone. But when we were talking about all this, it was just a funny thing. I didn’t think much of it.

“Then he went missing like a month later, and that rattled around in my brain. And people were already talking on campus about how Jason Kilbourne had disappeared a year before that, so I thought there might be a connection. The cops didn’t seem all that interested in my vague recollection about a note. I told them what I remembered, but they didn’t, like, document it or ask me to write it down.”

“Why did you go to a Reddit forum to post about the note?” I ask. “You could have reached out to me.”

“That was before Leif’s note popped up, so at the time, I assumed if there had been anything to what I told the cops, they would’ve told you. And if it was nothing, I would have felt like an ass for planting this wild theory in your head when you must’ve been worried enough as it was.”

That makes sense.

“What about after you saw my note?” Leif asks.

“After the Reddit account got inundated with requests for interviews from around the country, I let it go. I didn’t know there was another note until I got a call from Detective Roth. She mentioned the possibility that the note in the response was a copycat trying to get some attention online.”

Meanwhile, she’d led me to believe she hadn’t followed up on his post, but now I figure she was trying to keep me out of it because of my bad behavior.

“I think it’s my fault she didn’t take you seriously,” I confess.

“Why would that be your fault?”

“I fucked up, and I think she probably followed up on what you said about the note initially because of me. But afterward, she might have thought I’d talked you into writing it.”

“That would be a strange thing for someone to do.”

“I did a strange thing,” I say. “But that’s a separate, long-ass story.”

“Whatever happened, after talking with that detective about my post, I tried to move on with my life and forget about it. Then I saw the news, and it got my head back in it. And when I checked my account, I was shocked to see a PM from someone claiming to be Mike’s brother. Now I wish I’d reached out to you, that I’d trusted my gut about there being some connection.”

His comment reflects my feelings around my gut instinct about Isaac Tolle. And how much time I’ve spent trying to talk myself out of something that feels like it’s burned into my fucking soul.

“So once you told Mike the note wasn’t from you, did he say anything about who else it might have been from?”

Wes shakes his head. “At first when he brought it up, I didn’t even think he was being serious. And then he just changed the subject.”

“Did he ever mention a teacher helping him with his essays?”

Wes’s gaze drifts, and he bites his bottom lip. “That’s not ringing any bells.”

“Isaac Tolle?”

His eyes widen, and a rush of adrenaline shoots through me.

There it is!

A flare of hope.

But as quickly as Wes’s expression came to life, it twists up. “Oh, wait. No. I’m thinking of Isaac Clarke from theDead Spaceseries. Sorry.”

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