Page 115 of Indigo Sky

He looked up from his phone and nodded. “I told her I couldn’t make it. I didn’t wanna leave you alone when …” He shrugged, not wanting to finish the sentence, but I understood, and I appreciated it.

“Can you get in touch with her now?”

“I already did.” He held his phone up. “Kate never showed up.”

A thousand obscenities flew through my brain as I turned, shaking my head. Every worst-case scenario was there, playing before my eye, blinding my view of the apartment.

“Listen,” Nate said, his voice serious. Grave. “I looked up that guy, Jason Peters. Cass gave me his name.”

I turned back to him to find him tapping across his phone.

“I agree with you. I don’t think he’s the guy we should be looking for. But look at this.”

He held his phone out to me, and I took it. There was an article, a headline written in bold font—Man Accused of Stalking Exotic Dancer Claims Innocence. My brow furrowed, my head tipped, as I took the phone and scrolled through the article, skimming the words.

“Jason had been at the club,” I muttered, reading aloud in broken sentences. “Pursued the dancer who wasn’t interested … his behavior became volatile … kicked out of the club … accused of stalking her outside of the club, breaking into her home … insists he was wrongly accused.”

I looked up, about to speak, but Nate wagged his finger at the phone.

“Keep scrolling. I don’t think the guy did it, man. I mean, maybe he went to the club and acted like an asshole, but the rest of it …” He looked doubtful. “Just look at his picture.”

I did as he’d said and found the photograph of Jason Peters. A mugshot. Dark hair. Heavy, sunken eyes. An angular, gaunt face that belonged in a Tim Burton movie.

My heart pounded in my ears. My hand began to tremble and sweat.

Nate waited a moment for me, allowing time for realization to sink in. Then, he asked, “Look like anyone we know?”

“It’s a coincidence,” I insisted, shaking my head. “I mean, yeah, it’s weird, but—"

Her dad knew Roy. She knew …

"Donny." I uttered his name, then swallowed and threw the phone onto the table. “She went to pick up her car,” I said, my voice quaking and higher-pitched. “Holyfuck, Nate! She went to pick up hercar!”

He was already standing, tossing the rest of his pizza into the box. He grabbed his keys from the counter and headed toward the door while declaring, "I'll drive."

***

We drove in near silence until we got to Roy's shop. Kate's car was still parked outside … and so was Donny's truck. Exactly where I'd left them that morning.

A sickening, sinking feeling of dread wrapped its cold, gangly, dead fingers around my gut and squeezed. I wanted to puke, and my lips trembled around the need to heave.

"I have to tell you something," Nate said as he killed the headlights and pulled into the parking lot, stopping in the blanket of shadows.

"Now?" I hissed, envisioning every depraved thing Donny might be doing right now.

Maybe she's already dead.

Shut up.

He's had all day, and she's still here.

"Yeah, just in case." He reached across the car for the glove compartment, opened the hatch, and dug around until he found a black drawstring bag. "Do you remember that night when my mom's house went up in flames?"

He pulled the bag open and unveiled a black handgun, gleaming in the moonlight.

"Yeah," I muttered, my eye transfixed on the gun.

Nate had had a gun once before. The airsoft gun, the one he'd used to threaten Roy's old buddy—what was his name? Fuck, I couldn’t remember, but he was the one who'd gotten me fired.

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