Page 59 of That's Not My Name

He stares at the photo on the flier for a very long, very silent minute, and then looks up at me. “I remember it. Took Autumn a month to finish that thing.” He jots some notes on a pad by his elbow, and it looks like he’s copying what I typed onto the flier almost verbatim. “But what are the chances it’s the same one? A lot of people have jean jackets. We live in the Pacific Northwest.”

“A lot of people have handmade custom jackets with pastel floral sleeves and Lola’s initials sewn into the tag? Hell, you probably have scraps of the fabric at your house.”

He huffs out a laugh, writing something else down. “I probably do.”

“It should at least warrant a trip out there, right? The jacket might not be enough on its own, but maybe the diner has footage of her wearing it? Or of the vehicle? Or the man with her?”

He nods to himself, looking over his notes, then looks up at me with a frown. “How on Earth did you get ahold of the woman from the diner? Did she find one of these?” he asks, gesturing to the flier on his desk with the back of his pen.

Yeah, I sent them by carrier pigeon to the goddamned coast. “No, she called the tip—”

The rest of my sentence dies on my lips and the weight of my mistake drags me back in my chair, into the blinding sunlight.Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Roane slowly lifts his eyes to me, his face growing redder by the second. “The what?”

Fuck. “I ah…”

“You can’t possibly mean the tip-line recordings, right Drew?Ourofficial, police-monitored tip-line information? Because that would mean you stole evidence, and there’s no fucking way you’re that stupid, right?” he bellows, standing so fast his office chair flies back and hits the paneled wall behind him.

I put my face in my hands.Fuck.

“How the hell did you get onto my computer?”

I have to salvage this. He was listening before I opened my stupid mouth. “Roane, I know you’re hulking out, but I need you to pay attention, okay? How I got the information doesn’t matter. What matters is what I found—”

He glares at me. “What did you do, come in through the window? I knew something was up last night. You’ve been avoiding me and this investigation for weeks, hiding behind your dads and your lawyer, and then you suddenly come in willing to share your feelings? Bullshit. You got caught in the act and lied your way out of it, like you do everything else.”

“No. I told you the truth about Lola, butnoneof this matters, Roane. Lola’s the only one who matters. Listen to the recording again. It’s her jac—”

“Fucking teenagers,” he mutters to himself. “I’m going to check the security tapes and when I catch you on camera stealing from my office, you’re done for.”

He crumples the flier and throws it at me. I catch it against my chest and gape at him. I literally hand him a lead, and he throws it aside? Sure,be mad about last night. Whatever. Arrest me. I don’t even care. But don’t throw out viable information because you don’t like who it came from.

“Roane, please. You need to talk with this woman. I’m begging you.”

He reaches forward, and for a second I think he’s going to press play on my phone, listen to Meredith tell her story again, but I’m wrong. Instead, he throws it across the room. It hits the door and falls, clattering to the carpet with a hollow sound. “I’m the sheriff. I don’t take orders from the prime suspect in a missing person case.”

My shoulders deflate. “You’re really not going to do anything about this?”

He folds his arms. “I’m not buying this smoke-screen bullshit. You were the last person to see her, and now you conveniently have all this evidence that points to her being on the coast with a strange man in a creepy van? Come the fuck on, kid. The most obvious answer is usually the right one. So you tell me, which sounds more plausible: That she got in a fight with her boyfriend and things went too far, or that she and her very specific jacket were abducted by a stranger who’s treating her to lunch at a coastal diner?”

“Roane, I—”

“My team will sort through the tip line calls eventually, so if this turns out to be a genuine lead? We’ll handle it. But I think this is a load of BS. Hell, the call from Waybrooke could have been your doing for all I know. You’re trying to play it off like you’re the concerned boyfriend, butyouput her in harm’s way in the first place.”

All the fight leaves me. My head drops back until I’m staring at the ceiling. I don’t know why I came here. Why did I think this would make him deviate from what he’s already decided happened that night?

If Roane’s in charge, Lola’s as good as dead.

I grab my backpack and snatch my phone off the floor. I turn itover in my palm, this thing that holds the first hope I’ve had in weeks. “Someone has her, Roane, and if you don’t look into this and she turns up dead, nobody will ever forgive you.”

“Enough with the dramatics, Drew. We’re not looking for some Ted Bundy wannabe. There’s no bogeyman serial killer hanging out by the river. Things like that don’t happen around here.”

“Would you bet Lola’s life on it?”

He falters, just for a second. I turn and march out of his office, but of course, he can’t let me have the last word.

“Tell your parents to take a lot of family photos over the next few days, kid,” he calls after me, as the stares of half a dozen police officers and Miss Savannah follow me out the door. “Might be the last time they see you outside a jail cell for a long, long time.”

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