Page 51 of Winter's End

I double-checked the dates; Cheryl’s death was within the week of Georgio breaking up with Mom.

Double shit.

I tried to find more information about Cheryl, but the only other mention of her was the announcement of a closed casket funeral in the back of the Cascade Falls Chronicle.

My heart ached for that poor family. If Rosie or Dawn were ever found that way… my throat tightened at the mere thought of it, let alone the devastation of it being real. I’d hug them a little tighter at family dinner this weekend.

In the same year of archives, I came across a front-page feature on all the scholarship winners in Cascade Falls—Darren Wallace and Emmett Quicksilver were awarded a full ride for engineering—no real surprise there; but the family name on the scholarship fund caught my eye most of all; The Baker Family Fund.

Our town was small—it was virtually impossible this Baker family wasn’t one and the same as Carson and Wyatt.

Another thing to look into later.

I searched the archives for another hour, but could find nothing else of value, other than a few ‘Business Profile’ articles featuring Antonio Carlos’ business interests in Sequoia County. He was welcomed into our little communities with open arms, no one the wiser that he would slowly poison them all.

I packed up and thanked the librarian on my way out. Back in the privacy of my car, I called Mom again.

“Can you tell me more about Brenda?” I asked as I pulled out of the parking lot.

“Drew, I don’t want you looking into this, I?—”

“Mom, I say this with all the love in my heart. I’m in this mess because of you and Dad. And I’m going to get to the bottom of it. So, you can help me get there faster, or I’m going to do it myself, but it’s happening, regardless.”

Her resignation was evident in the silence that followed. I was about to prompt her again when she let out a deep sigh and said, “What do you want to know?”

“You said she was ‘troubled’ before. What did you mean?”

Another pause.

“Brenda wasn’t … mentally stable. I think she would have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, if there was as much information about it back then as there is now. Maybe she was, and we just didn’t know it. She self-medicated a lot. Usually just weed or alcohol, but sometimes pills. She used sex as a distraction, too. She fluttered between most of the guys in our friend group, but she was hyper-fixated on Emmett.”

That wasn’t surprising. At least the affair with Shane’s dad was making a little more sense.

“Were they a couple?” I asked bluntly, not willing to betray Shane’s confidence, but needing answers for him as much as for myself.

“Sometimes. I think Emmett really cared about her, but she couldn’t commit to just him.”

I thrummed my fingers against the dashboard in thought.

“Did anything change after Cheryl died?”

“How did you?—”

“I’m investigating, Mom. What happened?”

Cue third lengthy pause.

“Brenda was a wreck, and our friendship collapsed. In hindsight, I probably could have been a better friend to her, but Ididn’t know how. She had all sorts of conspiracy theories and would accuse random people of pushing Cheryl into the river, and her parents sent her away for treatment at one point. When she came back, it was after we’d all moved on to university, and I didn’t end up connecting with her again.”

I couldn’t think of anything else to ask her in that moment, so I thanked her and hung up, but not before getting a mother-fueled lecture about ‘being careful’ and to ‘stay safe.’

If only she knew.

I suddenly had a very ballsy, potentially terrible idea. Before I could overthink it, I drove to the WAQ Engineering building and made my way up to their main office on the tenth floor.

I had never been here before. Feeling like a fish out of water, I stood at the reception desk and requested an impromptu meeting with my girlfriend’s father, but I would not lose my new courage. Not until I had my say.

“Drew?” Darren’s confused face popped into view as he rounded the corner. “Is everything all right?”

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