Page 36 of Brody

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I shouldn’t have let him come. He’d somehow got his hands on Poppy Milford’s key and buried it in the woods, so it was clear he was involved in everything that was happening. However, without his memories, there was no way to know his initial intentions. Plus, even if Ellis was just an innocent bystander who’d been dragged into this, he already had enough problemson his plate. He should just remain somewhere safe and focus on getting his memories back.

For all these reasons, I didn’t want him to come along with me when I went to visit Deputy Hillard.

Unfortunately, he’d climbed into my truck before I could object and refused to get out no matter how I tried to argue. Ellis wasn’t a fighter, but he was also a large man, and forcibly pulling him out of the truck without hurting him would be a struggle.

Magnus had turned out to be no help, either. He and Trent had just watched with amused looks on their faces from the porch of Magnus’s house as I ordered, argued, and pleaded with Ellis to get out of the truck.

It was no use. In the end, I had to bring Ellis along with me or I’d end up completely missing my meeting with Deputy Hillard.

The ride into town had been uncomfortably silent. It was clear Ellis had something to say, but the few times he turned to me and opened his mouth like he was about to speak, no words came out and he eventually, went back to watching the trees pass by the window.

Thankfully, the drive into town didn’t take too long.

Emberwood was a very small town with only one main road. Most buildings didn’t even have proper addresses and were merely differentiated by whether they were on the north side or the south side of the main road. The town’s small police station was on the north side, but I kept driving until I pulled up to a little diner on the south side. It was a small building, only big enough to fit about a dozen tables. From the outside, it didn’t look like a diner. The building had once been a carriage house, and when the new owners bought it to turn it into a restaurant,they couldn’t bear to alter the hand-carved woodwork that decorated the outside.

So, they’d left everything the same and simply painted the door a bright shade of blue to make it stand out. The restaurant didn’t even have a name. Everyone simple referred to it as “The Blue Door.”

Pulling into one of the limited parking spots on the street outside the diner, I turned the ignition off.

The silence stretching between us didn’t last for long as Ellis was eager to continue our argument.

“You can’t say this has nothing to do with me. I may not remember what happened, but it’s clear that I was involved somehow. Between the key I buried in the woods, and theMothers of the Mountain, and the body you found, something is clearly going on that I’m involved with. I can’t just sit back and… and do nothing.”

I shouldn’t get mad at him. It was no surprise that he was being stubborn about this.

Hell, if I was in his shoes, I’d probably be twice as stubborn. But I couldn’t help it. The thought of dragging him into danger filled me with a sense of dread I couldn’t explain.

I gripped the steering wheel so hard my knuckles turned white. Taking a deep breath, I forced myself to relax and pried my hands off the wheel.

“Ellis, I’m going in there to meet with Deputy Hillard, and you are going to sit here and stay out of the way. I don’t need you to interfere. You’re already more involved than you should be, so for now, you just need to stay out of the way. Understood?”

Although Ellis was a large man, he still managed to slump down in his seat so far that he almost looked like a chastised child.

“Yeah. Got it. You don’t need me. You’ve made that… you’ve made that very clear.”

I’d been through a lot of shit in my life, some of it my own doing, but I’d never felt worse than I did in that moment as I walked away from the truck. I kept an ear tuned to the sound of the door opening to make sure Ellis didn’t follow me, but I couldn’t bear to look back and see him sitting there with that defeated expression on his face.

A decent person would have gone back. A decent person would apologize and find some way to work things out, rather than just walk away.

I kept walking and stepped through the door of the diner.

It was just another example of why we shouldn’t get involved with each other. I wasn’t a decent enough person.

There weren’t many customers in the diner, but due to its small size, most of the tables were still full. I could see everything from the front door, so it wasn’t hard to spot Deputy Hillard sitting in the far back corner. We locked eyes for a moment, but he didn’t make any other move to draw attention to my presence.

“We could have met at your office,” I said as I pulled out a chair at his table. “Assuming that rundown little station of yours even has offices.”

Deputy Hillard prodded with his fork at the barely touched plate of pancakes sitting in front of him.

“We do, but it’s not… it’s just good to get out of the office when I can.”

Translation: he feared being overheard by his own coworkers.

This meant that either his investigation into the body found on our property and the stolen items was being done “off the books”, or he suspected that one of his own coworkers was involved.

That explained the barely touched meal in front of him. Coming to a diner without ordering anything would look suspicious, but there weren’t many places in this small town where two people could meet up without drawing attention.

The waitress came by, and I ordered a basic cup of coffee, but waved away the menu. I had no intention of hanging around long enough for a pretend meal.