Page 28 of The Whisper Place
“Explain what happened with Silas,” Jonah interrupted. He leaned into the table and pressed fists to his temples, eyes closed. I flipped my notebook to a fresh page and channeled the paper’s blankness—evening out my breathing and wiping my head of anyspeculation—giving Jonah a neutral place to land if he needed it. I wrote while Charlie talked.
Charlie first met Silas Hepworth the week after he bought his house. Silas had driven the short distance between their properties and, instead of introducing himself or welcoming Charlie to the neighborhood, started in on a property dispute he’d had with the previous owner.
“It was dumb. A damaged tree from my property that fell on his. He demanded I clean it upandgive him the wood. I did, only to smooth things over. With the grow business, I didn’t want asshole neighbors who’d be watching my every move. And when I brought him the wood, he started talking about Vietnam and his back and how he was in pain all the time. Long story short, he became a customer.”
Charlie sold him weed regularly for years, stopping by on the second Wednesday of the month when Hepworth’s social security payments came through. It wasn’t the most pleasant hour of the month. Hepworth complained about the news, the government, the other neighbors, picking apart his limited world in front of a captive audience. Charlie listened, nodded, took his money, and left as soon as he could.
“Who else lives with him?”
“No one. He’s alone, rotting in front of his TV.”
Fists still pressed into his temples, Jonah explained the face he and Eve saw in the trailer window when they tried to interview Silas.
Charlie shrugged. “I never saw anyone there except Silas.”
Jonah nodded imperceptibly. Charlie was telling the truth about the mystery face, which meant we still didn’t know who was tracking Jonah and Eve this morning with a shotgun.
Charlie kept talking. Apparently, things with Silas took a turn about a month ago. Hepworth ran into them while they were out on a walk.
“He was getting his mail as we passed and I introduced them. He didn’t say much. Neither did Kate. I remembered being happy to get out of there fast before he could go on some rant. Then I went to drop off his stuff the next time.” Charlie stopped pacing, shaking his head at the ground. His face turned a darker shade of red and his words were clenched, bitten out. “The crap he said about her . . .”
“What?” Blake was on her feet now, too.
Charlie tried to wave her off, but he was fighting revulsion. “He called her a whore. He said she was using me and I needed to put her in her place.”
“What the hell?” Blake looked ready to do violence. “He didn’t even know her, did he?”
“I don’t see how. He barely leaves his house. He’s just—”
“A misogynist,” Jonah said without lifting his head.
“Yeah,” Charlie agreed. “He was always trashing his ex-wives. Anyway, I told him I wasn’t going to listen to his bullshit, especially not about Kate. I cut him off. Said I was done selling to him.”
Finally, Jonah straightened up. He was way too pale, even in the half-light of the midnight bakery, but he looked straight at Charlie, understanding the situation more than anyone else in the room could.
“That’s when he began blackmailing you.”
Jonah
I didn’t remember much about leaving the bakery. One minute I was sinking in a vat of shock, fear, and simmering anger and the next I was in Max’s driveway as he killed his engine and turned off the headlights. His neighborhood was dark and quiet. I followed the lines of the house, tracing the places where it ended and the night beyond it began, trying to draw the same lines around myself.
Next to me, Max mulled over the interview and everything we’d learned.
“Beer?”
My stomach lurched. “Sure.”
We went to the garage. The smell of motor oil and mulch hung heavy and sweet in the motionless air. Max turned on a task light, leaving the rest of the space dark, and set a beer down on his workbench. When he went inside to talk to Shelley, I pressed the can to my head, concentrating on the cold condensation running down my fingers. I could tell, through the fading emotions, that he was lingering inside. Giving me space to breathe. By the time he came back, I felt better. Less like vomiting, at least.
“Was it Charlie?”
I nodded. Set the beer down. “He hadn’t considered Silas Hepworth in connection to Kate’s disappearance before. It hit him hard and he kept thinking about possibilities, all the things Hepworth could have done to her.” I swallowed, trying to keep the images at bay now that they’d started to blur, but I could still see her body, broken, violated, her frantic face reflected in his head. “It was a lot.”
“Why didn’t you take a break, get some air?”
I shot Max a look. “Why didn’t you?”
“Because I don’t have the superpower in this agency.”
