Page 53 of The Whisper Place
“Asshole. Big one. If you’ve talked to him for two minutes, you probably already know that.”
Jonah glanced at me. From the light of the phone screen, I could tell he was wondering the same thing I was. “When was the last time you saw your father?”
Theo sighed. “Two Christmases ago, I guess? He demanded I come home for the holiday. Kept calling and texting. I finally gave in. It was Covid and I couldn’t really go anywhere else, but man, it was the wrong call.”
“You have a bad relationship with him?”
Theo laughed again, loud and bitter this time. “Cliché, right? Sons hating their fathers, but mine . . . Everything was about how it made him look. My grades, my sports, my friends. And nothing was enough. It’s like I grew up with a black hole. I don’t know how, but after I moved out and Valerie left, he got even worse. When I saw him on Christmas, he was raging about all kinds of shit. Covid conspiracies, election fraud, tons of racist stuff. He spent half the day online and showed me pictures of Valerie’s new place. I was like, what, are you stalking her?”
“Was he?”
“Not in his mind. He doesn’t think like that. He threw shade on her house and her car, talked about how much worse off she was without him. I was like, yeah, whatever, this has been fun. I left as soon as I could and I’ve hardly talked to him since.”
“I’m sorry. Sounds like you didn’t have it easy,” I offered.
“I’m gone now. On two different meds, I barely make rent, and my last girlfriend said I had ‘trust issues,’ but I’m not under his thumb anymore. I make my own decisions. Living my own life, you know?”
The wind picked up. At the bottom of the hill, the car doors stood open, light spilling out of the cab. I was about to thank Theoand let him go when Jonah grabbed my wrist, holding the phone in place.
“You lived at your dad’s house the whole time you grew up?” Jonah rattled off the address.
“Yeah?” Theo sounded confused.
“Did you ever hear about a woman who’d gone missing in that area? It probably would’ve been when you were in late middle or early high school.”
Of course. Theo would have been right there when the woman was buried in the woods behind his house.
He thought for a minute before answering. “Not that I can remember. But I wasn’t really paying attention to the news then. That was around the time my mom left. She just left a note one day and was gone.”
I looked at Jonah, his face cut into ghostly light and shadow. His eyes went wide with understanding.
I thanked Theo for his time, rushing him off the phone, when a gunshot exploded in the night.
Jonah
I tackled Max, sending us both to the ground.
The blast came from the base of the hill, somewhere near Max’s car. I rolled over, crushing rows of young stalks, as Max searched for a weapon he didn’t have. The shadow of the oak tree and the cloudy sky hid the shooter from sight.
“Get down here if you don’t want to eat lead,” the voice barked.
We both hesitated. It was too far away for me to sense anything.
“Silas?”
Another gunshot blast answered the question, ringing across the open plain and echoing off distant barns. “I said now.”
“Don’t shoot.” Max lifted his hands, getting up as slowly as possible. “We’re unarmed and not causing any harm.”
We walked down the hill, hands raised, and met Silas Hepworth at the bottom. He reloaded his shotgun, braced his squat legs, and aimed at Max’s chest. Surprise and anger rolled off him when he recognized us.
Max started to explain, but Silas cut him off.
“I could shoot you right here. Nothing stopping me.” He would, too. I could feel the urge taking hold. Max shone his phone light on both of us, pausing on each hand.
“We’re not threatening you.”
“You’re on my land. Loitering, trespassing. I got the right to stand my ground.” The shotgun didn’t waver. The barrel was still fixed on Max’s chest. “Two guys hired to harass me, on my property after dark doing God knows what. Probably planting evidence, trying to frame me for that bitch’s disappearance.”
