Page 56 of Reading Between the Lines
“If they all had a hand in creating this nonsense, it could have been any of them who decided to see if it would work, act it out, or whatever.” He stared long and hard at the teen. “Who all’s in your Murder Club. How many members?”
“I’m sorry, Oh Captain, my captain. I can’t share that information. It’s against the rules.”
Diem’s nostrils flared.
“Who’s in charge of your so-called group? Clearly you don’t have a teacher overseeing you.”
Atlaspffed. “They would never go along with what we do.”
“No. They wouldn’t,” I said. “So who came up with this club idea? Who runs it? Who makes the rules? Who decides who can join and who can’t?”
“Come on, man. Wasn’t it obvious?” Atlas motioned to the diner.
Diem answered before I could wager a guess. “Loyal.” He flicked the twenty at Atlas and snagged my arm, escorting me back to the Jeep.
13
Diem
Without a proper office space, I didn’t know where to go. The B&B from hell was out of the question. With the new information, Tallus and I weren’t going anywhere soon, so we would need to collect our things and make arrangements to stay at a different location before nightfall. At some point, I would need to call Delaney and update her on the situation, but until I knew what that situation was exactly, she could wait.
“Where are we going?” Tallus asked as I weaved aimlessly along side streets, using the time to think.
“I don’t know.”
“We need to talk to Loyal.”
“I agree, but we have no idea where he fucked off to, and until I can do some research and discover where he lives, we have no direction.” I stopped at a stop sign and studied my options. Left or right? “Do you have the area marked where they pulled the kid from the river?”
“I do.” Tallus dug his phone from a pocket and pulled up Maps. “Head north.”
I followed his instructions until the main body of town vanished behind us, and we landed on the outskirts. On the left, the tree-lined street held the odd wartime-style house in poor repair. The larger properties did not equate to wealth, and the vast majority of the extra space showed rundown sheds, collapsing fences, and randomly parked rusty trailers.
The Ganaraska River followed the road on our right. In the distance, across the water, the town’s more affluent population lived in multilevel modern houses with tiered verandas, groomed lawns, and expensive amenities.
Soon, thick tree cover blocked my view as we moved into a forested area and veered away from the river’s edge. “Are we close?”
“Kind of. Park here if you can. We’ll have to walk into the trees, but it’s not far now.”
I pulled over onto the wide shoulder and put the Jeep in Park, glancing into the rearview mirror. Traffic was nonexistent so far out of town. This road in particular had not been salted, and the temperature outside still hovered near freezing. With the heavy cloud cover and limited sunshine, it wasn’t melting either.
The back end of what appeared to be a trailer park sat in the distance on the opposite side of the road. Chances were, the Jeep would be fine, provided some idiot with a lead foot didn’t weave around the corner too fast and skid, crashing into her.
I let Tallus lead the way. The frozen grass crunched underfoot until we found protection within the trees. The ground turned mucky, littered with fall’s rotting foliage.
Tallus stepped carefully around slicker parts, moving slowly. “These shoes are going to be ruined. What are the chances we can write them off? Make Delaney pay for new ones.” He glanced back with a hopeful expression.
“That’s not how it works.”
“It should be how it works.”
The rush of the river sounded in the distance, and I sensed its violence long before we came upon it. When we did, it was at an awful location. A steep drop of fifteen or more feet ended at the racing current below. Slabs of sharp rocks poked out of the water’s surface. The spray and gathering froth was like an angry pit bull baring its teeth and spitting its rage. I couldn’t tell how deep the water was but had a hunch it wouldn’t matter. Whether four feet or over my head, a person would be no match against such a brutal rush.
I snagged the back of Tallus’s jacket when he moved too close to the edge to peek over. “Christ. Do you have a death wish? You can hardly stay upright on flat ground with those shoes on. You want to risk slippery mud and a fucking drop-off?”
“I was just looking. We’re on the wrong side.” He pointed to a spot in the distance. “I can see the trail Delaney told us about. The story talked about that path, remember? If there’s any truth behind it, Weston was over there.”
I glanced in both directions, but the river stretched wide in this area, an angry thirty or more yards, and I didn’t see a bridge or any means of crossing nearby. We could have been close to where the kid had gone into the water, but I doubted this was where he was found. The current was too strong, and the path Tallus indicated was at the peak of a similar embankment, meaning the dog walker would have needed to scale down the steep side to reach Weston, and that didn’t seem possible.
