by Loretta Lost
Love.
A great love. Just like he said.
Gently removing the necklace from the paper, I fumble with the clasp in the dark to fasten it around my neck. Then I look back up at the sky.
“I’m going to find him,” I declare, before placing my hand over the necklace. “Dead or alive. And I could really use some Moon Crystal Power right about now.”
I sip my coffee as my Bugatti barrels down the desert highway at twice the posted limit. I had to give in to my cravings at the last gas station, to help me stay awake. After leaving my high school, I found myself unable to drive back to the hotel. Instead, my car was being pulled in the other direction; north east. The moon was hanging high in the sky, beckoning me, guiding me.
Long ago, I remember driving up north, with Cole. Whenever he was most stressed out and overwhelmed, that’s what he would do, to clear his head. Just drive. Drive out across the mountains and deserts. Drive through small towns that are barely on the map. Drive through surreal landscapes that would inspire the soul and take your breath away.
He would drive to the middle of nowhere. He would drive to the end of the earth.
So, where exactly is that? The end of the earth.
I’ve been mulling it over in my brain.
I even used the Google Maps app on my phone to search for the “end of the earth” but the only result I got was a church in New Jersey. That’s way too far to drive, and I highly doubt Cole would be there. But it does have a good review on Yelp. Apparently, that church is an excellent place to pray for your sins in order to avoid burning in hell—if you trust the Yelp reviews.
My natural inclination is to head in the general direction of Death Valley. It seems appropriate considering the circumstances. Besides, I know that Cole always loved the topography. He spent so much time in cities, creating concrete landscapes, and being immersed in a geography of flawed structures built by other humans. He always found it refreshing to look upon natural, virgin terrain. Perfection.
“Scar,” he would say in wonder. “If there is a god, he’s a fucking amazing architect. And if not, and this is all just random natural forces and tectonic plates, millions of years of erosion, and glaciers—that’s pretty fucking amazing, too.”
Thinking about how passionately Cole loved the world makes me smile. But when my brain starts to dig up everything he’s ever said about natural landscapes, I remember him gushing about his favorite place. His parents’ property in Nevada. Would he have gone there? He used to say that it was nothing short of paradise.
I squint with effort as I try to remember the address. Red something. Red Canyon, Red Mountain, Red Rock… Red Earth? Could it have been Red Earth Lane?
And the vacation cottage would have been at the end of the road. The end of Earth road.
“Yes!” I say, slapping my palm against my steering wheel victoriously. I think I might actually be driving in the right direction. That’s partly luck, and partly because it was just Cole’s favorite direction to drive. If we’d ever had more time, maybe we would have driven all the way up to his mountain hideaway.
I am grabbing my phone to GPS the address when the cell phone vibrates against my palm with an incoming call. Glancing out at the empty road ahead before looking down at the phone, I feel worried to see that it is the detective calling. It is well after midnight, so I am not expecting good news. I hope Zack is okay…
“Hey, Rodriguez.”
“Shields…” He sounds tired as his voice trails off. “You were right. Something was off about Annabelle.”
“Yeah? What did you find?”
“Her body.”
“What?”
“Annabelle is dead.”
I slam on the brakes and pull over to the side of the road. “What are you talking about, Rodriguez?”
“There’s more.” The detective exhales slowly. “Sophie, she was murdered days ago.”
“Days? But we saw her earlier today at the funeral—oh. Oh, shit.”
“That wasn’t Annabelle.”
“Who was she?”
“I am not sure yet, but I have my people looking into it. When I got to Annabelle’s house, no one answered the door, but I heard a whimpering sound inside. It turns out that her dog has been starving for a week, shitting on the floor and tearing apart the kitchen for scraps. I called it in, and not too long after that, Dr. Annabelle Nelson was found dead in her office at a health clinic in Anaheim. Someone has been calling all her clients and cancelling their appointments, so no one noticed she was missing work.”
“She didn’t have friends who were worried?”
“No. She seems like a lonely workaholic.”
“That’s definitely more Cole’s type of woman than the girl who was at the funeral.” I pause. “So who was she? She must have been fairly close to him if she knew to impersonate Annabelle. I guess Miranda and Mr. Bishop had never actually met Annabelle. Why would she be interested in Cole? Who’s been cancelling the appointments? Did the doctor have an assistant, or a secretary…”
“Yes. Let me see here…” The detective pauses. “A Miss Brown. Brittany Brown.”
“Brown!” I nearly shout at the detective. “Are you kidding me?”
“What?
“Detective! Brittany Brown as in the daughter of the man that Cole went to prison for killing?”
“Shit.”
“He was protecting me,” I explain to the detective. “We also burned down her childhood home.”
“I’m sorry, Shields. I may not have needed to bring Benjamin in after all. He might not be involved in this at all, other than the building named after you.”
“I don’t know,” I say quietly, glancing in my rearview mirror. “I never know what to expect from him.”
“Do you want to come to the crime scene?” the detective asks. “I know you didn’t get a chance to see Cole’s crime scene, because you got here a little late and we had to work fast to give the hospital back their ICU room. But I would love to have your input on this one. I can text you the address.”
Hesitating, I look out at the open road, and up at the desert moon for advice. “I don’t know…”
“This location is called The Mind Spa—it’s the female-targeted version of Annabelle’s other holistic clinic, The Mind Mechanic. They are beautiful offices—it looks like Cole designed the buildings for her, and that’s how they met. She seems… like she was a really good doctor. Really cared about reducing the stress levels of her patients to improve their overall health.”
“She sounded really wonderful in Cole’s letters,” I say softly. “I was jealous. Why did Brittany leave the body there, for us to find so easily?”
“Well, my guess is that she’s trying to draw you out. She probably sees you as responsible for her father’s death, just as much as Cole.”
“I am.” Biting my lip, I look around at the darkened desert with indecision. “Detective, I’m actually not in L.A. anymore. I found some information that led me to think that I should check out one of Cole’s houses upstate.”
“Upstate? Like San Fran?”
“Around there,” I say, lying. I don’t want the Detective to know about Nevada. I trust him, mostly, but at the same time, I can’t be too careful. If Cole’s hiding, and going to such great lengths to conceal his whereabouts from everyone, including me—it wouldn’t make sense for me to announce it to every stranger who asks.
“That’s a long drive, Shields. You could have flown.”
“I’m in a Bugatti, Rodriguez.”
“Fair point. Still, I could have hooked you up with a faster trip. Why didn’t you let me know?”
“It was kind of spontaneous. Besides, you were finding dead bodies.” I sigh. “Do you really want me to come back to check out the crime scene?”
“No,” the detective says. “It’s not important. You should chase your lead. Besides, she was murdered pretty brutally, and it’s not a pretty picture.”
“Are you sure?” I ask him.<
br />
“Absolutely. I was told to trust your instincts, and if you think there’s something special up in San Fran, then by all means. You should go there. Just keep me posted, and keep Zack close in case of any trouble.”
“Suuure,” I say, looking at the empty seat beside me. “I will.”
“He’s not there, is he? Shields!”
“I’ll be fine. I’m a big girl from Washington D.C., where the bad guys have suitcases instead of surfboards. You worry about your crime scene.”
“Will do.”
“And Detective? I’m sorry about Annabelle.”
“All part of the job, Shields.”
When we hang up, I sit on the roadside for a minute, feeling awful. Another dead body. Another? No. The whole point of me driving out here is that I didn’t think there was a dead body to begin with. But now, as more deaths start to pile up, and we have a suspect with serious motive, it starts to seem less likely that Cole is still alive.
I just don’t understand why now? Why would Annabelle—er, Brittany, do this now? Maybe her life just took a terrible turn for the worse, and she decided to lay blame on Cole and me. Maybe she has nothing left to lose, and her anger has been building to a breaking point, all these years.
Glancing at the moon again, I sigh and consider calling Zack to tell him about Nevada. But I can’t bear to hear anything negative right now, about how I’m chasing a dead man.
But am I? Why would he give me that note, and lead me to that letter…
I might just be seeing things that aren’t there. Fabricating meaning from the mundane. I need to remember that Cole was fifteen when he wrote that last letter to me. As he lay on his deathbed, he might not have even remembered the contents of the letter, other than pouring his heart out to me. He didn’t know that any of this was going to happen, and he might not have meant to use it as a secret code.
Mentioning the end of the earth could have just been him trying to be poetic and flowery with language. He could have just sent me to find that letter so I would know that he’s loved me forever. It could be closure for him—thinking about the beginning in the end. Sending me back to the beginning, to collect the one last buried relic of our lives together.
All of this could be in my head. Nevada could just be me grasping at straws. If something snapped in Brittany Brown, and she decided to start killing—why would she fail? She killed Annabelle.
Cole could be dead.
“He’s not dead,” I whisper to myself, putting the car in gear. “He’s not dead. He’s not dead.”
I press my foot down on the gas pedal and take off down the highway, with my heart in my throat. I find myself staring at the horizon, praying for a smoke signal or skywriting, or emergency flares to indicate that I might be right.
Or maybe I’m just a crazy girl, driving off into the desert for no damned reason.
Fighting with all my willpower to keep my eyes open, I clutch a cup of coffee tightly in my hand as I drive the last few miles. The few drops of coffee remaining have gone cold since I picked it up from a gas station hours ago, along with a paper map. Cell service is unreliable out here, and I have taken a few wrong turns. I regret drinking my coffee too quickly, but I am still holding the empty cup in my hand, inhaling the fumes of the last sip, as if to convince myself that I have more of the stuff in my veins, fueling me, than I actually do.
When my phone’s GPS starts working again, I am grateful to see that it says that I’m almost here. I feel like I have been staring at the same empty landscape for hours, with the sun rising over the desert. Even the most beautiful surroundings can quickly get old when you haven’t slept in over twenty-four hours, and the last time you slept was an unsatisfying, quick nap right where you’re sitting, in a cramped vehicle.
Also, sports cars aren’t the most comfortable vehicles to take on a long drive. I really wish I had something roomier, like a suburban housewife’s minivan, or a rapper’s tricked out Escalade. My legs are going numb, and I feel like my butt is bruised from my bones pushing against this not-very-cushiony seat.
When the GPS informs me that my destination is up ahead, my eyes have been closing and they are reduced to tiny slits. I force them open and stare forward hard, trying to see a house, or cottage, or cabin—any type of dwelling. I’m not sure what to expect. There is a slight bend in the road, and finally I see it in the distance. A gorgeous house, situated on a beautiful forested mountainside. It’s tucked away and out of sight, and perfectly picturesque, like a fairy tale.
I immediately want to just move in and live here forever, and never go back to the real world.
And I’m going to tell Cole that in about five minutes.
I hope.
Peering closer, I feel suddenly very awake, and my heartbeat quickens. I don’t see a car in the driveway, but that’s okay. There’s a three car garage in this mountain mansion, and I am sure that Cole’s car is safely parked inside. Does he still drive the same old Lexus truck that he had years ago? That car was beat up beyond imagination, and it was always filthy from construction sites. But it was reliable, and it suited him.
Parking in the driveway, I feel a little odd as I turn off my vehicle. I finish off the last sip of my coffee before placing the empty container in the cup holder, and reaching for my purse. As I step out of the car, I study the windows of the house, looking for signs of life. Walking closer, I feel a familiar fluttering in my stomach, like I would every time I saw Cole after a long absence. Like that time I broke him out of prison. I felt like my heart would burst at seeing him again, although I always managed to play it cool.
He always played it cool, too. Many of the hours of my drive were spent processing the words of his letter. They shouldn’t have been so surprising, but they were. I knew it all along, how much he cared, but at the same time, I really didn’t.
Everything is going to be different now, when I see him again. It’s going to be a little awkward, perhaps, and we’re going to have a lot to talk about.
And I’m going to have to punch him in his stupid face.
This is the thought that pushes me forward and gives me the courage to march up to the door and ring the doorbell. I can hear the loud sound echoing throughout the house.
“Cole!” I shout loudly, pressing my face up against the frosted glass doors. “It’s me. I know you’re in there! Let me in.”
There is only silence. I listen for the rush of footsteps on the stairs, coming to greet me, but there is nothing. I swallow.
“Come on, Cole! I followed your little Easter egg hunt. You have some serious explaining to do! I don’t care how many bullet wounds you’ve got, we’re going to sit down and have a long conversation.”
Still nothing. I press the doorbell again. Once, twice, three times.
“Cole!” I scream at the house. I beat both of my fists against the door violently, until my wrist bone catches one of the molding designs and I wince in pain. Holding it, I kick the door with my knee. “Cole Hunter, you let me in this very minute. I don’t care how exciting the anime you’re watching is, or how much fun the video game is, or how epic the dream is, or how tasty the meal is—you need to let me in right now and show me that you’re alive, because I’m freaking out here.”
I place both of my palms against the cool glass door, and allow my forehead to fall forward against it. “Cole,” I whisper tiredly. “Cole, please be here. I drove all night to find you, and if you’re not here, I don’t know where the hell on earth you could be. And it will be hell on earth, if I have to be here without you. I refuse to be here without you.”
Turning around and putting my back to the door, I feel my breath coming in short gasps. I let my body slide down the door until my rump hits the floor with a little thud. I stare out at the scenery, shaking my head in disbelief. “He’s not here,” I say softly. “I read all the signs wrong. He’s not here. There never was a sign. It was all in my head.”
Pressing my hands into my hair, I knead my scalp as if to coax id
eas into my brain. “Think, Sophie,” I beg myself. “Is there anything you missed? Is there any way?” I am hyperventilating now, and tears are pricking the backs of my eyes. “He has to be here, right? God, I’m so tired.”
Glancing down at my purse, I see the handle of my gun sticking out. I look at it thoughtfully, before grabbing it and taking the safety off. I stand up and aim it at the glass window of the door, and I pull the trigger.
The sound is deafening, and my ears ring for a second. The kickback of the gun also hurts my wrist a little. Rubbing the back of my hand across my tired, teary eyes, I reach through the glass and unlock the door before stepping into the house.
“Cole,” I say softly, looking around. There is no security system on this house, and that surprises me. Cole loves security systems. “Cole!” I scream out louder, moving through the house. I go to the kitchen first, and check the cabinets. With how far this house is away from civilization, I expect it to be well-stocked up. To my surprise, there is nothing. I open the fridge, and it is completely empty.
My heart rate is exploding now, until it pains my chest. I am starting to realize that there is a large probability that I am wrong about all of this, and he’s really gone.
Moving toward the stairs, I grasp the railing to drag my tired body up the steps. “Cole!” I call out desperately, as tears begin sliding down my cheeks. “Come on, Cole! This isn’t funny. If you’re waiting in a closet to jump out and scream ‘boo’ then I regret to inform you that we are not fifteen anymore, and my heart can’t take any more of this. I’m afraid, Cole! Is that what you want me to say? I’m scared out of my mind! I am trying to keep you alive by just saying that you are. But I need you to work with me on this. I can’t just make things happen by saying them. I need you to also do your part, and be alive. Just be alive! Is that too much to ask?”
