He didn’t need much convincing to head over in a hurry.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Joel was waiting for the puzzle to fit together. All of the pieces of Claire’s murder floated in an abstract way above him and as he tried to paint the picture of her last few days. His facts didn’t fit yet; they hoped Alex would fill in the missing details when they made it to the hotel.
They felt close.
He thought, maybe foolishly, that meant they would find Violet, too, and he could be the hero who helped two troubled kids make it home. He hadn’t told Holly about Violet’s emails and he didn’t know if he should.
He drove and followed the GPS toward the address Holly gave him. She leaned her head against his shoulder and broke down; her voice wobbly, her breath coming quickly as she tried to find the words.
Joel waited patiently. He loved the weight of her head against his arm. Just having her close made him feel like everything was going to be okay. There was intimacy with Holly—and maybe it existed because they weren’t new to each other. Their shared history allowed for fast-tracking past the stumbling lies and corrections of early dating. It was the part Joel could never master: he was either too forthcoming or too vague; in his Goldilocks version there was no just right.
And being with Holly meant he could skip it all and just be Joel.
There was freedom in Holly and he could taste it and feel it.
The twinge of possibility and hopefulness, despite the red flags, weighed heavy on his mind. More than anything, he hoped to be there as a support; he wanted to protect her from the danger and pain that teenagers brought with them as they launched fully toward adulthood.
Whatever Alex got himself into, Joel knew he could be there to navigate the choppy waters as he often had between parents and children in his office. It was part of what he did that made his job important and necessary.
“This is my fault, right?” Holly asked as he made a left, her head moving against his arm as he turned the wheel.
Joel didn’t feel like he was an expert on this particular relationship though.
“Are you asking rhetorically?”
“I’m asking…what does it look like?”
That he could do.
“It looks like a kid who made some stupid decisions. A kid who got caught up in a moment with some bad advice—”
“From his grandmother, I think,” Holly sighed.
Joel had seen that, too.
“Who knows where all the bad advice came from? She thinks she’s helping,” he tried to offer, knowing it wouldn’t matter much. Joel realized he’d have to be okay with a Xiomara in his life if he and Holly ever made it.
It wouldn’t be a highlight, but he thought he might be able to stomach a formal introduction at some point. He couldn’t kick the thought of her emerging from the gate, nonplussed, irreverently so, as he and Holly explored each other in the pool. It amused him more than he’d ever admit. It also terrified the fuck out of him.
His mom would be a dream to meet by comparison. She recklessly loved everyone.
“We’re almost there,” he said.
“I’m sick to my stomach.”
“Let me go first,” he said and then he immediately regretted it as Holly shot him a look—No. She’d go first. And that was that.
The hotel was nestled along the shoreline of the Willamette River between Oregon City and Gladstone. Joel parked the car facing the river and hopped out first, checking the room number on the torn page of the cookbook. They bypassed the lobby and rushed up the first set of stairs, ascertaining quickly that 203 would be on the second floor. Joel was faster and he skipped ahead, rushing to the door while he heard Holly quickly behind him.
And when he approached 203, out of breath and determined to reach the door before Holly, barring her from making a mess of the investigation and the discovery, the open door took him by surprise.
Joel put his hand out and Holly skidded into him, clutching his arm and breathing hard through her nose.
“No,” she said and Joel stopped her from barging inside.
“Wait,” he whispered.
She put her hand out to push the door open wider, but he stopped her and put her hand down. Instead, she gasped and put her hand over her mouth.
“Alex?” she cried, muffled. She put her hand down and took a step forward while Joel grabbed at her. “Alex!”
He didn’t need to go inside to know that they weren’t going to find anything good on the other side of the door. The door ajar on a runaway’s hideout. He put on his hand and pushed gently on the hotel door and it swung open gently exposing a messy room on the other side.
From their place at the threshold, Joel could see the remnants of a teenage stakeout. The floor was littered with fast food wrappers and cans of energy drinks, papers and clothes. But it was still and quiet and its emptiness registered trouble with the adults who peered inside.
“Alex!” Holly called inside and then before Joel could stop her, she tore inside the room, flinging open doors and curtains, rummaging under the bed, opening closets and cupboards. He was gone.
She turned and walked to the bed and picked up something black and shiny.
It was a mask.
The same mask her attackers wore. The same mask the dancers wore.
“Joel—” she started, but she couldn’t finish.
“Okay,” he said slowly, aware immediately of the implication of what she’d found, and he walked backward, out of the room. “Put it down. Back on the bed.”
“We’re too late,” she said and held the mask tighter, crumpling the plastic in her hand until it cracked. “They got here. They got him.”
“You’re ruining evidence. Let’s call the police, Holly,” Joel tried.
“He already called the police,” Holly said in a whisper. “What are you supposed to do when the people who can help you think you’re the bad guy?” she asked and shrugged, dropping the broken mask down on the bed. “He was trying, he was trying,” she mumbled and walked over to the phone. There, written on the hotel tablet, was a schedule.
Joel watched as Holly picked it up and scanned her finger over the numbers.
“He had it scheduled. His calls to dispatch.”
“Why did he play a game then?” Joel asked. “If he wasn’t guilty. Why didn’t he trust the process?”
Holly closed her eyes. “I don’t know. I don’t know.” She looked up. “Where is he?” She was on the verge of losing it—her chin wobbled and her arms flailed a bit across the room, the immediacy of their emergency dawning on her.
She pulled out her phone and dialed 9-1-1. Her face was rigid and Zen, as if this was the call she was prepared to make from the beginning.
Joel listened and leaned against the beige walls of the hotel.
“My son is in danger. He’s been taken from a hotel room in Oregon City,” Holly relayed with calm ease. “No,” she sighed. “He’s a teenager. His name is Alex Gamarra. If you run his name you’ll see that he’s currently a person of interest in the murder of Claire Gregor. We believe he’s in danger by the same people. Can you get officers to our address?” She told them where they were.
Joel walked up and took her free hand in his. He pulled her body into him and held her. He could feel her shaking against him; her anxiety and her panic boiled up and spilling over.
“Thank you. No, thank you,” she said and hung up. “Someone will be there soon.”
“We’ll find him,” Joel said, but he knew that his assurances ran hollow for Holly. She knew statistics and facts and she knew that the people who wanted to find her son had, indeed, found him. “We know it’s tied to the high school and we know that—”
“So, who else would know something? Who else besides Alex?”
“What do you mean?” Joel asked.
“Who were Claire’s friends? Who hung out with Alex? Who else would know what was happening? I know you know more than what you’ve told me. If you care about me, you’ll
help me. Tell me everything you’ve kept from me…”
“I don’t—what? Everything I’ve kept?”
Violet went through his head. The message to his email and her unexplained disappearance. There was no way Holly knew about that and yet her rightness scared him.
“No, you do,” Holly argued. “You do know. You have access to people and things that I don’t have and I need you, Joel. You have to tell me what you know!” He could detect the resentment in her voice and the anger hovering just below the surface.
He didn’t want to do this.
Joel closed his eyes.
He couldn’t do it. He needed to tell the police about the emails first. Maybe even Brian. But he couldn’t tell her—he couldn’t help her the way she wanted. The way she thought she wanted, he realized.
A few years ago, between pointless relationships, he’d stumbled across his old yearbook. He’d flipped through the pages with listless apathy, trying to conjure the stories of his own high school years. Like most people who worked in a high school, he understood that he never really left—the childish behaviors of teens, ever-changing and evolving, never wavered from one true path: to carve out their own story and opinions among a world that didn’t believe they were worth much.
Joel coached his soccer kids with the same intensity he counseled the kids on his caseload: he understood that they needed grit and they needed endurance, but they needed love and stability and a family, too.
That’s who he was as a high school kid.
When he looked back on his old yearbook, he saw the insecure asshole hiding behind the popular, quiet, athlete persona. He’d been aware of his own image as a lifesaving tactic since the murky terror of middle school: quiet and athletic helped tremendously, so the popular was easy to get and maintain. And once it was secure, nerdy endeavors seemed amazingly intriguing. He learned that he set the tone for what was in and what was out. Even as a sixteen-year-old, he appreciated it was a power no one should have.
Holly, with her red hair and her sardonic smirk; her organized life and her witty comebacks and the way she could really belt out a tune.
It stuck with him. Why did it stick with him if it wasn’t supposed to mean something? She meant something.
He could love her.
He would love her.
And he couldn’t.
“If you know anyone, Joel, please…” and now the begging was gone from her voice and she’d appealed straight to him. Please.
How did they know the boy was there?
That was the question the police asked them. And it was a good question, too.
‘“My former mother-in-law helped pay for the room…under my ex-husband’s name,” Holly explained. He could tell she was tired and itching to get away, but also eager to pin the debacle on the idiot and his mother.
“And you found out and…”
“I came straight here. I found out and drove over,” Holly said immediately. “Check my phone records. Call from my friend Gloria twenty or thirty minutes ago…I didn’t miss a beat. My friends were supposed to be here, too. I made it before them.”
And it went on until Holly asked if she could go home and the officers walked her down to Joel’s car, giving her a card and a sympathetic handshake.
When they were alone, he could tell she was exhausted.
Their hands found each other across the car and she leaned her head against the headrest and turned just her head to look at him; he had the radio on a low hum and it was pre-programmed, but the song they played together at outdoor school began to play and Holly couldn’t help but laugh.
She closed her eyes and put her hand to her heart, her knee jerking upward as she laughed and laughed.
It was as though her body needed to choose between laughing and crying, and it was tired of crying.
She wiped tears from her eyes and apologized.
“It’s the song,” she said. “Look at us. And here we are…and it’s that stupid song.”
“It’s a sign,” Joel offered. He leaned down and turned the volume up a bit. The lyrics of their teenage love song filled the car and he closed his eyes and imagined them back up on the stage as those near-adults, on the precipice of the rest of their lives. Holly’s eyes were closed most of the song, so he knew she didn’t notice the daggers from his girlfriend. But even back then, he didn’t seem to care that she could recognize his growing crush. He wasn’t going to act on it, so it was idiotic for his girlfriend to care and he was dispirited about her anger.
Joel understood now what his former-self didn’t: apathy was a sign.
He’d been able to recognize Holly’s unique power over him even then.
And he never thought he’d ever get a chance to tell her so.
“What’s it a sign for?” she asked, still high from the swell of the guitar and the old memories flooding through them.
“For what could have been,” he said.
She couldn’t help but notice the past tense.
Chapter Twenty-Five
He rolled the car up to her house. They’d spent the rest of the car ride in silence, listening to songs from the era in which they’d graduated high school. She thanked him for going with her, for being there, for being willing to help.
Holly walked down her driveway and looked up and down the street. She was trying to see if the car was still there, but it wasn’t.
“Do you want me to stay?” Joel asked and Holly pulled him up to the porch, to the light, and she grabbed the sides of his jacket and held on, thinking. Her phone buzzed and Holly checked it. She read the text once and then twice and then looked up at Joel, confused.
“Brian, um,” she started, “just texted that…someone said the kid in the hotel room wasn’t alone.”
“Violet,” Joel said innocently, but Holly’s eyes narrowed.
“Violet?” she asked. His eyes widened and he realized his mistake, and Holly could read it in his eyes. He knew. He’d known. “But that’s not a surprise to you,” she said, trying to take a deep breath. “I asked you…”
“Holly,” he started, clearly positioning himself to get defensive. All she’d wanted was to get her son home and she thought Joel had the same goal. She’d tried to ask him personally and professionally if he knew anything and he’d kept Violet quiet. What else hadn’t he told her?
“What did you know?”
“Nothing, really,” he said, but that really was the difference between everything.
“I don’t understand,” she said and she could feel the flush of hotness on her cheeks, the full assault on her temperature and her rage—hand in hand they went. “Why didn’t you come to me?”
“Holly, please,” he started again. “I didn’t know who to go to…I was scared that if I mentioned it…I don’t know. I was afraid of ruining something by getting too involved. I thought…I was protecting you.”
It sounded nice, but it was mostly bullshit.
“So, you told no one.”
“Right,” he said and he shrugged. He didn’t argue.
He wasn’t saying much. No long-winded apologies or cries to stay and be understood. No, he wasn’t saying anything, and it was his silence that got under her skin that moment. She instantly knew it was because he didn’t actually have kids. He wasn’t a father, he didn’t know. He could never know.
“Why don’t you go home,” she said in as neutral a tone as she could. She looked at her phone and fired off a few texts, looking down and away. When she looked back up, she knew her eyes were narrowed and intense. “Brian will come over and stay.”
“You don’t have to do this,” he said.
“I only ever wanted full honesty from you. I didn’t need to tell the world…I could have respected your privacy….but if you withheld something that cost me my son?” she couldn’t hold back the emotion and she stuck a limp finger in his direction, her lower lip trembling. “How could you?”
She watched as he processed her accusations.
“Maybe,”
Joel said slowly, weighing his words, and Holly stopped. She froze and grew icy with anxiety, “Maybe we were both trying to protect different things.”
“You knew there was a possibility the missing girl was with him?”
He didn’t blink. “Yes.”
“And you didn’t tell me.”
And even though the truth was burdensome, he didn’t try to slither out of the responsibility. “No, I didn’t,” he said.
“Go home. Go home. And…maybe don’t call me until after this whole thing is over. Okay?”
“Holly—”
“Nope.” She put her hands up and then crossed her arms over her chest. “You don’t get to praise how I know exactly what I want when what I want is you…” she took a breath, “and then argue when I’ve decided that maybe that’s not what I want. It’s been fun. Come get your condoms if you want. I’m done. I’m going to find my kid.”
The words slapped him.
Joel might have been expecting anger and he might have been expecting truth, but he hadn’t expected her to be so cruelly decisive. But Holly knew she could never trust someone who didn’t put her and Alex first, always. She’d already married a man who didn’t value her and never thought her deserving of the truth. She wasn’t doing that again.
“You’re mad,” he stated. She could sense he was going to pull some counseling bullshit and try to talk her down, but Holly didn’t need that type of condescending grossness in her life. She was a grown-ass woman and she was making a decision she wouldn’t regret.
“I’m mad,” she owned. “But I’m not even mad that you had to keep the information from me…you could’ve immediately called Brian or someone who could’ve dealt with it. Instead, you did nothing. I can handle lots of shit…but I have no room for weak.”
“Ouch,” Joel breathed. He shook his head. “You think I’m weak.” Not a question. And he shook his head again. “Okay.” He tossed his keys in the air and caught them in his hand and then saluted her. She thought his eyes might look misty, but maybe it was just his tiredness and the dark. “I’ll go. Loud and clear.” He cleared his throat and she wondered if he was resisting the urge to kiss her. “I’ll wait. One year…I already told you.”
Dispatched Confessions (The Love is Murder Social Club Book 2) Page 22
