Darkest Dawn (8 page)

“What do you mean?” Tucker asked.

Bri grimaced.

Tucker wrinkled his nose. “What?”

“It’s fine,” Sloane said. “I might as well give you all the details. I remember everything about that day. We visited the cemetery here. It was where some relative was buried. She visited once a year. And that time she let me come with her.” Sloane stared at the ground, recalling the story. “We went to a small café in town and I had a grilled cheese. Pretty much the only thing I ate at the time.” A small smile escaped despite her grim expression. “The memory of the way home is blurry. It had been a sunny day. On the ride home later that afternoon it started to rain. I remember being very alert as the rain pelted the car. The sound reminded me of fireworks. Mom was calm though. It was only a few minutes later, when I felt it.”

Sloane paused, keeping Bri and Tucker in suspense. She took a deep breath before continuing. “A sense of dread.” Her eyes lifted to the both of them, as if gauging their reaction. “Unlike anything I’ve ever felt.”

Tucker’s eyes were wide and fixed on Sloane. “And then what?”

“Then nothing.” Sloane shrugged. “The next thing I remember is waking up in the hospital with only a few cuts and my mom was dead.”

She choked on the last word and Bri swallowed a few times, pushing down the lump in her throat.

“Damn,” Tucker said.

Bri swiped at her eyes. “You think there is something more to the story?”

Sloane’s eyebrows squished together. “There has to be. And now I know for sure I’m not crazy.” She pulled out the letter from her jacket. “And I can prove it.”

“Why don’t we just ask the person who sent for you?” Tucker said.

Sloane and Bri shared a weighted look.

He held his hands out in front of him. “What am I missing?”

“I went to the school today to meet with this person.” Sloane’s gaze scanned the area around them. “He or she,” she said with a pointed look in Bri’s direction, “never showed.”

“A mystery,” Tucker said with a hint of glee in his voice.

Sloane’s eyes fell on Bri’s before moving across the lines of her face. She wasn’t the only one fascinated by the other. Bri recalled the moment in the hallway where she’d felt close enough to passing out. Until they touched. She rarely experienced that type of nausea after swimming. Did they have some freaky look-alike connection that made it go away? She reached up and pressed on her temple, calming the untamable thoughts bouncing around her brain.

Tucker clapped his hands together, startling Bri. “What’s next on the agenda?”

Bri sighed, annoyed. “There is no agenda.”

“Rawr,” he growled playfully. “Someone rolled out of the wrong side of the pool.”

Sloane looked down the path behind her. “The note wanted me to go to the school and mentioned the motel. Since he or she never showed at the school, maybe I should head back to the motel and wait for further instructions?”

Bri tugged at the sleeves of her jacket. “That doesn’t seem safe.”

Sloane choked back a laugh. “Nothing about this seems safe.”

Tucker wrinkled his nose. “I agree with cranky pants.”

“What if this person can get into your motel room? And who’s to say they can’t do it tonight when you’re sleeping?”

Sloane lifted her backpack from the ground and rifled through it, pulling out a thick black item. A stun gun. “I do have protection.”

“Not if he or she has a real gun,” Tucker offered.

“I can take care of myself. I need to know what happened to my mom.”

Bri understood more than she could express. If the situation were reversed…

“Anyway, I should probably head back—” Sloane started before a siren cut through the dense forest.

Bri waited for the sounds to pass. “Wait!”

Sloane shook her head. “I need to get answers and then get home.” She took off toward the motel.

Bri’s legs felt light, as if she were about to take flight. Yet she stayed in place, watching Sloane walk away from her. She couldn’t tear her eyes from Sloane’s form as it disappeared around the bend and into the trees. “I can’t let her go alone.” Her heart pounded in her chest, hard enough for her to catch her breath.

She took off in the direction Sloane had gone. Tucker’s footfalls crunched over the fallen leaves behind her.

The need to find Sloane encompassed Bri’s body, almost as if she were following a lost limb. It wasn’t until Tucker grabbed her shoulder that she was able to come out of her trance.

Blue and red lights flickered through the trees. Instead of stopping, she sped up.

“Bri!” Tucker caught up with her quickly.

Her breathing sped up and she could feel her heartbeat in her throat. “Sloane!”

The motel appeared through a clearing in the woods. Tucker grabbed her shoulder to stop her. When she tried to shrug him off she realized it wasn’t Tucker; she was looking at her own hand on her shoulder.

“Sloane?” Bri stared at her face on the strange girl.

Her eyes narrowed and she took her hand off Bri, leaving that same warmth in its wake. Her expression tightened for a moment before she walked closer to the motel.

This time Tucker did grab Bri’s arm. “Are we sure about this girl? A day in town and already the cops are after her?”

Bri stepped forward and the motel parking lot came into view. “Not just the police.” Several police cars accompanied an ambulance in the otherwise sparse parking lot.

Sloane stood between Tucker and Bri, staring him down. “Are you accusing me of something?” Sloane said as Bri came to her side. They peered through the trees as several officers stood in the parking lot. Some were filling out paperwork and others were loitering around the space. It was apparent there wasn’t an emergency. From their position in the woods, they couldn’t see the front of the motel, only the side. Crime scene tape wrapped around the columns holding up the awning.

Bri caught movement next to the building and grabbed both Tucker and Sloane, forcing them to drop to the ground next to her. Someone in dark jeans and a leather jacket slinked around the back of the motel. He faced the other direction so Bri couldn’t get a good look. She grabbed her phone and pressed the screen for the camera. She stayed low and zoomed the camera to see if she could make out a face. Then she took several pictures. She doubted she got anything though she surprised herself that she thought to do that. Tucker couldn’t make fun of her for watching real crime shows if she got something. She scrolled through the blurry pictures without successfully identifying the guy.

“Look.” Sloane pointed at the front of the building where two men in white shirts pushed a stretcher to the ambulance.

By their calm demeanor, Bri knew whoever was under the sheet wasn’t alive. Bile rose in her throat. She looked to the back of the building where the guy had escaped from. He was gone. Her breath caught in her throat. What exactly had they witnessed?

CHAPTER SEVEN

Sloane

I couldn’t tear my eyes from the unmoving form on the stretcher. Instead, I focused on the way my clammy hands grasped each other.

Tucker hopped to his feet. “Bri. We’re leaving.”

I wasn’t going back to the motel. I couldn’t. Not when a dead body had come out of one of the rooms.

Bri’s teeth chattered. “Did you see that person coming out of the window?”

Tucker ducked down. “Do you think he saw us?”

The terror in his voice kicked up the rate of my pulse. This trip was becoming more bizarre by the minute.

“No,” Bri hissed. “I don’t think we should stick around to find out though.”

I spoke through dry lips. “I can’t go back there. They’re probably going to question all the motel guests.”

“I know.” Bri stood up and wiped dirt off her jeans. “Let’s go back to my place.”

We quickly jogged to the condominium complex. The vision of the white-sheeted person rolled over and over in my mind. I imagined someone rolling Mom out of the car accident that way. I stifled the shivers that threatened to shake me to the ground. I looked at Bri. No one had ever opened their home to me before. My heart filled with gratitude.

Bri walked up the steep driveway to the townhouse condo. “Home sweet home.”

I followed them up the steps, glancing over my shoulder. I wasn’t sure how long it would take the motel front desk guy to identify that I was in the motel that morning. I hoped I’d be long gone by then. The idea widened a pit in my stomach.

The second I entered the condo, I was wrapped in the warmth of Bri’s home. I hadn’t realized how cold it was outside.

“You can hang everything up over there.” Bri pointed at a wooden coat rack with twisted circular ends as hangers. She grabbed a slip of paper from the table and crumpled it in her hand.

I slipped my coat off and hung it up along with my bag. A small part of me wanted to grab the stun gun. The rest of me was as relaxed as a well-fed cat being in Bri’s home, so I didn’t bother with it.

Bri and Tucker disappeared down the hall. Their voices carried in the small space. I stuck my phone into my jeans pocket as I inspected the space. In front of the door was a staircase to the second level of the townhouse. Next to the stairs was a small hallway. The sound of clanging plates and utensils carried down the hall.

I took the moment to admire the pictures taking up a majority of the wall. I couldn’t help a smile looking at the school photos, one of those things that Dad never made mandatory, which is why I stopped a year after Mom died. Mom was the one who always dressed me for those, complementing whatever background I’d chosen. It was a tradition that I couldn’t imagine doing without her. So I didn’t. Bri’s photos showcased each year of her school life. I could have easily traded out hers for mine. Other than our opposite eyes. The thought sent a violent shiver down my spine. I expected to come to Willows Lake and find out more about my mom’s death. Though meeting Bri was downright shocking, that nagging feeling that something bigger was going on hadn’t left my mind.

Bri poked her head into the hall from the kitchen. “You coming?”

I tore my eyes away from the wall of memories. “Yeah.” She disappeared into the kitchen and I meant to follow her, until my eyes fell on another photo. An older woman, probably in her forties, grinned at me through the frame. Her shoulder-length blonde hair was peppered with leaves; the color reminded me of the wheat fields I’d lived near in Pennsylvania. A younger Bri stood next to her. I recognized the backdrop of the trees as the entrance to the woods we’d come from not five minutes before. There were two rakes resting on the ground behind them. Heat prickled the corners of my eyes as I remembered building leaf piles with my parents in the autumn months. I leaned close to the picture, trying to see my own features in this woman’s face. The stark contrast between her and Bri was apparent in this photo. Our birthdays separated us. Maybe one of us had been lied to. I couldn’t shake the idea of us being twins. We were almost exact replicas of Mom when she was younger. Bri didn’t know that. And I didn’t have the heart to tell her that the woman in the picture might not be her biological mother.

I tore my eyes away from the photos and entered the kitchen. A small and simple room with only a little table with four chairs as the main furniture.

“I thought you might be hungry.” Bri placed a steaming bowl of pasta with sauce on the table. “I always carb-load after practice.” She grabbed a loaf of bread and placed that on the table too. She’d arranged three place settings with wicker place mats and glasses of water. I took a seat at the setting closest to the front hallway and she took the other.

“Guests first.” She offered the pasta bowl while opening the bag of bread.

“Is anyone going to talk about the elephant—” Tucker smirked “—or should I say dead body in the room?”

This guy was a wise-ass. At the thought of the body, my stomach twisted and I placed my fork onto the plate. “You know as much as I do.”

Tucker’s eyes narrowed, suddenly a guard dog protecting his friend. “The day after you’re mysteriously summoned to this town, a dead body shows up in the motel you’re staying at. Neither of you think this is a coincidence?”

He didn’t think I did it. I wasn’t sure why I was relieved. Having these two on my side made my journey here a little less complicated because I wasn’t the only one experiencing it.

“We don’t know what happened,” Bri said through a mouthful of pasta. How could she eat at a time like this? “Unless the person we saw at the back of the motel had something to do with the body and Sloane showing up here?”

“You’re right,” I said, an idea forming. “We don’t know anything.” I shot out of my chair and headed for the living room. I found the remote on the couch and searched for the local news.

“Channel 12,” Bri said as if I’d requested her help aloud.

This town didn’t have much news. I recalled the animal death story from the diner TV. A dead body would definitely shake this place up.

Bri sat next to me, continuing to eat from the plate in her hand. The scent of tomatoes made my stomach turn.

Tucker sat on the other side of her. “Good thinking. A dead body in Willows Lake will have these vultures after the story in a flash.”

The wait was only a few minutes but felt like a lifetime. My breathing constricted as a picture of the motel filled the screen. I scooted to the edge of the cushion and pushed the volume button a few times until the news anchor’s voice was nearly deafening. “Breaking news this afternoon. An unidentified body was found at Willows Lake Motel. Local authorities are working diligently to understand what happened at the scene. If you have any information please call the hotline number on your screen.”

A loud ringing settled in my ears as the news switched over to a sportscaster.

Bri stopped chewing and put her plate down on the ottoman. The room filled with the voice of the jovial man giving the latest statistics on a local community basketball team. I pushed the volume button again until the TV was barely audible.

Tucker lifted his arms, tucking his hands behind his head. “Well they know as much as we do.”

Bri pulled her fingers through her hair several times. “Did you check out this morning?”