Into the Fading Twilight (Starlight Grove, #2) (37)

Normally, I would have hated someone bringing that up. Especially now. But I found I didn’t mind it as much here. Because Mav was talking about how this all made him feel. And I got that. What had happened to me, and to so many others, had marked a community—the people who knew the victims and the killer.

“I’m glad, then. And I will let you give me more death-defying lessons.”

Mav barked out a laugh. “Just don’t tell Brae. That little badass scares me.”

One corner of my mouth kicked up. He was right to be scared.

My footsteps slowed as we approached Brae’s SUV that she’d let me borrow for the day. There was an envelope on the windshield. One of those legal-sized ones. And there was no name on it. But as I took in the five or so other vehicles in the lot, I noticed that none of them had an envelope.

Before I could let anxiety grab hold again, I snatched it up and opened it. It wasn’t sealed, but there were countless things inside. Newspaper clippings and blog printouts.

I started flipping through them, my anger mounting as I did.

Nova Monroe Missing for Nine Months.

Woman Disappears on a Hike with Friend. Police Have No Answers.

My stomach twisted at the next one.

House of Horrors Found in the Northern California Mountains. Woman Kept Chained.

A flash of something streaked across my mind. Memory or imagination, I wasn’t sure. I pulled at the chain in the wall as hard as I could. My fingers cramped, and I could tell that one of my nails had broken down the center, but I didn’t care. I had to get out. Away. Then a deep laugh sounded. Through a speaker? “You’ll never escape. You belong to me now.”

I blinked away the mental snapshots and the echo of the voice, but my hands trembled as I kept flipping through the articles and printouts. All covering my case, the other missing persons cases, Travis.

And finally, a piece of blank computer paper with block writing.

NEVER FORGET.

“Super—what the fuck?” Mav growled, peeking over my shoulder.

I tried to shove all the articles back into the envelope but failed. Instead, I scooped them into a pile and searched for my anger again. Because I knew exactly who’d done this. “It’s nothing.”

“That’s not nothing,” he argued.

“It’s that goddamned reporter. He thinks I owe him something because he wrote a few articles and uses the word thus.”

Maverick studied me for a long moment, not showing any signs of humor at my attempt at a joke. “You’re probably right, but why don’t you let me bag it just in case?”

I frowned. “Bag it?”

He beeped the locks on his SUV on the other side of the parking lot. “Put it in an evidence bag. That way, if anything else weird happens, we have it. Even if it is him, we should keep evidence in case you want to file a restraining order.”

I frowned at him. “Why do you have evidence bags?”

Mav’s gaze flicked to the side and then back to me. “You know, arson cases and stuff.”

“Oh. Yeah, sure.” It wasn’t like I wanted to keep the stuff. And it did make sense that Mav would have things that allowed him to store evidence since he worked as both a smokejumper and a firefighter and medic for the Starlight Grove Fire Department.

He jogged over to his vehicle and then back, holding open a bag with EVIDENCE in big, black letters at the top. “Slide it all in here.”

I dropped the envelope and stack of clippings in. “Hey, do me a favor and don’t tell Brae about this. Dex either. Because he’ll tell her, and she’ll freak. I just can’t …”

Maverick sent me a sympathetic smile. “I won’t. I get it. Just do me a favor and keep an extra sharp eye out.”

“Of course.” But it was just a pretentious reporter or maybe a sick prank. It had to be.





CHAPTER THIRTEEN


Kol




WHO WAS IN CHARGE OF SNACKS THIS WEEK? BECAUSE this seriously sucks,” Mav muttered as he took in the offerings of sodas, chips, and a hummus-and-veggie platter.

I scowled at my youngest brother as he pawed through the mini–chip bags. “Stop getting your germy paws all over everything. Did you even wash your hands when you got back from riding?”

“He certainly doesn’t smell like he took a shower, that’s for sure,” Wylder said as he pulled back a chair at the massive conference table we had set up in one of the workshops on Twisted Oak Ranch.

Waylon had given us use of the space, allowing us to empty it of what had turned out to be a mix of old, rusting ranch equipment, clock parts, and a Bigfoot replica that would give me nightmares for the next year.

Before now, we hadn’t really had an official meeting spot for the Hourglass Network. We usually met at Uncle Waylon’s kitchen table or mine, sometimes even after hours at the Boot. But now that Dex was back in Starlight Grove, we needed this.

The Hourglass Network had started after the FBI arrested our second youngest brother for hacking into their files while trying to help a classmate look into their missing brother’s case. Dex had taken working for the FBI in their cyber department over jail time, but he’d also realized just how many cases went without the proper support and resources.

We all knew better than most how easy it was for missing people to stay that way and for families to be haunted by the lack of answers.