Seed turned violent. In the ensuing struggle and chase, Martin Rodriguez was stabbed in the neck and eventually died of his wounds in the hospital. Easton shot Seed four times in the chest, killing him instantly.
I couldn’t believe what I was reading. Easton’s partner had been murdered, and Easton had killed a man. All in a single moment. All in some freak accident.
Then there was a knock at the door.
I almost jumped out of my pants.
My heart was pounding and my mind was stuck imagining that night. Lester running through his house and then popping out from behind a door, stabbing Martin in the neck. I could only guess at the fear and the emotions Easton felt, then and now.
“You okay in there?” I heard him say.
“Yeah, fine,” I said quickly. I closed the folder and dropped to my knees, gently placing it back into the little taped holder he had made.
“You fall in?”
“I didn’t fall in,” I said, annoyed.
I quickly got up and grabbed some toilet paper and began to dab at my pants. I opened the door after a second.
He grinned in at me. “Crazy, huh?”
“Totally insane,” I said.
But I couldn’t help but see the person who was hiding behind his gaze, the person who had lost his partner. The person who had gotten too close to a case and had lost everything.
“That’s not even the worst I’ve seen,” he said.
“Is she gone?”
He nodded. “We won’t see her again.” He paused, and I saw him quickly glance at the toilet. I held my breath, but he looked back at me and smirked. “Paid pretty well, though.”
“Oh good,” I said and began to dab at my pants again.
“Need a hand with that?” he asked.
“I think I can handle it myself.”
“Good. I’m only good at getting you wet, anyway.”
I gave him a withering look. “How about a little privacy.”
“Whatever you want, sis.” He turned and walked out.
I closed the door behind him and let out a long breath.
I had no clue what I was going to do with this information, but it did speak to something scary happening. That article had mentioned that the body was relatively near Mishawaka, and Easton was clearly paranoid if he was willing to come check on me.
Did Lester Seed somehow survive? I couldn’t see how, not based on what I had read. But I understood why Easton was worried. Seed had a particular killing style, and that murder matched it very well. As far as I could tell, it was Lester Seed, back from the dead.
But people didn’t come back from the dead.
I dabbed dry paper on my pants and quickly cleaned up. I needed to get myself together before I went out and looked at Easton again.
So much was suddenly clicking into place, and yet it opened up so many other questions.
I dried my hands, opened the door, and walked back into the office, not sure about anything.
8
Easton
Not a single call for the rest of the day.
That crazy lady’s money would pay my rent, and maybe buy some groceries, but I needed more clients, preferably high-paying ones that needed someone for long-term work.
Unfortunately, small towns rarely had a high need for a private detective, which meant that I was constantly just barely scraping by. That suited me, more or less; I’d never cared before. But suddenly with Laney around, I cared about the condition of the office, cared about needing to keep the electricity running.
No calls all day. I looked in at Laney as she scrolled idly through her Twitter feed.
“Let’s do something,” I said.
She looked back at me. “What do you have in mind?”
That was a great question. Ever since that lady’s blowup the day before, Laney had seemed strange, maybe a little distant.
“Come on,” I said, grabbing my keys from the desk.
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.” She stared at me for a second before closing her laptop’s lid and following me out the door.
“Still interested in criminal justice?” I asked her as we got into the car. I started the engine and headed out of town.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Because most clients are like her.”
Laney was quiet for a second. “She was just hurting.”
“Yeah, she was.”
“People need other people the most when they’re hurting. Even if they push them away.”
“Could be right. But you got covered in coffee.”
“You’re just jealous.”
“Of what?”
“She can get me wet so easily.”
I looked at her and then burst out laughing. “Laney, are you flirting with your stepbrother?”
“Flirting? You wish.”
I grinned at her. “I love when you pretend like you aren’t thinking about me every day in the shower.”
“You’re the furthest thing from my mind.”
“Doubtful. I’m sure you wonder what it would be like if I slipped my thick cock deep inside you.”
“Where are we going?”
I watched as trees flashed by. We were outside town, heading to the border of Mishawaka. I wasn’t sure if she’d ever been where we were going before, but it was one of my favorite spots in the whole town. I hadn’t been there since I’d moved back home yet, and I figured maybe it was the thing she needed to come out of her funk.
“You’ll see. We’re close.”
I drove a bit farther while she fiddled with the radio. I slowed down to a crawl and flipped on my high beams. The sun hadn’t quite set yet, but the trees were casting long shadows. Finally, I spotted our turnoff. It was a small dirt road leading into the forest.
We bumped our way off the main road and began up the dirt track.
“Okay, now I have no clue where we are,” she said.
“Good.” I grinned at her. “I can’t believe you’re a native and you’ve never been here before.”
We took the dirt road another ten minutes as Laney tried desperately to defend her native status. I mostly grunted in response, paying careful attention to the road in front of us. Finally, at long last, the road opened up into a bit of a clearing.
I pulled the car off to the side. “Here we are.”
Up ahead was a large, rushing river. It was the river that stood along the border of Mishawaka and the neighboring county. Spanning the water was an incredibly old steel and wood bridge.
We got out of the car. “I’ve never seen this before,” Laney said.
“It’s my favorite spot. Come on.” I walked confidently toward the bridge.
“We’re not going out on that thing,” she called back.
I turned and walked backward. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid, sis.”
“I’m not afraid.”
“I didn’t think so.” I turned back around and walked out onto the bridge.
I understood her hesitation. The bridge looked like something out of a horror movie, especially a zombie movie. It hadn’t been used in any serious way in a long time, and so there were plants crawling up its sides. The steel was beginning to rust in places, and some of the wooden boards were slightly rotted out.