The Guy Next Door

Chapter 24

24

ZANE

BODY DISCOVERED NEAR WYACHET DAM LINKED TO RECENT DISAPPEARANCES

A source close to the Wyachet Police Department revealed to the Gwinnett Daily Post that a body discovered not far from Wyachet Dam is believed to be one of the missing local men from the past year.

Though the department refuses to discuss details of the case until a DNA test confirms their suspicions, the Post ’s source says the remains are believed to be Michael Grayson, who went missing last March.

Lead Detective Clarissa Roth is expected to give a press conference about the DNA test results at 10 a.m. tomorrow morning when she will discuss the department’s investigation further.

Here I was worried about this paranoia I was experiencing—feeling as though eyes were boring into me from behind on our walk. But now it’s not some imagined phantom I have to fear, but reality.

A series of scenes play through my mind.

I try to imagine the state Mike’s body was in when they found him.

Was he rotting away, or was his body intact, having been disposed of recently?

The images in my head aren’t helped by all the horror movies I’ve watched. Vivid, graphic depictions of Mike plague my thoughts until my mind shifts focus back to when we were kids. We’re in the family room, laughing and playing video games together. He’s eating Cap’n Crunch, flashing a smile after getting a taste. Then there’s one much later, as I hold him and tears slide down our faces. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of you,” I say.

I’m a fucking liar.

I expect I’m about to explode into a fit of rage, grief, agony, but I don’t even feel connected to my body. There’s a numbness, like after Mom and Dad died.

Like I can’t accept this is true.

“Zane? Zane?” Leif’s voice sounds distant, like I’m not sitting beside him in the car but like I’m standing outside it.

After Jill alerted me to the news, I got off the phone with her to look up the headlines on my phone. Said I’d call her back, then frantically googled and found that article.

“What is it? Talk to me,” Leif says, but I can’t tell him this. How could I even get the words out?

I pass him my phone, and as he reads the article, I’m transported back to the day when Shelly and those fuckers from the CPS tore us apart.

My mind leaps forward again, to an image my mind’s crafted of a body shoved back into a sewer line. Discarded like my brother wasn’t even human.

He didn’t do this to himself. I fucking knew it.

But there’s no relief in the thought, and it’s as though all the pain finally catches up with me.

My chest constricts, my body trembles.

“Detective Roth hasn’t reached out to you?” Leif asks.

“No.” With all that’s on my mind, it wasn’t something I’d even considered, but now that he’s mentioned it, I can name the emotion that overtakes me: rage.

Considering how much we talked early in the investigation, she should have given me a heads-up. And if she fucking knows it’s my brother and hasn’t told me, fuck her!

“It doesn’t say it’s him for sure,” Leif says. “It sounds like a guess.”

“It’s not a guess,” I snap. “A source from inside the department leaked that, so they know more than is even on the damn page.”

I didn’t mean to practically shout the words at him.

“Fuck, I’m so sorry, Leif.”

“Zane, you don’t owe me an apology for that,” he says, looking far more disturbed by my apology than when I shouted. “I can’t imagine what reading this is like.”

I press my hand against the window and grip the seat with my other.

Why’s the car fucking spinning?

Tears push to my eyes.

All those images seizing my mind have stopped, but it’s like I’m holding them behind a wall that’s about to burst. I open the car door and lean out, my body going through the motions like I’m about to hurl, but I only manage to dry heave.

I don’t know what happens next—it’s like a fucking blackout, and soon I’m on the ground, shaking, light-headed.

“Zane! Zane, don’t leave me!” I hear Mike call out, but I know it’s too late.

When I finally shake free of the memory, I find Leif at my side; he must’ve gotten out of the car at some point.

“Zane, are you okay? Please talk to me.”

His words reorient me, and I glance around, trying to make sense of everything that happened, when there’s a familiar buzzing sound. Leif pulls out my phone.

Jill must be calling back, but I can’t talk to her now.

Not about this.

Leif says, “It’s Detective Roth. Do you want to take it?”

As it buzzes in his hand again, I can’t…I don’t want to hear. Don’t want to know.

But I reach forward and take the phone, answering it.

Just get it over with.

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” I ask.

Getting my anger out is cathartic, feels like the only thing that’s keeping me from losing my goddamn mind.

“Zane, I’m so sorry. It’s not Mike, though. We know that.”

My hand trembles so much, I nearly drop the phone, but instead, I fall back against the asphalt.

Thank. Fucking. God.

As tears well in my eyes, I finally manage, “Roth, what the fuck is going on?”

*

Leif and I sit in the reception area at the station.

I’m still reeling in emotion.

My grief has flared up along with my anger, but it’s all muddled in a confusing mix after my chat over the phone with Detective Roth.

“Come to the station. I’ll explain everything. It’s not Mike.”

Even after hearing those words, it’s not enough to console me, and I can tell Leif’s on edge as he sits, scrolling through his phone.

Along with the other emotions that have taken over my body, there’s the guilt that I just ruined what was a lovely date with my boyfriend.

“I’m sorry,” I tell him.

He looks up from his phone. “You don’t have to keep apologizing.”

Do I keep apologizing? I barely remember how we even got to the station, so maybe I have.

“This is a big deal,” he adds. “It’s okay to be worked up.”

There’s a click of heels, and Roth rounds the corner, running her hand through her bangs before catching my eye. Her gaze shifts, and she notices Leif.

A part of me is like, Fuck , but with what I went through at the Nights of Lights, I don’t really give a damn.

“I’m gonna see if I can bring you with us,” I tell Leif, then approach her and ask.

Her gaze wavers. “Zane, no. Not for this. And I think we need to have a chat.”

I turn back to Leif, shaking my head, and he nods.

Roth doesn’t say more. She guides me through the building until we’re in her office. But the moment she shuts the door, she lays into me, “What the hell is going on, Zane?”

“I’m freaking the fuck out right now, that’s what’s going on.”

She paces toward her desk, then spins back around to me.

“I need to know what makes you so confident that body isn’t my brother.”

“Do you think I’m an idiot? I’ve met that kid. And I know why you really reached out to him, so what is he doing in my office?”

“That kid is my boyfriend.”

She puts her hand to her forehead. “Why do I feel a migraine coming on?”

Fine by me after the stress she put me through.

“Roth, my brother,” I press.

She searches around the room, like she’s sifting through so many thoughts that she doesn’t know what to address first.

“Couldn’t have given me a heads-up?” I ask, hoping she’ll focus on why I’m here.

“I was told it wasn’t going to print until tomorrow. I thought I had time. But apparently, someone in the department wanted this information out, for whatever messed-up reason, and now here we are.”

“But there’s still a body you thought at some point might be Mike, which for all I know right now is Mike.”

She closes her eyes and takes a measured breath. “When we found the body, there were identifying features that lined up with Jason Kilbourne, not your brother, which is why I didn’t reach out. We’ve been waiting for confirmation.”

“Then why the hell didn’t you let me know right then? I told you that case was connected.”

“Can you just sit down? You standing there is stressing me out.”

I don’t feel like fucking sitting, but I accept that making her comfortable is the best way of getting more details from her. After my ass hits the cushion of the chair in front of her desk, she says, “I want to remind you before I tell you what happened that I never had an obligation to tell you anything. Everything I shared with you before was because I saw a grieving kid who was trying to find his missing brother. And I sympathized. I knew I should have had more boundaries. I shouldn’t have entertained your visits as much as I did, but I cared, and I realized that I enabled you.”

“Do we have to get into what you and your therapist have been chatting about?”

“I’m only trying to let you know that even right now, what I’m about to tell you, I tell you because I understand why you’re distressed.”

“You don’t understand.”

“You’re not the only one who’s ever lost someone, Zane,” she snaps, and that shuts me up. “There’s a reason I chose this job, and just because I don’t talk about it doesn’t mean I haven’t had my own shit to deal with.”

I quiet.

In all the times I’ve spoken with her, she’s never mentioned this.

She shakes her head. “Over the weekend, a hunter’s dog came across the body along the shore of a creek not far from the dam. It was weighted with rope and cinder blocks. From what the coroner has been able to make out, the state of the body suggests it was submerged for at least a couple of months. There was a storm last week that we think caused enough of a stir in the creek to shift part of the body out of the rope so that it surfaced.

“Because of how much of the body had decomposed by this point, we knew it’d be hard to get a positive ID off just that. A skeletal and dental examination suggested the age we were looking at was right for Jason Kilbourne and Mike.”

“That couldn’t have been enough for you to think it might be them, though.”

Her gaze wavers. “While searching the area, we discovered ashes nearby. Among them, there was a bit of plastic, and one of the officers on the scene recognized the style because it reminded him of his son’s WCC student ID.”

Fuck.

“The body didn’t have any wisdom teeth,” she says quickly, as if trying to chase away my concern. But that’s not fucking happening. “Kilbourne’s records show he’d already had his removed, but Mike didn’t, which ruled out Mike to my satisfaction. I didn’t broadcast this information around the department because in the past we’ve had an issue with leaks from people with political motivations. Given the nature of the crime, we didn’t want anything out until we knew what we were looking at.”

It’s hard to miss how she said that last part. “What do you mean by nature of the crime ?”

She breaks eye contact. “I’m not getting into those details with you, Zane. You can follow the news, same as everyone else. The only reason I mentioned any of this is because our attempts at discretion around this are what caused the confusion. Inadvertently done by one of my colleagues, in an effort to obfuscate the truth and keep anything from being made public early. That’s how this mess came about. And I’m sorry for that.”

Her apology sounds sincere, but… “I know you mean that, but it doesn’t change how it felt to see that article pop up on my phone.”

She gulps. “I know. But because of the nature of the crime, and the fact that we knew we were on the verge of a media frenzy, we managed to rush the genetic testing, and they confirmed what we already knew. It’s Kilbourne, not Mike. And the moment I was notified about the post, I called you. I really thought we only had to keep it together for another day.”

In some ways, it’s easier to breathe knowing the Gwinnett Daily Post got it wrong. But now I have very different worries.

That maybe they just haven’t found his body yet.

Or maybe he’s being held captive by a man who plans to kill him.

Nothing good.

“Well, I appreciate you telling me now,” I say, since I owe her that much. “Do you have any leads?” I press.

“That’s not your concern.”

“What do you mean that’s not my concern?” Now I’m back to being pissed.

“I’m not letting you Hardy Boy your way around this again.”

“Have you checked if Isaac Tolle has a connection to the place where the body was found? Maybe he used to work around there? He’d need to know the area to feel like he could dump a body without getting caught.”

“As I already said, I’m not getting into this with you.” She steps around her desk, as if using it as a physical boundary to make a point. As she settles in her chair, she says, “Now that we’ve gotten all that out of the way, there’s something else I’m interested in discussing. Something you’ve avoided since you stepped in here. Why are you dating the kid who was in my office a couple of months back, who told me you approached him about your brother’s case and a letter he’d received?”

“Well, look at where we are now. There’s a body. Someone did something with it. Doesn’t this mean there’s a possible serial killer who also took Mike, who’s maybe keeping him alive somewhere so that they can do this to him?” As soon as the words escape my lips, I feel like shit. Because a part of me can’t believe he’s being held anywhere. A part of me knows that he’s—

No, I can’t think that! I have to have hope. For him.

“Zane,” Roth says, her tone much gentler than when she brought up Leif. “I know a lot of civilians have this impression that there are serial killers running the country because of this obsession with true crime, but really, serial killers are so rare. You know how many people go missing? You know how many non-white people have gone missing in this town without making the news? Children being abducted by parents who can’t get custody. Senior citizens with dementia wandering off. People with drug problems who wind up in other states but can’t bring themselves to reach out to their families. Right now, we have two disappearances of guys around the same age, who happened to attend the same community college.”

“That sounds like more than chance.”

“It’s a college. If it were more than five thousand students, no one would think twice about it. The reality is, this likely got started on campus by kids who grew up on a diet of YouTube and podcasts and who have nothing better to do with their time. And not to belabor the point, but Leif doesn’t go to WCC. And so far, only one body has shown up. Even if we had another, we don’t jump to the conclusion that there’s a serial killer without evidence linking the crimes. Even with what you claimed before, there’s nothing to suggest that in a world where I believed a note was sent to your brother by the same person who sent something to Leif, that this in any way connects to Jason. You get that, right?”

The way she says it, she’s like a teacher trying to see if I grasped the content of her lesson, which is like a poker stirring my rage.

“Are you asking because you think I’m seeing some pattern that isn’t there? That maybe I’m predisposed to see that because of my mental-health issues?”

She raises her hands. “I didn’t say anything about that. I was talking to you, one reasonable person to another, asking you to draw a reasonable conclusion. Put yourself in my shoes. Even if I wanted to, at this point, now that the case has been elevated to a homicide investigation, I’m not calling the shots on my own. If I have a lead, it’s gotta be compelling. I have to justify every action I take to a team, and also to the politicians we rely on for funding.”

For the first time since this chat began, I can appreciate that she’s not trying to make my life difficult. She has her own series of obstacles and politics to navigate.

Sucks, but I get it.

“Zane, I know you can only see this system from your perspective, but do you know how many people come in here with theories about how a loved one died? I’ve had people accuse their parents, siblings, the neighbor, the guy who works at the deli… Sometimes they don’t even have a suspect, only leads they think are relevant from five years ago. You’d think with how long I’ve been doing this work, I would’ve known better than to follow your leads back when you first came into my office, but you know what? Maybe I have the same biases as other people. Maybe I thought it’d be like a movie where we cracked the case and I brought some relief to a guy who’d gone through a horrible tragedy.”

“Because you felt sorry for me.”

She hesitates before responding. “I sympathized with you, and I wanted to believe you were right. So remember that I’m the one who felt betrayed by what went down. I went out on a limb for you once already. I’m not making that mistake again.”

I imagine it’d sting less if she wasn’t right.

“As for you and Mr. Anderson,” she says, “if you are boyfriends, I hope it’s for the right reasons and not—”

“What is that supposed to mean?” I practically bark out.

Her eyes widen and her head jerks back. “I think you know what I meant. I hope you actually have feelings for him and aren’t trying to use being near him to play amateur sleuth.”

“I care about him. A lot.”

“Good. I’m glad to hear that, Zane. I think we’ve discussed everything we needed to, unless you have any questions.”

“No, you’ve been perfectly clear.” I push to my feet. “Thanks for the heads-up.” I can’t help my sarcastic remark as I start for the door, but I’m seething. And not just because of my panic earlier, but because even with a body on her hands, Roth doesn’t buy my story.

Even worse, I hate that I understand why.

As I reach the door, Roth says, “Oh, and, Zane.”

I stop and glance over my shoulder.

“A lot will come out in the next few days about Jason Kilbourne’s death. I hope you can focus on your new relationship and not get hung up on the details.”

“Meaning?”

“I don’t think it would be a good time to let your imagination get carried away.”

“Thanks for the hot tip,” I spit out as I grab the door handle and pull.

Locked.

Fuck. So much for my grand exit.

“You know I have to escort you out of here, right?” She pushes to her feet.

“Yeah. I remember.”

Although clearly, in my fury, I forgot.