The Guy Next Door

Chapter 28

28

ZANE

L eif settles at my kitchen table in the chair adjacent to mine. He’s shirtless, his beanie on as he pours syrup over his waffles.

“I love you too.”

I replay that moment over and over again in my mind, as Leif gazed into my eyes, not hesitating or holding back. I didn’t need him to feel the same for me as I do for him, but it sure feels fucking good.

I cut another section out of my waffles, already doused in butter and syrup, and fork them into my mouth. Damn, that feels fucking good too.

“How are you feeling this morning?” he asks, setting the dispenser between us.

There’s worry in his expression. Understandably so.

Amazing as last night was—being able to forget about all the bullshit for a few sweet moments—eventually we had to come back to reality.

To a world without my brother.

A world where, for all I know, he’s being tortured and about to endure the same fate as Jason Kilbourne…if he hasn’t already.

A world where I might be slipping again.

“Before you woke up this morning, I pulled up my files on Isaac Tolle,” I confess. “And on Jason and Mike. It’s like I’m waiting for something to click…some instinct to connect dots a part of me is trying to put together, that my conscious mind hasn’t sorted through yet. But…” I hesitate, but I remind myself of what he told me last night: “If that’s what’s happening, then we’ll figure it out, Zane. You and me. Together.”

I haven’t let people in; I tell myself it’s for a good reason, but for the first time in so long, I’m not on my own. Even if it’s true and I didn’t really see Isaac last night. Even if I need help, I don’t have to be so scared. That doesn’t make the anxiety or fear vanish, but it takes some of the weight off. Rather than being lost in panic, as I was last night, I can think this through.

“It’s the kind of thing I would have done when I was having a manic episode.” I won’t lie to him; I trust him to help me know what’s real and what’s not.

“Okay,” he says with a nod. “That makes sense. It’s understandable, given what you thought you saw last night.”

“ Thought being the operative word.”

That memory of seeing Isaac at the entrance has played so much in my head that I even see details I couldn’t have noticed before. The dark hoodie was one I’d seen him in before. A familiar lock of his dark hair.

My phone buzzes, and it’s a text from Wes.

Then another.

And another.

“The hell?” I reach over and open the messages. They’re images of Jason Kilbourne. In cute poses in a tee and jeans, sitting on his bed.

“What is it?” Leif asks.

“Some of the screenshots Wes took of Jason’s Grindr profile.”

Wes sends a follow-up message:

It didn’t hit me until I was looking at these after our chat, but Leif had mentioned something about a library where Mike and that teacher would go. I noticed these books in Jason’s photos. Don’t know if that’s where they’re from, but figured you’d want to see.

I look at the images, noticing the books on his nightstand, which look like they have library tags on the corners.

Nice catch, Wes.

I show Leif the messages, which he assesses. “Aren’t those from Chelsby Hill?”

I shrug. “Any library, I guess. I would assume the one on campus, though.”

“Could be from a public library in some other part of town, but Chelsby has yellow tags on fiction books. WCC’s tags are different.”

“How would you know that?”

“I mean, you don’t have to be a student to check out books there. Even at Georgia State, you only have to show an ID to get in. I was over there when I was going through a hard time, checked out books for reading. I remember they had cream-colored tags.”

So Jason went to that same library too?

“Isn’t that The Brothers Karamazov ?” Leif asks, his expression curious.

“What?”

“That’s Dostoevsky. That quote you borrowed from Tolle’s professional website? I recognized the author when you said Crime and Punishment .”

I zoom in, confirming the author and title on the book.

“Zane, he said he took these screenshots right before Jason disappeared.”

“I remember.”

He hesitates. “Are you sure you didn’t see Tolle last night?”

“You think I haven’t been trying to work that out all night?” I say through my teeth, but then take a breath. “Sorry. That’s not directed at you.”

He takes my wrist. Instinctively, I raise it to my face and gently kiss the back of his hand.

This only makes last night even more confusing. “If it was Isaac, when I went outside the coffeehouse, he should have been there.”

“But you said he was turning to you, so it’s not impossible he might have seen you and run off.”

“Not impossible, no. And though I didn’t see his car there, what if he’d parked at one of the other stores around?”

“That’s possible.”

“I followed him enough before, when things got bad… Caribou Coffee was not one of his usual spots. That could have changed, but if that’s true, why was he leaving right after we finished up with Wes? And why would he need to run? To leave right after…that’s awfully coincidental. I keep thinking maybe he was there to see if Wes was gonna tell us something that would expose him.”

“That makes sense. He wouldn’t have known what Wes knew,” Leif says, “just like we didn’t, so maybe he was worried since Wes was the guy who posted on Reddit. Thought something might have come up that you could take to the cops.”

“That’s right,” I say as Leif’s words sink in. “He wouldn’t have known what Wes knew. Only that we were meeting someone who might have information that could implicate him.”

“But how would he have known we were meeting with Wes?”

I have an idea, but I hesitate. Now I’m going a bridge too far.

“What is it?” Leif presses.

“It’s wild. I can’t—”

“Zane, come on. Tell me.”

Fuck, just say it. “What if he’d somehow accessed my messages with Dman? Like me, he wouldn’t have known what Wes knew, or even who he was, so maybe he wanted to find out for himself, to see if he was in danger of being discovered. No, that doesn’t make any sense. He would have needed access to my messages…”

My thoughts return to the night when I saw someone on the surveillance footage, breaking in through the back door of Leif’s parents’ place.

“Fuck,” I say.

“What?”

“The night I went to your place, after the cops left, when I came back here, I realized I’d left the door unlocked. I wasn’t really thinking about that since I figured I was going to nail Isaac then, but I had to check the house because I was freaked out he might have been hiding there. What if, at some point between when I grabbed you and the cops left, he came in and hacked my computer? Put spyware in so he could access my account?”

All my doubts surface.

This is ridiculous! You’re losing it again, Zane.

But this image of Jason…

And if that was Isaac, how did he fucking know we’d be at Caribou Coffee?

“That would definitely prove you really saw him last night,” Leif says.

“I love your waffles, but—”

“Get your ass upstairs and tell me what you find.”

I hop to my feet and plant a fat kiss on him before dashing up to my room. Sitting at my computer, I do a quick scan for any programs I don’t recognize. I’m on a mission. But during my search, another thought springs to mind: spyware isn’t the only way he could have found out about our plans that night.

“Dman messaged me back…”

I initially told Leif about the message in the shower, but we were in the bedroom when I told him Dman wanted to meet us at Caribou Coffee near campus. What if he’d planted a recording device in here?

As soon as the thought crosses my mind, I’m back to doubting myself. But another thought quickly follows: “We should go to the Nights of Lights.” We had that conversation in the bedroom as well, and the night we went, I believed someone was watching us. At the time, I’d talked myself out of it. But what if I’d been right?

I jump up from my desk, searching around the monitor for an attachment…anything. Where the fuck could he have planted a mic?

As I begin a hunt around my room, I’m obsessed with my mission, trying to set aside that voice in me that whispers, This proves you’re losing it. You need help. There’s something wrong with you . But I persist in my search.

After checking behind my TV, under the bed, and in the closet, I stop. Think, Zane. If I were bugging someone, what would I need to consider?

It’d have to be wireless to transmit somewhere. It’d need to be voice activated so that I only picked up when people were talking. A battery wouldn’t be reliable, not for how long it’d have to function for him to have heard us talking about Dman, which means he would either need a way to get back in…or…leach off my electricity. The ceiling fan would take too long, but maybe the electric sockets?

I open my desk drawer, retrieve a screwdriver, and soon I’m unscrewing my outlets, and if that doesn’t make me feel like I’m losing my goddamn mind, I don’t know what will.

I’ve removed five before I get to the last one—at the nightstand on Leif’s side of the bed.

I’m all tension and suspense as I unscrew the frame.

Maybe once I’ve torn my room the fuck apart and seen there’s nothing here, maybe then I’ll have the confirmation I need that I’m fucking wrong and that all these connections in my head are just part of some manic state. I’ll be forced to face the truth.

As the screw comes loose, I hesitate to take the frame off.

Even before I pull it off, I accept that all this nonsense can only lead to an ER visit.

So I take that final step, and I see, tucked beside the socket, a mini green circuit board. The wiring from the socket has been rerouted to the device.

Tears well in my eyes as my jaw drops.

It wasn’t only in my head.

I was right. I was fucking right.

The relief is palpable as I put my hand to my chest, fighting back tears.

The bastard’s been listening in on our conversations. He knew we were meeting with Wes because he heard us making plans to meet up with him. And it’s very possible he knew about the Nights of Lights and followed us there.

The relief sweeping through me is so powerful, but nearly as fast as it came, it’s replaced by a new tension. Because he hasn’t only been listening in on what we were doing, but every fuck. Every sweet moment we shared in my bedroom, even last night when we exchanged I-love-yous.

Chills rush across my body as this sick feeling settles in my gut.

I feel so fucking violated.

So fucking pissed.

And so fucking right.

It was that bastard!

I’ve got you now, motherfucker.