Be home at a reasonable hour, she texted back. Good Luck.
I met Nathan at the marina, where we met some volunteers who were organizing the different search teams. We ended up getting assigned to an area near our cabin, which was good because that’s where he’d disappeared. As we were leaving, Sonny showed up, looking distraught.
“Any news?” asked Nathan.
He shook his head. He had bags under his eyes and his face was etched with worry lines. He seemed to have aged overnight. “No, nothing.”
“We’re going back towards our cabin to see if there are any clues or anything. Nikki claims she saw him there the night he disappeared.”
Sonny raised his eyebrows and turned to me. “Really?”
I wanted to tell him everything, but from the distraught look in his eyes, I just couldn’t add to his stress. For one, it wouldn’t help matters, and for another, he’d probably think I was completely insane.
“Yeah,” I said. “He left the cabin pretty late and that was the last time I saw him.”
Nathan’s eyebrows went up but he didn’t say anything.
“Did he mention where he was going when he left your place?”
I bit the side of my lip. “I think he was heading home.” I felt horrible for lying but I didn’t know what else to say.
Sonny took out a cigarette. “I should probably have you speak to the sheriff. He said he’d be here sometime around six.”
“Yeah, I’d actually like to talk to him, too,” I said. Both Caleb and Celeste.
It was almost four by the time we left the marina. Nathan and I had actually decided to leave our vehicles at home and begin our own search, starting with the woods around our house. He grabbed a flashlight so we could continue our search even when the sun went down.
“Let me show you the spot where I think we flipped over in the truck,” I said.
He was unusually quiet as we walked through the yard and towards the dirt road. It took us about ten minutes to reach the area where I thought the accident occurred.
“This is it,” I said, pointing towards the tire marks on the side leading into the grass. “Look at those tire tracks.”
“Yeah, and look over here,” he said, motioning towards an area of grass that was flattened. “This must have been where it rolled. There’s even some debris left over.”
Sure enough, there were some broken pieces of glass and metal that had been forgotten by whoever had cleared the accident.
“So, do you believe me now?” I asked, picking up a piece of a broken taillight.
He turned to me, his face grim. “To be honest, I don’t really know what to believe. Either I’m almost as nuts as you, or there’s something very sinister going on here.”
“Nathan,” I said, standing up. “I need to tell you this…last night I was with Ethan.”
His jaw clenched. “What the hell, Nikki? That guy’s nothing but trouble. He’s a deviant, and the last person in the world you should be associating with. What in the hell were you thinking?”
I raised my chin and glared at him. “Well, I didn’t go with him on my own free will. He grabbed me and flew me to some abandoned building.”
He shook his head and smirked. “Right, he flew you.”
“Yeah, like I said, he’s a vampire. If you don’t start removing your head from your ass, you’re going to find out the hard way that we are not alone out here. There are vampires or ‘Roamers’ as they prefer to be called.”
“Roamers?”
I nodded. “Yes, Celeste is also a vampire, and she told me they prefer to be called Roamers or Travelers.”
He started laughing. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
I raised my sprained wrist. “Does this look like I’m kidding? Does the fact that Duncan is missing and more people are being murdered really sound like a joke to you?”
He raised his hands. “Okay, let’s say that you’re right, which I’m not saying you are, but hypothetically, if there are ‘Roamers’, which one of them is responsible for Duncan?”
I sighed. “That’s the part I’m not really sure of. The night he went missing, I could have sworn it was Ethan who attacked us, but now, after talking to him, I’m not so sure.”
He sighed. “Why not? Because he’s a good kisser?”
Ethan was; I had to give him that.
“Because he said he was out of town and believes that someone is setting him up.”
Nathan stared at me for a minute and then began laughing. “I…this is just too hard to accept. I was willing to try, but Jesus, Nikki.”
I stepped towards him. “Just keep an open mind, please. That’s all I ask.”
Just then we both spotted Celeste’s truck moving towards us. When she reached the spot where we were standing, she rolled down her window and smiled sweetly at Nathan. “Hey there, handsome! You weren’t answering your phone so I thought I’d take a trip out here; I was just wondering if you were free tonight?”
“Well, I don’t know, Celeste, we’re kind of busy. You heard Duncan’s missing, right?”