What Lies in the Darkness (Shadow Cove Book 1) (2 page)

“Have you …?” Tentativeness fills her tone. “Have you heard from him?”

I shake my head. “No, nothing’s changed.”

Okay, that’s not entirely true. A lot has changed—at least in my life—since the once loving, doting, awesome father I knew just up and vanished into thin air. Up until then, he was a great father, husband, and spent most of his time working as a reporter for the
Shadow Cove Daily News.
The position made him extremely unpopular amongst the town residents, especially the rich socialites.

Honestly, I kind of don’t blame some people for disliking him. My dad did have a habit of making other people’s dirty laundry the main focus of his articles. Like the time he reported on Mr. Wellford getting busted for hiring a prostitute, which led to his wife divorcing him and taking over half of his ten point five million dollars, which led to the bankruptcy of his company and the unemployment of about fifty members of our town. Yeah, total domino effect. So, when my dad disappeared a little over six months ago, not too many people were upset. Me, I almost fell apart.

My dad and I were always close and shared a love for journalism. Sometimes, during the summers, he’d let me go dig up facts with him and do interviews. Those are some of my best memories and the ones I try to hold on to.

The last time I saw him haunts my mind every single day. He looked so worried and upset, frantically sifting through some of his old files and notes. I wasn’t sure what he was looking for as he rambled about some sort of conspiracy theory, too frazzled for me to dare ask.

I should’ve. I really wish I had said something. Instead, I made a mental note to ask him later, after he calmed down. But, by the time I came home, the house was empty, and it stayed that way until my mom returned from working the night shift at the hospital.

She didn’t seem too concerned that he was gone—he’d done that a lot over the last year, ever since my brother died. After a few days of still being MIA, though, my worry grew, and I drove down to the police station to report him missing. No one seemed too eager to find him, and after doing a brief search, the sheriff declared my dad left of his own free will, that he abandoned his family.

Everyone, including my mom, accepted the answer. Not me. I know my dad. While he believes in some crazy ideas and pissed off a lot of people, I know he loves me and would never have just left without at least calling and checking in. I can’t accept anything else, not without hard evidence.

Tears fill my eyes as I think about the last six months without him. Not wanting to turn into a big, old cry baby, though, at least not in front of Ev, I suck back the waterworks and change the subject.

“I think I need to take a break from this project and regroup my thoughts, maybe come up with another angle.”

“Do you want my help?” She reaches for a worn spiral notebook on her computer desk, practically bursting with excitement. “I came up with a list of topics for the project. I’m only going to use the two I underlined.” She flips open the notebook then hands it to me. “You’re welcome to use any of the rest. The broadest topics are highlighted in pink. Any of those will more than likely guarantee you an A as long as you do the work properly and thoroughly.”

I crinkle my nose at the sight of the fifty-plus topic ideas, each as boring as the next. “Thanks, but your ideas might be a little too smart for me.” I shut the notebook and toss it aside on the desk. “Wanna hit up the skate park with me for a little while? It’ll probably help me figure out an idea for the project.”

Her excitement goes
poof
. “Mak, you always do this.”

“Do what?” I feign dumb as I slip on my sneakers.

“Avoid doing big projects until the last second.”

“Well, at least I’m consistent,” I joke.

“You can’t flunk history. If you do, then you won’t be able to graduate.” Her frustration gradually shifts to deviousness. “And then you’ll have to spend the summer retaking the class and listening to Mrs. Maralline’s monotonous tone. Is that how you want to spend your last summer?”

“I don’t know … Hey, did I tell you what Finn did in Biology yesterday?” I ask, pushing to my feet.

She waves a finger at me. “Don’t change the subject. You always do that, too.”

“I know.” I tug my knitted maroon beanie on my head then slip my studded backpack over my shoulders. “It’s a great distraction when you don’t necessarily want to talk about something. Some of the people my dad used to interview would do that to avoid answering questions that were making them uncomfortable. My dad referred to it as a guilty tick, and when he spotted it, he’d dig his claws in.”

She narrows her eyes at me. “You just did it again.”

Dammit! She’s too smart for her own good.

“Fine.” I raise my hands in surrender. “Give me today to de-stress and kick some ass on the half-pipes. Tomorrow, I’ll re-stress by draining my soul and working on the project.”

“
Draining your soul
? Isn’t that a little bit overdramatic?” Shaking her head, she sighs in defeat. “Fine, I’ll give you today to have some fun. But tomorrow, you’re going to finish that project. I’ll stay with you all day and night if I have to in order to make sure you do it.”

I salute her. “Yes, boss, sir. But only if you try to have some fun today, too.”

She nods, and I grab her hand.

“We can pick up Embry and Kennedy on the way,” I say, yanking her out the door with me.

Embry and Kennedy are our two other best friends. We’ve been friends since elementary school, and together, we are a very different, very awesome group. Although, the people we go to school with haven’t realized how truly awesome we are. Then again, it’s not their fault they aren’t awesome enough to realize this for themselves.

“Hold on.” She wiggles her arm from my grip and snatches up her laptop. “I think I’ll work on my English midterm while we’re there.”

“That’s what you consider fun?” I question then shake my head. “You know what? Never mind. Silly question.”

“No question is a silly question,” she states seriously as we step out of her bedroom.

“My dad used to say that, too.” I almost smile at the reminder of my dad. Then I remember all the questions he was asking the police right before he vanished. Questions about my brother’s death, about a conspiracy, secret societies. Questions that seemed to make people uneasy. He swore half the town was in on it: rich, poor, business owners, even some of the police.

Sometimes, I wonder if asking those questions led to his disappearance.

LOCATION: MAK’S CAR

TIME: 5:22 PM

DATE: SATURDAY, MARCH 20
^TH

After Ev and I hop into my car, I steer toward Embry’s house because it’s closer, unlike Kennedy’s, which is located on the posh side of town. Out of our four friends, Kennedy’s family is the only one who’s wealthy. The rest of us are lower-class.

Shadow Cove doesn’t really have a middle-class. Either you own one of the businesses in the community, or you work for one. And the workers make Jack shit, while the owners roll in their pools filled with hundred dollar bills. Don’t believe me? Just drive across town. One-half of the land is dotted with lavish two- and three-story homes. But once you cross Main Street, the homes shift into single-story, run down, in desperate need of some maintenance homes, and the families who live in them struggle daily to make ends meet.

“Do you ever think they’ll fix the sign?” Everleigh asks as I roll through a four-way stop. I’d come to a full stop, but for the last year, one of the stop signs has been lying broken on the ground, so I don’t know if it really counts anymore.

“What? The stop sign?” I ask, and she nods. “I don’t know. It took them, like, three years to fix the yield sign down on Fifth Street.”

Ev frowns. “Why don’t they take care of this town better?”

“Oh, they do,” I say, sarcasm dripping into my tone. “You just have to go to the other side of town where all the stop signs are shiny and new. I even heard they have traffic lights and everything.”

She chuckles, setting her computer on the floorboard. “Traffic lights, huh? Wow, that’s super fancy.”

“Oh, yeah, totally fancy.” I flip on my blinker. “Way too fancy for us common folks. We probably couldn’t even figure out how to use them …” The humor dies from my tone as we pass the old wooden sign that points to the dirt road leading to Shadow Cove Lake. The lake where my brother’s body was found.

I almost forget how to breathe as I recollect the days leading up to his death and those afterward.

Some people consider my brother’s death a great tragedy. The few people who showed up to his funeral spoke of how he was too young to die and how heartbreaking it was that he was in such a dark place the few months leading up to his death. And they were right. My brother was in a dark place right before he died. The colorful, joking, loving, goofy brother I grew up with had withered into a sullen, depressed, moody guy I barely recognized. He lost enough weight that his ribs were protruding and his face was sunken in. His once 4.0 GPA slipped dramatically. He was quiet and withdrawn, spending hours locked in his room. When he would come out, he was snappy and irritable.

My mom and the school’s guidance counselor thought he was depressed. My dad had another theory: that my brother got into trouble with some secret society in Shadow Cove. A lot of people in the town gossiped about him selling drugs. Me, I didn’t know what to think. Still don’t.

Whatever was going on with him, he ultimately took his own life. At least, according to the final police report, he did. I was there when the officer told my parents and rambled on and on about my brother until there wasn’t anything left to say. The conclusion was pretty simple, though.

Full Name: Sawyer Evingston.

Age: Eighteen.

Time of Death: 12:38 p.m.

Date of Death: January 17, 2014.

Cause of Death: Overdose of morphine.

My mom easily accepted this conclusion. My dad, not so much.

“That doesn’t explain why he was found in the lake,” Dad argued after the detective finished his speech.

“More than likely, he injected the drugs near the lake—either on the shore or up above on the cliffs—and either fell into the water or the waves pulled his body in,” the detective answered in a tolerant tone.

My dad loosened his tie, his face turning bright red. “This is such bullshit! He’s only been dead for a week. A week isn’t long enough to investigate a murder case.”

My mom glared at my dad. “James, do not bring that stuff up right now.”

My dad gaped at her. “Are you being serious? Our son is dead and these”—he waved his hand at the detective sitting on the other side of the desk—“yahoos are saying he killed himself without looking into all the facts. How would his body fall into the lake? Better yet, why would he choose to overdose near a lake when he hated water? And where did he even get the morphine? Plus, he had those scratches on his arms.” He shot the detective a look. “Was that even looked into?”

I wasn’t too surprised by my dad’s questions. He always had a knack for questioning everything. It’s what made him great at his job, but kind of ruined his people skills.

“I can assure you, Mr. Evingston, that the case was looked into thoroughly, and there is no evidence of foul play,” the detective said. “This isn’t one of your stories. We don’t stretch the truth here in order to please people. We stick to the facts, and we’re very good at what we do.”

“Good at what you do, huh?” My dad leaned forward in the chair. “Tell me this, then. If you guys are so great at what you do, why does half the damn town practically get away with murder?”

“That’s enough!” My mom’s outburst startled everyone. She slung her purse over her shoulder, rose to her feet, and stuck her hand out to the detective. “We appreciate everything you and everyone else has done. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get home and finalize the funeral arrangements.”

My dad looked like a kicked puppy as she stormed out of the room without so much as a backward glance.

He cleared his throat several times before turning back to the detective. “Close the case if you want. I’ll just start my own investigation”—he pushed to his feet and headed for the door—“because I know there’s more to this, whether you know it or not.” He signaled for me to follow him. “Come on, Mak; let’s get out of here.”

I wiped a few tears from my eyes and followed him out, his words and threats echoing in my mind. Was there really more to my brother’s death? Did he really not commit suicide like the police said?

Later, my mom took me aside and explained my dad’s irrational behavior was due to stress from my brother’s death. Maybe she was right, but that didn’t stop my dad from going into full-on detective mode for the next six months, trying to solve the mystery around my brother’s death all the way up until he vanished off the face of the earth. And now my brother’s death remains a mystery, along with my dad’s disappearance.

That’s all my life is anymore: unanswered questions, confusion, and a desperation to find out what happened.

“Mak, did you hear me?” Ev asks, yanking me out of my thoughts.

I blink dazedly at her. “What?”

“I said I just texted Embry, and she’s at Kennedy’s, so we don’t have to go this way.” Concern masks her expression. “Are you okay? It felt like you just spaced out for, like, five minutes straight.”

I probably did space out for five minutes, but I’m not about to tell her that. Ev is already afraid enough of my driving.

“I’m cool,” I lie breezily as I pull the car to the side of the road to flip a bitch. “I’m just tired. I’ve been sleeping super shitty lately.”

“You’re not having nightmares again, are you?” Her attention drifts to the screen of her phone as it buzzes.

“No. I just have a lot on my mind with midterms and this skating competition coming up,” I lie for the tenth time today.

Sure, the skating competition hangs over my head like a dark, grey, “ha, ha, you’re never going to come up with the money” cloud, but that’s not what’s been hindering my Zs. Ever since my brother passed away, a very vivid reoccurring nightmare of him drowning in the lake haunts me. Instead of jumping into the water and helping him, I just stand on the shore and watch him die. The odd part of the dream is when Sawyer’s ghost appears beside me. Sometimes, he asks me why I didn’t help him, to which I never know how to reply. Sometimes, we talk about nothing important, like the weather or how things are going with my skateboarding. Sometimes, we don’t talk at all, which is worse because it reminds me of our relationship during the last few months he was alive.