Page 111 of Shattered Veil

My words were cut short when I focused ahead once more, and I saw James’ grey sedan on the side of the road. There was nothing peculiar about it—no trails of spinning tire tracks or skidding steps through the muddy snow that had almost completely melted. Only his car, and nothing else.

My thoughts just…stopped.

I heard Zoey call to me as I let off the gas. Recognized the profanity that fell from her mouth as I firmly depressed the brake. I didn’t have the headspace to respond while I quickly turned the wheel to pull up behind his vehicle, though. I barely had the chance to shift into park before my seatbelt was off, I swung my door open so hard that I heard the hinges complain and rattle, and I was running.

There was nowhere to go, really.

It was seven frantic steps until I reached James’ car, parked neatly on the shoulder. I stood beside it, my breath running through me heavy as I saw all there was to see—an abandoned vehicle on the side of the highway. I vaguely heard myself muttering, “No, no, no,” as I peered into the driver’s side window that had been left open.

It was clean on the inside, as I already knew it was. A holster for his phone that was affixed to his dash was empty. The back seat was barren. The front seat held only his work briefcase. There were no clues. No tells. Just a horrid realization that I may have been right.

“Cassie?” Zoey nervously spoke my name as she approached.

My breaths went shallow. “I…um…I don’t…I don’t understand.”

“Maybe he had car trouble?” she offered gently. “After he got pulled over by the cop, I mean.” Zoey squatted down. “Are the tires fine? They seem fine.”

My head whipped left and right, and I pointed toward the ground behind his car. Though it hadn’t appeared that his pulling over into the mud was out of emergency and there was indeed no sign of what one would deem a struggle, there were other indentations in the earth.

“Tire tracks.”

Zoey followed where my hand gestured with her eyes—over the impressions that the thread’s groove made—and there was no arguing where the vehicle had gone. It appeared that it had pulled up behind James’ car just as mine had and then drove back onto the road. What may have been footprints were scattered about, but because neither of us were detectives by any means, there was no telling who they belonged to, which occurred first, or where they were going and why.

“Um,” Zoey thought aloud, “the tracks could be old? Or—or from an Uber or something, if he had to catch a ride to get to work?”

I shook my head, for there was just…no way. There was no. Goddamn. Way. That the outcome of all of this was that simple—that he was pulled over, had car trouble shortly thereafter, just so happened to forego contacting me while we felt like we were on the precipice of a crisis, and then had his phone confiscated by God knows who…who was sending me messages that were so unlike James.

Yeah—no goddamn way was an understatement at this point, and it was all I could do to grunt some sort of dissatisfied noise in Zoey’s direction before I spun and began to stomp back to my Jeep.

“Cassie!” Zoey exclaimed. “What are you—”

“Car!” I yelled over my shoulder. “Now!”

Her steps scurried behind me, and we were both barely planted into our seats when I hit the gas. Zoey’s hands splayed on the window and center console to secure herself as we returned to the highway, and once we were free of the mud, gravel, and rock from the side of the road, she reached for her seatbelt. I did the same, and without any provocation, I spoke my thoughts aloud regarding her assumption that the tire tracks could have been from a ride service:

“He could have called me—I could have driven him to work.”

“And pull you away from the apartment?” she countered. “We’d ask why. Lee would’ve been weird about you leaving alone—”

“Yeah, yeah, right—Jay, too…but if not me, then Luke, right?” I added, “And Claire hasn’t heard from him. Luke hasn’t heard from him. None of this makes any fucking sense! And…and he would have told me. He—he would have called me again. Been like, ‘You’re not gonna believe this,’ or—or-or, ‘M-my morning’s gone to shit, Darlin’.”

My argument began firm but turned frantic, my vocal cords shaking while I stammered back to her.

“Okay, okay, shhhh,” Zoey consoled from my right. “Where’s your brain goin’ here, Cas?”

“I don’t—I don’t know, but dancers have been disappearing, right? I—he’s been to Gas Lamp. He’s associated with me…”

I couldn’t finish the thought.

“What, you think he’s been…like…taken?” Zoey disbelievingly replied. I said nothing in response, and she returned with a sigh, “Look, I get that you’re worried—I do. And I’m with you, this is weird, but…why would that happen?”

I shook my head. “I have no idea, but it—it all feels wrong.”

“We…we can’t jump to conclusions.”

It was said in an assuring manner—as if hearing it would calm me—and while I knew I appreciated the sentiment, I didn’t have the ability to absorb the gesture.

I shrieked, “Jump to conclusions?!”

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