Page 59 of Whispers of the Lake

In this one, she was standing in a dressing room and holding a purple dress in the air by the hanger. “Date night,” she said. “What do you guys think? Should I buy this?”

It was a brief video. No longer than seven seconds.

Date night? With whom?

I checked the date. It was recorded in June. I rolled to the next video. Eve was wearing the purple dress she’d just asked for opinions on. The neckline cut very low, revealing lots of cleavage. She was smiling as she sat on the hood of a car. Car horns beeped in the background, whizzing by.

“What?” she called, lowering the phone. “Oh, yeah! I’ll take a scoop, babe!” She looked at the camera again. “I’m having so much fun, guys. I never thought I’d fall in love. That sounds so stupid of me.” She giggled, and judging by her glassy eyes, I could tell she was drunk.

She hopped off the trunk of the car and puckered her lips as she looked into the camera. Then it cut off. But something before the cutoff caught my eye. I clicked the mouse and dragged the time back a few seconds. The car she was sitting on was red.Metallicred, like Lincoln had said. I hit pause on the video and zoomed in. The car’s emblem was just to the right of her hip.

“An Aston Martin,” I whispered.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. I fished it out to answer it. “Nico? Got anything for me?” I asked as I clicked the mouse to see the next photo of a cup of vanilla ice cream.

“Not yet. Just calling ’cause I haven’t had a chance to look into this Victor person yet. My mom needed a lift to an appointment, then wanted to run errands, so I’ve been out all day. I should be back in about an hour or so. Just grabbing dinner with her now.”

“Okay, yeah. That’s fine.” It wasn’t really. Something told me this Victor guy was the same person driving the Aston Martin and I needed to know who he was, what he looked like, and when he last spoke to Eve.

“I’ll text you as soon as I have something.”

“Thanks, Nico.”

He hung up and I sifted through more videos. None of them showed the Aston Martin again. Neither did any of her photos. Giving up, I moved away from the laptop and searched through the nightstands. Pills. THC carts. Cough drops. Earrings. Sinus relief spray.

I shuffled through the closet but had no luck there. She kept her closet tidy and even color coded her clothes. I lowered to a squat to check her shoe boxes, hoping to find anything that might give me a clue as to where she might be or what she was doing.

Nothing.

With a huff, I made my way back to the laptop, slumping down in the chair and rubbing my forehead. I was getting a headache from all this thinking and wondering. I stared at the screen before sitting up again and clicking through the files. I checked her apps next. There was a black app I hadn’t seen before with an icon of a box with three dots above it called ThoughtBox.

I gave it a click and it opened to the main page. The words WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND, EVE? were written across the top of the page. Below that were separated boxes, all with different dates. The latest was from September 2nd.

A sync button was at the top and I gave it a click. More boxes appeared in seconds.

September 3rd.

September 4th.

All dates when Eve was in Sage Hill.

My heart sped up a notch as I gave the most recent date a click and several paragraphs appeared.

“Holy shit,” I breathed as I scrolled through one entry after another.

I’d found Eve’s digital journal.

Eve Castillo journal entry

It feels like something bad is going to happen. I can’t shake it. I can’t tell if it’ll happen to me or someone else. I can’t sleep so I’m currently watching TV with a fire going in the lake house.

My stomach has been hurting all day. I think Alex and Damian were too rough. I should rest but I can’t. Like I said, something bad feels like it’s going to happen. Could it be guilt? Maybe I should go home. Perhaps I need to reconsider everything and focus on my priorities. So what if Victor doesn’t want me? I’ll be fine.

I never should’ve come here.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Ididn’t think things through when leaving Eve’s house. A part of me screamed to calm down, go back home, and process my thoughts before acting, but I couldn’t. Instead, I jumped behind the wheel of my car and drove to Sage Hill.Again. I was an idiot, I know. But the adrenaline coursing through me was hard to control.

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