Page 28 of Run for Her Life
“Did she ever mention Annabelle Stevens to you?” Aiden asked.
“No. I don’t think so. Isn’t that the woman who was murdered?” Her eyes bugged out. “Has Jackie been abducted too?”
“We don’t have evidence of anything yet. It’s better for the investigation if you keep things to yourself for now,” Zoe said, trying to reassure her. “Are you sure she’s never mentioned Annabelle?”
“Positive. Though, maybe they met through work?”
“At the café?” Aiden prodded.
“That or Jackie’s new gig. She was working freelance as a video game tester.”
“Oh.” Zoe frowned. “For whom?”
“Harrington Group.” Amy’s gaze slid back and forth between them. “They are apparently making some video game, or they were, I don’t know. But Jackie was working part-time for them.”
Zoe and Aiden locked eyes. Finally, they’d discovered the link between Annabelle and Jackie—they weren’t merely friends from the coffee shop who had bonded over a couple of lattes. They both worked for the same company that Adam was trying to hold to account in his article. Zoe wondered if there was any truth to what she’d dismissed as pure speculation.
“You and Jackie are from here, right? Pineview Falls,” Aiden said. “Townies usually have families and friends. From herhome, it didn’t seem like she had many people in her life or even a boyfriend.”
Amy blinked through her tears. “She… was very lonely. And we weren’t nearly as close we should have been. She was kind of a mess.” She couldn’t keep the judgment out of her voice.
Zoe mulled over that information. Jackie was young and beautiful, having spent years walking the same streets and seeing the same faces and knowing the same corners of Pineview Falls. And yet she had managed to float through the dreadful town instead of putting down any meaningful roots. Did the dreariness of Pineview Falls get under her skin and cloud her mind? Did it dim her light and make her want to be alone?
“What mess?” Aiden asked.
“I feel bad…”
“You’ll only be helping us,” he explained gently. “The difference between you both is evident. I’m guessing you have seen the world, invested in your education. But Jackie wasn’t interested in building anything, was she?”
Zoe resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Aiden was being Aiden—playing the vulnerable woman in front of him like a fiddle. He’d sniffed her superiority complex.
A flash of pride crossed Amy’s face. “She was a hermit and obsessed with the fire. Her brother died in it.” Her words chilled Zoe. All roads at Pineview Falls led to the fire. She imagined what the inside of Jackie’s mind must look like. Every thought, every dream, every fantasy dictated by the tragedy she couldn’t stop researching. “She was obsessed.” She gave a small smile. “Who wouldn’t be in this town? I kept telling her to do something with her life but the fire was a black hole she kept falling into.”
“Do you know who MF is?” Zoe asked, remembering the calendar. “There was a date circled on a calendar at Jackie’s house. September 5. It’s MF’s birthday. A boyfriend perhaps?”
“Oh, no, no. That’s her brother. Michael. Michael Fink. What a shame for her mother. She lost one child to fire and the other child to madness.”
Zoe didn’t like the dark. Always slept with a night light. She imagined herself running around like a headless chicken, desperately trying to escape the total blackness. Outside, the wind snaked through the empty streets, rattling loose street signs and making the old lampposts flicker.
Sitting in the only Chinese restaurant in town, she rubbed the chopsticks between her palms, eagerly looking at the spread of cheap, greasy Chinese food, as she took her time deciding what to eat first. To her annoyance, Aiden neatly scooped a portion of each dish onto his plate. He tossed over a fortune cookie to her. She cracked it open—and imagined Rachel’s hands instead of her own. It was their thing when they got Chinese food.
The answers you seek are not ahead but buried in you.
A thick stack of all research and case files into the Pineview Falls tragedy awaited her. It sucked out all the oxygen in the room. The tale of how six teenagers died together.
“Is that why this town feels like a cemetery?” Zoe wondered aloud. “Because of what happened all those years ago?”
“It’s collective trauma response. Small towns are closed ecosystems, meaning everyone is either directly or indirectly connected to the victims. That grief doesn’t dissipate. It lingers, passed down like folklore.” He picked at his noodles, his eyes staring into empty space. “And then there is the displacement of time. These towns exist in a kind of psychological purgatory, where the past is more present than the future.”
The wind whistled. Windows rattled. The velvety darkness outside folded and stirred. The town wasn’t just scarred from the violent deaths; it was calcified. And even though Zoe had only been here four days, she could already feel herself becoming a part of the echo.
Her phone buzzed with a notification. She looked at it and a smile broke across her lips.
“What is it?” Aiden asked.
She laughed at the goofy picture. “My sister just sent me a picture of my nephew. Do you have any siblings?”
“Four.”
