An odd feeling remains with me as I walk down the hospital hallway, approaching the kids’ room. I press my cool hands against my warm cheeks and take a deep breath before entering. Jordan stands from his chair between the beds, and as I approach, he doesn’t smile. I hand him the file folder.
“Aunt Chelsea,” Bella whispers, pointing to Timmy, asleep on the bed. “Mister Camel.”
He has the stuffed camel tucked under his arm and Bella holds her lion up, giving it a big hug.
“I’m so glad you like them,” I whisper, giving her a wide smile before turning back to my brother.
“The kids wanted to see you,” he says with a half-hearted smile. The way the last words hang, I can tell he has more to say. Something heavier.
“What is it?” I ask.
He waves me toward the door and I follow him. He looks over his shoulder and lowers his voice. “The detective looking into the crash came to see me.”
I lean in closer. “What did they say?”
“He canvassed the houses of the people who live on the concession we were driving on. One of the homeowners said he was out raking leaves and saw a black car speed by around the time of the accident, going the opposite direction of where Molly’s parents live.” A black car. That’s something. “He didn’t get the plate. He had no reason to. Doesn’t remember the make, either, but he said it was someone in a bright blue baseball cap driving.”
I remember Cam in the kitchen, during our breakup, wearing his blue baseball hat.
“Okay,” I huff. “Can they do anything with that?”
“No, but his next move is to check with the houses on that street, in that direction, and see if any of them have security cameras that would cover the road the driver was on. It’s not much, but it could lead us to video. They could get the plates and question the driver. Chels… we might really find who did this.”
He grabs me, pulling me in for a hug, and squeezes me tightly.
“That’s great,” I whisper.
“I just want to know,” he says near my ear, choking on his words, “why? Why did this happen?”
Because of me.
I didn’t do it, but this is my fault. The blackmailer is after me. I struggle with the thought, unable to push it away as Jordan holds me close. If he finds out Molly’s death is my fault, he’ll never forgive me, regardless of what he thinks I did or didn’t do.
He pulls away and squeezes my arm, wiping the tears from his eyes. “I’m just so glad you’re here, Chels.”
The lump in my throat grows so big I can’t speak.
He takes a few steps back into the room and I follow. Bella sits on the end of Timmy’s bed, each with their new stuffed toys in hand.
What if the blackmailer is Cam? It doesn’t make any sense, but… neither did his visit. The thought eats at my stomach, leaving a heavy, cold feeling of guilt in its wake. It’s more than a thought. It’s a feeling.
“Jordan, you know when Cam came to see you?”
He nods.
“Was there anything else he said? Anything he asked you that you can remember?”
He turns back to me and bites his lip, thinking. I wait for his answer, but he walks past me again toward the door. I follow, and he stops before the hallway, but keeps his back turned to me.
“I didn’t want to get into it with everything going on—but there’s been something I’ve been thinking about since Cam came to see me the other day.”
Dread grows in the pit of my stomach as I wait for him to continue.
“He asked me why I stopped talking to you, and I told him I just couldn’t understand why Steve would have… done what he did. When the police questioned me, I told them how Steve and I hung out that day, and he seemed so normal, or his new normal after the breakup. He was trying to convince me to go to this party in the city. I told him I didn’t want to be the third wheel.” He turns to me. “He was seeing someone new, y’know? Did you know that?”
I shake my head, no. I want to ask why it matters. I want to tell him it didn’t stop him from trying to get Morgan back, but he continues.
“Sure, Steve still had feelings for Morgan. I didn’t deny that to the police. He still talked about her. But he was moving on. There’s no way he did it, Chels. Steve was a lot of things to a lot of people, but he wasn’t a murderer.” He shrugs and shakes his head. “And I told Cam that. I told him you and I would never see eye to eye on it. You know what he said? He asked me why I take it out on you.”
Cam was always trying to help. He was trying to defend my position and get the support he knew I needed. I swallow at the lump in my throat, but it won’t go away.
“I don’t know why I took it out on you, because I know you didn’t do anything wrong. Instead of being grateful you weren’t killed, I just had to be right about something you experienced in a totally different way. I’ll never understand what you went through, and… I believe you, okay? I’ve thought about it, and I think you were just trying to save yourself. You must have really thought he was going to kill you—but Chelsea—I don’t think he would’ve. I’m not mad at you anymore. I don’t want to waste time trying to be right, and I’m sorry I’ve left you to deal with it on your own all this time. Do you know how it feels to have you here, after I did that to you?”
I touch his arm and he flinches at the unexpected gesture. “Don’t think about it, okay? Do you know how thankful I am to be with you again, and the kids? There’s nothing—” I say through tears, “nothing I want more than to be here for you.”
He nods, his hand covering mine. “Can we just agree to leave it in the past?”
I nod as my cell phone vibrates in my pocket. I check the notification. Kellan, with an attachment.
Jordan steps to the side and hoists a bag full of items, handing it to me. “Thanks for taking this home for us. When you come visit us, we might need some other things, too.”
“Of course.” I take the bag. “No problem. Jordan?”
He stares at me the way he used to, a benevolent look that always made me feel proud.
“I’m sorry this is happening.” I squeeze his arm and step past him, out into the hallway.
I take out my cell phone. A new message notification comes up from Kellan.
“Chels,” Jordan says as I walk down the hallway. I look back. “There was one other thing Cam said that was a little odd.”
I stop. The bad feeling in my gut returns.
“He asked if you knew someone named Austin. I think that’s the name. I told him I didn’t remember and asked who that was. He said he thought it was an old friend of yours.”
My heart pounds in my ears as I struggle to breathe. “Austin?”
He nods and shrugs.
Cam knows who Austin is.
“Chels?” Jordan lifts his head, nodding to me. “Call me, okay? I love you.”
I stop, swallowing at the lump in my throat. “I love you, too.”
And I’m sorry.
As he steps back into the room, I catch the glossy shine on his eyes in the fluorescent light of the hallway.
My phone vibrates in my hand, ringing this time, and I tap the green button by Kellan’s name.
“Did you see it?” she asks, an urgency to her tone.
“What? What is it?”
“Look.”
I pull the phone from my face and tap the text. A photo appears.
Four teens in football uniforms. Their arms wrapped around each other.
John, Murray, Austin, and Cam.
“Chelsea?” Kellan’s voice calls to me.
I press it back to my ear, my hand shaking, my legs weak beneath me.
“Did you see?” she asks.
“It’s Cam,” I sputter, my body cold as my thoughts catch up to my instincts. “Cam’s the blackmailer.”
“Come over, okay?” she asks, but I can barely hear with my heart pounding in my ears. “Come to my place, now.”
The video footage we watched of Cam’s mailbox. That’s why we never saw anyone else leave the letter.
The black car, blue baseball hat.
He killed Molly.
He ran my family off the road.
I can’t breathe.
“Chelsea?”
As it all falls together, I’m falling apart.
I need her. I need help.
“I’m on my way.”