Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 94220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 471(@200wpm)___ 377(@250wpm)___ 314(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 471(@200wpm)___ 377(@250wpm)___ 314(@300wpm)
“Why did you go to a Reddit forum to post about the note?” I ask. “You could have reached out to me.”
“That was before Leif’s note popped up, so at the time, I assumed if there had been anything to what I told the cops, they would’ve told you. And if it was nothing, I would have felt like an ass for planting this wild theory in your head when you must’ve been worried enough as it was.”
That makes sense.
“What about after you saw my note?” Leif asks.
“After the Reddit account got inundated with requests for interviews from around the country, I let it go. I didn’t know there was another note until I got a call from Detective Roth. She mentioned the possibility that the note in the response was a copycat trying to get some attention online.”
Meanwhile, she’d led me to believe she hadn’t followed up on his post, but now I figure she was trying to keep me out of it because of my bad behavior.
“I think it’s my fault she didn’t take you seriously,” I confess.
“Why would that be your fault?”
“I fucked up, and I think she probably followed up on what you said about the note initially because of me. But afterward, she might have thought I’d talked you into writing it.”
“That would be a strange thing for someone to do.”
“I did a strange thing,” I say. “But that’s a separate, long-ass story.”
“Whatever happened, after talking with that detective about my post, I tried to move on with my life and forget about it. Then I saw the news, and it got my head back in it. And when I checked my account, I was shocked to see a PM from someone claiming to be Mike’s brother. Now I wish I’d reached out to you, that I’d trusted my gut about there being some connection.”
His comment reflects my feelings around my gut instinct about Isaac Tolle. And how much time I’ve spent trying to talk myself out of something that feels like it’s burned into my fucking soul.
“So once you told Mike the note wasn’t from you, did he say anything about who else it might have been from?”
Wes shakes his head. “At first when he brought it up, I didn’t even think he was being serious. And then he just changed the subject.”
“Did he ever mention a teacher helping him with his essays?”
Wes’s gaze drifts, and he bites his bottom lip. “That’s not ringing any bells.”
“Isaac Tolle?”
His eyes widen, and a rush of adrenaline shoots through me.
There it is!
A flare of hope.
But as quickly as Wes’s expression came to life, it twists up. “Oh, wait. No. I’m thinking of Isaac Clarke from the Dead Space series. Sorry.”
Fuck.
An emotional sucker punch.
Nearly as quickly as my hope returned, it vanishes, and I’m left with a hollow feeling in my chest.
I sneak a glance at Leif. The way he’s looking at me, he knows how disappointed I am.
“He’s a teacher at the community college,” Leif explains. “Maybe Mike didn’t say the name, but did he mention anything about an English professor he met up with on campus? Or maybe at the Chelsby Hill Library?”
I can tell Leif’s grasping at straws.
Wes takes another moment, but this time, his expression doesn’t change. He shakes his head. “I take it you think this Tolle guy is involved, but what’s the library got to do with anything?”
“Just somewhere I’ve seen him, and it’s a library Mike frequented,” I explain, leaving it there.
“None of that rings any bells. A lot of teachers at that school. I barely know mine. And like I told you before, we didn’t hang out too much, and besides the crap we talked about for that graphic-design class, school wasn’t exactly at the top of our list of things to talk about.”
Maybe Mike never mentioned him, but they went to the same school, so Wes might recognize him. I pull up Isaac’s picture, the one I showed Leif. After I pass it to Wes, he studies it for a few moments before shrugging. “Maybe I’ve seen him around campus. He looks like an average, fortysomething white guy, you know?”
“Yeah.” I can’t disguise the disappointment in my tone.
“You think this guy might have had something to do with his disappearance?”
I tell him what I found in my brother’s planner, and my subsequent interest in him. How I had suspicions when I joined him at Habitat for Humanity, and that led to my unhealthy obsession. I don’t get into the details of just how bad it got, but I make it clear that Roth didn’t find anything down that path.
“Yeah, you’re right,” he says, “that doesn’t sound like much.”
After everything we’ve discussed, I’m starting to lose hope that I’m going to get anything out of this exchange, but I try to hold on a little longer. “Any chance you noticed if Mike was acting strange or different before he went missing?”