VANISHED (#1 in the VANISHED series) #NaNoWriMo2019 ✔

t w e n t y - f i v e ✔

"Do you remember that case I told you I wasn't allowed to talk about?" Kylie's voice turned fuzzy through the cell-phone receiver, crackling through the speakers. Benny knew he had to change his phone carrier, or his phone, or both, but he'd been too busy—lazy—to look into it.

"The one you mentioned might have to do with a string of odd suicides that are linked, but maybe not so linked?" He clicked on the webpage he'd been looking for—an app to analyze sound footage. He'd obtained some impeccable EVP last night and had waited all evening to listen to it. "What about it?"

Kylie huffed on the other line. She usually had such a chipper reverberation in her tone, but today it came off faded, disheartened. That... or his connection was way worse than he anticipated. "Technically, I'm still not supposed to say anything to anyone, but... I'm seeing a pattern and I need your input."

Benny pried his gaze from his laptop to glare at the phone screen instead. It wasn't like Kylie could see him, but he hoped she'd feel the intensity of his glaring somehow. "My input? Me?" He sensed the corners of his lips tugging up. "Are you sure you called the right person?"

It has to be bad if she's about to ask for my opinion.

"Stop it, Ben, come on—"

"—Benny, please, how many times do I have to beg you?"

She groaned. "Benny, fine. Look... I need you to listen before you blurt out anything, okay? This is... serious."

Serious, she said?

She's not kidding around.

Benny shut his computer and grabbed his phone, taking it off speakerphone. He walked away from his stuffy, narrow office-space... which was only a portion of his living-room. "I'm listening." He plopped onto the couch behind his desk chair, its seams ripping apart and stuffing squeezing out of several holes in the off-beige fabric. "I even took you off speakerphone for this, so I'm all ears."

Kylie snorted; the sound so close to his ear, like she was there. Which yanked his lips up a little higher. He hadn't seen Kylie in months and missed teasing her. Missed watching her twirl her golden curls around her fingertips when she was frustrated. Missed how she scowled at him with her sharp green gaze whenever he hit on her. And he hit on her a lot.

"Right, so... it all started with one weird case that we struggled to piece together at first, because it made no sense. But the parents came forward—in confidence, I guess they're super high-profile folks—and admitted they were certain their daughter... killed herself." Benny envisioned her dragging a finger across her throat in a slicing motion. "They barely put it into words, but they claimed her death was unnatural."

Not that he enjoyed murder cases—not those without a pinch of supernatural to them, at least—but Kylie's remarks caught his attention. He leaned farther into the couch and ruffled his hair; a few raven and chestnut strands got stuck between his fingers and he rolled his eyes. "Okay... and?"

"We had nothing else to go on but their word. The girl didn't leave a letter, never had suicidal tendencies, seemed pretty put-together and happy with her life." Kylie sighed. "So we fixed our notes and looked into things... and figured we'd leave it at that." He imagined her wincing; her stories, especially those about her fieldwork with the FBI, went on for hours. Those she chose to share with him, that was. "Fast-forward a few weeks, and we're hit with that trailer park fire in the Columbus suburbs."

Benny squinted.

The fire? What does that have to do with this random girl's suicide?

He didn't need to voice his thoughts; Kylie did so for him. "I know... how would these two things be connected, huh? Did you ever hear about that fire? It's not that far from you, right?"