Chapter Fifty Three
"Even though I don't agree with your methods to get more details of the mystery attacker, I think it'd be best for us to do some digging into Liam's family."
And that's why Trace and I are riding in his truck on our way to the library.
It's after school so at least I'm not skipping again. We made the plan to do this last night when he called me to basically just say thanks for talking to Liam, even though he still thinks it was careless. But I guess I can't be mad at him for that. If someone were stalking my friend and she went and arranged a little chat then I'd be upset.
We pull up to the library and go inside.
The air is thicker in the world of books. Everyone is silent, I can hear the heat running. The room is, for the most part, empty except for a few college students catching up on homework.
"We'd like to use a computer, please." Trace whispers to the librarian. She nods eagerly and hands him a slip of paper containing a username.
He gives her a thankful smile before taking my hand and leading us to a computer at the back of the room. Away from everyone else we can be a little bit louder. We can't talk but at least now we won't have to mouth words to one another and whispering will suffice.
He takes a seat in front of the computer and quickly logs in. I roll a chair beside him, sit down in it.
His fingers type fast making clicking noises with every movement on the keyboard. We don't know Liams last name so we have to start with what we do know. The only thing we know for certain is his first name and the best age we can approximate.
We'll use his fathers death and the knowledge of a brother to try and lead us in the right direction.
Trace punches in his name with a roundabout age of eighteen. Thousands of people appear so he narrows it down by putting in the location of Tennessee.
That gets it down to only a few hundred; that's a good place to start.
"When do you think his dad passed?" Trace asks and I try to recall my memory.
Liam spoke about him with a dread and sadness. There wasn't much acceptance to his words, like he's still holding onto what was.
"If I had to guess I'd say recently. Within the last two years."
Trace types furiously into the keyboard, adding in the new data of: absent father.
It's amazing what the internet can do.
The list narrows down to only a limited few. With the rest of them we could just click on the profile to see a picture of the Liam and hope it matches the one we know.
The first picture we see is a blonde haired boy with a crooked smile. We keep looking.
The next one holds a boy with dark brown hair but his eyes are blue. We keep looking.
After going through a total of twenty photos, we finally find the right one. It's a picture of Liam with his dark hair and dark eyes. It was taken probably a year ago. He seems happier on the computer screen than I've ever seen him in person.
Trace clicks on his personal record and we begin reading the given facts.
It tells us his age set at eighteen years old. He has brown hair color with nut brown eyes. He's holding a whopping five foot nine inches tall.
Past his physical appearance we see family history. I skim through the paragraphs to find the sentences we're searching for.
His father isn't dead... he's in jail.
"Father taken at age sixteen, young Liam Roven, and his brother, Cameron Roven, were forced to live with their grandparents."
Cameron?
Trace looks up at me, "That's a different Cameron." his confidence is masked by doubt. He says the words like he's wanting to believe them, but Roven is our friends last name. What are we to do with this new information?
Trace quickly exits out of the browser and cuts off the computer.
He grabs my hand roughly and we exit the library. He hurries to the truck but for some reason I don't think it's because of the cold air blowing against us rapidly.
We get in the warmness of his rusty blue, and he turns to face me, "It's not Cameron."
His words seem convincing, but not like they're trying to convince me. He's fighting a battle against himself right now. He doesn't know if he should doubt his friends loyalty and take the proof the internet gave, or if he should stand by his friend and ignore the evidence.
"What exactly did Liam say about his brother?"
"He told me about how he was their fathers favorite." there really isn't much to what Liam said. He never came out and directly gave any piece of information. But using critical thinking I was able to figure out Liam has a brother who was liked by dad just a little bit more.
"Liam never said directly that he even has a brother but we could see from his history on the computer screen that he does. Cameron is his brother, Trace." he looks up at me as if hurt to hear those words. I continue, "But that doesn't mean that Cameron is the one doing all of this."
Trace nods in understanding, "Liam never said that it was his brother who was trying to hurt us. Cameron being his brother doesn't automatically make him the bad guy. I refuse to believe that he'd do that to me. He wouldn't betray me like that." his words seem more confident now that he's got hope again.
Accusing Cameron of something so bizarre isn't fair. He's never done anything to us. All our friends have ever done is be there in time of need so none of them deserve to be judged so harshly like this.
"We'll keep looking," I tell him, "we can try to talk to other people and ask them about it."
Trace starts the truck, muttering, "It's like we're on a damn episode of Scooby Doo."
He's right. But are we ready to pull off the mask? What if the person behind all of this is someone we know? There isn't anybody that I think could do this to us. Not even Beatrice, if we hadn't already ruled her out.
Well, actually there is one person.
It's a guy who's got serious issues with Trace. A guy who wouldn't mind seeing me get hurt, but would never make me his main target.
Trace turns to me, voicing my thoughts, "Do you think it could be Cole? I know we talked about it already, but I think he'd be capable of this. You know him better than I do though, Ems. It's up to you whether or not we talk to him."
I know he's been wondering it, but never wanted to ask. He's scared I might get mad if he accuses my ex boyfriend of being a murderer. But everyone has a crazy ex, right?
"I could call him later, invite him over, and ask him about it." I offer. Trace tenses.
"You can just shoot him a text asking if he burned my house down or tried to hit you with a car. Why do you need to see him?" he's got a lace of anger in his words, but I can tell he's trying not to get too mad.
"Over the phone I won't be able to tell if he's lying or not. I have to do it in person, Trace."
He keeps his eyes trained on the road. No doubt he's remembering what happened last time Cole and I were alone together. Cole tried to push me into something, and it could've been a lot worse if Trace didn't show up when he did.
"Fine, invite the bastard over. But I'm joining the party." he grips the steering wheel.
Something about him being worried rubs me the right way. It's sexy to see him like this, angry and concerned.
His sharp jaws are clenched. He's got his hands wrapped around the steering wheel with his knuckles popping out a shade of white. His hair is disheveled as he runs his hand through it every few minutes.
We pull into my driveway and I pull out my phone to send a quick message to Cole. Trace watches me type out the message, put my phone away.
"Want to go make out until he gets here?" he suggests, trying to lighten the mood. I know he's kidding, but I don't miss the hopeful glint in his eyes that's wishing I'll agree.
"He should be here any minute." I tell him and he groans and throws his head back like an eight year old.
"Quit being a baby." I tease him.
"I only want to be your baby."
His words make me smile. Although that was a super corny thing to say, I kind of liked it.
We go inside my house. As soon as he sees Sadie he falls on the floor and starts petting her.
"Who's a good girl? You are! Yes, you are!" he talks with a high pitched voice that makes me laugh. She rolls over and he starts rubbing her belly while her tail wags back and forth across the floor.
I flop down on the couch and watch as he plays with my dog. When we go to college I'm going to get us a dog for our apartment. It's going to be a cute little Aussie with pretty golden eyes.
I would want to take Sadie, but moms grown to love her so much I don't know if she'd let her leave.
A few minutes later there's a knock on the door.
Trace tenses visibly and stands up.
I think it's harder for Trace to see Cole then it is for me. Even though I'm the one who was hurt by him Trace is the one seeming to take the fall of it. He doesn't like Cole, he made that pretty evident since they first met at the park.
His hatred for Cole amplified by a thousand when Trace had to knock him off of me.
I take a deep breath to prepare myself before opening the door.
Authors Note:
Hello! Hopefully you guys are doing well and staying safe!
So the next chapter has Cole. How do you think it'll go with him and Trace being in the same room? And then Emma will also be there bringing out the testosterone of them both lol.
And a little announcement that will help with a bad day, I recently ran across an account FlourishMinistries . This is a beautiful account to check out if you're struggling with your relationship with God or just need guidance or reassurance.