They were gone. Along with all the other important papers I’d had on the table. Delaney’s notes, the wild theory from James, and even my laptop from the coffee table in the living room were gone.
Who in the hell would have gotten in the rental and stolen all my stuff in the twenty minutes I was outside with Selene? How did we not see them? My heart beat in triple time, hitting against my chest.
What if they were still here?
“Reed?” I called out, inching back toward the front door.
I pulled out my phone and sent him a text asking when he’d be back, but he didn’t reply.
“Reed?” I called again. Still nothing.
If someone was in the house and wanted to kill me, they’d probably have already done it. I crept through the front room, ready to inspect the kitchen. My feet stalled in front of my bedroom door. It was shut, but another torn piece of newspaper attached to the wood with a silver thumbtack stared at me.
The bottom edge of the paper smacked against the door as the air from the ceiling fan picked it up and then released it in a rhythmic pattern.
“Reed?” I tried again. They said the third time was the charm. I checked my cell phone for a return text while I inched toward the door.
Big black letters matching the ones used on the last note were written across the middle of the paper.
Bonaventure Bluff—30 minutes.
Reed wouldn’t like this. He wouldn’t like it at all.
I checked my phone, but still no answer. What was I supposed to do?
We needed those notes to make the report for Delaney. I had to solve this case. Even if I didn’t catch the actual killer, I’d prove to everyone that I wasn’t a screwup. People could trust me with things, and I’d get the job done.
Hell, I had to prove it to myself.
Screw it. The risk was worth it. I’d apologize to Reed, Delaney, and my mother later.
I left the torn newspaper on the table next to a note for Reed, written on a piece of paper from the small notepad in my nightstand drawer.
Gone to Bonaventure Bluff to meet the killer.
Come save me.
—Elenore
20
It turned out Bonaventure Bluff just happened to be on the back end of Bonaventure Cemetery.
Wonderful.
It’s exactly what I needed. Not only was I somewhere far away from our rental after promising Reed I wouldn’t leave, but the location of my demise was a cemetery at night. Perfect. Just perfect. When they found my dead body in the morning, it would be the cherry on top of Delaney’s podcast segment.
The Bonaventure Bluff was so famous it had its own destination marker in Google Maps. Hopefully, that meant it was teeming with tourists even at the late hour. It wasn’t that late, but in April the sun left us all in darkness unreasonably early.
My Uber crossed between the two stone pillars that welcomed visitors to Bonaventure Cemetery, and the car turned right. I held my breath as we drove deeper into the cemetery.
Tall, white gravestones that shone with an eerie gray tint in the dark passed as we drove by. The metal iron gates wrapped around certain plots cast weird shadows on the narrow lanes. I had my nose to the glass window, checking out the areas for any signs of life.
“You’ll take me all the way back?” I asked as the car slowed before we reached the dot for the bluff on Google Maps.
My driver kept his foot on the brake but didn’t put the car in park. “Nope, this is as far as we’re headed. My map says we’re here.”
Here was a single row surrounded by grave plots on one side and tall trees on the other.
