“I thought… I thought we were fulfilling your fantasy.” His voice is smaller now, fraying. “When I answered the ad, the person I spoke with said they were you. They sent me your name and your photos. The person said you would be in Kansas City, and you travel with friends, so we needed to wait until you were out on a run. You said this was a CNC thing. That you wanted to be hunted, and you liked it when it felt real.”
The words tumble out of him like a confession and a plea. My pulse is still a drum in my ears; the forest seems to hold its breath.
“I never sent you anything,” I repeat, slower, because the sentence needs to land. “I don’t even know what ads you’re talking about.”
He presses his hands to his head like he can squeeze the truth out. “Jesus Christ.” The phrase is raw, horror, finally, bleeding through. Not at me, not at what he thought he’d arranged, but at the realization that whatever game he’d been playing had just gone sideways in a way he didn’t plan for.
His eyes flick to the trees, to the path, and the empty spaces where witnesses might be. The bravado has drained out of him; what’s left is a man who suddenly understands the scale of what he’s done. His breath comes quick and shallow.
Panic arrives like a physical thing pulling at his limbs and at the edges of his composure. He looks smaller under the trees, swallowed by the night he thought he controlled.
27
Celeste
He swears again, the sound raw, then reaches into his wallet with deliberate slowness. He doesn’t hand it to me, and instead slides his license across the dirt, the plastic catching the sunlight for a second before it rests against my boot. “Take a picture,” he says, voice low and steady. “If you want proof I’m who I say I am, take it. Keep it. I won’t touch you.”
Every nerve in my body is still set to fight, and he sees it. He takes two careful steps back and sits down, placing his palms flat on his knees where I can see them.
“My phone’s in the car,” he adds, his eyes never leaving mine. “Let’s go back to the playground next to the parking lot. When we get there, we can call someone for you, and I’m going to call the police. I’ll grab my phone and show you the messages, the ad, everything. You can read it yourself.”
I don’t move as I stare between him and his ID, trying to catalogue every inch of it just in case he’s not being honest with me. The first thing I notice is his name: Alex. He watches me as my eyes flick between him and his ID as if waiting for me to decide if he’s a threat or not. The stillness stretches, and my heart feels like it’s about to beat out of my chest. “Are you hurt?” he asks. “Can I… help you up?”
I nod once, stiffly. Alex grabs his ID and hands it to me. When I take it from him, he leaves his arm outstretched and opens his shaking hand. When I take it, my legs wobble as I rise. His grip is tentative, like he’s afraid I’ll flinch. I feel hollowed out, like a puppet strung tight on adrenaline.
“We need to call the police,” he repeats, his voice low and urgent now. “Someone’s putting your name and photo out there for a rape fantasy you clearly didn’t ask for. That’s some serious shit.”
No kidding.
I follow him toward a bench near the trailhead, right in the open where the parking lot and the morning crowd are visible.
“Do you have your phone? You should call someone. A friend. Family. Someone you trust who can be with you when you talk to the police.”
Nodding, I reach for my phone, my fingers fumble, and it tumbles from my hand. He picks it up gently and waits for me to tell him who to call. He scrolls, finds his name, and hits call. His voice is steady at first, then cracks from the anxiety.
“Hey,” he says after a beat. “No, you don’t know me. My name is Alex, but I’m with Celeste. Something happened on the trail; we’re calling the police next. She’s physically okay, but you need to get here as soon as you can. We’re at the park off Riverside Trail. Near the north lot.”
There’s a pause. He listens, jaw working. “She has a few scrapes and might be a little bruised and sore tomorrow. But likeI said, we’re calling the police, and they’ll be here soon. She’s a little shaken up, but you need to be here.”
Another pause. “She’s safe. I swear, I’m not going anywhere. Please—just hurry.”
He hangs up and calls 911 before he hands me the phone like it’s a lifeline. I can’t help but stare at it like it belongs to someone else.
“I swear, Celeste, I am so sorry. I’ll cooperate with the police. I’ll give them everything so they can find who’s pretending to be you. I’m going to grab my phone, and I have bottled water in my truck. I’m going to get us some. I’ll be right back.”
Left alone on the bench, the world presses in. My arms won’t stop shaking, so I wrap them around my waist, trying to comfort myself. I watch Alex walk back as I think about what he said: he’d been talking to someone who was pretending to be me.
The idea is a splinter. It slides under my skin and lodges there.
Who would want to hurt me like this?
The realization slides in slowly and cold: maybe James was the perfect answer for the vandalism of my rig because he fit the pieces we had, he was the convenient villain. But convenient doesn’t always mean correct. Maybe the person who ran the ads and the person who trashed my rig are the same person. Maybe they were after me, and not Korbyn, like we all assumed.
“This could be the same person who trashed my rig,” I say, mostly to myself.
Alex looks over. “Your what?”
“My RV. Someone broke into it a few weeks ago and destroyed everything I owned.” The words come out flat. Alex is hovering a few feet away, arms crossed tight, rocking on the balls of his feet like he has so much extra energy he’s trying to bounce it away.
