Gone

Chapter Twelve: Sweet Dreams

Matt was ecstatic over a fresh lead, much less dreary than he was an hour or so ago. In summary he'd received a tip from an as of now unspecified source that he trusted of a recent disappearance of some campers a couple hundred miles north west of here. Only other time I'd gone so far out of town was when mom took dad and I to pay our respects for... Well, suffice to say it was some time ago since I'd left the county, let alone a couple hundred miles out.

On the other hand, Matt himself wasn't too worried about the travel time. I'd wager being a detective, even simply a local one, meant being in for some long drives and restless nights. Which is more than what I can make of Alice, who'd drifted off moments after she- it's still unclear how she knew that a call was not only coming in, but that it would be related to this case. A shame too, for someone who said very little, her demeanor and tone depicted a much less bleak outlook on life than both Matt and I could convey after recent events. Though perhaps Matt was like this even before this all happened.

Alice in general was a bit of an odd person the longer I thought about. It was like she was in everyone's head at once, though I got the distinct feeling she could barely stay in her own for too long. I felt a pair of eyes watching me as I was drifting off in my endless inquiries, which brought my gaze back to Matt.

"What's the stare for," I asked, a little unsettled by his quiet fascination. He began to smirk which unsettled me a little more.

"Thinking about Bones are you?" My face flushed a bit in embarrassment. How could he possibly know that? Did I start mumbling to myself while in deep thought? "Thought so. Your reaction to that question tells me I was right." It was then I realized he didn't know, not until I gave it away.

Annoyed now and still a tad embarrassed, I tried to turn the tables back by firing off a few more questions of my own.

"What's it to you?" I turned my face to the closest window, starring out at the same old vague outlines of trees and roads I had seen plenty of back home. The reflection looking back at me was someone it felt like I hadn't seen in some time.

"Nothing really, you've got the same wonder about her as I did. Back when she approached me what must feel like a life time ago." Suddenly I was left curious now. I didn't know much about either of them, and yet- it seemed Matt too had more questions about his current accomplice than he had answers to give. I asked when exactly that life time ago was, which arose from him a contemplative sigh as he dug around his memory banks, or perhaps he was simply searching for the right words to weave together into a satisfying answer in his mental thesaurus. After a moment he was ready to speak.

"Officially we'd met about a week or so after your old man went AWOL on Riley and I, yet there's always been this strange feeling I'd known of her longer than that. She evokes something odd within myself. Like remembering a childhood dream in the shadows of your living room," his analogy didn't really click with me. Disappointed, he shook his head a little after saying that. "In any case, miss Alice Bones as it were, made herself known at first with Riley one rainy midnight, asking for both he and I to be meet her at this cafe called 'Artemis', or something along those lines anyway."

"I'll never forget it. Getting the call from Riley, the fumbling over my bed to throw on clothes, slipping on that rain slicked sidewalk, going shoulder first against my car door as a result, picking up Riley shortly there after, trying not to steer off the road following the address she wrote down on a piece of small notebook paper for the both of us- the whole shebang. Yet what always stood out the most was our arrival. She sat there in that empty, dim lit cafe with her back to the window, and I had this thought to myself. I thought that she must have been the loneliest person in the world. Like there had never once been a person who could see her no matter how hard she wanted them to. I remember it so well because before I could question why I would assume such a thing, she turned to see Riley and I through that cafe window, past the heavy sheets of rain separating us from her and looked me in the eye. It was impossible to see her face with all that water and distance- but I could feel it."

There was a quiet stillness hanging in the air now as I thought about what Matt had said for a moment. Looking back at the person in question- she was just as sound asleep behind the both of us. "The Loneliest Person on Earth" is a title I'd think unbefitting of anyone. Yet it resonated with my own thoughts on our elusive friend- maybe there was some merit to such an assumption. Even back at the store, behind the fear and mystique I was left feeling after handling that man, there was a sense that I'd never known someone like her, but that she knew everything about someone like me.

"What did she want to meet with you two for? Was it about- Howard?" There was a dreaded hesitation before I uttered out his name. I feel it's something I'll only continue to struggle with.

Matt acknowledged the query I had posed almost immediately, "see that's what I was wondering too. A mysterious stranger ask for Riley and I by name, at his front door no less, at twelve in the morning in a place I'd never heard of. There were so many strange things in transpiring between us and her that to think I'd never get to ask what it was all about would have driven me crazy. Even still; it's been a couple years since that night, I don't know if I got all my answers." There was a solemn content in his voice trailing his reflecting on that night.

"She spoke as if she knew everything we were gonna say, like she had complete control of the situation. Like she knew we weren't going to decline her offer no matter what else happened that night. She uh... How do I put this... Well let's just say, she wanted to welcome us into her world of sorts. Into her way of thinking and deduction. To follow her trails of suspicion and look into her experience with things we knew nothing about for answers to something we thought we knew everything about. It was crazy, risky, and at the time I thought it to be completely implausible to believe in. Riley though, Riley was infatuated with the concepts she was bringing to our attention, with the unknown she lured us in here with. I suspect that infatuation was with her as well. Never seen that man so chipper about a client before." The beaten and sour detective looked as if he began reminiscing about better times as a smile crept on his face. It quickly returned to the more recognizable and gruff neutral look that's more becoming of his five o'clock shadow.

"All right, kid; I hate beating around the bush and I've been doing a lot of it until I thought you were... Ready in a way of sorts." Matt possessed something that looked unbecoming of himself- an expression of uncertainty and hesitation I was all to familiar with seeing on my own face. After a minute he shook his head, reaffirming to himself the decision he had come to. "No. It's probably best to wait for Bones to be here. I'm still not entirely sure how to word such a topic as surreal as this."

Curious, but not willing to push him too far out of his area of expertise- the decision to leave it be for now settled well into my thoughts. This whole conversation, about Alice- it might be too much to unravel at this moment in time anyway. Still...

"You make this sound like Howard is beyond my comprehension. I'd like to think I know him better than the both of you," returning my gaze to beyond the window I continued "I'm not a kid anymore, I know what I saw that night. The worst kind of murder a human being can do to another, to take part in eating their victim. Sure it's taboo and unsettling, but it's not like I can't understand it-"

"Elysia." I felt the entire atmosphere of the ride shift, like the temperature in a room dropping suddenly below zero. Mustering the resolve to look Matt in the eyes again, I was met with a face that'll haunt me until the day I die. His expressions that of a frightened, beaten man- trying his best to not let what he knows drown him in a sea of misery with his eyes widely spread open, looking deep into my soul with a mouth that was somewhat agape. "I wish I could tell you it was murder."