The Trench

Chapter 42 - Meetings In The Dark

It was officially Sunday, three days since I saw Kane in the lobby and three days spent waiting by Taylor and me. Yesterday as I was on my way to work I passed him in the parking lot, he was speaking to someone on the phone about meeting the next day. I texted Taylor and let her know.

Now we are currently sitting in Taylors new car, crouched low in the front seats covered in blankets and coats and armed with coffee. We had no idea when he would leave so we've been sitting out here for about an hour now. It is currently 10:13pm.

Taylor yawns from the drivers seat and I nudge her with my foot that's laying across the middle console, she flips me off and burrows deeper into her blanket.

"I feel like a private investigator." She raises her eyebrows to my statement unenthusiastically, already bored of the job at hand.

A figure in my peripheral vision catches my eye and I turn my head back to see Kane outside the front of the apartments.

"Tay! He's outside!" I whisper as I smack her arm, we both sit alert as we watch him. He bounces on the balls of his feet as he checks his phone again, seemingly waiting on someone. Only about a minute goes by when the same black Lincoln car pulls up and Kane walks over and gets in the passenger side door.

I sit up and Taylor starts the car, careful to keep the headlights off for the time being. We pull out onto the street a good few car lengths behind them. Taylor just got this car yesterday, after saving up from her new waitressing job, so Kane has no way to trace it to us.

The car is silent as we follow them down different streets, both of us sitting on the edge of our seats waiting to find out the destination. After thirty minutes of seemingly aimless driving our excitement fades.

"We've already been down this strip, what are they doing?" I wonder out loud, we're sitting two cars behind them at a stop light in downtown. The same stop light we were in almost ten minutes ago.

"I don't know, maybe they're road riding, you know drinking and smoking weed. Maybe that's why he was so anxious when you saw him." Taylor suggests, I shrug from the passenger seat as the cars start moving forwards again.

"C'mon, it's Kane. He doesn't socialize, I'm almost positive he doesn't have friends, and I'm for damn sure he doesn't drink. He outright refused alcohol when we went to the club with Mae and Austin that one time I can't imagine him smoking."

All of a sudden the black car in front of us cuts to the right onto the off ramp for the highway leading out of town, Taylor catches it and gets over just in time to follow. We sip coffee patiently as we cruise a good length behind the Lincoln that was headed out of town.

"We're headed towards the coast." Taylor shows me her phone screen that had a map up, I nod remembering this was the way Mae and I took to get to the lighthouse. My mind wanders back to that day, somehow I had forgotten about it, it seemed so long ago. We never found out who was in the cave, I just assumed it was the owner trying to scare us away and I tossed it from my mind.

We're about to cross the river when the black car gets off on an exit, Taylor pulls off also and we follow them down a side street beside the river bank. I've never been to this part of town before, and before I know it Taylor is pulling into an abandoned lot and turning the car off.

"What are you doing?" I say in hushed panic, worrying something may be wrong with the car. Taylor shows me her phone again and I grab it from her hand, the road we are on dead ends at a small marina on the river. I nod in realization and she smiles.

-

We had gotten out of the car and walked a half mile down the road towards the marina, making sure to stay in the ditch in case the car came back through. I was freezing with the wind coming off the river but my body stayed warm with adrenaline. Once we got to the marina we saw the black car parked on the far side of the lot, Kane was the only person walking down the docks.

Taylor and I stayed low, careful not to be seen by whoever might still be in the car as we made our way around the backside of the building opposite the parking lot. From the rear of the marine shop we could see down the dock for a bit, it looked as if this specific marina was mainly used for private fishing boats. Small white ships lined most of the far side of the dock, leaving a good view of Kane open for us.

As he got farther down I pulled a small pair of binoculars from my pocket and Taylor smothered a laugh with her hand, I muttered something quick about preparedness before looking through the lenses. I scanned the view until I saw him, his black hood up over his head and hands in his pockets as he began to slow down. He approached another figure I hadn't seen on the dock until now, as he got close the figure turn around to look at him and I let out a sharp gasp.

"What?!" Taylor grabs the binoculars from my hands and I stand there with my mouth froze open in shock, hands still in the air. After a few seconds of her finding them in the lenses I hear her take in a sharp breath indicating she see's the same thing I do. I glance sideways at her and she lowers the binoculars and hands them back to me.

I take a look again at the girl Kane is speaking with, her curly black hair was waving in the wind and she kept sweeping it off her face with a gloved hand. It looked like the two were in a heated discussion, her crossing her arms irritably and Kane waving his around for emphasis.

"Why do you think Mae is here?" Taylor whispers and I shake my head. Unless she was in the car with him, which I doubt due to the nature of their argument now. I lower the binoculars slowly, looking towards Taylor I cock my head back towards the car and she nods. We hastily make our way back to the car and get back onto the highway headed home.

"What do you think it was?" Taylor asked without taking her eyes off the road.

"I'm not sure, it could be innocent..." I trail off in thought and Taylor scoffs.

"Right, if it was innocent they wouldn't be meeting at MIDNIGHT wearing all black at the shipping docks, Riley. They're up to something." She takes a habitual sip of her coffee and immediately spits it back into the cup and snarls her nose at the now cold liquid.

"Tomorrow is the first day of the spring semester, everyone in Physics 1 will be in the same class for Physics 2. I'll talk to her." I fumble with my phone in my lap, wondering how I'm going to bring it up to her tomorrow. Whatever way I decide to do it, I need to figure it out. And fast.