After going through all of the footage they were able to pull from street cameras they'd noted the truck showing up just days before the first girl was taken.

There is still no clue who the mystery driver is though. Whoever was driving seemed to always be careful. Windows are always rolled all the way up, and the one snapshot from the windshield they were able to catch at a red light, the driver was wearing a face mask and a hoodie with the hood up, completely disguising their identity.

They've pulled all of the DMV records on Aries and they still can't connect him to the truck yet. But they want to. They believe the truck is stolen so there is no way to know who it belongs to, especially with no tag to trace it back to literally anywhere or any person.

All camera footage they'd been able to pull they haven't come across the truck again since the last time it's seen driving out of town behind Amie Farmer.

"He must have an accomplice." Mayfield says from the couch beside me. "Do you know anyone close to him that could be helping?"

I stare at him. "Of course not." I say blankly. "I'd only just reconnected with him when I got here and we haven't really had time to talk about his life any with all of my own crap going on."

It's true.

I know absolutely nothing about him now. Though he's been a part of my life, I've never been a a part of his. We haven't talked about his job or why he moved back here or who he spends his free time with. I know literally nothing. I'd been too consumed within my own bubble of chaos to even think to ask him about his life now.

"We need to interview any coworkers, friends, anyone who has been close to him since he's moved back." Davenport nods, typing across his keyboard.

Lucky for me, the video of the truck the night Aries was arrested clears me from being this unknown supposed accomplice to his crimes.

I can't fully rule out that it could be the truth, but any amount of doubt needs to be dealt with before I send a man to prison.

I know only one thing for certain and that's the truck was stalking that diner and the driver was absolutely not Aries.

On the coffee table my cellphone screen lights up.

We all stare at each other before Mayfield makes a grab for the phone.

He looks at the screen and then to me, thrusting the phone into my hands.

"Unknown caller." He says quickly. "Answer, we have the tap running."

He glances at Davenport like he's looking for assurance that he's correct and he nods.

"Answer." He tells me.

My fingers begin to shake as I hit the accept button.

"H-hello?" I stutter into the phone.

"Missouri Jacobs?" The male voice comes over the phone. "This is Elroy Jinks with The Faulkner Insider. I'm reaching out to try to get a statement from you, let you tell your side of the story. Any information on your friend Mr. Aries Carter?"

Both men sigh and I fist my free hand in annoyance. "No comment." I snap and end the call.

I'm about to toss the phone back to the coffee table, both men looking as annoyed by the let down as me, when again the screen lights up. This time, it's a text message.

Aries Carter: I need to explain.

His message is short and to the point.

I look at Mayfield, tilting the screen so that he can see the message.

"He needs to call, Missy." He says, looking excited again as he wrings his hands in front of him. "We can try to track his phone."

I chew my lips as I stare at the screen. Slowly, I let my fingers tap across the keyboard.

Missy: I need to hear you explain. Can you call?

We all wait, watching the text bubble pop up and then disappearing again. He does it a few more times. I'm expecting a long message with how long it's taking, but frown at the response when it finally comes through.

Aries Carter: no. In person.

"Fuck." Mayfield curses. "Ok, tell him you'll meet him wherever he wants." He encourages me. "We will be right there ready to get him."

I swallow the lump in my throat and type again.

Missy: ok, where? This doesn't make sense. I want to believe you.

Aries Carter: you should already believe me.

I can feel the hurt in that short sentence.

Aries Carter: I don't know if I can trust you.

Aries Carter: I know they're reading this too.

I tilt the phone so Detective Mayfield and Davenport can see it too.

"Shit." Davenport groans as Mayfield removes his glasses to massage the bridge of his nose. "He knows we are here."

"What do I say?" I ask helplessly.

"Make him trust you." Mayfield says as if it's easy. He's literally just said he knows they're here. Knows I'm trying to flush him out. What could I possibly say to make him trust me when we both know he shouldn't?

Missy: please Aries. I need you to make sense of this. I don't want to believe what they're saying about you. But the necklace. And the prints. What happened?

Aries Carter: I don't have long. They're probably trying to track my phone right now. I don't know how they got those things. Someone put the necklace on me. I've never seen it before in my life. I swear to you I didn't do this. I can't go to prison for this. It wasn't me.

Missy: then who was it?

Aries Carter: I can't tell you that right now. In person.

Missy: where??

Aries Carter: not your place

Missy: yours?

Aries Carter: you know they are there too. Somewhere else. Somewhere bad.

"What does that mean?" Davenport demands and I shrug as I look up at him.

"I have no idea." I tell them honestly.

Missy: I don't understand, where do you want me to meet you?

Aries Carter: a place you hate

Missy: that could be so many places. Just tell me where to meet you and I will. I just want the truth.

Aries Carter: I can't tell you that right now. Needs to be in person. Alone. Please come.

Missy: I don't know where to come to!!

Aries Carter: you do

Missy: I'm telling you I don't.

Aries Carter: find me Missy.

"Call him." Mayfield demands and I click his contact and let it ring but it only rings twice before he declines the call and when I call again it goes straight to voicemail.

"I'll get the station." Davenport takes out his phone and steps out of the room.

Mayfield glares at me. "Where does he want you to meet him?"

"I don't know."

"He seems to think you do." He retorts.

"And I'm telling you both I have no clue!" I rub my temples. "A place I hate? A bad place? I don't know what that means. I'd say here but he obviously isn't going to come here. I don't know what else he could mean."

"Well think!" He snaps and I turn to glare back at him.

"I am!" I shout back. "I want to find him as badly as the rest of you do! I don't know what he means!"

"It has to be somewhere around this town." He says more gently. "There can't be that many places for him to hide."

I'm wracking my brain but still coming up with blanks. The only place I could possibly come up with that matches his description would be here. At my old home. But that's not right.

I don't know why he had to be so damned cryptic. If he wanted me to get the hint, he'd have to do a hell of a lot better than that.

He gave me nothing to work with and now I'm wondering if that was the plan in the first place. To keep us busy trying to figure out his code while he makes plans for his escape.

"The phone is off again." Davenport says when he comes back into the room. "It pinged off of this tower here," he leans over the couch to show Mayfield a map on the screen and a thin red circle over miles of area. "It's not helpful at all. He could be anywhere."

"We have his car, so he couldn't be far." Mayfield says. "He's either on foot or in that truck."

"Where all does that tower service." Mayfield takes the laptop from Davenport's hands and zooms into the map. "Half the downtown area and most of the residential area to the East." He answers the question out loud. "Useless."

So he's still close.

I study the map over Mayfield's shoulder, trying with everything in me to find something. For anything to stand out to me as a place he would be.

"He probably walked or drove away from where he is actually hiding to even send the messages." Davenport says idly. "He probably isn't even actually in that area."

"Send some guys anyway." Mayfield says. "If he's trying to get out of that area, we can stop him before he crawls back to whatever rock he's been hiding under."

"Have you looked at the trailer park?" I ask, that familiar twinge of guilt settling deep in my stomach. "He used to live there with his dad."

"We've got people there and at the old house he and his old man lived in before." Davenport informs me. "Interviewed everyone around both and no one has seen him around either."

"That's why we need you, Missy." Mayfield tells me, putting on his best help me I'm your friend face. "Wherever he is, he thinks it means something to you. Maybe a place you used to spend time together? Someplace significant to your relationship?"

I shake my head. "We only ever spent time together at the school and his house." I tell him. "We went to the diner a few times together and a movie once. Other than that everything significant to us was home or school."

He shakes his head. I know he's thinking I'm not being helpful. He might even suspect that I'm trying to protect Aries by withholding the information from them, but I'm not.

It really is as much of a cryptic mystery to me as it is to them.

For all I know he's got us spinning our wheels for nothing. It could just be part of his plan to get things back into his control.

But I need to know that.

Need to know about the truck and the driver.

I've got to know it all, which means I need to unravel his code, even if it is just a waste of time.

Again, I leave the men to their work.

Kelsea is in the kitchen cooking what seems to be a massive pot of spaghetti. My mouth waters for the slightest of moments before the thought turns sour on my tongue.

How am I supposed to eat with everything else going on?

"You eavesdropping?" I ask her, hopping to sit up on one of the counters.

"Always." She says, turning to wink at me while she stirs the sauce. "How are you feeling?"

"I don't know." I shrug, watching her work. "Lost like usual."

She glances towards the living room and then scoots closer to me to whisper. "You really have no idea?"

She side eyes me, trying to look causal.

I just shake my head.

"Not a clue." I sigh, rubbing my face. "Not even a little bit."

"Either he is fucking with you or he really thinks that hint was good."

"Aries has never been good at being direct." I roll my eyes behind my hands. "Part of the mystery he is. Always cryptic, always telling you half of what he's thinking while you can see the wheels still turning behind his eyes. He's so damn frustrating."

"Girl, you just described most of the men I know." She laughs a little and I do manage a slight smile.

"He's somehow worse." I shake my head as I grin. "I've never understood why he can never just say what he means."

In this case I sort of do. It doesn't make it any less of a pain in my ass though. I get he's trying to be careful. We all know he's going to jail for all of this if we don't figure out who is driving that truck. I can't help him though if he won't let me.

I feel the agitation moving through me. He's always been this way. Two sides of one coin. The one side he's caring and thoughtful and sweet while being adorably awkward. Then the other he's closed off and cold and calculated. He's always just beyond your reach.

I'm starting to realize just how annoyed by this I am. How infuriating it is to always be on someone's side who does nothing to make it easier.

"Any hint would have been better." I groan. "If he wants me to talk to him, why make it so difficult, you know? Like for fuck's sake use your words."

"Maybe he thinks he did." Kelsea says, taking the noddles to the sink to drain the water from them.

"You know," I say. "You always playing devil's advocate is pretty annoying sometimes."

She laughs. "That's what I'm here for." She tells me. "It can be helpful to look at things from all angles you know."

I ignore her.

"He said someone planted that necklace on him." I say, playing our texts over and over in my mind. "Do you think that could be true?"

"It could be." She shrugs. "But what about the prints at those scenes? You know they found one in the field too."

Of course. The other new development. They'd found his exact boot prints at three crime scenes now.

Even if he didn't kill Amie, which I don't think he did because he wasn't the one driving the truck that night, he's still in the middle of this.

"I know." I groan. No matter how hard I try to separate him from all of this, there is still too much to be explained. "So you do think he's working with someone?"

"I don't know, Miss." she says gently. "It's plausible. It was a lot to do with a short time frame and no witnesses. I would think it would be hard from him to do alone, but people have done worse."

"I hate this."

"I know you do."

I hear the rustling on the back porch and my frustration grows. The storm is nearly here at this point. It's obliteratingly cold outside and the snow is coming down in heavy sheets, but still Dallas would rather sit alone on the porch rather than be here.

So much of me just wants him to be here. Wants him to come inside and talk to me like we used to.

I want to be able to tell him everything that's going through my head but I know I can't. He won't want to hear it. He'd shut me down immediately just like he's been doing.

I know he just wants to protect me, from Aries and myself, but it still pisses me off that he'd rather sit outside cold and mad than to be here for me in the ways I actually need him to be.

I am thankful for Kelsea and everything she has done for me, but I need Dallas too. So long we've been apart and now he's here and it feels like the divide between us has never been wider.

If I can just convince everyone that Aries didn't do this, then maybe I can get my brother back.

But first I've got to convince myself.