"Sounds good."
Behind him, I can already hear Bellamy asking if I'm on the phone and demanding he hand it over to me. Part of me thinks he's just continuing the conversation with me to aggravate her. They are nothing short of adorable together. Now that they've finally given in, they're happily settled into a bickering, teasing, poking relationship neither will ever be able to be without again.
"Emma?" Bellamy says after finally managing to get the phone from Eric.
Whether he handed it to her or she just snatched it out of his hand is yet to be determined.
"Hey, B."
"It's so good to hear from you! I miss you."
"I miss you, too. But it's not all on me. You and Eric have been busy with work."
"We have. And we need to fix that. Not the being busy with work part, because I'd like to stay employed. But the not-seeing-you-often-enough thing."
"Definitely. Right after I finish the cases I'm working on. Which actually brings me to a good segue. I need your help with something," I say.
"Shoot."
"What can you tell me about Lakyn Monroe?" I ask.
"Lakyn Monroe? Are you investigating her disappearance?" she asks.
"Not officially. Not even really unofficially. I ran into a detective who is, and he asked for me to kind of be on call as a consultant. I'm just checking over a few things," I say. "I have a theory, and I'm seeing if I'm right."
"Okay. Well, she grew up in Richmond," Bellamy says.
"Seriously? I didn't know that."
"Yeah. That's where she started posting on the internet and building up followers. Honestly, Mary Preston might have been influenced by her."
Hearing her name brings another cold chill to the back of my neck. "She reminded me of Mary as soon as I heard about her."
"She left Richmond a few years back to go to school, but not a whole lot came of that. She was still getting too many job offers and things, so she dropped out. Of course, she says she'll go back one day. She obviously doesn't advertise her address or anything, but the last anybody knew, she was spending the time she wasn't filming in LA or New York in a town in the mountains. Not too far from Sherwood, actually."
"Harlan?" I ask.
"No," she says. "Something with two words. Has to do with the mountains."
My heart beats slightly faster in my chest. "Salt Valley?"
"That's it. Is that significant?"
I think about that question for only half a second, not wanting to get her too deeply involved. I don't want to jump to any conclusions.
"It just came up when I was talking with the detective," I say. "Anyway, what else? You're into these internet personality people. What makes her different from the rest of them?"
I listen to Bellamy describe Lakyn's personality and the career she built from nothing. This was a woman who started out as a bored young teenager with a webcam and fascination with herself and managed to develop that into a following that spawned a career. It was impressive. When I asked about her involvement with the wrongfully imprisoned, Bellamy perked up even more.
"It's really interesting, isn't it? I mean, obviously, she's not the only celebrity who has ever gotten involved with trying to get people out of prison. But there's something about the way she talks about it that seems different. I don't really know how to describe it. She's really passionate about it. She's never explained why she got into it, or what made her suddenly want to withdraw from her career and focus on it so much. She's done a lot of good, though."
"Do you think it could have anything to do with her disappearance?" I ask.
"It might. I don't want to think that, but there's always that possibility. Why? What do you think happened to her?"
"Honestly? I think there's a strong chance she isn't really missing at all. I think she might have just gotten fed up with everything and decided she wanted her own life. The way she left doesn't make much sense, and the evidence that's been found is unusual."
"No," Bellamy says.
"No?" I ask.
"She wouldn't do that. As I said, helping the people in prison is so important to her. She is really dedicated to it and to them. She wouldn't just drop the people she's helping and wander away without saying anything because she felt like it."
"People she's helping, like Xavier Renton?" I ask.
"Yes. She only made one video about that particular case, and she ended up deleting it. Nobody knows why. But even in it, she didn't get into a lot of detail about him or why she wants to help him or anything like that. She just said it was a situation close to her heart, and she needed to help him."
I pull up a picture of Xavier. He fascinates me. Something about him told Lakyn he needed help. Maybe he still does.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
"So, you still didn't get a chance to talk to Eleanor Goldman?" I ask.
I'm outside in shorts that barely qualify for the name or for admission into public spaces, braving the stifling heat to try to battle back the weeds taking over the garden behind my house. I briefly toyed with the idea of having a vegetable garden this year, romanticizing the joy of watching the plants grow and making a salad out of my bounty.
Then the heat hit, and I've settled for an indoor fern and the flowers left over from last year. Maybe the vegetables will come next season.
"No," Dean sighs. "I just keep getting the runaround. It seems as if everybody else is, too. So at least that makes me feel a bit better. But that might be changing soon. I did manage to track down the owner of the house Mason and Eleanor rented. Her name is Lilith Duprey. She's owned it for years, but it's been used as a rental for a few different families for the last ten years. It's listed
