“At least it's something,” he says. “I mean, it could be worse.”
“Worse?”
“Like that time in high school where you thought it was a Saturday, but it was actually Friday, and you nearly missed an exam. If I hadn’t called you, you’d have slept right through it. You barely had enough time to tumble out of bed and get to class about three seconds before it began.”
“If I recall correctly, the reason I overslept that morning was because somebody decided to come sneak through my window the night before and kept me up late ‘studying’,” I fire back with a grin.
“He must have been a really handsome guy.”
“Oh, he wasn’t so bad. Kind of a huge dork, though.”
“You got me there,” Sam chuckles. “But anyway, I know you’ve got this.”
“Yeah, it's something. And I'll figure it out.”
“I know you will,” he says. “If anybody can, it's going to be you. You haven't stopped amazing me yet, and I don't think you’ll stop any time soon.”
“Thank you,” I say. “I miss you so much.”
“You'll be home soon. Then it's just a few more months until our vacation,” he says.
“I am very much looking forward to that,” I tell him.
We get off the phone, and I start the messages up again. As soon as I hear the person speaking, I flip to a new page in the notebook. It's one of the few messages that isn’t from Lakyn. This one is a man's voice telling Xavier to remember Andrew’s birthday. It makes me shudder, and I quickly move to the next message.
The next message starts the same as all the other ones, with a member of the jail staff noting the date and time the message was listened to. I jot the information down, but it's the next comment that catches my attention.
"Note. Not delivered to inmate. Unintentional call."
The message begins, and I strain to listen. For the first several seconds, it is just noise. Not static or interference, but ambient noise of fabric, things rustling around, and a sound I recognize after a little bit is traffic rushing past. It does sound like someone accidentally called, but before I can skip the message, I hear a voice.
"I thought you said you were taking me home."
It's Lakyn Monroe. The voice is muffled, but it's unmistakably her.
"You took a wrong turn back there. You should have turned right to go to my house, but you turned left."
There's some sort of response, but it's too muffled to understand.
"Oh. Well, that's fine. It's easy to make mistakes out here with all these twisty back roads. I should have listened to my sister. She told me to always have a snack in my purse. I'm getting really hungry, and I'm probably an hour away from home."
There's another response I can't hear.
"Do you think the farmers ever get confused about which farm is theirs? Everything looks so similar out here. We just went by four separate wheat fields and two cornfields before these tracks. Don't you think that gets confusing sometimes? Why are you turning left again? You should be turning right to go to my house, not left."
My heart is pounding harder now. Her voice is sure, slightly louder now than when the message began. She's speaking slowly and carefully, enunciating each word so it can be fully understood. She's not talking to the person in the car. She's leaving this message intentionally.
I look down at the notebook to check the date. As I continue to listen to the message, I pick up my phone and search for Lakyn’s disappearance. This message was left the day after the last time she was seen in public.
"Where are we? I don't think I've ever been out this far. I'd like to come back sometime when there's more light so I can see it better. We passed by a sign two roads ago. Did you see what it said?"
Lakyn's voice rings in my ears as I rush around the hotel room, getting dressed.
"When I agreed to speak with the judge, I didn't think I was going to get a leisurely drive out of it, too. This really has been lovely, but I need to get home now."
I shove my feet into my black combat boots and tie them tight. Sweeping my hair up into a ponytail, I cross the room to the dresser.
"Why are you stopping? I don't want to be out here with you. Where are we? Who's in that car?"
I pull my gun out of the drawer and put it together, pushing the magazine into place.
"No. I don't want to take a walk. I'm not going into that cornfield. I've never liked mazes. You need to bring me home. I don't want to be here. Take me home, Laurence."
The sound of a car door slamming pops in the message. A breath. Another rustle of movement and the message ends.
I strap the gun to my hip, grab my computer, and run out of the room.
"What do you mean you're following her directions?" Sam demands five minutes later.
"The last message to Xavier is from Lakyn, the day after the last time she was seen in public. It was never given to Xavier because the staff member who listened to it thought it was left accidentally. She's in a car, describing where they're going. This was intentional. She wanted him to hear it."
"Why him?" Sam asks. "If she could manage to call somebody, why would she call him and not the police?"
“She probably thought whoever had her would be able to hear the dispatcher answer the phone. She likely had Xavier's
