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“Not that I know. You know me,” Caspian chuckles. “I’m as chill as they come. There’s just something really fucking weird about all this.”
“You’re telling me.”
“And you know something?” He uses the bottle to point at me. “I’m still pretty fucking convinced I saw someone that night at the cabin. Which, I know, is fucking insane because we were in the middle of nowhere, but I swear I saw…something. Makes me feel like I’m going crazy.”
“Finn’s still certain he locked the door.” He’s never wavered in that claim, not once.
“It’s like there’s something more sinister going on, y’know? Like some fucker is playing all these games and we’re just caught in the web.” Caspian leans up with a deep sigh and takes a drink. “Or I am fucking insane.”
“Maybe you’re on to something.” Thinking of the bigger picture, things start to slowly slot into place even if there’s no end goal. “I mean, if you think of everything that’s happened…individually, it’s all just bad luck. But together?”
“How far back do we go?” Caspian asks.
“Well, there’s those pictures getting sent to Emma’s parents. Before that, the pics were stolen and your studio gets wrecked. Before that, the cabin, right? Where you think you saw someone and Emma nearly got lost. Before that…the drugging?”
“Emma got drugged at the club but nothing happened, right?” Caspian rubs at his jaw. “Which makes no sense, I mean why do that to someone if you’re just going to take them home and tuck them into bed? To scare her?”
“Maybe?” I lean forward. “Maybe to scare her enough to seek comfort in someone but then she didn’t.”
“And before that, her car,” Caspian adds. “Is that part of it? Or no?”
“I…” That’s where my theory crumbles. “I don’t know, actually. Maybe it’s all connected or maybe it’s just bad luck.”
“So where do I fit in? Why my studio?”
I drink deeply, trying to find a path in everything that’s happened, but if there is one, I can’t see it. “Maybe the studio isn’t related? Maybe we have two things happening here: everything with Emma, and then your studio is just some random disgruntled student?”
“So, coincidence and there were two assholes skulking about that night?”
“Maybe. I mean, can you think of any other reason?”
“No.” Caspian groans. “Unless Maria is back in the states. She’s crazy enough to come here and fuck up my shit but she wouldn’t have avoided the cameras.”
“Ah, Maria.” I smile fondly. “You know, I did like her style in setting your car on fire. I hated that piece of junk.”
“Fuck you, man. That car had been mine since I was seventeen!”
“Exactly,” I chuckle briefly, then sigh. “But she wouldn’t target Emma.”
“So Emma is just … really unlucky?”
“Um…” A small, soft voice rose up from behind us. We both turned to see a girl standing in the doorway, clutching a folder to her chest. Her red hair is scraped back and she nervously pushes her wireframes up her nose.
“Meghan.” Caspian sets his beer aside. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to drop off my portfolio but I heard you talking about Emma.”
Oh. That Meghan.
“I’m sorry,” Caspian starts to say but Meghan waves her hand and shakes her head.
“I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, I was just…when you started listing all those things, you missed one.”
“We did?” I glance at Caspian.
“She gets a lot of hate online these days. I know the internet is a cesspool of trolls and people behind screens, but I know it bothers her. It’s been pretty consistent for a month or two now.”
My phone is in my hand, and I immediately look up Emma’s social media. I’ve spent a lot of time admiring her pictures, but I never click into the comments since social media isn’t my forte. The first picture of nature is pretty clean, comment-wise. The next one of her, though, is intense.
