Trajectory

“Of course, ma’am.” Chloe was nervous too as she walked with Connie. The last time she’d seen Layla, she was bleeding and pale. The sign said no cell phones, so she turned hers off. There were two bodies in the room, covered with sheets. That must have been where they got them ready for the caskets. It was surreal.

“Yours is the girl, correct?” he asked Connie gently. “Would you like to see her? We have her makeup all done.”

Connie nodded and squeezed Chloe’s hand tightly as they followed him to the first table with a body on it. The sheet covered her, probably to respect the family of the other body in the room. They didn’t have to see the dead roommate. Man, that was morbid, she thought to herself.

“Are you ready, Mrs. Adams?” the director asked and she nodded.

Chloe held her breath as they watched him pull the sheet down.

Instead of dark brown hair with purple tips the girl exposed was blonde. It wasn’t Layla.

“Is this some kind of joke?” Connie was shaking angrily as she looked at the blonde girl that wasn’t her daughter. Chloe could only stare. “That’s not my daughter!” she screamed.

“I’m so sorry, ma’am. Were you told she was here?” The guy quickly covered back up the poor girl’s body and walked toward them to usher them back out of the door.

“Yes, they said she’d be brought to you. I’m calling them when I get home and giving them a piece of my mind.” Connie stomped out of the room, her fists clenched at her sides.

“That young man beneath the sheet over there and this young lady are the only two bodies we have.” Chloe could tell this wasn’t something that had happened to him often.

“How does someone make this kind of mistake?” Connie demanded.

“I don’t know, ma’am, we’ll get to the bottom of this.”

“Find my daughter’s body and don’t call me to come down here until you’re sure it’s her.” She was holding it together pretty well, but Chloe knew it had taken an emotional toll on her to get worked up to see Layla, and then she wasn’t there.

Connie rushed out, not looking back.

Chloe thanked them, for what she wasn’t really sure, and raced out after her. She needed to have some questions answered and she’d start with Ash and why he was at her house. By the time she got Connie in the car and went back to her house it would be time to go to work. She’d go in early and have a little heart to heart with her boss.

* * *

Brent looked at the clock in his truck. It was almost eleven-thirty. He finally figured out which funeral home Layla had to be at by the process of elimination. He busted through the doors and ran down a long hallway.

“Chloe,” he yelled.

A man in a suit walked toward him quickly and put his finger to his lips. “Sir, calm down, there is a family here visiting their son.”

“Is there also someone here with Layla Adams, or visiting her, I mean?” He was out of breath and not lowering his voice.

“They were here but left about an hour ago, sir. Terrible mix-up,” he said.

“What kind of mix-up?” Brent asked.

“I shouldn’t tell you, but you seem to know them,” the man said. “The body of Layla Adams never showed up here. Her body is missing. Can you believe that?”

He didn’t say anything to the guy and ran back out the door. He wasn’t sure if he should go to her house or Connie’s house. If Layla’s body had actually not been there, she would spend enough time at Connie’s to make sure she was okay. How could someone’s body just not show up at the funeral home? That didn’t make sense, did it? He didn’t have time to think about it.

He made the decision to go to Connie’s first. If he could catch her there, then he could go back to her house with her and then into work. That way he would be able to protect her from Ash until they figured out how to expose him. Ash would be meeting with Aunt Z in less than twenty minutes if he was indeed the killer, so there was no doubt he had tim

e to get to Chloe before she figured it out and he took her away from him.

He couldn’t let that happen. It would have been smart of him to pay attention to the road. He might have seen the car coming at him, and he certainly would have avoided swerving so hard he flew off the road and into a tree. He saw the tree and then everything was black.

When he woke up his head hurt. He was lying on the side of the road with the chief of police standing over him, an EMT bandaging his arm. It hurt.

“Hey, there he is. Where was the fire, Brent?” the police chief said, smiling. Why the hell was he smiling when his arm hurt so badly?

“What time is it?” he yelled, trying to get up. The EMT grabbed his arm and jerked it, taking him by surprise. His shoulder popped back into place and he screamed with the sudden pain.