Page 4

Life is A Highway

L ooking out the window, I groan at the bevy of colored lights in front of me. There must be a major wreck ahead because the entire highway looks like it’s at a standstill. Once I slow to a stop, I glance at the GPS on my phone and let out another frustrated sound. It’s red for the next hour of the trip map. Something terrible had to shut the highway down this thoroughly.

There’s absolutely nowhere to get off and take a break, so I settle into the seat, putting the truck in park. I’m not going to move for some time according to the traffic notes, so I might as well troll the internet for information about the town I haven’t even visited for almost thirteen years. I sip my soda as I flip through the search results, looking for anything interesting in the news first.

Nothing exciting, it seems. Some deaths, some elections, some town events—not a damned hint at what could cause my present issues. Maybe I should look up some people I went to school with. If they are on social media, I might get the scoop on the dirt from the Hollow. I’ve never been interested in their lives before, so I haven’t even friended my actual close friends from my time at Whistler’s Hollow Finishing School.

Once I was out, I intended to stay out.

So now I have to open the major apps and start searching for the people I actually used to hang out with seeing if they have anything on their pages that will give me a clue. I frown as I look, puzzled by the complete lack of information available. The families in my town seemed to take pride in unique names for their children—we all lamented it as kids. It should be easy as hell to find Heathcliff Beauregard Standish—even if he’s going by Cliffy still—or Annabelle Veronica Lee. Hell, I can’t even find Delilah Lenore O’Hara or Heraclea Titania St. James and those have got to be the most extra names I ever saw go through WHFS.

Of course, the last two were older than me, and since I was only a freshman when they graduated, I have no idea where they were headed when they left.

But I should still be able to find them on at least one of the major social media sites. Hell, who doesn’t have an Insta at this point? Mine are all for my previous professional life, but I at least have the four major platforms to be found on.

Why does it seem like none of the people I went to school with have even a minute online presence?

My lips curve. I may have struck out on the friendly folks, and even the older students, but I bet I can find the mean kids. There’s no way that girls like Sherilynn, Amy, Jillian, Ophelia, and Reese aren’t posing their kids or dogs or what the hell ever like models online. Those bitches made the bullies in movies look tame. They didn’t target me specifically because I did everything in my power not to stand out. My family fell in the middle of the social pyramid, and keeping my head down meant that either side did not claim me. But I saw them target others, and their brand of torture was both terrifying and unique.

They have to be boring society mavens with dogs they carry in their purse by now.

I look up at the traffic, seeing not an inch of movement again, and then turn back to my phone. Typing in ‘Sherilynn Grant’, I find a few articles on charity functions—I knew it—and pictures that lead me down a rabbit hole until I find her Insta. As predicted, it’s filled with professional grade posts of her house, her horses, her Italian Greyhounds, her very round and unhappy looking children, and her husband. She married Benjamin Louis Foster II—affectionately tagged as ‘Benjy’ in her posts—and I chuckle.

Benjy was dumber than a post in high school, but he was captain of the polo team, and his daddy owned a chain of diners across the state. It doesn’t surprise me in the slightest when I can figure out that they dated through college—predictably. She was Alpha Delta Pi and got married once they moved home to take over Benjy’s family business.

Oddly, Benjy himself doesn’t have any accounts linked to hers, and he’s only in pictures that she posts.

This is feckin’ weird, my friend Saoirse would have said.

Sighing, I stretch my legs, putting down the phone for a few minutes. I miss my friends from my various assignments in Europe. We keep in touch here and there, but it always appears now that I live here, they don’t have as much time for me. I never took the time to make friends in Richmond or in college because I was laser focused on my studies and my goals. I’m finding myself a little melancholy about it looking at the beautiful, curated lifestyle photos on Sherilynn’s page.

I don’t even have a houseplant, much less pets, a family, and twenty thousand goddamned followers. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I was supposed to be training at Quantico right now, finding my brethren in my fellow agents, and gearing up for the best job I’ve ever had.

Sniffling, I feel the first tears of frustration that I’ve allowed to fall since Agent Dipshit made his declaration in his office. I refused to let his adamant statement deter me, and ever since, I’ve been running full steam ahead to make it to my goal.

Hell, I’m not even sure what I’ll do once I get there. I know how to set up my life in a new place—I’ve done that dozens of times in the past few years. But I don’t know how I’m going to hunt down the nebulous reason that my application got denied. It’s not like I’m some super sleuth; I’m an untrained profiler with a lot of background in psychology. The best I can guarantee is that I’ll be able to read people well enough to know who to pursue until they let information slip.

That’s it.

I grab a napkin from the seat and wipe my face, cleaning off the remnants of my pity fest. My parents may not have been the cozy, best friend types that everyone I’ve known has, but they taught me about grit and determination. My mom always said that the only way to get up from being knocked down was to be swinging as you brushed the dirt off. That’s what I’m going to do. It doesn’t matter if I’m not Poirot; it only matters that I have a goal. I can plan out the steps to get there and just work that plan until I see results or have to change course.

Picking up my phone again, I look for some of my male classmates. It was strange that Sherilynn is so active, and Benjy is a ghost. I’d chalk it up to the fact that he barely seemed to work doorknobs in high school, but he got some sort of degree. He must have at least learned to turn on a computer during that time. I can’t believe that he’s running a chain of diners—even with help—if he doesn’t know how to work fucking Facebook.

My eyes squint as I try to conjure up names from my graduating class until I hit on the big one. Jesus, Mary, and the cuckold, I can’t believe I almost forgot about him. The big kahuna himself, Edgar Olivier Boone III, has to be online. Captain of the football team, president of student council, valedictorian, captain of the debate team—Mr. Future Pi Kappa Alpha himself. His family is the oldest and richest in the entire state. They practically founded State U. When I lived there, his dad was running for state senate. There’s no way that douche is a ghost online.

Fingers fly over the keyboard, and I gape.

Not. A. Goddamned. Thing.

At least, not in his own name. There are media mentions, pictures tagged by various people, and of course, an ass ton of photos of him with his dad on the campaign trail. Christ in a cartoon, the old pervert is an actual Congressman now. This fucking country is such a bloody joke.

There’s Edgar—tormentor of fat girls, giver of wedgies, and pantser of band geeks—smiling like the beautiful, Kennedy-esque Ken doll he was raised to be. I read a little further down and my jaw nearly hits the floor. He’s the county judge now? What in the actual…? That guy ran the biggest gambling ring on four counties when he was in school! He had adults coming for miles to bet on sporting events, both local and national. He didn’t need the money, obviously. Edgar simply loved the thrill.

I mean, that’s what I always thought. My observations from the sidelines were never verified, but I was certain that he was only doing it for the thrill of being bad. A little rebellion to help him bear the weight of expectations that his position in town put on him. I never shared that opinion with anyone because I had few close friends, nor was I part of that gilded inner circle. But I could see him straining against the bonds of his heritage in the things he did that weren’t your typical asshole jock behavior.

We’re all victims of our parentage, I suppose.

A car horn sounds behind me, and I realize that we’re moving—a bit. So, I take it out of park and creep forward, still musing about the utter absence of info on some of the former Hollow students. It’s pretty bizarre especially for the son of a U.S. Senator. When the movement stalls again, I stretch up to see if it looks like we’re going to have to move again soon, and all I see is brake lights for miles. I’ve got time to dig a bit more.

Turning my attention to an adult, I try looking up my favorite counselor. Aside from a snippet on her credentials on the WHFS website, I find bupkiss. Andromeda Bane is not a common name, and I was sure that I’d find old Facebook pages or college stuff, but she, too, is clean as a whistle. I even try a reverse image search on her counselor picture, and it came up with squat.

What in actual fuck is with people from my town?

I had no idea that they were all such Luddites. It didn’t seem that way when I lived there. People had cameras and took pictures—we had yearbooks. Is there something I’m missing? I didn’t do a lot of social events and I kept my head down because my folks were teachers, but it feels like they purposefully left me out of some big secret.

Is this part of my F.B.I. rejection? Did the utter vacancy online of many of the inhabitants in my town make me suspicious?

Frowning, I try to think back on why I was so reclusive in school. The professors’ kid thing was part of it, sure, but I wasn’t the only one. My parents weren’t that active in the town scene, either; now that I’m pondering it, I don’t believe that I ever saw them go to a party or event that wasn’t for one of their colleagues or university donors.

As a kid, that didn’t bother me—who wants to go to parties with boring adults—but it seems weird to realize it as a grown-up. Eloise Clara and Andrew Justin Whitley were introverted to the max, or there was something else going on. Grumbling under my breath, I type in my parents’ names, my frustration climbing when I find a lone article on their accident in the Hollow Hollar , but nothing else.

This is fucking weird as shit, and it’s not helping my paranoia about the failed background check.

Putting my hands over my eyes, I growl in annoyance at the situation, the traffic, and my life. Ugh! I just wish I could get out of this fucking mess, get home, and start working on all of this bullshit. I slam my palm on the steering wheel and glare at the car in front of me.

Another horn sounds and engines start— holy shit , we’re moving!

I crank up the radio, clicking my phone back to GPS as I inch towards freedom one car at a time. Within a few minutes, the flow is easing and I’m believing I might make it to town before dinnertime. Regardless of my research, I’m not ready for the town in large groups, and if I get there at dinner, I’ll never be able to hide.

Time to push the limits of this truck. I gotta make up for lost time.