Page 30 of Our Darkest Summer

He was silent for a moment, then: “It doesn’t match,” he said, blowing out a breath.

I narrowed my eyes. He was right. While the one left to us was written with huge capitals, the other two from Lizzie’s journal were written with more elegant letters.

“And what about the letter? To Josh?—”

Thomas’ eyes clouded. “I checked it this morning. They were written by the same person.”

My brows rose. While it did occur to me, I wouldn’t have thought that it would really be the case. Why would they call Lizzie’s family here to then threaten them to leave?

I pulled the notes closer to me and opened the beige journal next to them, observing the letters. The newly found piece of papers weren’t written by Lizzie either. Her handwriting was much more cursive.

“Maybe Josh wrote these,” I said. “They’re not necessarily threatening. Maybe it was a game they played?”

Thomas shook his head. “It’s not his either.”

My chest heaved. We still had a big pile of nothing. I lifted the yellow journal again, but there was nothing else inside. The pages remained empty.

“Neither one of these are from 2009,” I said, putting it aside and Thomas stretched his neck. “Have you looked through them all?” I gestured at the three journals in front of him.

“One left.” With that he opened the last unread one, but then instantly put it aside, lifting something between his fingers.

Another piece of paper. Maybe it wasn’t so hopeless after all. He turned it around for me to see and my brows knot.

This one was definitely Lizzie’s handwriting.

“Who’s Sanders?” I asked, already pulling out my phone, and searching the number. “Luca Sanders Private Investigator.”

Thomas pulled the phone from my hand, and tapped at something on the screen before lifting it to his ear.

“You can’t call him now,” I hissed. “It’s the middle of the night.”

He ignored me, and instead put the call on speaker.

“Hello?” My eyes rounded at the woman’s voice from the other end of the line.

“I’m looking for Luca Sanders.” Thomas flexed his free hand.

“I’m sorry, he’s on vacation,” the girl answered, her tone surprisingly cheery despite the late call. “Would you like to leave him a message?”

“And when will he be back exactly?”

“Umm—”

There was a rustling sound as she probably looked through some papers, and Thomas let his head fall back. I watched the long veins in his neck, twisting my shoelace around my finger.

“On the seventh.”

Thomas clenched his jaw. “Thank you,” he ended the call and opened the journal again. “Empty,” he sighed after a moment.

“So, hypothetically,” I gathered my thoughts, looking down at the papers, “Lizzie was threatened to leave, then she hired a private investigator.” I chewed on my bottom lip. “Or maybe the two have nothing to do with each other. Maybe these notes are insignificant, and she was…”

Kidnapped.But I didn’t say that out loud.

Thomas massaged his temples, and I leaned back on the floor.

God, solving a mystery was much harder than how school and books made it seem.

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