Page 70 of The First Gentleman

CHAPTER 66

I make it to Brattleboro in record time.

My last text from Garrett said that he’d booked cabin 19, our place.

After all, that’s where he first told me that he loved me.

As if I hadn’t known it already.

I told him I loved him too.

I round the last curve through the pine trees.

What the hell?

The woods are lit up with flashing red and blue lights.

I brake hard. Everything comes at me like freeze-frames every time I blink.

Garrett’s rental car.

An ambulance. Two police cars.

Uniformed cops standing on the porch of a cabin.

I put the Subaru in park and jump out.

I start running. One of the cops jumps off the porch and heads straight for me.

“What happened?” I call out.

“I’m meeting my boyfriend here!”

The officer has the sturdy build of a lacrosse player.

She stops me cold. “Honey, you can’t go in there.”

My ears start ringing, and she keeps talking but her words sound like they’re coming from underwater.

“What’s your boyfriend’s name?” She’s staring right into my eyes.

“Sweetheart! Listen! Who were you meeting here?”

I try to push past her, but it’s no use.

She has her legs planted wide.

There’s a glow coming from the cabin.

Bright lights. Brighter than a fire.

“Garrett!” I shout. “Where are you?”

“Garrett? And what’s the last name?” The cop is in my ear.

She’s half holding me, half hugging me.

“Wilson! Garrett Wilson!”

“Okay, honey. I need you to come sit down with me.” She pulls me toward a wooden bench under a pine tree.

My eyes are fixed on the cabin door.

The number 19 is carved into it.

No!

I don’t know how, but I tear myself away from her and run up the steps to the cabin.

Two more cops grab me.

But it’s too late. I can see inside.

A blanket on the floor. Blood.

Garrett!