Discovering Us 3: Perseverance

TYLER

Four days. That’s how long they’ve been missing.

I find myself sitting in Jerry’s home office, staring at his mini bar. It’s stocked with enough alcohol to drown a man’s sorrows. I can’t believe I let Callum talk me into coming here. I can’t believe I agreed.

“Wait, you’re telling me my son and your girlfriend have been missing for four days? Four days! Are you kidding me, Callum, Tyler?”

“Four days,” I echo Callum’s words, my voice laced with bitterness.

“And why are you only telling me now?”

Neither of us offers a defense for our decision to wait. We held off because we hoped—no, we believed—that we would find them on our own. But we haven’t, and it seems we’re running out of options.

Jerry approaches me, kneels in front of me, and places a comforting hand on my leg.

“You’re not touching that,” I say, tearing my gaze away from the tempting bottles.

Who is he to tell me what I can and can’t do?

“We were hoping they’d just decided to go off the grid for a bit. Or that a ransom note would have arrived by now. I don’t know why we waited, it just…happened,” Callum interjects.

That’s a lie. We didn’t come here because I didn’t want to. I knew that’s what Zach would have wanted.

“Did you know Henry hasn’t checked in for his bail for the last four days? He’s disappeared,” Jerry says.

I’m certain that bastard has them. And there’s a high chance they’re not even in this country anymore.

Because there hasn’t been a single sighting, and all of Henry’s properties have been vacant for weeks.

“We knew,” Callum admits.

“And you didn’t think that was a coincidence? Jesus, you two are idiots.”

“With all due respect, sir, Officer Kind has been aware of the situation as long as we have. They’ve been searching for them alongside us. We filed a missing persons report days ago. We just didn’t tell you,” Callum explains, his voice sheepish.

“Why?” Jerry asks, looking at me. I laugh, though it sounds more like a bitter scoff.

“Because Zach wouldn’t want your help,” I tell him honestly.

Zach would kill me if he knew I’d come here after only four days. But we’ve exhausted all of Callum’s contacts with no success, other than rumors that they might have been smuggled out of the country with Henry—or by Henry. Zach despises the fact that his mother always forces him to accept help from his father. This time would be no different.

“They could be anywhere by now, Tyler. Regardless of whether my son hates me, you should have come to me sooner. I could have had all the airports, even the private ones, on lockdown. Now, where do we even start looking? They could be anywhere, and we have no idea where to start,” Jerry sighs, straightening up and moving to his office phone.

He dials a number while I watch him. Maybe he’s right. Maybe my refusal to come here has cost us precious time. They could be anywhere—Henry has properties all over the world. London, Paris, Italy, South Africa, Australia. Anything could have happened to them. To him. To Zach.

If Henry has Violet, I have a pretty good idea of what he’s done to her by now. And I have no doubt he took her because he wants her.

“Mark, it’s Jerry. I need a few favors. My son and his girlfriend have been kidnapped… They’ve been gone for four days. Henry Camber has also been missing for four days… Yes, I don’t think it’s a coincidence. I need your best investigators to track any and every plane, boat, or car that left our state from December second…

“I didn’t find out until today… Yes, I know how long it’s been… No, money is not an issue. I’ll pay whatever it takes… Yes, I believe Henry is responsible. His trial is supposed to start on January fourth…

“If there isn’t already, I’ll make sure there’s a warrant out for his arrest… Yes, I’ll send you what I know about his properties and contacts. Thank you.” He hangs up the phone, muttering under his breath before turning back to us.

“You will never wait this long again, do you understand? Four fucking days. Do you have any idea what can happen in four fucking days?” he yells at us, making me jump. It reminds me of our teenage years, when Zach was always getting into trouble.

“I’m very disappointed in both of you.”

“You always are, Dad. So nothing’s changed.” Mr. Henderson gives Zach that look—the one Zach hates. The one that means he’s in for a beating. Zach’s an idiot for talking back, knowing where it will lead. But he does it every time. It’s like he craves the pain.

“Go home, Tyler. I need to talk to my son…alone.”

“It was me, Mr. Henderson. I stole the bottle,” I lie, hoping he’ll go easy on Zach if he thinks it was me. Maybe he won’t touch Zach at all.

“Go home, Tyler,” Zach says, his tone too stern to ignore. I know I have no choice. He doesn’t want me here, so I stand up and walk over to Zach, pulling him into my arms.

“I’ll be in the loft,” I whisper to him. I cling to him, needing his warmth. I need to know he’s okay. But he never hugs me back in front of Mr. Henderson. I wish he would.

With that, I leave the office, shutting the door behind me. I lean against it, even though I know I should leave. I hear the first smack. Thump, thump, thump. Zach is silent, as always. He never makes a sound. Maybe if he did, Mrs. Henderson would put a stop to it.

“I’m fucking disappointed in you, son. Letting your friend take the blame for your mistakes.”

“Boyfriend.”

“Friend. He will never be more than a friend. I won’t allow it under my roof.”

“Ouch,” I grimace as Mr. Henderson’s hand lands on Zach’s skin. The sound reverberates down the hallway, making Mrs. Henderson’s dinner churn in my stomach.

“I didn’t raise a gay son. God wouldn’t approve. Do you get that, Zachary? He’d be looking down in shame, and your mother and I would be punished for your sins.”

~“Loving Tyler isn’t a sin.”

Mr. Henderson’s laughter sends a shiver down my spine, it’s so loud, so threatening, I despise it.~

“You’re only fifteen, son. You won’t understand what love is for years, and by then you’ll see yourself as a fool for pretending to love your best friend.”

“I love Tyler.”

~“You loved him so much that even after he came out three years ago, you slept with every girl in school before settling for him.”

I swallow the harsh truth. The truth is that Zach has slept with every girl in our school. I step away from the door, not wanting to hear another word.~

“What happened to Zach’s tracker chip?”

I’m pulled from the memory by Jerry standing in front of me again. My mouth is parched from the sudden flashback to our teenage years.

“I don’t know, mine is working.” I show him the app.

He takes the phone from my hand gently. Zach’s circle is a gray dot with a cross through it, indicating it’s offline, while mine is green and shows my exact location here at the Henderson’s. Even though neither of us has turned it off, his is off, showing the last known location as two streets down from the hotel.

“Did you check his work laptop to see if Zach turned it off manually?” It’s Callum who offers more answers to Jerry.

“I’ve checked his personal laptop, his work one, Tyler’s, and both of their assistants’. None of them has ever even logged into that app, and for that matter, no one had logged into the tracking app for over three years prior.”

Jerry looks between the two of us, sensing some unspoken explanation, which I had already discussed with Callum. Zach had used the app to track me when I cheated with Sophie, so we both decided not to use the app again unless we had a reason to. And this is a damn good reason.

“Is there information you’re withholding that I need to know?” Jerry asks both of us.

We both shake our heads silently. He doesn’t need to know that Zach tracked me to find out where I was fooling around with Sophie.

“So Zach’s tracker hasn’t been active for over three years?”

“Three years, nine months, and twenty-eight days ago was the last log in. But the tracker has time-stamped the location every thirty minutes over those years as per their requests. The last known location was logged four minutes before he supposedly barged into Violet’s appointment with Dr. Greene,” Callum explains.

“Supposedly?”

“The CCTV in and around her office shows Violet arriving but not Zach, and it definitely shows Violet entering Dr. Greene’s consultation room but never leaving,” Callum says with a grim expression.

“I want to see.”

“I’ll just go get my laptop.”

“No, log into your email on mine. Yours might not be safe to use.”

“I assure you, sir—” Callum’s taken aback. It seems he doesn’t like being told what to do.

I lean back in the chair again, staring at the tempting bottles of alcohol. I want to smash them as Zach did all those months ago in our living room. They’re calling me even though I don’t want to drink. I don’t want to go down that path again.

“I said use mine.”

I watch Callum count to ten, reigning in his anger before doing as he’s told. He logs into his private email, bringing up the CCTV footage he showed me.

“Do you mind?” Jerry asks, crouching beside Callum. I watch disinterestedly as Jerry downloads the CCTV files onto his computer as Callum stands, moving to let Jerry sit at the desk. He sits there for a while, watching things over and over. Clicking and zooming. Scrutinizing whatever part of the footage he has chosen to look through.

“These files are corrupted,” he announces.

“What do you mean?” Callum whispers, leaning down to the desk, now more interested in what Jerry is doing.

“Look at the time stamp. It’s jumping and only changes for three minutes between 12:06 and 12:09. Look. See there it goes again, jumping back to 12:06.”

I’m on my feet then, walking to the table. Watching it three times as it skips back three minutes. Is it looping the same video feed?

“What does this mean, Jerry?” I ask, unable to control my anger any longer. How did we not notice this? We should have noticed this.

“The CCTV is doctored. We need to get hold of the original files.” Doctored?

“How the hell didn’t you notice this, Callum? It’s your damn job to notice things like this.” My anger spills over. He’s supposed to be head of security now. He should have noticed this.

“It’s so slight. I don’t normally look at CCTV. I’m sorry, Tyler.”

“For God’s sake. Get Annie on the phone. We need access to her CCTV room today. We need to get a professional in there to look through the files,” I yell at him, pacing away from the desk. How the hell did we miss this?

Jesus, we’ve been sitting on this information for four days.

“Mark. Yeah. We have a problem. The CCTV from my daughter-in-law’s obstetrician has been doctored to loop a certain feed. I need someone there to recover the original files… Sure, I’ll send over the address right away.”