Chapter 13
Caitlyn, Cameron, and I met that evening in my kitchen, where we were each served heaping bowls of spaghetti and meat sauce by my roommate. As we ate, slurping loudly, Cameron recalled his espionage work in talking to Josh's friends from high school.
***
With Josh's social pages disabled, Cam couldn't simply look up who he was friends with and talk to them, but he didn't let that deter him. Instead, he searched Josh’s name and city and found him mentioned in an old article on his high school’s website. Now knowing his school, Cam search through hashtags for students who had been in Josh's graduating class, and then looked through the public accounts of any people that had pictures with Josh in them. He was able to find a few of them, and fortunately one went to our school. Cameron found the guy’s TikTok account and saw his latest video had been posted just minutes before: he was lamenting that he had to spend the day studying in the school’s library instead of enjoying the beautiful weather.
Cam headed to the library and, after a bit of investigating, found the guy. He quickly improvised a reason to sit next to him, grabbing a few random books from a shelf and taking a seat on the other side of the table. He spent the next few minutes pretending to read and occasionally muttering to himself, before looking up at this target.
“Beautiful day to be inside, huh?”
The guy coughed a laugh. “I knew that college was going to be hard, but I never expected it would get so tough this early. I mean, it's still pretty much summer!”
“Tell me about it,” Cam said. “I shouldn't even be working like this in the first place. I was paired with a guy for a project, but he vanished off the face of the earth.” He shook his fist at the ceiling. “Damn you, Josh Driscale!”
The guy cocked his head. “Do you mean Josh Driscoll? I know him. We went to the same high school.”
Cameron hit his forehead. “You're kidding me! Do you have any idea where he is?”
He shook his head. “Wish I could say I did, but your guess is as good as mine. I haven't talked to him since the summer.”
“Oh, that's too bad. Anything you know about him that could explain why he’d have disappeared? Any medical conditions or anything?”
Another headshake. “None that I know of. I remember he broke his arm in junior year, about a year and a half ago, and was away from school for a few weeks, but that's about it. Pretty nice guy. If I hear from him, I'll tell him to get in touch with his project partner.”
“Thanks dude.” Cameron stood up and left the books on the desk.
***
“Wait,” Caitlyn said. “You just walked away as soon as you were done talking to him? You don't think that would have been a bit suspicious?”
Cameron turned his hands outward. “I had the information I needed. You really think it ever crossed his mind that I was committing espionage towards him?”
“I'm pretty sure that's not how the word works.”
I held my hands up. “Let's focus on the important thing here. This guy said that Josh had no medical issues aside from a broken arm.”
“And the broken arm is probably when he attempted suicide,” Cait said. “I doubt he went back to school afterward and told people he'd slashed his wrists or taken a bunch of pills or something.”
I frowned. “It wasn't his wrists. I would have noticed that when I was with him.”
“Okay then. Some other method. But if that was the only thing this guy noticed, and there was nothing about Josh being depressed or anything, then that gives credence to what he'd told the judge.” She took another bite of spaghetti. “I know there's the whole innocent until proven guilty mantra, but this is really starting to look bad for his parents. Trent, were you able to talk to his dad?”
“Yeah, if you can call it talking. The guy is intimidating as hell. I more just asked a few questions and tried to direct them to Josh, without, you know, making it clear that I knew Josh.”
“And how’d that go?” Cameron asked.
“Poorly. For some reason, he didn't want to open up to me, a complete stranger, about his son. But then he left the office for a few minutes, and I was looking through his desk—”
“Wow, you just really don't care about this guy’s privacy, do you?” Caitlyn asked.
I ignored her comment. “—I found a business card for a Christian psychologist who deals with difficult teenagers.”
Cameron dropped his fork into his empty bowl. “Oh boy. Now things are getting interesting.”
“So, I guess we know where we’re going next,” I said.
“Hold on.” Caitlyn took a drink of water. “What exactly are you going to do here? You can't just show up, asking where Josh is. Plus, a psychologist’s office is significantly harder to break into than a typical family house. You're going to need a plan that goes beyond showing up and hoping everything works out.”
I looked over at Cameron, who nodded in agreement. “Fine,” I said. “I'll figure something out. Let's meet tomorrow.”
“We have the UGSM meeting tomorrow.”
“Ugh, those homos? Why can't they just be normal?” I grinned. Neither of the other two laughed. “Fine. We’ll talk after that.” I yawned. “I'm going to bed. Feel free to have more pasta. Lord knows we have enough of it.”