Page 47 of Tracking Wolfe

Hawaii.

Ski Aster Valley.

I’m letting go of who I’ve been.

I closed my eyes and concentrated on breathing.

Was it actually possible that Wolfe Marian—shy, sweet, manager of the Bluebell Foundation Wolfe Marian, my Wolfe Marian—was also the world’s hottest songwriter?

I would have thought I’d recognize his voice, but I could barely remember the last time I’d heard Wolfe sing. It was before he went to college, definitely. Before he’d stopped playing and singing around the rest of us. Maybe his singing voice had deepened in that time.

My heart began to thunder as my brain supplied a cascade of information about Fletcher Coe I’d picked up the other night without recognizing its importance.

Lyra Vale singing “Not Mine” at the Super Bowl—which I remembered had been on Wolfe’s birthday.

Lyra Vale accepting the Grammy on behalf of Fletcher Coe.

Looper and Mazz Aveline playing “Far Away Nights” on Saturday Night Live.

Some singer joking in an interview that his ego had taken a hit when a Fletcher Coe song had been more popular than his own songs on his newest album.

Fletcher Coe was a legend in the making. A generational talent. But he was also a shadow. A mystery people were desperate to solve because he was determined to stay out of the public eye.

That, more than anything, cemented this theory as fact in my mind.

How many people would go to the effort of crafting lyrics and melodies that could rip your heart out, then post them for the world to enjoy, but never show their face and claim the fame they’d earned?

I could think of only one.

Oh, sweetheart.

Wolfe Marian hated fame. He’d grown up around Jude’s stardom, around users and manipulators only out to befriend him for cred. Wolfe had only tried to make his own way in the music industry for about ten minutes before he’d been cruelly knocked down and forced to give it up.

Except he hadn’t stayed down. He hadn’t given it up.

And I’d missed it. I’d missed all of it.

I quickly typed in a Wikipedia search on the name and discovered his first appearance in the world was with a song called “Far Away Nights” nearly… six years ago.

Nearly six years.

For all that time, Wolfe had been leading a double life.

Who knew about it? Surely Jude and Derek, at the very least. Jude had been the one to suggest I check out the songs, after all.

Except… he hadn’t done that until last summer, years after Fletcher Coe’s songs were already public. And when he’d recommended them, he’d told me he’d just discovered the guy. There was no way he would have talked that way about Fletcher Coe if he’d known he was talking about Wolfe. Jude wasn’t that good at lying.

Was it possible they didn’t know?

I thought about his siblings. Lennon was a vault. He could definitely keep the secret. But he and Wolfe weren’t necessarily close since Lennon moved to Legacy, especially since both men were on the quiet side. Wolfe was closer to Rosie, but Rosie was a talker. Not necessarily the best secret-keeper.

Was Wolfe keeping this secret from everyone?

My fingers itched to get back in the car and return to the campground to confront him about this, but I forced myself to be still. To think a little longer before saying something I couldn’t take back.

I cared about Wolfe enough to want his comfort, and confronting him with this, letting him know that someone had discovered his secret, would probably scare the shit out of him.

I went back to Instagram and kept scrolling through reel after reel tagged with the insatiable desire to uncover Fletcher Coe’s identity.