Page 46 of Keeping Collette

“I take it this is about Courtney?” She loved her sister, but she’d made the conscious decision to move forward. Of course, she wanted to find out who did this to Courtney, but it was her first day back at work and she had been wanting a little normalcy with it.

“Yes. Because you gave me her laptop, I was able to get into her social media accounts. I’ve also been able to look at her texts.”

“Right. How long have you had all this?”

“The day after you gave me her computer, but…” Cass’s voice trailed off.

“You didn’t want to burden me with it all while I was dealing with the arrangements,” Collette surmised.

“Correct.”

Around her, the men in the room shifted, and the dread that pooled low in her stomach started to spread. Whatever Cass had found, it had to be bad.

What had Courtney been up to?

What hadn’t she told her?

Suddenly, she didn’t want to know the answers to those questions. Didn’t want anything to tarnish the memory of her sister. But was she being naïve thinking like that? Had Courtney felt like Collette had put her up on a pedestal? Had she felt unwanted pressure because of that? Collette had never wanted anything but love and the best things for her sister, but had that expectation pushed Courtney to do something she wouldn’t normally do?

So many tumultuous thoughts cascaded through her mind. In the end though, would knowing make her feel any different about her sister?

No, it wouldn’t.

Nor would knowing this information bring her back. What it could do, though, was help in stopping another family from going through the same trauma she was.

“Whatever it is, I need to know,” she said, aware that no one had spoken, as though they were aware she needed to get to the decision herself.

Cass nodded. “Okay.” She pressed a few buttons on her keyboard and the TV screen lit up with the direct messages from one of Courtney’s social media sites she frequented.

Collette scanned them quickly. Her sister was talking to a man who she’d never mentioned to her. They’d discussed meeting up.

“This is Gary. He and Courtney have been messaging each other for about two months.” Cass looked over the top of her glasses, her eyes clouded with sympathy. “They also shared pictures, but I’m not going to put them up.”

Cass didn’t need to say anymore; she didn’t have to. Collette knew exactly what type of pictures the two of them exchanged.

“Do we know what this Gary looks like?” she asked, looking at the chiseled torso of the man’s profile picture, only his chin was showing so she had no idea how old he was.

“None had his face in them,” Cass responded.

“Which means this Gary person had more than likely taken a random photo off some stock photo site and lured my sister in.” Collette sat back, frustrated that this was likely a dead end.

“Seems that way. I’ve dug deeper and found that Gary is actually Craig Onslow, a fifty-five-year-old male.” A man’s face popped up, he wore glasses and had a scruffy brown beard with flecks of gray in it. He was balding on top.

“How many other young girls has he gaslit with his messages?” Collette shook her head, sad that her sister had been sucked in by some random man on the internet. But Courtney would’ve had no idea what this man looked like. She would’ve, like anyone starved for human connection, been flattered by the words he’d showered her with.

“It’s hard to say, but from what I’ve found, he was talking to other young adults, five females and two males, while he was talking to Courtney.”

“Fucking hell,” Deal muttered. “So many sick fucks out there.”

“Are any of those people missing?” Collette asked, silently agreeing with Deal.

“No,” Cass confirmed, and Collette relaxed momentarily. Although, while it was a good thing no one else was missing, her sister was now dead.

“We have to warn them. We have to tell them who this guy is,” Collette demanded.

“We will,” Ox reassured her. “We’ll find this Craig Onslow.”

She believed Ox and everyone in this room would do everything possible to get to this man. She wanted to talk to him to find out what he’d said to Courtney that would make her believe that going to the place she was last seen was a good idea. There was no way Courtney would’ve gone there without a reason.