Page 42 of The Last to Vanish
“Yes,” I said. “Mine wouldn’t start this morning.”
Cory hadn’t even asked. And I realized he rarely asked a question of me, because to do so would be opening himself up to the same.
“Did Cory offer to take a look at it for you?” Ray asked.
Cory’s dark-eyed gaze settled on mine. “Yeah, let me know when it’s a good time to come by.”
Ray sensed something off, his movements slowing. “If he can’t help, we’ve got a good mechanic, Abby, he’ll do right by you.”
“Thanks, Ray. It probably just needs a jump. I was just in a rush this morning. Don’t worry about it.”
But Marina was looking into the back window of Georgia’s car, at the backpack lying across the bench seat. Orange thread visible, missing label, makeshift zipper. The bag they’d probably seen me with many times before.
“Well, don’t let us keep you, Abby.” She gave me her familiar gap-toothed smile, but something felt forced in it. “I’ll be up again for happy hour this evening. The other night was a nice change of pace for me.”
I walked around Georgia’s car, opened the driver’s side door. “See you soon, then,” I said.
Cory nodded at me as I slid into the seat. I watched as they entered Cory’s house, his dad with a hand on his shoulder, a feeling in my chest I had to fight down.
I STARTED THE CAR,letting the working AC blast from every vent before shifting into reverse and carefully maneuvering backward over the wooden bridge, Cory’s house slowly disappearing behind the trees.
I pulled out onto the road, angled back toward town, then idled on the shoulder.
Alice’s bag was visible in my rearview mirror, and I imagined her sitting back there now, eyes reflecting in the mirror.What next?
This town was a vault, and I’d been here too long to see it from the outside in any longer. But I still felt a distance, in the way Marina looked at me, in the things Cory wouldn’t say. Everyone closing ranks, keeping their mouths shut, faces placid and impenetrable.
If I asked Celeste when Cory had last worked at the inn, I’d already know her response:Why do we need to know that?And as eagerly as Rochelle took in information, she doled it out deliberately, like it was a power she wielded. Jack had been here back then, too, but he was a part of their circle—a group I could never quite crack. Sheriff Stamer was as good as family, would never say anything that had the potential to harm someone he cared about.
There was only one person who knew Cory back then who I thought might tell me honestly. Harris had gone to school with them all—with Cory and Jack and Rochelle—their grades overlapping, their pasts seen through a shared filter. And unlike them, he’d left this place for a time.
Cory had stayed in town, working for his parents. Jack had put his skills and passion into a way he could sustain himself, doing the things he loved. Rochelle took courses in the summers but continued to work in the sheriff’s office, her job advancing along with her. But Harris—he kept himself apart from them. He’d always lived outside the town boundary, and he had left. I knew this, because I was here when he’d returned.
I sat at the intersection at the end of Cory’s lane, no car in sight, and called Harris’s cell. Though we didn’t have the type of relationship that generally seemed like I could just come out and ask, what choice did I have? Maybe I could ask him to the inn, bring it up casually. But the call went to voice mail immediately:You’ve reached Harris Donald. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you.
I remembered his face when he saw Cory down in the basement. His implication, when he’d noticed the line had been disconnected. His pointed warning:Careful who you let in down there.
I turned the car around and headed in the other direction—out of Cutter’s Pass.
CHAPTER 13
I’D DRIVEN BY THEDonald family property before. It was about five miles beyond the town perimeter, but ten miles before the next, where a rising series of switchbacks through the terrain brought you into Springwood.
But between Cutter’s Pass and that rising road was a stretch of cleared farmland, individual homes on larger, flat acreage. When I’d first arrived in Cutter’s Pass, Harris was off at college near Asheville, and his grandparents had still owned the property. But they’d let the farming go, so the growth from the surrounding woods had steadily encroached, the fence falling to disrepair.
After they’d passed—one a year after the other—the Donald land fell to Harris, but it wasn’t until five years ago that he officially came back as a full-time resident, bringing his new wife and setting up his own business, building his clientele from the people and places he’d once known so well.
It wasn’t quite a complete homecoming, though. There existed some gap that couldn’t fully be breached—either by him or the rest of the town. Like he, too, could only see this place from the outside in. I wondered what it looked like to him now, after being on the other side.
I pulled into their winding gravel drive, the road splitting into a circle in front of the two-story home. There were two cars parked beside the separate garage—a small white sedan and a pickup truck. A good sign that Harris was home.
I hesitated on the wide front porch, hoping I wasn’t waking anyone. But as I got closer, I heard the catchy melody of the end of some Saturday-morning cartoon. Their daughter, at least, must already be up. Still, I knocked tentatively.
The pitter-patter of feet that followed was light and rapid, and I could hear her struggling with the lock, twisting it back and forth several times before eventually managing to unlatch the door.
The hinges creaked, and a small girl in a matching purple pajama set stood barefoot in the foyer, wide brown eyes and thumb going to her mouth when she saw me standing on the other side.
“Elsie, hi,” I said, bending down, hands on my thighs. I was never sure exactly how to speak to children, at what age they became capable of carrying on a conversation. “I’m Abby. Is your dad home?”
