Page 44 of The Last to Vanish
“Listen,” she said, “we should go out sometime, when Harris isn’t busy. Maybe even drive out to Springwood for an evening?” she added with a nervous laugh.
I nodded. “I’d love that. Harris has my number.” I made myselfsmile as I turned away, striding as quickly as I could down her front porch without raising suspicion.
I wanted to ask Harris some questions that would not put his wife any more at ease. And I didn’t think he’d be honest in front of her, knowing what I knew now—how much she already wanted to move on. They were both stuck, with this land, with what he’d built from it. But it came at a price, and she was the one currently paying it.
HARRIS WAS WALKING OUTof the stand-alone garage when I caught up with him. He was eyeing the unfamiliar car in his drive, trying to reconcile it with me.
“Well, this is a surprise,” he called. And then his smile faltered. “Everything okay at the inn?”
“Sorry, I tried to call first. And then I was driving by,” I said, uselessly waving my arms at nothing.
He slid his phone out of his back pocket. “Must’ve been in a dead zone.” He frowned. “There’s nothing from you.”
“I didn’t leave a message. It was more a personal question I was hoping you could answer,” I said, peering over my shoulder at his house. Picturing his wife peering back out. I shifted so my back was to the house.
“All right,” he said slowly.
“The phone lines,” I said, and his gaze also drifted to his home, to his wife and daughter, and I wondered if he feared for their safety more than he’d told Samantha. Whether he hid his concerns, knowing how his livelihood was also tied to this place.
He squinted against the morning sun, hand over his eyes to shield the glare. “What about them.”
“You made a comment—” I shook my head. “I felt like youthought Cory could’ve had something to do with it, and I was just wondering… why you thought that.”
He stared at me, silent, trying to read something behind the question.
I shut my eyes, tried again. “I know you grew up here. That you might know something I don’t. I do know he used to work at the inn.” Here it came, I had to ask. “Did he live there when Alice Kelly disappeared?”
He rubbed one thick hand through his beard. “That was a long time ago. I wasn’t here then.” He drew in a long breath through his nose. “I think he was at least staying there part of the time.” He took another step in the gravel, to the side, busying himself in the truck. “I couldn’t swear to it, though. I was in college, we didn’t run in the same circle, couldn’t say we kept tabs on each other much.”
“You were never friends?” I asked.
“Well, in a place like this, you don’t have to be friends to be in someone’s life, you know?” He closed the truck bed. “But look,” he said, and I couldn’t tell if he meant in general, or around this place. “I grew up here, with my grandparents, who rarely had cause to be involved in the town. Went to school, came home, got out when I could. Cory was a year behind me, grew up like practical royalty in Cutter’s Pass. So no, we weren’t friends. He did what he wanted, got away with what he wanted, never outgrew that mindset now, did he.” He looked at me pointedly, and I was sure he’d heard about some level of my relationship with Cory. “Why are you asking me about Alice Kelly after all this time?” he asked.
“Because,” I said, “I’ve been here ten years, and you’re the first person willing to answer.”
He looked to the house again before taking a slow breath in and out. “My advice?”
I nodded. That’s what I’d come for, after all.
“This town isn’t gonna let anything happen to him. I’d be careful who you ask that question.”
I took a step back, smiling, trying to undo the last ten minutes. I didn’t feel any better, any sense of clarity. I felt, instead, like I was pulling farther and farther away from the heart of things. “Your wife is lovely,” I said. “Thanks, Harris. Sorry to bother you on your day off.”
“You can call me, Abby. Any issues up there, don’t hesitate, okay?”
“Thanks,” I said, my hands shaking slightly as I slid into the driver’s seat of Georgia’s car. I watched as Harris approached the front porch, the door opening before he’d set foot on the first step, the little girl running out from behind her mother.
The keys slipped from my hand, and I had to fish them from the space between the chair and the console.
My fingers stretched for them until they brushed against the metal. I clasped the key between two of my fingers, and pulled—the set of keys dangling behind. But in my grasp was a small, half-size key, which I hadn’t noticed earlier.
I pieced through everything on the chain, that I’d taken abruptly from Georgia’s purse, without permission. I recognized the apartment key, beside the large key to the car. And there was the key that granted access to the downstairs entrance of the inn itself. The only other key was this: small and silver, with a crooked letterEengraved on it.
There was something vaguely familiar about it, but I was sure it didn’t belong to any room at the inn. It wasn’t the key for the safe in the back office, or the back office itself, both of which were kept on a lanyard with our employee badge, granting us access to every guest room. No, this was something else.
I could see Harris and Samantha still standing in the foyerbehind the open doorway watching me, so I started the car, raised a hand in thanks, and drove too quickly on the way out, dirt kicking up in my wake.
I COASTED THROUGH TOWN,seeing every store, every person, through a different lens. The farmers’ market crowd was giving way to the weekend lunch crowd, a crawl of cars as visitors looked for parallel parking or slowed to take in the mountain view. I could pick out the residents easily, and realized it was a way of moving that set them apart. A sort of casualness or aloofness, like they were walking through a sea of people who didn’t really exist. Like the rest of the players were only set pieces. And in their world, wasn’t that true?
