Page 40 of The Last to Vanish
I heard the wind coming, rustling the trees first, and then the wind chimes at the edge of his porch. When he’d taken over the Langshore property, he’d kept the hummingbird feeders and patio chairs and the wind chime that sounded just like the rain on the skylights of the inn.
Cory was at the door before I had a chance to ring the bell, clearly expecting someone other than me, judging by his expression. I tried not to take it as a slight.
“Hey,” he said slowly. There was a question in the greeting. I didn’t just turn up at his place. Hadn’t in more years than I couldremember. But now I was struck by all the ways it was exactly how I had last seen it.
There was the place I’d sat with my feet propped up in his lap, watching the fireflies; there was the door I’d slammed on my way out of here for the very last time, because I couldn’t take the way he brushed aside any question that felt like something real. I’d sat in my car then, cooling off, waiting for him to come after me, but he hadn’t.
“I need to talk to you,” I said now, waiting to be let in. Hoping I wasn’t interrupting an overnight visit with someone new… or some tourist he’d met downtown.
Billie raced out from behind Cory, nudging my hand, and I scratched her head until Cory finally said, “Sure, come on in.”
“I thought maybe you’d be sleeping,” I said, standing in the middle of the living room, same stone fireplace and oversize sectional, but the walls had been recently painted, the stones whitewashed for a more modern look, the carpet pulled up and floors refinished. “This looks… wow.”
The entire inside had been partially gutted, the wall once separating the kitchen removed to open up the space. It was bright and airy, and I remembered that Cory had told me, once, how he wanted to flip old homes in the area. But he said it in the same way he said he wanted to see the Serengeti and visit the Seven Wonders of the World. I never imagined he would actually do it.
“I’ve been working on the house on the weekends. Figured it was finally time to make it my own.” He ran a hand through his dark hair. “Is everything okay? I heard about Trey’s visit with the sheriff.”
“What did you hear?” I asked. I wondered if Cory knew about the pictures from the camera, about the evidence of Farrah’s case that the sheriff declared unimportant.
He shrugged. “Just that. Rochelle said they were back in theoffice for hours.” Which was different from what the sheriff told me—Took him to lunch, he’d said. Maybe both were possible.
Still, if Rochelle had heard about the pictures, she would’ve known about my involvement, too. The fact that this hadn’t reached Cory meant the sheriff was keeping this from both of them. I wasn’t sure why. But I made note.
“I’m not here about Trey West, Cory,” I said.
“Well, please do share, Abby. What brings you to my door on this beautiful Saturday morning?” He leaned against the back of his sofa, all nonchalant, without a care in the world.
“I want to ask you something. And I need you to answer me this time.”
“You need me to answer,” he repeated, slowly, like he could already sense it. I could see his demeanor changing, in the tensing of his shoulders, the shuttering of his features.
“I need you to tell me about Alice Kelly,” I said.
He stayed still, hand tightening on the furniture, staring at me. “Jesus, Abby, not this again.” I’d asked too much, that’s what he’d told me back when we were together. He’d said he was going to start charging me, if all I wanted was the same thing as the trauma tourists.
Now he continued to say nothing, a tangible distance growing. Didn’t even try to make light of it, how he might’ve long ago:You won’t find any secrets here.
No, this time, the question was too direct, too dangerous. I wondered if he knew what I was really asking:How long ago had Cory lived in my apartment, in the room next door to where I’d discovered Alice Kelly’s bag?
Now I imagined Cory at the bar with her, after she called for a cab, saying,I work at the inn, convincing her to come back. I imagined him pushing her, pushing me—
“Tell me what happened back then,” I said—I was practicallybegging him; had hoped our past had counted for something. But now I was wondering if he was afraid to answer. “I wasn’t here for it, and the story doesn’tmake sense.” Not anymore. Her bag, at the inn.
“I don’t know what you want from me. Or why you’re so obsessed with her story. I don’t know anything about Alice Kelly that you don’t already know.”
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, caught the scent of hazelnut coffee, was transported back to lazy mornings a decade earlier. But then I thought of Cory in the basement. Cory, always with a way in. The phone lines, tampered with. I knew he held his secrets close, but hadn’t considered that he could’ve been involved. I didn’t know what he was protecting and couldn’t stop my mind from chasing it down, imagining the possibilities—a danger here that I hadn’t been aware of.
“Tell me something real, Cory. Please. I think you owe me at least that.”
He flinched, and I knew I’d made a mistake. That Cory didn’t believe he owed me anything. That, in his mind, I was the one who had changed. “Tellmesomething real, Abby.”
I felt the anger surging, alongside the fear—at Cory, at this entire town, at all the ways people talked around and over the fact that there was something very wrong at the core.
“Fine, you want something real, Cory? Come see.”
I stormed out the front door and felt him following behind, the same way I believed he would follow after me the day I left him. Though in his mind, maybe I hadn’t. It was not the last time I ever ended up back with him in the basement of the inn; it would get so quiet down there, time passing, and sometimes I had to do something just to remind myself I was still here. A different sort of proof of life. But from that day, I understood what Cory Shiles cared about most of all.
I threw open the back door of Georgia’s car and pulled out that hiking pack, my throat threatening to close. All the emotion, too close to the surface.
