Page 50 of The Last to Vanish
“This was just lying around in his old room?”
“He must’ve written it down and called from our parents’ place, then stuffed it in his desk and forgot about it.”
“He didn’t make a reservation,” I said. “Showed up one day just like you did. Georgia checked him in.”
He grinned. “Yeah, but that’s the thing. I don’t think it’s a date anymore. I just put it together this morning, when you told me about your shift. I think,” he said, punctuating thek, “this is a time.”
I felt my breath leave me in a quick gust. Because he was right, of course. The phone number of the inn. A window of time of when to call.
“So my question is, why was he calling the inn between eight and one?”
I knew the answer, and he could see it on my face.
“To talk to someone on shift during that time.”
“That’s what I think, too.”
“I’ll talk to her—”
“I already tried,” he said, and I could feel myself grimace. “After breakfast, I went back to the lobby. She kept saying,I don’t know, I have no idea, I didn’t get any call from him that I recall.” He widened his eyes in an uncanny approximation of Georgia’s expression when she was caught on her heels. He shook his head. “But I’ve seen her before, Abby. Ihave.”
Georgia, always nervous about interacting with Trey, worried he would come to the lobby and ask her something—always waiting for me to return so she could keep away.
I thought about the things she’d hidden under her demeanor—a fear, not of the danger to her, but somethingmore. Now I pictured her at night, using a master key to the cabin beside Trey’s, or sliding into the cabin window if she was afraid of being seen. Trying to get him toleave.
She’d opened up a locker with my name on it. Left Farrah’s camera and Landon’s journal and phone inside. Then made me dinner and talked about her past, and I had bought it all. Hadn’t Celeste tried to warn me? I had no idea who she was, this woman who had shown up out of the blue with signs of the mountain on her. A set determination. Someone who, I thought, could also do the hard things. I’d crafted a story for her—a reinvention—and I’d believed it.
“Now I have a question for you,” he said while I was still reeling from this new information.
“I didn’t know,” I said.
He smiled slightly. “That wasn’t my question.” He sat back, large hands on his knees, so that I was very aware of his size, and mine. “Yesterday, the sheriff walked me through the investigation. He was much more forthcoming than I expected. Told me Georgia had been the one to find the empty room, that she and Celeste had been interviewed. Told me everyone had been cleared, that the general feeling was he’d gone into those woods, gotten lost. And I get that all, it makes sense. I guess I’m just wondering, now, why he never mentioned you.”
The night felt alive around us. The sounds of the woods, growing louder. Trey, closer than I’d intended. Like he could push me with one finger and the threads would all come loose.
He leaned close, his voice close, so I could see the overlap of his front teeth, the scar on his chin, a white line made of ridges and not as straight as I’d thought. “Did you not see him, Abby?”
“I saw him,” I said, keeping my voice equally low, like it could dissipate into the night, like fog over the mountain. “Just not the day he disappeared.”
He raised his eyebrow.
“I only saw him twice. Once, I bumped into him in the hallway. The other”—I pointed to the door, leading back inside—“in the lobby.”
Trey grew so quiet, so still, I wasn’t sure if he’d heard me. Only his breathing, ragged, unsteady, gave him away.
The last time I’d seen Landon West, it was ten p.m., and I had just shut down for the evening. I’d gone downstairs, but forgotten my cell in the back office, where I’d been letting photos upload to social media.
And there he was, in the lobby, shaking out his arms from the crisp night. He was hovering around the reception desk, like he was waiting for someone, but stood straight when I approached.
Can I help you?I’d asked, suddenly afraid of making my way to the back office, trapping myself. It wasn’t often I felt uncomfortable around a guest. It usually involved too much wine at happy hour, or a group of guys egging each other on. It was rarely a man alone in the night. But then, you remembered everything that had come before. The warnings from Celeste, to take care of myself first of all.
How you had no cell service, that the sheriff’s office was closed, that between calling 911 and going through your own contacts, the fastest way to get help was to go through Rochelle.
I hope so, he said.Sorry to startle you. The phone in my room wasn’t connecting. I was hoping I could use this one.
Sure, I said.That’s what it’s there for.
But then, he had placed something inside his coat, and I didn’t think he’d come in for the phone at all. Or maybe it was me, appearing there, that had altered his plans.
