“I get a lot of people approaching me. Plus, I’d just found out that a stalker masquerading as a plumber tried to get access to my home—with a bunch of spy camera gear. I was a little on edge.”
“Sure, I get it,” she said, as if it were a scenario she totally related to. “Also, that’s messed up.”
“Right? So. I’m Griffin.” He extended a hand.
She started to laugh, but realized he meant it genuinely. A second take on their conversation. As if they didn’t both know she knew who he was. As if the whole of America didn’t know, except the Amish and her parents and their off-grid buddies.
“Lana.” She took his hand, trying to act cool and not like she was touching a mega-celebrity she might have a crush on. Given that he was dressed in little more than a loincloth, it was hardto know where to look without seeming inappropriate, so she pinned her focus on his face.
“Lana,” he repeated quietly, like he was committing her name to memory—possibly to add it to the rogues’ gallery at the Fitch police station. “Does your sister’s disappearance have something to do with you missing the bus?”
Lana screwed up her face. “Yeah.” He waited for more. She sighed. “I signed up as an extra because I had this stupid idea that I could find out what happened to her. Ask around, whatever.” Askhim. Rock up and chat to him like he was any old person. No wonder the cop had laughed at her. Griffin Hart occupied a parallel universe that didn’t connect with hers. And yet, here they were, occupying the same patch of dirt, as if they were regular humans on the same timeline. “Turns out I’m no Cordelia Gray.”
“Who?”
“Private investigator. P.D. James? Not one of her better-known characters.”
“If you’re thinking your sister’s disappearance has something to do with the show—an accident—I would know about that. There’s a reporting process. Contractual agreements, legalities.”
Lana rubbed her lips together. She’d asked plenty ofinnocent questionsabout health and safety protocols. “That’s only if it was reported, right? Thing is, Vivien and I have this location-sharing app on our phones. The last location I have for her is the day after that photo was taken with you, up on the wilderness trail. It’s cordoned off, so it’s possible no one’s been up there since. I don’t have a lot else to go on. I thought, among other things, I would go for a walk while I was here, see what’s out there, but I couldn’t sneak out. So, yeah, I hid.”
“You think you might find her phone?”
“Maybe. Or possibly nothing. Probably nothing.” She closed her eyes tightly. She couldn’t bring herself to voice her realfear. When she opened them, Griffin Hart was looking at her so intently she gasped. He’d clearly followed her thoughts to the same grim place.
“Probably nothing.” His tone was the audio equivalent of a gentle hug. He stepped forward as if to give her an actual hug, then stopped, but not before an expectant heat flooded her body. His expression returned to its resting blank face.
“Is there any chance you could, mmm, not tell security I’m here? Pretend you never saw me?”
He studied her a long while. Was he contractually obligated to report her? She had an hour until sunset. She’d packed a flashlight but she’d rather not be up there in the dark—if she got there at all, now.
“That’s the least I can do.” His words had a quiet intensity, like a line from a movie. If only hewerea real action hero, and could stride in and fix everything—track down Vivien and carry her to safety as he had with Estelle Duman.
Lana stepped back, collecting herself. “Thank you. Well, it was nice to meet you, Mr—uh—Griffin.” It took some effort to stop short of adding his surname. Griffin Hart, Mr. Hart for short. Like Neil deGrasse Tyson. No one called him Neil. Not people like her.
“You too, Lana. I hope you find your sister. I hope she’s okay.” He opened his mouth as if to add something, but shut it and gave an abrupt business-concluded nod. “I’d better start walking.”
“You’re not going to put some clothes on?”
He shrugged. “It’s still warm, and this is more comfortable than it looks. They had to make it so I could fight in it, so it’s kinda like walking around naked.”
“Yeah, it is,” she said, with a little too much conviction.
She was indeed feeling very warm as she watched his retreating back, his muscles shuffling as if fighting each otherfor room under his skin. (306.73: Culturally Typical Patterns of Sexual Relationships and Behavior.) A griffin: half lion, half eagle. The king of beasts meets the king of the sky. He wasn’t what she’d have expected. Not an arrogant asshole at all, except for his initial assumption that she was obsessed with him. And to be fair, she kind of was. A lot of people were. Though assholes did tend to hide their assholeness when it suited them. That was part of what made them assholes.
She kept staring long after he rounded the dark corner, then shook herself. Close encounter of the celebrity kind over. Time to do what she’d come here to do.
She opened the map on her phone. Vivien’s phone had last registered near a small footbridge over a gully—close enough to the set to be in wi-fi range, evidently—but it might take some time to search the scrubby terrain.If someone’s buried a body up there, that’s gonna take some finding. She shoved her phone in her pants pocket and tightened her backpack straps. If there was a body, she’d do what she always did. She would step in and be the big little sister and sort it out. Same as Vivien had done for her countless times when they were kids. She’d cover the body, perhaps with the sleeping bag stuffed in her backpack, walk to the security gate and alert the guards. She should also take photos of the scene so the police would believe her. Her chest tightened and she rubbed the center of it with the heel of her palm. She’d have to call the police in Cedarwood Falls and get them to alert her parents. Or would the LAPD arrange that?
“Stop it,” she whispered. Having a plan was helpful; accepting the worst-case scenario as the likely outcome was not. She reflexively reached for her necklace, then remembered it was in her bag. She dug it out and clipped it on. Already, Vivien seemed closer.
As she left the TV set behind and followed the sandy trail to the hills, their last conversation replayed in her head.I give up!Solve your own problems, for a change!In all the years she’d depended on Vivien, her sister had never once spoken to her like that, never once rejected her.
It’d been an awful day—a kid had run into the library bleeding from a stab wound. Couldn’t have been older than thirteen. He was followed by three older teens who started to stalk the aisles. The police were called, the staff sheltered in place, the boy ran off, the bad guys were charged with something minor. She never found out what became of the kid, but his terrified face had lodged in her brain. At his age, she’d also found sanctuary in a library, but the worst she’d had to worry about was a school bully.
When she’d snapped at Vivien, it was fear talking. Fear that something would happen to her, out there in The Scary World Outside The Library. If she hadn’t snapped, maybe Vivien would have told her about the breakup and whatever else was troubling her, and none of this would have happened.
The trail narrowed as it climbed, encroached upon by a fat carpet of tiny yellow flowers and spikes of purple lupine that swayed in the breeze. A bird shot out of the undergrowth and took flight, a chattering flash of gray. The salty air gave way to a minty, camphor scent that Lana decided was coming from a flowering black sage brushing her pant legs. She crested the slope, and the footbridge came into view. As she neared it, she realized the gully was deeper than it looked in the satellite image. A yawning crack in the earth. She lowered her backpack onto a sandstone platform next to the bridge. A circling gull cawed, but otherwise the valley was quiet, sheltered from the onshore wind, the ocean a muted, rhythmic rush.
