Chapter 6
Lana
“Griffin? Everything all right?” Lana started toward him, but he did that thing where he stepped back the equivalent number of paces. “Are we back at you thinking I’m a stalker, because I swear?—”
“No! No, all good. Just, ah… We should search. I’ll go this way, you go that way.”
“Sure, okay.”
He walked to a large blackberry patch. “So, your sister would normally have her phone on her?”
“Always.” Lana turned toward the stream. The distant surf boomed faintly, channeled through the gully. “If she lost it, she’d get another right away. If she changed her number, she’d have told me. Except that… Well, she would definitely have told our parents.” Lana could almost hear his lie detector ping, or whatever noise a lie detector made. She imagined a machine scratching charts on a page, though these days it was probably digital. “Okay, look, I might as well tell you the whole story, in case you use your actor woo-woo on me or get me arrested. Last time we spoke, I was … harsh with her. I told her to solve herown problems. But I swear, she would have forgiven me if she were still…” Lana’s eyes stung. She shut them tightly.
“It’s not your fault she’s missing.”
“I know,” Lana said impatiently.
“I don’t know that you do.”
She looked at him. “What?”
“You’re blaming yourself, though you know you shouldn’t. She’s a grown woman, old enough to make her own decisions. And if something’s happened to her, it likely has nothing to do with you. But you are—blaming yourself.”
“Is there no private thought when you’re around?”
He smiled, part amusement, part sympathy. “You don’t have to share anything with me. I’ll help you anyway.”
“Thank you.” She spun away before he could see her eyes fill, and was forced into evasive maneuvers to avoid a vine of poison oak. Was this the first time since her parents visited that anyone had taken her fears seriously? Sure, she liked being invisible as a rule, but this was a rare time when being seen was a relief. Despite the embarrassment of blurting out her attraction to him—a moment she might never in her life get over—she was grateful for his presence. Both for the help, and because otherwise this place would be creepy. Not to mention that without social interaction, her internal monologues tended to snowball, like the Southern Ocean at the 60th parallel, roaring around the globe without as much as a rocky islet to interrupt its path.
The search area wasn’t large, but the foliage was dark and dense, requiring them to sift through layers of vegetation, disturbing the occasional lizard or black-and-orange butterfly. No snakes, thank goodness. Better yet, no body and nothing that looked like a recent grave. Yes, she wanted answers, but she didn’t wantthatanswer. Hope and dread had been driving her in equal measure, but this was a victory of sorts for hope.
It was a relief to fall into silence and get some distance from Griffin. It was hard to focus with him too close—not just the physical attraction, but also the unsettling feeling he could see right into her. She snuck a look at him. He was crouched by a clump of sword ferns, looking up at the lip of the cliffs. Scanning. She’d noticed him doing it every few minutes on the climb down, like he was checking his rearview mirrors. He was perfectly in profile. Slightly lined forehead, strong brow, straight nose, pink lips—the bottom fuller than the top, perhaps because of the cleft repair. When his guard was up, his face was breathtakingly perfect. In the moments he dropped the mask, he was mesmerizing.
He turned his head and caught her staring, and she stumbled. Her foot caught in something and she unbalanced, thumping onto her butt. All class. Like the superhero he was, Griffin was beside her in a flash, helping her up.
“Tripped over a tree root.” She gestured vaguely, hoping there was some foliage around to back up her story.
“The light’s fading,” he said, releasing her. “I think we can conclude Vivien’s not here. And if she dumped her phone here, or if…”
“…if someone else did…”
“…it’s going to take a lot more effort to find. Are you planning to stay the night on set?”
She nodded. “I have a sleeping bag.”
“We should head up. We have the whole weekend.”
“The whole weekend? You’re going to stay with me?”
He shrugged. “There’s enough room in Troy for the both of us.” He stepped backward. “And that way we can keep looking for the ph?—.”
“Griffin!” She dove for him, grabbed him by the biceps, and steered him backward into a tree trunk. “581.659,” she muttered.
His expression blanked. “Lana? What are you doing?”
She pointed at the vine beside them. “Harmful plants. You were about to walk into poison oak. Those abs wouldn’t look ashotif they were swollen and blistered, now would they?”
He scoffed, relaxing. “The abs aren’t even mine, but thanks.”
