She nods. “Then he takes it away even though…”
Her mouth tilts, but it’s not a smile. It’s a look I know from Cece, from the mirror after a bad hook-up, from every woman I’ve ever befriended. The embarrassed grimace of a woman who did something with the wrong guy for the wrong reasons.
I raise a hand, do the jerk-off motion. “You mean, something like that?”
Grace bursts out laughing, then claps a hand to her lips again and looks away. Vomit burns the back of my throat. I pretend to look over the hills as I try not to projectile. I’m pretty sure Grace is saying she hooked up with Thrasher and Will, under, at the very least, extremely dicey circumstances. But I can’t let disgust blindside me. There are too many important questions I need to ask.
“Grace,” I say as calmly as I can. “How long have you lived in New Zealand?”
Her eyes dart around like a rabbit that’s about to scarper.
“It’s okay, I’m not going to talk to Thrasher or Will.”
She doesn’t answer, and I hold my breath, waiting for her to run. Finally, she lifts four fingers.
“Four years?” I ask. “And you’ve worked here the whole time?”
She nods.
“Yes to four years and working here the whole time?” I say for the sake of the phone in my pocket, feeling like scum the whole while.
“Yes,” she whispers. “Four. For both.”
I hesitate before I ask my next question. I’m definitely pushing my luck. Not to mention, no stranger who got lost on a hike should be this interested in the minutiae of a farm employee’s life. But as I look into Grace’s wide brown eyes, I suspect she knows I’m not a disinterested stranger. Suspects, and hasn’t ditched me, because she wants to tell someone what’shappened to her. And maybe no one’s ever asked.
“I’m thirty-two,” I say, jerking a thumb at myself. “Thrasher and I went to school together. He’s thirty-two as well, right?”
She nods, her hand back over her mouth, but she understands what I’m saying, I’d bet my life on it. I lick my lips and force myself to say it. “How… how old are you?”
Grace’s shoulders draw into her chest, but she doesn’t move.
“Are you twenty-five?” I ask, my pulse hammering in my ears.
She shakes her head.
“Older?”
She shakes her head again. I want to throw up so bad it stings.
“What year were you born?”
She looks up, her cheeks bright red, her lips quivering.
“It’s okay. Whatever the answer is, it’s okay. You haven’t done anything wrong. I just want to know.”
Grace holds the vape out to me. “I, uh, need to go.”
My stomach drops. “Sure. Keep the vape, though. Fuck Thrasher.”
With a miserable little smile, she slips my ElfBar into her pocket. “Thank you.”
“Anytime.”
She starts to walk away, and I stand there, telling myself she’s fine. It’s all a big misunderstanding, and I shouldn’t come back here with a gun I don’t own because?—
“Ada?”
My pulse jumps so hard I feel it in my teeth. “Yes?”
