Ash:Fine. I mean. You know.
Caro:I do.
Ash:The Airstreams feel louder than the tents. I swear I could hear everyone who walked past last night.
Caro:Same.
Ash:Maybe the Airstreams have less insulation.
Caro:That can’t be right. Less insulation than a tent?
Ash:I know.
They’re avoiding the issue. But not for long.
We need to go to the police now,Caro texts.Ask them if they can figure out who sent the message. Tell them EVERYTHING. Make sure they’ve connected the dots—that the Hope who is missing is Hope Hanover. If they’re any good at their jobs, they should have already figured it out, but we’ve got to be certain. And we need to call Hope’s agent. Do you know the best way to get her number? Did Hope ever give it to you?
Ash feels relieved. She was trying to hold out as long as she could, to follow Hope’s instructions, but really, there’s no way Hope could have known things would go likethis. Hope would understand why Ash had to give in, wouldn’t she?
Okay, she texts back. You’re right.
Let’s meet in 20 at the general store/reception area,Caro texts.Is that enough time?
Yes.
Ash pulls on her clothes quickly, stuffing her air-dried hair back into a ponytail. Even though she’s clean again, she feels like she’s gone somewhat feral, the way she does during the various harvesting seasons when there’s just enough time to shower off the dirt from the day, fall asleep, and get back out in the fields again.
She swings open the Airstream door, locks it, and heads outside, walking briskly toward the main tent. Before she gets there, she veers off and heads for the plateau. No one else is out there except a man with a dog on a leash. The man nods to her but keeps walking in the opposite direction. Perfect. She puts in her earbuds and calls Wade.
“Well, hello,” he says. His tone surprises her—it’s cheerful, how it used to be whenever she’d call.
“Hey,” she says, a lump rising in her throat. And an urge rises up within her, impossible to ignore. What if she… talks to him? Tells him exactly what’s going on and where she is, both physically and emotionally?What if?
“Are all the other ladies breaking the rules and calling, too?” he asks. “You’re worse than the girls.” He laughs. “Remember how we took their phones away for a single afternoon on that vacation to the coast and they all lost their minds?”
Ash wants to take umbrage, tell him that he doesn’t even know the situation (She’s in a place where there was a flash flood! People are dead and missing!), but she’s too weary, and besides, he’s right. And it turns out that even though she told him more than she should, about the tents and the Airstreams and all that, he hasn’t figured out where she is. The tightness in her chest eases incrementally. Maybe she didn’t betray Hope as badly as she thought she did.
“I do remember that,” Ash says. “Howarethe girls? Can I talk to them?” Sometimes it’s easier this way, rather than trying to get each of them on their (now) three individual phones.
“Sorry,” Wade says. “You’ll have to call them directly. I’m not home.”
“They’re probably not up yet, anyway,” she says, realizing she’s forgotten the time difference. It’s an hour earlier in Oregon. “Are you at Whole Foods?” She can see it all with such familiarity. Her long-limbed, long-haired girls each asleep in their own beds, Wade out buying groceries for the weekend.
“Actually,” Wade says, “I’m out of town.”
“Wait,” Ash says. “What?”
“My mom offered to come watch the girls,” he says. “So Derek and I are taking a boys trip.”
Ash wrinkles her nose. Shereallydoesn’t love the termgirls tripfor adult women, butboys tripsounds a thousand times worse. Still. That’s not the point.
“That’s great,” she says, and she means it. Derek is Wade’s youngerbrother. She wishes Wade did more with him, and with his guy friends. All he seems to do these days is work, work, work. It’s like he can’t get out of the habit, even though his practice is thriving and they’ve been able to pay off all their debt with the money from his job and Three Sisters. “Where’d you guys go?”
Wade laughs. “You think I’m going to tell you, when you’re keepingyourlocation top secret? All I know is that you’re staying in tents.”
She could go ahead and start talking—Babe, I was in a flash flood, I barely survived, my friend is gone and I’m terrified, I love you and the girls so much and my life has become so complicated that I’m not sure I recognize it. You. Us.But everything has become such a tangle that she doesn’t know where to begin.
“Fair,” she says. “That’s great, though. I hope you guys have so much fun. Tell Derek hi for me.”
