They’ve been looking and looking and looking, running around all over, and they aren’t any closer to finding Hope.
Or Caro’s dad, for that matter.
Caro drove over to St. John to speak with the director at the residential center and to look for Henry herself. She just got back, and she looks exhausted. Ash spent the afternoon talking with Raye, Hope’s agent, whoshe’s decided she likes very much. But she has a very strong sense that Raye doesn’t have all of the information, either.
None of them do.
At least Hope’s not dead, Ash thinks. But then her traitorous mind follows up withYou don’t know that.
Someone’s walking toward their car, backlit against the movie screen. Ash’s heart skips in fear. She lifts her phone to shine a light in the face of whoever it is.
“Oh,” Caro says. “It’s Spencer.”
“Right.” Ash lowers her phone. She didn’t recognize him, but why would she? She barely knows him.
“Hey,” Spencer says, bending down to talk to Caro through their window. “Have you guys heard anything?”
“Shhh!” someone from another car whispers. Everyone has their windows rolled down to let in the cooling evening breeze.
“Hop in,” Caro says to Spencer. She climbs out and folds the front seat so that he can climb into the tiny back seat behind them. He’s so tall. His knees jut up high when he sits down. He looks better, like he’s rested and had a chance to shave.
“Have you heard anything more?” he asks them.
“No,” Ash says. “You?”
He shakes his head. “Nothing.”
“How’s Kevin doing?”
“Not great.”
“Why are you still here?” Ash asks. “At the resort?”
“Ash,”Caro says, but Ash wants to know. Shouldn’t he be back in St. John comforting Kevin? Helping with Tony’s funeral plans?
“Well.” Spencer sounds embarrassed. “I did think about it. But Kevin’s super busy with his family, and I didn’t know Tony all that well. And I thought maybe I could help out here.” Ash glances over her shoulder into the back seat. Spencer’s looking at Caro as he says this. “Since you have two people missing.”
“There’s got to be more to it than that.” Ash feels Caro staring daggers at her, but she’s not trying to be rude. There are so many unknowns right now that she’s going to ask about the things that it might be possibletoknow.
“Okay,” Spencer says, after a second. “There is.”
“Yeah?” Caro says. “What is it?”
“I actually can’t stand Tony,” Spencer says. “Couldn’t. I came on this hike as a favor to Kevin, because he’s married to my sister. Monica.”
“Can you also not stand Kevin?” Caro asks.
“Kevin’s fine,” Spencer says. “But he needed me to come along because I’ve been down the Underground before and he wanted some backup. This trip was supposed to be an intervention for Tony. He’s been drinking too much, and it’s gotten out of hand. Kevin didn’t want to do it alone. He felt like since Tony and I didn’t know each other very well, Tony wouldn’t see it as people ganging up on him. But I’d be an extra body if Kevin needed one.”
“Yikes,” Caro says. “That seems pretty fraught.”
Okay,Ash thinks.No wonder he doesn’t really want or need to be around Tony’s family right now.
“Yeah,” Spencer agrees. “But we never had the intervention. The first night, you guys showed up. And then the second night Kevin chickened out. Tony was in a bad mood all day. So Kevin decided he’d talk to him when we were hiking out on the last day.”
“Too bad for Tony,” Ash says. “He died before he could be intervened.” She snorts with laughter before she can stop herself. “I’m sorry,” she says, horrified. This keeps happening. “I’m apparently coping with all of this by making inappropriate jokes.”
“There’s no better way,” Spencer says.
