“I think one of you might be the link,” Raye says. “I don’t know that I suspect either of you personally. Do you suspect me?”
“I don’t know,” Caro says honestly. She doesn’t, not really. But Raye is so absolutely competent that it’s hard to rule out her doing… well, anything.
“I’m the executor of Hope’s will,” Raye says. “And, the last I heard, I do get some money if she dies. But she’s worth a lot more to me alive.” The server arrives, bearing a small carved wooden bowl full of chips and a little ceramic saucer full of salsa for them to start with. “Do we need more time, ladies?” he asks, and they both nod without looking at him.
Are wereallygoing to eat?Caro can’t imagine being hungry ever again. “I don’t know if that makes you trust me more or less.” Raye looks Caro dead in the eyes. “Please understand that this is not information I would share in other circumstances. But Hope has been gone for three days now, and I am very,veryworried. I want to find her.” She takes a chip, dips it in the salsa. “I’m sorry,” she says. “For whatever reason, I’m very hungry.”
“It’s fine.”
“She loves the two of you, you know,” Raye says. “Hope does. I’ve been her agent since she was twenty-three years old, and you are the best friends she’s had.”
“She loves you, too,” Caro says.
“I know.” Raye leans forward, her elbows on the table. Caro does, too, feeling drawn in in spite of herself. “She’s left each of you two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in her will,” Raye says. “Did you know that?”
Caro sits back, shocked. “No,” she says. “I had no idea.”
“I’ll have to trust you on that,” Raye says. “Do you think Ash knows about the will?”
“I don’t think so.” Caro feels like that would have changed things among them, that there would have been some kind of shift in the relationship if they knew Hope was leaving them that much money—any money, really—in her will. But who is Caro to say there hasn’t been a change, one she didn’t catch until now? They let Hope talk them into this crazy plan, they thought it would work, andnowlook at what’s happened—
“If Hope didn’t tell us,” Caro says, “areyousupposed to be saying this now?”
“She trusted me to handle her affairs,” Raye says. “I’m hoping you can trust me, too.” She holds up a hand. “I know,” she says before Caro can speak. “That’s not very likely.” She gives Caro a long look, and Caro feels horribly, terribly stripped down under that gaze. “You don’t even trust each other,” she says.
She’s right,Caro knows.We did, but it’s gone.
It vanished with Hope.
55
ASH
“YOU READY?” WADE ASKS. He’s sitting on the small couch in Ash’s Airstream, scrolling through his phone. Checking on work, he told her. She hears a faint chime. Something on the screen makes him smile.
“Almost.” Ash doesn’t know what she was hoping would happen. That she’d get to the bottom of the hike and see Wade and they’d throw their arms around each other and… what? Make out in the parking lot of Seraph’s Perch like teenagers? Say how much they missed each other and that they were sorry and that things were going to be different? It had felt epic, standing up on Seraph’s Perch and making the choice she did. It had felt important and symbolic, leaving Caro behind and hurrying down on her own.
But both Wade and his brother Derek had been waiting for her in the parking lot. “I hate leaving when we don’t know where Hope is,” she’d told Wade, and he’d said, “You can’t do anything from here. You should be home with me and the girls.” Then they drove back to Sonnet, and Derek went to get food while Wade came back with Ash to the Airstream.
So here she is disappointed again, and again, what was she thinking? That Wade was secretly hoping to ravish her before they left? He did give her a quick kiss when they got inside the trailer, but then he sat down onthe sofa and began scrolling through his phone while he waited for her to pack.
“How much longer do you need?” he asks now. Ash is standing at the Airstream’s tiny sink and making sure the lids on all her toiletries are screwed on tight so that they won’t leak. The impatience in Wade’s voice and the words themselves remind her of a night this past December.
Ash had been feeling accomplished. She’d gotten through a long day of holiday orders at work, and everything was still on track for her to make it to the annual party that Wade and his partner held for their dental practice. They’d have enough time for Wade to change, and then they’d turn around and head back into Portland. She found a sitter (Emily, the girls’ favorite) weeks ago for Kit and Claire (Maggie had her own events and life that didn’t always line up with babysitting the others). Ash had made dinner (yes, it was in the slow cooker, but it was chicken taco soup; the girls always ate that) around work, running back to the house from the shed at the point when she needed to shred the chicken and return it to the slow cooker and when she needed to bake the rolls that had been rising all morning. She set the table and made a salad before she went to her room to change and get ready.
Ash was wearing a black leather pencil skirt and a black sweater (her goal for those kinds of occasions was to look classy and not farm-y, nice but not flashy) and her favorite earrings. Her hair actually looked—well, kind of fantastic. She’d blow-dried it straight instead of letting it do its natural waves, and for once in its life Portland wasn’t humid enough to make her hair curl immediately.
“You ready?” Wade had called out to her the minute he’d come in the door.
“Yes!” she’d said, hurrying out to the kitchen to meet him. “Emily’s on her way. We can leave whenever you’re ready. The girls know they might have to look out for themselves for a few minutes.” She grinned at Wade, who was looking very handsome. She’d done it. She’d gotten everything finished in time. They were going to have a night out.
“Come on, Ash,” Wade said. “Give me five seconds before you start bossing me around.” He threw his coat over a kitchen chair, loosened his tie, and strode toward their bedroom.
Ash was taken aback. Did she sound bossy? She probably did. She certainly hadn’t hurried over and open-mouthed kissed him the way she used to do, even two kids into their marriage.
Although, maybe later… after they’d had dinner and a chance to be out for a while, and if they got home late enough that the younger girls were in bed…
She wandered back to their room to hang out with Wade while he changed clothes. “How was work today?”
