“It sure does, I’ll give you that,” Andi says. “But, Regan—”
“What? But what?” I snap.
“Nothing. I have no idea how to explain it. I don’t know what to say,” Andi says.
We start to walk again, looking out into the misty trees, trying to fulfill our task, although I don’t think any of us expects to find something out here. I’m not surprised there’s already talk, and I’m not surprised Andi is skeptical; that’s her way of protecting me. I’ve known her long enough to know that. What I can’t shake is Sasha’s reaction. I watch her peering into the thick brush and holding her Starbucks cup with one mittened hand. What the hell was that? It was like she recognized him and it gave her a shock.
“He ran,” I say, and they both stop and turn to look at me.
“What do you mean?” Andi asks.
“I followed after him. I chased the taxi he got into. I followed it all the way across town. He ran from me. He heard me call his name and he kept going and got on a train. Who takes a train? And especially, who takes a train directly from a community play? At intermission?” Sasha and Andi look at one another and then back to me. I hate it. I hate what they’rethinking and how I can tell they think I’m off my meds or something. I take out the paper train schedule from my pocket and unfold it, shoving it toward them. Sasha takes it, and Andi moves in to look at it over her shoulder.
“Wait. You... literally chased the guy to the train station?” Andi says.
“It makes five stops before ending in Windsor Locks. He could be anywhere,” Sasha says, and Andi gives her a look I can only interpret as “don’t encourage her.”
“I did. What would you have done?” I say softly, beginning to feel completely defeated—not heard. I take back the paper schedule and fold it into a neat square. I make a just-drop-it gesture with my hands, and I sigh. I begin walking ahead of them, blinking back tears. I hear the caw of a crow circling in the gray, empty sky above us. The sound is hollow and the air is wet and cold and I desperately want to be home.
“You could post his photo on social media sites in these cities. Every town has different Facebook pages from some community group or another,” Sasha says. “There are a lot of places you could post his photo since you have it narrowed down to a handful of cities. Ask if people have seen him. Give your contact info for any leads. It’s not that many places. They aren’t huge cities, either,” she says. Andi raises her eyebrows at that.
We all stand looking at one another under a canopy of dead trees in these eerie, dense woods where we have been tasked to ensure Tia’s dead body hasn’t been hidden by a psychopath or mauled to death by wild animals, and it’s all so surreal, it’s dizzying.
“That’s not a bad idea,” Andi says, breaking the silence, and then we walk. Quietly now, more intent in our search, focused as we trek the last couple of miles to the halfway mark,which is a lakeside pub just past Andi’s house where Sandy has arranged for one of the church buses to take folks back up the shore to where their cars are parked. The team that started at the bottom of the lake will be about an hour behind, so by the time they make their way up, the bus should be back to collect them.
I think of Tia’s poor mother and wonder how she even had the wherewithal to plan all of this in her state. I suppose it’s like the mother who can lift a car off her trapped baby in a forced moment of superstrength when their child’s life hangs in the balance.
I think we are all incredibly relieved when we arrive at the last stretch, out of the woods and into the clearing by the lake. We walk the trail behind Andi’s house and onto her property. There is a group of five that has been keeping pace ahead of us who arrived first, and I see them poking around in Carson and Andi’s woodpile and inside the shed they have next to a small wooden fence, lined with cans and bottles for shooting practice. It could be a photo of anyone’s yard in anyone’s home in the county. Nothing odd, except Andi.
She stops cold, pulls the hood off her head and squints to see something. I look to where she’s looking and see the garage door open. Inside, Carson is there, and I see a police car parked in the dirt clearing and an officer standing inside the garage with Carson, and they’re... I don’t know. It looks like they’re moving a freezer together, one on each side.
Andi cups her mouth with both hands and her face drains of the little color it had. Her eyes roll back in her head as she passes out cold and hits the ground with a hard smack.
Chapter Eight
Sasha
Sasha sits by Andi’s side as she lies on the sofa in the living room. Regan is in Andi’s kitchen making tea—a weird quirk she’s noticed about Regan, who defaults to putting on a kettle of tea every time something even slightly stressful happens, like she’s in some British novel. Andi is out cold, and Carson is beside himself interrogating Sasha and Regan about what the hell happened. Of course, they have no idea. Andi was there one second, and on the ground the very next. The officer’s name is Morrison, and he got on his radio to dispatch an ambulance to the house, but now he’s outside on the front lawn, waving folks to keep on going and head to their checkpoint at the lakeside pub in a “nothing to see here” tone.
Everyone obeys,but God help me, Sasha thinks,this will have them talking even more. What’s going on inside that house? Why is there an officer? Did they find something? Then, suddenly,Andi comes to, violently sitting straight up and gasping, holding her hand to her heart, looking around with fear in her eyes. She tries to stand, but Carson rushes over as Regan comes in with a tray of tea, and Andi holds out her arms as if in self-defense like we are circling her and about to attack.
“I can explain all of it,” she says, tears welling up in her eyes. Carson takes her hand and sits her back down on the couch.
“Hey, hey. It’s okay. You need to sit,” he says. “What happened?”
Regan sits on the coffee table and puts a hand on Andi’s arm while Sasha dutifully pours cups of tea on the tray without knowing why she’s doing it—just fueled by anxiety and confusion, she supposes.
“It was all an accident,” Andi says.
“What was?” Regan asks. “You fainted. That’s all.”
“You’re okay,” Sasha consoles, placing a cup of tea on the coffee table in front of her.
“Where’s the detective? Is he taking me in?”
“What?” Carson says. “No—”
“And what the hell are you doing here?” she says, cutting him off. “What the hell are you even—why were you in the garage with a detective? Why were you moving the freezer? I...”
