“Don’t worry,” Tutu Lua told him, wiping her eyes. “Cold front’s coming. They got a big blizzard on the mainland. I saw it on the Weather Channel.”
That probably meant the daily high would drop from eighty-two to seventy-eight. Still, it was strange to think that a phenomenon as foreign as a snowstorm—in May!—could touch Libby’s life.
Jean stacked the plates with the efficiency of a person who’d started waiting tables before she could drive, toeing the door open on her way into the house. Libby shifted to peel her thighs off the seat, angling her arms away from her body to reduce the sweat. Maybe they could walk over to the beach after this, to wash away the funk of the day.
“Uh, Libby,” Jean called from inside. “Can you come here a second?”
In the living room, her roommate was staring at the television, where a reporter in a fur-lined parka strained to make himself heard over howling winds, against a backdrop of pure white.
“The girl they’re talking about.” Jean’s voice was tight. “What did they say her name is?”
Libby squinted at the headlines crawling across the bottom of the screen. ROAD TO NOWHERE: EYEWITNESS DESCRIBES “TERRIFYING” WHITEOUT. SORORITY CAR WASH SUPPORTS MISSING COED: PICTURES AT 11. HAVE YOU SEEN HILDY? CALL THE 24-HOUR TIPLINE!
And finally: MEDIA HEIRESS HILDY JOHNSON MISSING IN WYOMING SNOWSTORM.
“Hildy Johnson,” Libby said. “I take it she’s one oftheJohnsons?”
“You’ve heard of them?”
“Johnson Media? Yeah. I live on a rock, not under one.”
“So they’re a big deal?”
“One of the biggest.” Maybe not a household name unless you were an aspiring journalist, in which case their presence was inescapable. The parent company owned outlets in hundreds of markets: print, TV, online, probably soon-to-be beaming directly into people’s brains.
Jean grabbed the remote, turning up the volume as a series of still photos filled the screen: a young woman with corkscrew curls in a strapless velvet gown; wearing sunglasses on the deck of a yacht; standing on a trail with crumbling stone ruins in the background. The broadcast cut back to the guy in the heavy coat, who was waving his arms as he described how very terribly horrible the conditions were. Zero visibility, horizontal winds, a rate of accumulation that meant nothing to Libby until she imagined it as the kind of rain that would flood the low-lying streets.
“I have chills.” Jean stuck out her arm as evidence. “Hildy Johnson is a real person.”
“Yes,” Libby said slowly. “She’s a human being, like you and me.” She and Keoki did their best to encourage Jean’s occasional twinges of empathy.
Jean blew out a long breath. “I think I might have messed up.”
“Unless you have some power over the weather I don’t know about, I’m pretty sure this isn’t your fault?”
On-screen, News Man was going full apocalyptic.Darkness! Falling temperatures! Hypothermia!That was the problem with breaking news: the pressure to sensationalize. How else were you supposed to churn out headlines when there was nothing new to tell? At least with Lillibet, there was a bottomless pit of self-obsessed-but-pretending-not-to-be babble to be mined.
Jean grimaced. “I hope she didn’t lose her phone.”
“Probably not the worst-case scenario here.” Libby watched her roommate frantically tap out a text. “What are you doing?”
“Might have something cooking.”
“Food?”
“No, one-track mind. A job.”
“Really? What is it?”
“I’ll let you know if it pans out.” Jean shoved the phone back in her pocket. “Let’s ask K if he’ll drive us to the Laundromat. If this comes together, you’re going to need clean undies.”
“How did you know I’m out of underwear?”
“Because you’re wearing them inside out.”
“Maybe I put them on wrong.”
“Yeah. Two days ago.”
