“Infamous to me, at least. Cody talks about you a lot. He likes to keep an eye on you, you know. He’s a little bit of an internet stalker.” She held up her hand, thumb and forefinger pinched together. I obliged her with a chuckle, though I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. “I think it’s safe to say he’s the biggest fan of your work out there—and getting him to care about our wedding was like pulling teeth.”
“I didn’t realize he’d even seen any of my photos,” I said.
“The wedding stuff is great, but I love your other work,” she said. “That series of black-and-white photos of decaying things—the one with the mushrooms growing around the deer skull? I bought a print of that one.”
I laughed a little, uneasy and flattered at the same time. “He didn’t tell me that.”
She rolled her eyes a little. “He probably didn’t want to make you feel self-conscious, and he’d be completely embarrassed if he knew I was telling you. Honestly, I think he just likes to reassure himself that you’re still doing okay. He still can’t quite believe it, sometimes. What happened. That you made it out.”
“I know the feeling.”
She touched my arm. “I really hate the idea that everything happens for a reason, or that you should look for silver linings. What happened to you shouldn’t have ever happened. But I can’t help but be grateful, in a weird way. Finding you changed Cody. It made him a better man. If it weren’t for you, I’m not sure he could have been the person who convinced me to marry him.”
“It still took three tries,” Cody said, approaching with a slight wince of a smile. He put his arm around his wife. “Gabriella gets very sentimental in the third trimester.”
“There is nothing wrong with being sentimental,” Gabby told him. She fit just perfectly under his arm, and next to her glamour all his rough edges took on a sharper quality. Now I could see it. The Cody Benham who’d carried me out of the woods wasn’t politician material, but this guy? He was made for it.
“Personally, I’m terrible at it. Sentiment requires sincerity, and that requires vulnerability. Cynicism and sarcasm are way safer,” I said.
“Well, at least you’re self-aware,” Cody said, amused, and gave me a little cheers gesture with his glass.
“It’s almost as good as being well adjusted.”
They both laughed. I was suddenly and acutely grateful that I hadn’t made more of a fool of myself, that night I arrived in town. They looked so happy together. If I’d done anything to jeopardize that, I never could have forgiven myself.
“Are you free later today or tomorrow?” Gabriella asked. Cody gave her a puzzled look, but she continued, unconcerned. “I was thinking we could have you up to the lodge for dinner.”
“You’re staying at the lodge?” I noted, mostly to buy myself some time to think.
“It’s remarkable what Cassidy’s done with the place, isn’t it?” Cody asked, giving me a look that clearly said I didn’t know she was going to ask, and you don’t have to.
“She’s remarkable,” I agreed, with a note of borrowed pride. “Do you remember what a disaster that place was when we were younger? I can’t believe how fast she was able to turn it around. But I have the project management skills of a cranky two-year-old, so I’m not the best judge.”
“Oh, a cranky four-year-old, at least,” Cass said, coming up behind me. She slipped her arm into mine. “Honestly, though, I was in way over my head. I was just so bored, back home with a baby and nothing to do. If I’d stopped to think for ten seconds I would have seen how ridiculously unqualified I was. Constantly over budget, and the environmental assessments almost kicked my ass. Every single permit seemed like it was going to be the thing that brought the whole project crashing down.” She winced at the memory.
“Cody always knew you could do it,” Gabriella said. “And it’s been a marvelous return on our investment.”
“An investment I am eternally grateful for,” Cass said. She pressed my arm lightly. “I need to steal Naomi for a moment. If you’ll excuse us?”
“Of course,” Cody said quickly.
Gabriella gave a little wave. “Don’t forget! Dinner! We really need to get together before we leave town,” she said, and then Cass was pulling me away.
“I didn’t realize Cody had invested in the lodge,” I noted as she led me toward the kitchen.
“You would if you ever asked me about it,” Cass said, a little snappish.
“In my defense, all that complaining about permits really was mind-numbing,” I told her, and she jostled me playfully. But her expression turned serious. “What is it you need to talk to me about?” I asked.
Her lips thinned. “In the office,” she said, and inclined her head toward the back hall. She broke away from me as she led the way, and I followed with trepidation. What was going on?
I’d rarely been allowed back here as a kid; the only things back here were Big Jim’s home office and his man cave. It was the former that Cass led me to—and to my surprise, Big Jim was already there, standing behind a huge desk constructed from roughly hewn sections of a tree he’d felled himself, a story I knew because he liked to tell it four or five times a year.
“Naomi. Good to see you again,” he said, sounding anything but pleased.
“Why am I here?” I asked, looking between them. What could Big Jim possibly want with me?
“It’s about Ethan,” Cass said.
“What about him?” I asked, trying not to sound defensive right off the bat. “He’s doing his job. It’s nothing sinister.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” Big Jim said. “You two have been hassling a lot of people. I’ve been getting some questions, so I looked into him. Didn’t find much at first, but then I discovered something real alarming.”
“You looked into him? He’s a podcaster. He’s just asking questions,” I said.
“He isn’t who you think he is, Naomi,” Cass said gently.
“Please just tell me what you’re talking about,” I said, panic starting to well up.
Big Jim reached over to the desk and picked up a plain folder. He held it out to me. “Just like he claims, he works for a podcast network and he’s written and produced a bunch of stuff on true crime under the name Ethan Schreiber. But he changed his name when he turned eighteen. Before that, it was—”
I stared at the page inside the folder. It was paperwork for having his name changed in the state of Washington to Ethan Schreiber—
From Alan Michael Stahl, Jr.
The words on the page slid out of focus and refused to return. A tight, cold feeling flared along the back of my neck, pooling at the base of my skull, and I tasted something strange and sharp in the back of my throat. It couldn’t be true. It had to be a mistake. Ethan wasn’t—
“Is this a joke?” I asked, knowing that it wasn’t. Neither of them answered me. Ethan was Stahl’s son. Ethan had written the letter. He’d lied to me. He’d followed me, stalked me, insinuated himself into my life. He’d made me trust him.