I jumped into my car and, within moments, I was on the highway. Esme called me. I refused the call. She texted me. I glanced quickly at her words. Where are you?
I pulled the car over into some murderous-looking little rest area, the kind with crumbling asphalt and a battered box the size of a phone booth meant for donating old clothes. My hands were shaking. I texted back: I think you’re nuts. I came all the way up here to get a few pieces of paper that probably won’t be useful for anything, but I was willing to see you. I really believed you wanted to help Stefan and me. If you just want to spy on me, then leave me alone. Esme, this is your last chance. Do you want me to meet you? I started the car and backed it up so that my way back onto the road would be a straight shot. No need to put the car in Reverse. I checked all the locks, turned the old Marvin Gaye song that just came on the radio up as high as it would go, pulled my coat around me and closed my eyes. Just then, I got a text from her. Tell me where you are. I’ll be there in ten minutes, it said.
I typed in the mile marker sign and hit Send. Then I panicked. Who might she bring with her, to this lonely apron of concrete surrounded by a thicket of spindly trees cackling in the wind? I sat still, trying to breathe my mind and hands into a semblance of composure.
Then a car pulled into the rest area. It couldn’t be Esme; I’d barely completed my last text message to her. The driver stopped, opened the door. Striding toward me was no slight college-age girl, but the androgynous young guy in the hoodie and aviator glasses who now stood next to my car. It was the same person, the same narrow shoulders, the same lanky swing of the arms. Slow, slow thoughts slid into my consciousness like syrup: Move, Thea. Move, for your life. I jammed the car into Drive, so wildly that I all but ran him down, and spattered gravel onto the highway right in front of an eighteen-wheeler whose driver sent out a blast of air-horn outrage as he hauled his rig into the next lane. I never even dared to glance in the rearview mirror.
I’d driven at least ten miles before I remembered that I had left my things in the room at Connell’s Glory Be Bed-and-Breakfast. I should turn around, I thought. Nothing would make me turn around. I could call when I got home and ask the owner to mail them to me and add that to my bill.
When the fuel light blinked on an hour north of Portland, I did not even stop for gas. Let it run down to nothing. That was what the tow trucks from AAA were for.
It wasn’t until I got off the exit closest to home, begging the indifferent universe just to let me get there, promising in return that this was really over, this time for sure, I would stop chasing shadows, willing myself into my house, into my own bed, imagining myself pressed against Jep’s sturdy, warm, inert back, that I remembered Esme’s text. I’ll be there in ten minutes, she had typed.
I began to pant. I scrabbled for my phone.
Nothing.
I had left her there. I had left Esme to pull into that deserted scrap of pavement, all alone, looking for me, where he waited.
9
When I hit my own driveway, it was late. Except for a small light in the upstairs hall, one we always left burning, the house was dark. On a street suddenly as still as a canyon, I got the willies. I actually missed the protestors. When I called Stefan’s cell, it went over to voice mail. Jep…same thing. Pulling into the garage, I let the door close behind me and summoned my courage, getting out briskly and opening the door to the kitchen, pushing my purse and the box of documents inside.
“Molly!” I called.
The dog didn’t come running. She would have come running, acting as though she hadn’t seen me in ten years instead of less than a day. This was the part in the scary movie when the person trips over the mutilated body of the dog. That did it for me. I slammed the door and turned on all the lights. If somebody had killed Molly, that somebody would reap the whirlwind. I heard her then. She was scratching at the back door. She was outside in the yard. Somebody had let her out and left her out there. I didn’t know for how long, but she was thirsty, giving me only a cursory greeting before heading toward her water bowl.
Who had done that?
Jep or Stefan…never. Jep and Stefan treated Molly with more regard than they did most people, and they were nice to most people.
Who had left Molly outside? I knew the doors were locked. The fussy slider downstairs was long since fixed. Who had been in our house and how?
I sent Stefan a text, asking if he had let Molly out. Jep too. Jep answered that Molly was not outside, that must be asleep upstairs and our bedroom door just got closed on her. Let her out before she gets all excited and pees, he wrote. A second later, he wrote, U do ok? U ok now?