One By One by Freida McFadden(39)

As soon as we get outside earshot of Jack and Warner, he lowers his voice several notches. “Something is wrong,” he says.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean…” He glances up at the two of them, then back at me. “Warner’s map. It doesn’t make any sense. It’s wrong. Nothing is where the map says it’s supposed to be.”

My breath catches in my throat. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah, and…” He shakes his head. “I looked at a map before we left for the trip, and I don’t remember that fork in the road or anything from Warner’s map. Also…” His brow furrows. “I don’t trust Jack’s compass.”

I raise my eyebrows. “You don’t?”

He nods. “I know Jack is supposed to be Mr. Wilderness, Boy Scout, whatever, but I know the sun rises in the east, and that’s not where the compass says east is.”

“Oh…”

“Also…” He takes a deep breath. “Claire, I think we’re going around in circles.”

“You… you do?”

He nods. “I recognize things I’ve seen before. Very specific things, like this gash I saw in a tree. And… and that squirrel.” He points to a squirrel lying dead and rotting in the dirt. I have to admit, there is something familiar about it. I remember seeing that squirrel before. “I think that compass is taking us in circles.”

I frown. This is the last thing I expected him to say. I thought he was going to accuse me of infidelity. This might be worse. “So… what are you saying?”

“I’m saying…” He rubs at the back of his neck. “I don’t trust them to find our way out of here. I think… I think we’d be better off on our own.”

“We?” I cough. “You want me to come with you?”

He blinks at me behind his glasses. “Well, yeah. Of course I do. You’re my wife.”

But we hate each other. I don’t say the words, but he must be thinking the same thing. We’ve hated each other for years now. And especially during the entire drive here.

Yet now that we’re lost out here, he doesn’t seem quite as angry at me anymore.

“I think I can find my way out of here.” He glances behind him. “My dad used to sometimes take me hiking when I was a kid, so I know what to do.”

I’m surprised by this revelation. Noah’s father died when he was in college, before I met him. He rarely talks about him. “You never told me that.”

He shrugs. “It was a long time ago. But I remember the map. These woods aren’t that big. If we weren’t going around in circles, we’d have hit civilization by now.”

“You think so?”

Noah nods firmly. Granted, I’ve never thought of him as very good at outdoorsy stuff like hiking, but my husband is a very smart man. He’s a physicist. He wouldn’t make an assertion if he didn’t feel confident it was true. He wouldn’t want to go off on his own unless he believed he could find civilization.

He reaches for my hand. I let him take it. I can’t even remember the last time Noah held my hand. It’s been years. I forgot how warm and big his hand always felt in mine.

“Trust me, Claire,” he says. “I wouldn’t let anything happen to you.”

I want to believe him. I truly do. But Warner has the map and Jack has the compass. Oh, and Jack has the remainder of our food. Noah has nothing, except a partially full water bottle in my purse. And he doesn’t even have sterilization tablets, so if I go with him, that’s all the water we’ll have to drink.

“I think we should all stay together,” I say.

He shakes his head. “I don’t think it’s a good idea…”

I pull my hand away from his. “Look, Jack does know the outdoors. We couldn’t even have built that fire last night without him. I think if we go off on our own, we might get in big trouble. It… it scares me. I mean, look what happened to Michelle.”

His eyes get cloudy. “What did happen to Michelle?”

“I don’t know, but… she went off on her own and now…”

Noah scratches at his hair until it stands up even more. “Okay, fine. We’ll all stay together.”

“You’re not leaving us?”

He shakes his head. “I wouldn’t do that to you.”

I’m surprised at the relief I feel that Noah isn’t insisting on taking off on his own. If he really did want to leave, it would be a hard decision about whether or not to go with him. It seems like the obvious choice to stay with Jack, but Noah is my husband. Maybe I’ve grown to hate him, but I trust him.

And maybe I don’t hate him quite as much anymore.





Chapter 21


ANONYMOUS



My mother was waiting for me when I walked in the front door. “Strip,” she instructed me.

I hung my head as I pulled off my Red Sox baseball hat, followed by my T-shirt, then my shorts. I left on my underwear and my socks. My mom scooped the clothing into a plastic bag, then to my surprise, she tossed the whole thing into the fireplace, where they were quickly devoured in flames.

“What are you doing?” I shouted.

“They’re all contaminated,” she hissed at me.