Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six(66)

When she got downstairs, Hannah and Bruce were bent over the meticulous detailed instruction binder, pages and pages, looking for the host number.

“Got it,” said Hannah. “Call anytime, day or night, with anything you need.”

“I have one bar,” said Bruce. “The cell service here is crap. The power is out so the Wi-Fi is down.”

He picked up his phone and dialed the number they’d found. Cricket moved over to Hannah and her friend wrapped her up in her arms.

“Are you okay?” Cricket asked.

“I mean,” said Hannah. “I don’t know. This is really—weird.”

“Don’t leave me here,” Cricket whispered.

Hannah stroked Cricket’s hair. “If we go, you come, too.”

Bruce sounded like he was leaving a message. “The lights are out here. Can you call the electric company and find out when power will be restored? If they don’t come back on soon, we’ll probably need to leave.”

Lightning lit the view outside, the trees black line drawings, punching against white. Cricket felt thunder in the floorboards. The rain seemed to be subsiding, though. Then the sweep of headlights across the back wall.

Cricket ran to the door to see Joshua’s car pulling up, the rear windshield cracked, the trunk dented. Joshua got out unsteadily. Was that a gash over his right eye, a line of blood trailing down the side of his face? Oh wow, was he hurt?

She rushed out to him through the rain; he took her in his arms, leaned against her and she led him out of the rain to the porch.

“Oh my god,” she said. “What happened? You’re hurt. Oh my god.”

Cricket reached up to wipe away the blood with her sleeve. Hannah and Bruce came to stand on the porch from the front door.

“A tree came down in the last big bolt of lightning,” he said. He was pale, hands shaking. “It was so loud, like an explosion. Then there was this deafening crack and a huge tree just fell. It hit the trunk and now it’s blocking the road.”

“What happened to your head?” He reached up to touch the wound, winced and pulled his hand away.

“I must have hit it on the steering wheel or something.”

“The airbags didn’t deploy?” asked Bruce looking between Joshua and the car.

Joshua’s face was drained of color, eyes confused. “I—I don’t know. No, I guess not.”

“The road’s completely blocked?” asked Hannah, voice tight.

“Yeah,” he said. “There’s a huge tree across the whole thing. It’s going to take some major equipment to move it. And some of the other roads were already full of water.”

“You could have been killed, man,” said Bruce, looking at the car. “You got really lucky.”

“Oh my god,” said Cricket again, clinging to Josh.

“I shouldn’t have gone out like that,” he said to Cricket. “I’m sorry. I should have told my boss to handle things herself. I—it was so stupid. I’ve made a lot of mistakes.”

He seemed really upset, color wan. She held him tight, and his arms closed around her. She felt him kiss her head, and she started to cry a little but not so that anyone would see.

“We’re having a crisis of our own here,” said Bruce. “The power’s out. And Liza is gone.”

“Gone?” asked Joshua. She felt his body tense. “How?”

That’s when Cricket noticed that Mako’s Tesla was still in the drive. If Liza had left, how had she gone? On foot? Did she call an Uber? Liza had made all the arrangements for the house, hadn’t she? Maybe she’d been planning this all along. It was a good moment to leave Mako, if that’s what she wanted. In front of everyone, he couldn’t resort to the usual tactics he used to manipulate women.

But the blood.

“Let’s get inside, take a look at that cut,” said Bruce.

Back in the living room Mako was standing in the kitchen, staring at his cell phone. They could hear a faint ringing coming from the call Mako seemed to be making. Cricket still clung to Joshua and he was leaning on her heavily. She moved him over to the couch where he sank down hard. How bad was that head injury?

“Let me get some ice,” she said, heading to the kitchen area. Maybe there was a first aid kit, too. She looked to Hannah for help. She was good at things like this—Camp Fire Girl, lifeguard, trained in CPR, at least when they were kids. But instead Hannah stood frozen, was looking at her brother with a deep frown. Mako was looking at his phone.

“What are you doing?” Hannah asked Mako, voice sharp.

He looked up at her quickly, then back at the screen. “I’m calling Liza and tracking her on Find My Friends.”

“Where is she?”

“Shhh. Service is shit.”

The moment swelled and expanded, all of them waiting. But finally they heard the call engage with voicemail, Liza’s voice faint.

Sorry I missed you. Leave a message. Namaste.

He ended the call. “Fuck.”

“Mako. Where does it say she is?” Hannah asked again.

Mako turned the phone so that they could all see. A blue dot blinked in a sea of green. Mako’s dot was right beside it.

“It says she’s right here,” he said, looking between each of them. “Somewhere on this property.”