The Last to Vanish(15)

She set up the appetizers on the warming trays, then stood off to the side as the early couple started piling their small plates with an assortment of bruschetta and mini mozzarella sticks, heat visibly escaping at first bite.

It occurred to me, then, that Marina intended to stay. Which was the point of these happy hours, really. Celeste wanted the inn to be open to the community, a place where visitors could mingle with one another, but also a place to help local businesses, to meet someone who might share details about a river trip, a horseback tour, or the best place to hike. And for the locals to share a taste of the authentic Cutter’s Pass. We wanted the inn to look alive, and this was a way to achieve it, while supporting the community at the same time.

The wine was procured from the Last Stop, but the label matched the logo that had adorned the inn since its inception—that tree with the bare branches spreading across the sky, in inverse colors from the umbrella: navy blue on a white label, The Passage Inn written in small cursive letters underneath.

“How are things going?” Marina asked as she fidgeted with a stack of napkins, turning them side to side on the counter, accomplishing nothing.

I knew why she was here. She was waiting to see what would happen. She was waiting to see him.

Footsteps approached from down the hall, and her eyes betrayed her, shifting over my shoulder. But it was just the trio of couples from the Forest View rooms on the second floor, traveling together.

I smiled, poked a cherry tomato with a toothpick. “He’s not staying upstairs,” I said before popping it into my mouth.

“Has he seen the room?” she asked.

“He’s staying in it.”

She raised her eyebrows, surprised. “You’re kidding.” She laughed. “Well, I guess that’s one way to get him out of here.”

I shook my head, slightly startled. I’d thought it would be what he wanted, to be as close as he could, to feel the echo of his brother left behind. But now I wasn’t so sure.

Marina stepped closer, just as more guests filed into the lobby. “What do you know about him, Abby?”

In truth, I knew almost nothing of Trey West: He shared a few mannerisms with his brother, something I couldn’t quite place when he’d first walked into the inn. He’d been overseas when his brother went missing, and as far as I knew, he didn’t come home when he heard. He was a nonentity, then. Someone who contributed to a joint statement, but remained far removed from reality. It had not concerned me to find out why. Maybe others knew more. Maybe I was missing something.

“Not much,” I said. “Why?”

“I just think it’s weird, him coming here now, after all this time. What’s the point?”

“Closure?” I asked. Like the sheriff said, maybe he was here to pay his respects. Maybe he felt a pull, had to see it for himself.

She gave me a look, like I should know better. “Wishful thinking doesn’t help anyone.”

Neither Marina nor I grew up here, didn’t have the history of her husband or the sheriff, or Cory, even, who only saw this place for how he wanted to see it. Ray had vouched for her, just as Celeste for me. Marina had grown up only two towns east, but she said it had still taken her years to be accepted as a true resident of Cutter’s Pass.

“People want action. Even if it’s just for show.” She paused. “Maybe especially then.”

The front doors opened behind her then, and she must’ve seen it in my face, because she turned slowly to see who had just arrived.

My stomach sank. He didn’t look good.

I wasn’t sure what I expected, but Trey West seemed transformed by his stay in Cabin Four. Hollow-eyed and unsure, hair unruly, like he hadn’t slept.

I imagined him up all night, picturing his brother’s last movements. Falling asleep in the morning, in a fitful exhaustion, until my call after noon had roused him. The disorientation that comes from sleeping the wrong hours. Like stepping out of a dark room after too long.

It was a common refrain from anyone who’s lived here for a time that Cutter’s Pass changes you. There was an atmosphere that drew people here, or kept people returning. While this town was most known for those who had disappeared, many others seemed to find what they were looking for instead: people from the outside who would find a way to remain, uprooting their entire lives. Like there was something you might discover here, about yourself.

I thought of Georgia, stumbling out of the woods, with blisters and ill-fitting shoes, like some ethereal being made solid. Becoming, in time, more grounded, and real. Cleaning the corners of the halls with a set determination. Celeste’s husband, Vincent, transforming from a man in a suit working with numbers in a back office to one whose imagination could turn a plot of land and a heap of wood into this. Like magic, Celeste had said. Even me, learning to move in harmony with the town, and the inn.

It wasn’t magic so much as the crisp mountain air. The necessity of everything in town, and the familiar routine of all the pieces working together. It was the contribution you brought to the order here, and the confidence in the choice you’ve made to be here. Just like the choice I’d made ten years earlier, and the choice I continued to make, in staying.

So maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised to see Trey West differently one day in, uncertain about his choice to come, his purpose for staying, after spending the night alone in the spot his brother was last seen.