The Last to Vanish(17)

“What did he say?” I asked.

“Not much at all. I told him I’d be happy to walk him through the case, if he comes by the office. Gave him my card, told him to make an appointment with Rochelle.” He smiled tightly. “I doubt he will.”

He tapped the counter twice with an open palm. “Have a good one, Abby.” And then he stopped to speak with Celeste for a moment before heading out.

I waited as the rest of the guests finished up, or at least took the hint as I started cleaning. There were always stragglers—those who waited until you officially closed up, before moving on.

Marina lent me a hand stacking the trays, and I helped her carry her supplies out to the van. “I should come more often,” she said, sliding the back door closed. “Better than handling our happy hour crowd, for sure.”

“You’re always welcome,” I said as she lingered in the parking lot, squinting against the lowering sun.

“You’re a good one, Abby. Celeste is lucky to have you,” she said, and I smiled, out of politeness.

Children hadn’t been a part of Celeste’s plans, and though at eighteen I had considered myself an adult, looking back, I could see how she had shifted her life to accommodate my own. Pretending Sunday dinners were part of the work arrangement, telling me things I could imagine a parent saying instead, under the guise of my job. Raising an eyebrow at me and Cory and saying, in her frank way: That’s going to get you nowhere. And she was right. Things became clearer the older I got. I was lucky to have her, and everyone knew it.

I watched as Marina climbed into the driver’s seat of the van, the wheels kicking up gravel in the lot, as she took the exit too quickly.

Back inside, I found myself alone once more, nothing but the scent of food and perfume and a tinny ringing in my ears, like the absence of something.

I hurried to wipe up the wine stains before they set in, then removed the empty wine bottles, counting as I went, for inventory. There were three full bottles still unopened, but we seemed to be missing two. Which also happened—guests taking a bottle back to their room.

I didn’t think more of it until later, when I was back at the registration desk, pulling the walking sticks from the barrel—noticing I was a count short.

Thinking of the Shermans leaving their two behind. No other tallies on the page from Georgia. No one else talking about hiking this evening.

Just Trey, eyes to the barrel, asking about the start of the vanishing trail.

I thought of the dark. Of the stories. His questions about the trail.

Of Trey with a bottle of wine and a walking stick and some purpose most of us were just guessing at—and I felt a chill, a precursor, the same feeling I’d gotten when I stood in his brother’s empty room for the first time.

The thing about a disappearance here was that our history made it somehow more unlikely, harder to comprehend. Like you’ve been playing a role in a production for too long. Something tongue-in-cheek, not quite a joke, but not quite the absence of one, either. So at the first sign of a disappearance, you had to shake the smile, fight back the nervous laughter threatening to bubble up. It’s a slowly creeping horror. Something you have to check and double-check, a hypothetical monster under the bed. Where the only thing you can think is: No. Please, no.

I picked up the phone at the front desk to call Trey. But the line just clicked steadily with dead air.

Something was wrong. Of course something was wrong. Something was very wrong here. I understood that. We all must’ve understood that, on some level, whether we wanted to face it.

There were a lot of rumors about us here, as a collective—about the things we knew, the secrets we kept. But they ignored the obvious.

Georgia with her always-on music, and me with my proof-of-life photos to Sloane. Cory, outgoing and charming, making it impossible to miss him for long, and Marina, always bringing in the latest news. Celeste, who hosts nightly happy hours, and the sheriff who makes his regular visits, keeps to his schedule. Even the notes Georgia and I leave for each other at the front desk, a reminder that we were just there.

Everyone here is afraid of disappearing. And that no one else would notice before it was too late.

The missing hiking stick. The bottles of wine. His questions about the trail. His frame of mind.

I could not leave him out there alone.





CHAPTER 5


I QUICKLY SECURED THE OFFICE behind the registration desk before racing out into the evening, where the sun had begun to set, and hoped I wasn’t too late to catch him.

The path lights to the cabins switched on as I jogged past, triggered by the settling dark. I raced up the cabin stairs, my steps echoing on the wood, when I heard something moving inside the cabin. Something heavy.

I breathed a sigh of relief, realizing I wasn’t too late, and pounded on the door with the side of my closed fist. The moving stopped, but no one approached. No steps across the floor, or a muffled call of Just a minute.

Silence.

I knocked again. “Mr. West? It’s Abby. Can I speak with you please?”

Footsteps this time, and the door swung partly open. Trey had a faint gleam of sweat covering his face, hair disheveled, with the room in total disarray behind him. I could smell the booze coming off him—wasn’t sure it was just the wine after all.

Instinctively, I took a step back. “What’s going on?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady, calm, and controlled.