The Last to Vanish(38)
She leaned forward, a child with a secret. “His parents are selling. Retiring and—” She wiped her hands quickly against one another, twice: Gone. “Apparently it’s not good for showings if there’s a van on the property. You can wait for him, if you want?”
“I’m actually here to see you. Any chance you can squeeze in a group of six tomorrow?”
Sylvie pulled a laptop from under the counter, slid on a pair of blue-rimmed glasses, and leaned close to the screen. “Only in the afternoon.”
It would be sweltering, but so be it. “I’ll take it.”
She wrote the details on a beige ticket. “Heard you’ve got company up at the inn,” she said, head still down.
I shouldn’t have been surprised, especially if Jack was staying here. Still. “What’d you hear?” I asked, trying to keep my voice level.
She stopped writing, head slightly to the side, assessing me. “Just that the family of the guy who went missing from the inn is up there now.” She raised one eyebrow, like she was asking me to confirm.
“Just for a short stay,” I said.
She blinked twice, like she was waiting for something else, then held the paper my way. “They can pay when they get here,” she said.
“Thanks,” I said, “I owe you one.”
* * *
CORY’S CAR WAS STILL at the inn when I returned, tucked beside Georgia’s. But I didn’t want to answer any of his questions, about Trey, about the sheriff’s office, about anything at all. So I left my car on the other side of Georgia’s and trudged up the drive on foot.
Georgia’s head darted up as I pushed through the entrance, face shifting to relief when she saw it was me.
“Got the tickets.” I held out the reservation page. “And you’re officially free,” I said, joining her behind the counter.
She slid the binder my way. “They haven’t come back from the hike yet,” she said. “I’m pretty sure one of them had a flask full of liquor, too.” She cleared her throat.
“I’ll keep an eye out,” I said. They were the type of people who were easy to be annoyed by from the outside, easy to envy on the inside. I could almost imagine the Fraternity Four like this—a few decades later, spouses in tow, maybe children, too. Telling stories of their adventures, decades earlier. Bound by a shared history.
She hitched her purse onto her shoulder, the key ring to her car dangling on her pointer finger, like she’d been waiting for her chance of escape. “Heading to the store for groceries. Need anything?”
“I’m good, thanks,” I said. I was sure her trip was timed to avoid running into Cory, too.
As soon as she left, I took my cell to the back office. My phone had access to the inn’s email account, and I waited for the page to slowly load. I cringed as I saw the unread messages filing down the page, with subjects ranging from Phones down? to Labor Day weekend to Question! But giving no indication what that question might be.
“Hello?” a deep, familiar voice rumbled from the lobby.
“In here!” I called. Harris slid into sight in the office doorway, then smiled slightly as he noticed me holding my cell against the window.
“I see I came just in time,” he said. Already, I was feeling more relaxed. Harris had a way of making every issue seem small and manageable. Like all you’d ever need was a fresh bit of wire, a new bolt, all of which really meant a call to the right person.
“Thanks for coming out so quick,” I said, leaving my phone on the window ledge to give time for all the emails to finish loading.
Harris had curly brown hair, a pronounced widow’s peak, a full beard that matched. It made him seem older, or like he was comfortable in the role he’d settled in to. He was in his own version of a uniform: baggy jeans, plaid button-down, brown tool belt, homemade beaded bracelet tight on his wrist, usually more string than bead. The current version had a row of blue stars framing three white letter tiles, spelling the word DAD.
“Got your message just as I was finishing up at the elementary school. Figured I’d swing by and take a look on my way back.” He placed his metal workbox on the long table.
I pointed to his bracelet. “I like the stars.” Last time he’d been here, it had been a seashell motif.
“Elsie got a new kit for her birthday.” He smiled, as he always did when talking about his daughter, though I imagined his wife had a hand in the spelling, considering Elsie was only three. “Tell me what’s going on with the lines.”
“The one at the main desk has been out, along with the internet. But it felt like it was going even before that, cutting in and out.”
He disappeared out to the main desk while I scrolled through the emails on my phone, jotting down names and numbers to call back from my own apartment line later. I hit “delete” on the emails fishing for information—I could never tell for sure whether they were journalists or amateurs, but every email unrelated to a reservation became an autodelete. The frequency of those inquiries had slowed through the spring, but there seemed to be a recent uptick again, with the summer season, just like the sheriff and Marina said—people talking. People digging. Bad optics.
“Hey.” Harris stood in the doorway again, taking up most of the door frame. “Any of the other lines having an issue?”