The Last to Vanish(50)

I sat at the intersection at the end of Cory’s lane, no car in sight, and called Harris’s cell. Though we didn’t have the type of relationship that generally seemed like I could just come out and ask, what choice did I have? Maybe I could ask him to the inn, bring it up casually. But the call went to voice mail immediately: You’ve reached Harris Donald. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you.

I remembered his face when he saw Cory down in the basement. His implication, when he’d noticed the line had been disconnected. His pointed warning: Careful who you let in down there.

I turned the car around and headed in the other direction—out of Cutter’s Pass.





CHAPTER 13


I’D DRIVEN BY THE Donald family property before. It was about five miles beyond the town perimeter, but ten miles before the next, where a rising series of switchbacks through the terrain brought you into Springwood.

But between Cutter’s Pass and that rising road was a stretch of cleared farmland, individual homes on larger, flat acreage. When I’d first arrived in Cutter’s Pass, Harris was off at college near Asheville, and his grandparents had still owned the property. But they’d let the farming go, so the growth from the surrounding woods had steadily encroached, the fence falling to disrepair.

After they’d passed—one a year after the other—the Donald land fell to Harris, but it wasn’t until five years ago that he officially came back as a full-time resident, bringing his new wife and setting up his own business, building his clientele from the people and places he’d once known so well.

It wasn’t quite a complete homecoming, though. There existed some gap that couldn’t fully be breached—either by him or the rest of the town. Like he, too, could only see this place from the outside in. I wondered what it looked like to him now, after being on the other side.

I pulled into their winding gravel drive, the road splitting into a circle in front of the two-story home. There were two cars parked beside the separate garage—a small white sedan and a pickup truck. A good sign that Harris was home.

I hesitated on the wide front porch, hoping I wasn’t waking anyone. But as I got closer, I heard the catchy melody of the end of some Saturday-morning cartoon. Their daughter, at least, must already be up. Still, I knocked tentatively.

The pitter-patter of feet that followed was light and rapid, and I could hear her struggling with the lock, twisting it back and forth several times before eventually managing to unlatch the door.

The hinges creaked, and a small girl in a matching purple pajama set stood barefoot in the foyer, wide brown eyes and thumb going to her mouth when she saw me standing on the other side.

“Elsie, hi,” I said, bending down, hands on my thighs. I was never sure exactly how to speak to children, at what age they became capable of carrying on a conversation. “I’m Abby. Is your dad home?”

She ran back through the foyer just as a voice called her name from around the corner. “Elsie? Was that Dad?”

A woman leaned around the wood-paneled wall, taking in the scene in the front foyer. Her face shifted quickly from confusion to a warm and welcoming smile.

“Hi?” she said tentatively, stepping into the room. “Abby, right?”

I tucked my hair behind my ear. “Yes, hi, so sorry to stop by like this. I was just in the area, and I was hoping to catch Harris. I know it’s the weekend.” I winced, for impact. I struggled to remember his wife’s name—she was young, from some other state, Florida, I thought, and not often talked about because the only thing there was to discuss was how infrequently we saw her. She had shoulder-length strawberry blond hair and brown eyes like her daughter and a softness to both her features and her voice that made me see her through Celeste’s eyes, thinking she didn’t look like she could do the hard things—Samantha. “It’s nice to see you, Samantha. Sorry to interrupt your morning.”

Her smile stretched even wider, if possible. “No, no, come on in.” She had a warmth, an innocence, and I could see why Harris liked her, why she liked Harris. Her hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail, and she wore leggings and an oversize shirt. She was barefoot, like her daughter. The house smelled of syrup and home, and I got a flash of nostalgia for Saturday mornings growing up, when my mom and I used cookie cutters to make pancakes in the shape of hearts.

“I’m sorry, though,” Samantha said. “Harris is out on a call. But you’re welcome to wait, he should be back anytime now. There’s coffee, if you’re interested.”

“Oh, thanks but I’ve had my quota of caffeine for the morning,” I said. I hadn’t, but I didn’t want to get caught up here. Not with Alice’s bag in the back seat, and Trey back at the inn with questions, and Georgia waiting for me to return her car. “I guess that would explain why his cell went to voice mail. I should’ve taken the hint. But I was in the area.”

“Well, it’s nice to get to see you again. How’s it going out at the inn?” she asked.

I was trying to remember when we’d actually interacted last. When Elsie was a young toddler and they’d both stopped by the inn to bring Harris lunch, during our closed workweek two years ago? Most life updates were passed along through Harris. My world had pulled tighter over the last decade, the inn at the center.

But I was realizing how set apart Samantha was here, all alone, with her daughter. I could feel the bones of everything this place used to be, the past not even out of sight. The wallpaper that still lined the living room must’ve been here from when Harris grew up, raised by his grandparents in this very house. She’d done what she could, adding a family picture of the three of them at the heart of the foyer, and along the wall of the living room was a series of photographs—a trail in the woods, a meandering creek, a burst of flowers—which somehow worked with the floral beige wallpaper behind it.