The Last to Vanish(52)

He rubbed one thick hand through his beard. “That was a long time ago. I wasn’t here then.” He drew in a long breath through his nose. “I think he was at least staying there part of the time.” He took another step in the gravel, to the side, busying himself in the truck. “I couldn’t swear to it, though. I was in college, we didn’t run in the same circle, couldn’t say we kept tabs on each other much.”

“You were never friends?” I asked.

“Well, in a place like this, you don’t have to be friends to be in someone’s life, you know?” He closed the truck bed. “But look,” he said, and I couldn’t tell if he meant in general, or around this place. “I grew up here, with my grandparents, who rarely had cause to be involved in the town. Went to school, came home, got out when I could. Cory was a year behind me, grew up like practical royalty in Cutter’s Pass. So no, we weren’t friends. He did what he wanted, got away with what he wanted, never outgrew that mindset now, did he.” He looked at me pointedly, and I was sure he’d heard about some level of my relationship with Cory. “Why are you asking me about Alice Kelly after all this time?” he asked.

“Because,” I said, “I’ve been here ten years, and you’re the first person willing to answer.”

He looked to the house again before taking a slow breath in and out. “My advice?”

I nodded. That’s what I’d come for, after all.

“This town isn’t gonna let anything happen to him. I’d be careful who you ask that question.”

I took a step back, smiling, trying to undo the last ten minutes. I didn’t feel any better, any sense of clarity. I felt, instead, like I was pulling farther and farther away from the heart of things. “Your wife is lovely,” I said. “Thanks, Harris. Sorry to bother you on your day off.”

“You can call me, Abby. Any issues up there, don’t hesitate, okay?”

“Thanks,” I said, my hands shaking slightly as I slid into the driver’s seat of Georgia’s car. I watched as Harris approached the front porch, the door opening before he’d set foot on the first step, the little girl running out from behind her mother.

The keys slipped from my hand, and I had to fish them from the space between the chair and the console.

My fingers stretched for them until they brushed against the metal. I clasped the key between two of my fingers, and pulled—the set of keys dangling behind. But in my grasp was a small, half-size key, which I hadn’t noticed earlier.

I pieced through everything on the chain, that I’d taken abruptly from Georgia’s purse, without permission. I recognized the apartment key, beside the large key to the car. And there was the key that granted access to the downstairs entrance of the inn itself. The only other key was this: small and silver, with a crooked letter E engraved on it.

There was something vaguely familiar about it, but I was sure it didn’t belong to any room at the inn. It wasn’t the key for the safe in the back office, or the back office itself, both of which were kept on a lanyard with our employee badge, granting us access to every guest room. No, this was something else.

I could see Harris and Samantha still standing in the foyer behind the open doorway watching me, so I started the car, raised a hand in thanks, and drove too quickly on the way out, dirt kicking up in my wake.



* * *



I COASTED THROUGH TOWN, seeing every store, every person, through a different lens. The farmers’ market crowd was giving way to the weekend lunch crowd, a crawl of cars as visitors looked for parallel parking or slowed to take in the mountain view. I could pick out the residents easily, and realized it was a way of moving that set them apart. A sort of casualness or aloofness, like they were walking through a sea of people who didn’t really exist. Like the rest of the players were only set pieces. And in their world, wasn’t that true?

There was a young deputy, out of uniform, jogging diagonally across the street through a gap in the traffic. There was Marina, trailing behind Cory’s two dogs, unleashed, weaving through the visitors on the path toward the Last Stop.

There was Rochelle, striding down the street in the opposite direction, tapping her knuckles against the large glass window of the Edge, smiling at someone inside. And then there was Jack, backing out the entrance with the cardboard display, coy smile and words I couldn’t make out.

I imagined the Fraternity Four walking down the center of this road in that famous picture that now hung behind the bar at the Last Stop. Alice Kelly, walking out of that swinging door. Farrah Jordan, in the very spot Jack was now standing, asking for directions.

A flash of red of a visitor’s T-shirt, and my heart leaped into my throat, picturing her instead.

Jack was placing their chalkboard easel sign on the sidewalk, advertising their services. I’d watched him do this several times a day—changing out the offerings based on the time, the season, the crowd. Now there were three lines of writing, in different colors of chalk: Coffee, in purple, with a picture of a mug, steam rising; Gear, in green, a rudimentary tent drawn beside it, a triangle of sticks; Lockers, in white, with an accompanying sketch of a key.

I was still staring at that sign when the car behind me tapped its horn, nudging me on now that the traffic had moved half a block forward.

I raised my hand as I eased my foot off the brake. But my mind kept circling back to that chalkboard display.