The Last to Vanish(59)

The night felt alive around us. The sounds of the woods, growing louder. Trey, closer than I’d intended. Like he could push me with one finger and the threads would all come loose.

He leaned close, his voice close, so I could see the overlap of his front teeth, the scar on his chin, a white line made of ridges and not as straight as I’d thought. “Did you not see him, Abby?”

“I saw him,” I said, keeping my voice equally low, like it could dissipate into the night, like fog over the mountain. “Just not the day he disappeared.”

He raised his eyebrow.

“I only saw him twice. Once, I bumped into him in the hallway. The other”—I pointed to the door, leading back inside—“in the lobby.”

Trey grew so quiet, so still, I wasn’t sure if he’d heard me. Only his breathing, ragged, unsteady, gave him away.

The last time I’d seen Landon West, it was ten p.m., and I had just shut down for the evening. I’d gone downstairs, but forgotten my cell in the back office, where I’d been letting photos upload to social media.

And there he was, in the lobby, shaking out his arms from the crisp night. He was hovering around the reception desk, like he was waiting for someone, but stood straight when I approached.

Can I help you? I’d asked, suddenly afraid of making my way to the back office, trapping myself. It wasn’t often I felt uncomfortable around a guest. It usually involved too much wine at happy hour, or a group of guys egging each other on. It was rarely a man alone in the night. But then, you remembered everything that had come before. The warnings from Celeste, to take care of myself first of all.

How you had no cell service, that the sheriff’s office was closed, that between calling 911 and going through your own contacts, the fastest way to get help was to go through Rochelle.

I hope so, he said. Sorry to startle you. The phone in my room wasn’t connecting. I was hoping I could use this one.

Sure, I said. That’s what it’s there for.

But then, he had placed something inside his coat, and I didn’t think he’d come in for the phone at all. Or maybe it was me, appearing there, that had altered his plans.

Should I send someone to check out your phone in the morning? I asked.

Why don’t I just try to reset it first. Sorry to trouble you.

No trouble, I said.

Good night, then, Abby, he’d said, and it unsettled me, that he remembered my name.

Good night, Mr. West, I’d said.

By the next afternoon, he would be gone.

“But you weren’t interviewed,” Trey said.

I brushed him off, pushed back from the table, too close and falling under his spell. “I talked to the investigators, of course,” I said. “I just hadn’t had much contact with him. I wasn’t on shift when he checked in, and I wasn’t the one to discover he was missing.”

“What did you do, exactly, when you found out?”

I breathed in the night air, looking out to the woods. Anyone could be out there, watching back. I chose my words very carefully. I remembered the feeling, standing in front of that empty cabin. That eerie, haunting feeling, something bubbling up to the surface—?“The three of us searched everywhere on the property. His car was still here. We called around, first. And then we called the sheriff.”

“Who did you call around to, first. Where did you think he might be?”

“The Last Stop Tavern,” I said. “It’s the closest place to walk. Our guests often head down there for food.”

“Did they know who he was, when you called?”

“Excuse me?”

“You said, you called the tavern to ask about my brother. Did they know who he was.”

Cory and Marina and Ray, he meant. That day, it was Marina who had picked up. I remembered it well, the way her voice changed, had dropped and become guarded. The way she’d chosen her own words so carefully, too.

“I don’t know. I said we were looking for a guest, a man named Landon West. They took a few minutes to check, and say, No, there’s no one here by that name.”

“You guys keep track of the guests coming in and out,” he said with the vague tinge of an accusation. And it was then I knew it was him who had been in the back office when I’d forgotten to lock it. Who’d taken our binder. Who was watching all of us closely. He was digging, and he wasn’t going to stop.

“You snuck in and stole that binder from me?” I stood up, ready to move.

He didn’t even flinch, as if we were beyond pretending. “You’re not answering any questions, and I have to get them somehow.”

“We started doing that,” I countered, “after your brother disappeared.”

“I think you know something,” he said, fingers pressed into the table, “and I’m asking you. Please.”

He shook his head, stood up as well. I remembered that the switch could flip so suddenly, and I was glad for the exit: the field, the woods—an escape. “Please, Abby,” he repeated. God, he wanted it so desperately. I could feel it coming off him. His entire body practically coiled with it—the need for answers.

“If I knew something, I promise, I would say it. I would’ve said it long ago.”

But now I was thinking of the journal belonging to his brother in the closet of my apartment, the secrets I was also keeping.