The Last to Vanish(60)

“You’re heading back tomorrow, right?” I asked. A plea, a reminder. Family members—Celeste had warned me about them.

“Monday,” he said. “Unless all the cabins are suddenly going to be occupied tomorrow?”

I shook my head, not trusting my own voice.

“Well, good night, then,” he said, but I knew whatever allegiance we’d begun with had firmly cracked. That any trust I’d garnered, with my call to the sheriff, with my answers to his questions, had long worn out. That we stood on opposite sides of a divide now.



* * *



AS SOON AS HE was gone, I closed up the lobby and went down to the basement. I couldn’t decide where to head first: to see Georgia or to examine the bag in the closet of my apartment.

But the decision was made for me, the door to my apartment slightly ajar, like someone had just forced their way inside, looking for something, too.

I thought of Trey, able to decipher the secrets on my face. Georgia, knowing what I had found.

I stayed in the hall, pushed the door open gently, the creak of the hinge startling us both.

But the only person inside, not even bothering to sneak around, standing there in full view of the entrance, was Cory.

“What the fuck?” I said, storming in and slamming the door behind me. More angry than afraid, with no time to think things through.

But I hadn’t seen what he had in his hands then. Alice’s bag was behind him, and now he swung his arm around, Landon’s leather-bound journal in his grip. “Why do you have this?” he asked.

As if I was the one who had done something wrong. As if he suspected me after everything.

“What are you doing in here, Cory?” I said, instead, rage coursing through my veins. Stepping so close, up in his face, pushing him, as I could imagine him suddenly pushing Alice in the basement, pushing Farrah down the icy steps of Shallow Falls—

“What do you think?” he asked, arms held up in proclaimed innocence, except the journal was now out of my reach. “You come by my house with this bag, accusing me—”

“I wasn’t.”

“Oh, please.” His expression was of hurt more than anger.

But I’d been wrong about Cory before, who was maybe not so harmless, who saw this bag as something that could implicate him. “So, what, you decided to break in and take it? Destroy the evidence? Pretend it never existed, just like everything else?”

His eyes darkened, and he didn’t deny it. That was the thing about Cory, he didn’t lie. Just never spoke the full truth. Circumventing my questions, keeping everything good-natured and on the surface, but keeping his secrets. “I’m going to ask you again. Why do you have this journal?” he asked.

Tell me something real, he’d said. And maybe that’s all it took with him. Maybe that’s what it took in a place like this, to belong. “I found it, in a locker at the Edge. There was a key on Georgia’s key ring,” I told him, honesty on display, waiting for his in return.

But his eyes only narrowed, as if this were a story that required too much faith. “This was in Georgia’s locker? And you didn’t call the sheriff?” He said it incredulously, like all I was doing was casting more suspicion on myself. But we hadn’t all grown up in the sheriff’s good graces, knowing he would be on our side.

“I didn’t tell him,” I explained, “because the locker was in my name.” His eyes widened and I quickly continued. “I swear I didn’t set it up myself. But what do you think that looks like?” I asked.

He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. Nothing good.

He slowly lowered his arm, the journal within my reach again. “What does it say?” I asked. “I didn’t have the chance…” Thinking: Please. I was imagining a story, an article, the end of the sentence I’d so desperately wanted to read: The truth is—

Cory sighed. “I don’t know, it just looks like he was going through the investigation. Making lists.” A pause. “A list of witnesses. Or suspects? I don’t know.”

“For Farrah Jordan?”

He nodded. Swallowed. “And Alice Kelly.”

He placed the journal on the counter beside us. A peace offering. And I took it.

Landon West had indeed begun with Farrah, his way into the investigation. Her name was at the top, the date she went missing, a note that she’d last been seen at the Shallow Falls Trailhead, and a list of all the people who had been interviewed. He had used their first names only, as if he were intimately acquainted with each. As if he had done his research and felt he knew them. Celeste, Jack, Barbara and Stu—the owners of the Edge, who had to vouch for Jack, who promised they’d come in at lunchtime and he was there, as always, dependable.

There was a phone number listed beside each name, all local numbers.

There was no one whose name I didn’t recognize. Landon West was looking here. He was only looking here.

The list on the following page was longer. Alice Kelly, date missing, last seen at the Last Stop Tavern. Here, the names stretched down the page: Cory, Ray and Marina, Patrick.

A shudder ran through me, realizing he’d been looking at the sheriff himself. That he might’ve called the number written beside his name. I imagined Rochelle picking up, phone resting on her shoulder, taking his information down. I’ll be sure to tell the sheriff you called—