The Last to Vanish(79)

There was only this place. And with Alice, a new disappearance prompting a fresh look at the Fraternity Four case—it was all anyone was talking about, on the news—there was a possibility that I could discover more. About him, and about myself. In Cutter’s Pass.

I did not expect to stay. I did not expect to keep a secret for the last decade, but then, it had always felt like a secret: my mother had kept it, herself, for eighteen years. History had a way of pulling you back, like quicksand. How to explain that I was here because before Alice Kelly, my father had been the last to vanish.

And then I had found something here—it just hadn’t been the thing I was looking for.



* * *



THE DRIVE IN FELT like the type of place where one might disappear, hands gripping the steering wheel, the tunnel of trees and the slick pavement, patches of ice and dangerous curves in the dark. There were a thousand ways I could slip off course, and I imagined all of them as I drove my mother’s old car, with no one to look out for me. With no one to look for me at all. But eventually the trees opened up and Cutter’s Pass presented itself: a beautiful oasis.

The downtown was a snow-drenched wonderland when I first coasted into the valley, lights in the shape of snowflakes hanging from the awnings, a sidewalk full of puffy hats and gusts of cold air escaping from people’s mouths and steam rising from the hot chocolate in their gloved hands, and I thought, How could anyone go missing from a place like this?

I’d stopped in front of the tavern, exited my car, stood in the middle of the street, like my father had once done, with the mountain rising behind him, and I could almost feel him there. Hear what he would sound like. Feel the details. Find the context. Like he was just out of frame, in my peripheral vision.

You looking for the inn?

I turned around to see a guy about my age standing behind me. Maybe he’d noticed my car parked out front—the luggage piled in the back seat. Or maybe he could read something else in me. I said, I am looking for the inn. Because I did need a place to stay, and I saw no other obvious accommodations in town. He extended his arm in a straight shot up the mountain, a sharp whistle as he pointed the way.

Thank you, I said.

Thank me later. You can find me here. And he gestured to the tavern behind him. The Last Stop, it was called.

Everything felt like a sign.

When I stepped into the lobby of the inn, I knew I couldn’t afford it. Not more than a night or two before I maxed out what was left of my credit card limit. But it didn’t matter, because the woman at the registration desk—Celeste, though she’d barely looked up at me then—wouldn’t give me a room. She said the inn was closing for the two-week stint of winter, which was both bad luck and good luck, depending how you looked at it.

She wouldn’t give me a room: bad luck. But when I saw the construction being set up just off the lobby, I said, I’m also looking for a job, thinking it would give me some more time here, and she’d said, No openings at the moment. Bad luck.

I had nowhere else to go, and it was getting dark, and I was desperate, so that night, after the inn turned dark, I took up residence in the abandoned cabin farthest away, where a window had been left unlatched at the back—in hopes of a warm night before I figured out where to go from here. My foot on a log, my elbows on the windowsill, and I was through. Good luck.

She’d found me there in the morning, possibly tipped off by my car, tucked around the curve, leading toward the trailhead. But she used a master key and walked right in, like she knew exactly what she’d find. It wasn’t even light yet, and I bolted up in the bed, disoriented.

Listen, kid, you can’t just stay without paying.

I wanted to pay, I insisted, sliding out of the warmth of the sheets, taking out my wallet from my bag on the desk, to hand her a credit card.

Listen— She held that credit card, searching for my name, to continue. She squinted, like she couldn’t make out the small print. What’s your name? she asked.

Abby, I said. And then, when she kept looking: Abby Lovett. I hoped she didn’t call the police. I hoped she didn’t kick me out, tell everyone in town about the drifter who had broken in.

Abigail, she said slowly, as if correcting me, and I nodded, because she was right, and because I was in a bed that was not mine, in this room that was hers instead. I would be whoever she wanted me to be right then.

Well, Abigail, what are you doing here?

I told you, I’m looking for a job. A pause. Also, my mom died, I said—another truth, though it was irrelevant. But it was the only thing I could think that would appeal to her.

She kept looking.

I have nowhere else to go, I added, the emotion balling in my throat. I almost told her then, about my father and the Fraternity Four, but she spun around, so I was staring at her back, at the open doorway behind her. Like she was debating something.

Then she turned back. She looked at me closely, her green eyes sharp and focused, like she was reading something in me. Look, Abby, the truth is, this place is only good for people who can do the hard things. And you don’t look it, no offense.

I can, I said, determined to prove it to her.

Well, then, get up and get moving. There’s a lot to do. Get ready.

And I had.

Now I thought back on the secrets I had kept for years. Afraid she’d have me sent away, cut off, if she knew the truth. She knew, from the very start.