You Can't Catch Me(28)

His eyes shift away. “Yeah, maybe.”

“Definitely. Plus, why are you so worried? You don’t even think I’m going to find her.”

“You probably will.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence. Come on, what’s up?”

He raises his hands to grip the steering wheel. His fingers are strong, capable. “I’ve got a bad feeling, that’s all.”

“You don’t believe in bad feelings. You believe in checking. That’s what I’m doing.”

“You’re right.”

Jessie opens her car door and steps out. She’s wearing a purple Patagonia puffy jacket and dark jeans. She looks tiny and vulnerable.

I lean in and kiss Liam on his cheek. His stubble is rough against my lips, but he smells warm and clean and inviting.

I pull myself away. “I’ve got to go. Drive safe. And thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Stay in touch.”

“I will. I promise.”

And maybe this time I’m telling the truth.

Jessie and I pay separately for our tickets and listen to a short lecture about how part of the trail is closed for repairs and to follow the signs. We go through the doors and walk over a small bridge that crosses the Ausable River. The water is rushing by fast and loud, dark and cold.

“Why did you want to meet here?” I ask Jessie as we turn right down the path once we’ve crossed the bridge.

“You want to take the easy path or the regular one?”

“What’s the difference?”

“One brings you to the falls, and there’s stairs and these glass-bottomed landings, which are kind of terrifying. The other is just a path in the woods.”

“The terrifying path, for sure.”

She laughs gently. “I get the sense that you’re a bit reckless.”

“Sometimes. Liam thinks so.”

She glances at me, then shifts away. “Is he your boyfriend?”

I shove my hands into the pockets of my fleece. It’s even colder in the woods, without the sun. The air smells like the river and melting snow and that undercurrent of granite I smelled in the car yesterday. New York is a state made of gravestones.

“No.”

“But you want him to be?”

“I . . .”

“It’s complicated?”

“Definitely.”

“He likes you,” she says.

“We’ve known each other a long time, but it’s never been like that between us.”

She looks skeptical. “You don’t have to tell me.”

“No, it’s fine. Liam works as a private investigator, and he rescued me from a bad family situation when I was eighteen and helped me set up my new life.”

“That’s cool.”

I laugh. “Yeah, Liam is pretty cool.”

There’s a rustling up ahead. An Amish family emerges on the path—father, mother, and a passel of children. The buggy in the parking lot suddenly makes sense.

We pass them and nod politely. It’s difficult not to stare even though I’ve been on the receiving end of that kind of attention. Once they’re out of earshot, I ask Jessie, “Is that usual?”

“First time for me, though I’ve heard there’s some in the area. I’ll never understand it.”

“What’s that?”

“How someone could belong to a cult like that.”

“They’re not a cult. They’re a sect.”

“Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.”

“No, I—” I cut myself off. I don’t tell people about the Land of Todd. It tends to elicit odd reactions. “I’m a journalist and I wrote a long piece about cults. There are important distinctions.”

I’d investigated several small cults, but it was the segment on the LOT that went viral. “Williams has a way of climbing inside the mind of a charismatic leader and exposing them for what they are—sociopathic, narcissistic, opportunistic.” That was in the New York Times after my article got turned into a six-episode podcast that I narrated. I never told anyone, not even my editor, how I got that insight, and The Twists and Liam kept my secret.

“If you say so,” Jessie says.

We reach the first set of stairs. They’re steep, metal, and look like they’ve been here longer than I’ve been alive. The roar of the falls is deafening.

“You up to this?” she asks, pointing down.

“Sure.”

I take a first tentative step. I’m not usually afraid of heights, but this is not the sort of height you normally encounter. My heart speeds up and my palms feel slick against the cool railing. When we get to the bottom, we stand on the glass-bottomed platform and watch the water rush over the side of the cliff. I feel dizzy and disoriented. Jessie stands next to me.

“That’s amazing,” I say.

“I couldn’t believe it the first time I came in here.”

“You’d never know it was here from the road.”

“I thought that too.”

She walks closer to the railing overlooking the water. I take a step closer, pressing my body up against the railing. I feel shaky, and there are unstable thoughts in my mind. “Let’s go back up.”

I turn and start up the stairs in front of her. Two steps in, she stumbles into me, almost knocking me off my feet. I reach out and grab the stairs, the sharp metal cutting at my fingers. She puts a firm hand on my back as a family appears at the top of the stairs.