And Now She's Gone(70)

And now the laparoscopic wound closest to her belly button felt like a fish tugging on a baited line—the Percocet was wearing off. She thought of waking Nick so that she could pop a pill and take a quick nap. And that need—to take something to dull the pain—was slinking back into her life. It was smiling at her, showing its teeth and tail, both edged with the softest, gunpowder-colored razor blades. She had ibuprofen and Tylenol with codeine in her bag. But nothing dulled pain, real or imagined, like Percocet. Full of good intentions with give-no-fucks results. She was on the clock, though, and she needed to care, and the pain wasn’t even pain yet. Just a fish tugging on a line.

And she battled like this—there’s pain, no pain, there’s pain, no—until she glimpsed frost on the evergreens. Soon, those branches came alive with redheaded birds and chubby squirrels. God gave her the colors of the forest to wonder at from her foxhole, and sunlight beat against the windshield as it beamed purple-gold across the forest.





38


It was 6:20 in the morning when Bobby shuffled out of the house. Now wearing red jeans, a white sweatshirt, and a red L.A. Clippers baseball cap, he tromped over to the black truck with its gigantic tires, metal bar, and loud engine that went bup-bup-bup.

Just like Mrs. Tompkins had described.

This was the truck!

Gray elbowed her sleeping beauty. “He’s leaving.”

Nick sat up like a spark, and his eyes immediately found their target.

The brake lights on the truck brightened and that engine growled as the truck backed out of the driveway and then zoomed down the road.

Gray and Nick hopped out of the Yukon and rushed to the bathroom window she’d cracked. Nick easily lifted the sash, and she climbed through with the grace of a penguin on land. She landed on the wet sink top and grimaced at the slick wetness on her palms before knocking over a can of shave cream.

Nick shushed her, then slipped through the same window as gracefully as every graceful creature, land and sea.

She pointed to the hamper, and then to the box of hair dye on the sink counter.

Nick lifted the hamper lid, frowned, then motioned that they move on.

Golden light danced around the living room, and more dignified viewing now played on the television—an infomercial for a handheld pet hair vacuum. The bedroom was still dark, and that funk still hung in the air, and the comforter and sheets looked as rumpled as they had before.

Gray turned on her phone’s flashlight and shined it around the room. The pink and black Nike bag no longer sat in the corner. It was gone.

Nick pulled open the dresser drawers.

Empty.

Gray searched the closet and found a box marked “Ornaments.” She opened the flaps and found Christmas bulbs the colors of hard candy. She pawed through the bulbs until she reached the bottom.

A thick manila envelope.

“Found something,” she whispered.

Tires crunched the gravel driveway.

Gray and Nick stopped moving.

Bobby?

Nick reached to his waistband and kept his fingers close to the Beretta.

Those tires kept crunching gravel, and then those tires skipped and screeched against the asphalt and that car’s engine rumbled and the sound grew fainter … fainter …

Not Bobby.

Gray pulled out the manila envelope from the ornaments box.

Nick stood guard at the door. “Hurry up, yeah?”

Gray pulled out a Social Security card for Elyse Lorraine Miller. A birth certificate. A diploma from the public College of Southern Nevada, conferred to Elyse Lorraine Miller. College transcripts—from English Composition to Accounting Practices. As and Bs and a C in Statistics. The final document was a résumé—Elyse had worked at the U.S. Postal Service for five years. Nothing after that.

“Maybe she married rich and stopped working,” Nick said.

“Or maybe she got married and wasn’t allowed to work,” Gray countered.

“I knew a woman in that situation. That it?”

Gray peered into the envelope. “Yep.” Then she took pictures of each document.

Tires crunched against the gravel again.

Gray and Nick froze again.

This time the tires didn’t crunch back to the road. This time the engine idled, and that idle sounded familiar. Bup-bup-bup-bup-bup.

Gray and Nick gawked at each other.

She shoved the papers back into the envelope and the envelope back into the box. After setting the box back into the closet, she followed Nick to the bathroom. She repeated her penguin-on-land routine and clambered out the window just as Bobby opened the front door. She flung herself to the thick carpet of cedar needles, ignoring the sting from landing on pinecones.

Nick slipped through the window and quietly brought down the sash. “You okay?”

She gave a thumbs-up.

They took the long way back to the Yukon and kept their eyes on the ground, in search of newly dug piles of dirt and needles. They hiked through swarms of early morning gnats and towering pines, passing the backyards of other cabins, now alive with the aromas of bacon, toast, and laundry soap. Nick took Gray’s hand and they walked longer than they needed, and their pulses matched, if only for two beats or three. Normal. Alone. Adam and Eve on the sixth day.

At a pine tree, Nick stopped in his step.

Gray looked back at him.

They inched toward each other until they stood together with her head at his chin. Being this close to him and being this high up in the mountains made her dizzy.