One Step Too Far (Frankie Elkin #2)(27)

It helps me relate to the families I assist. Enables me to understand why Martin is driving us now, step after brutal step, deeper into the mountains.

Until we finally arrive at this place, Devil’s Canyon, where we stagger to a halt, half of our group still vertical, the other half of us dropping like rocks.

“This is it,” Nemeth declares, gesturing to a flat clearing next to a vast blue lake. “Home sweet home for the next six days. Everyone, welcome to our campsite.”

I think of my father and the backyard and the camping that never was, and I do my best to hide the exhausted tears running down my cheeks as I finally wrest the pack off my shoulders. I’m not the only one struggling; Neil, Scott, and Miggy appear equally wrung out.

“You are a goddamn asshole,” Miggy bursts out suddenly. He points a finger straight at Martin. “Haven’t you ruined our lives enough by now? We loved Tim, too, you know. Trying to kill us year after year doesn’t change a goddamn thing.”

He throws his pack on the ground and stomps off into a patch of trees.

Which is how I officially know this isn’t the end of our ordeal, but just the beginning.





CHAPTER 11





Devil’s Canyon appears to be a broad, flat expanse that spreads out . . . forever. The lake before us is framed by a staggering gray-brown cliff face and more red-and-green-streaked mountains in the distance. Up close are patches of dark woods interspersed with meadows of sun-dried grass and plains of dusty earth.

I understand at least part of Miguel’s temper tantrum. An entire day of grueling hiking later, my feet roar, my shoulders have knotted into a solid bar, and I’m not sure where the pain ends and I begin. Hard dirt and an ice-cold lake? I want a soft bed and bubble bath. Even Daisy has plopped down with an exhausted sigh. I wonder how much Tim’s former college friends still hike in their real lives, or if this is the yearly torture test, as Miggy claims.

I study Martin’s face for his reaction to the outburst, but his expression remains inscrutable as he begins unloading his pack.

Nemeth starts pointing and commanding. Fire here, latrine there. First clump of tents here, second there, third over here. As the two females, Luciana and I are assigned our own little corner of dirt. The bachelor buddies form the next grouping of three, leaving our fearless leaders as the final trio.

I don’t know what to do next. I have no idea how to set up a tent, establish a campsite. I never managed to spend a single night in my own backyard, so how the hell am I supposed to fake my way through this? Everyone seems to be unloading gear, so I follow their lead. Luciana already has her shelter spread out on the ground. Watching her, I’m filled with the age-old terror of making a mistake, looking foolish. How is it we all leave high school, but high school never leaves us?

Bob appears by my side. For a big guy, he moves with surprising stealth. He glances from my tent, still in its drawstring bag, to me.

“If you could start gathering wood for the fire, I can set up your tent,” he says.

I’ve never been so grateful.

I walk circles around the emerging campsite, picking up kindling, then bigger sticks, then just random dried twigs, because at this stage of the game, to stop moving is to collapse, and I can’t afford to drop dead. I spiral out farther, weaving through the closest screen of pines before eventually stumbling across Miggy. He’s sitting at the edge of the massive lake, tucked behind wavy grasses and looking at nothing in particular.

I glance back at the campsite, a distant whir of activity I can barely make out through the trees. Then I set down my armful of dry twigs and take a seat next to Miguel.

I don’t speak. In this day and age, we all talk too much and hear too little. Listening has become a forgotten art that the world is sorely missing.

“I’m sorry,” Miggy says shortly. He picks up a rock. Throws it at the lake. It lands with a small plop.

“How are you feeling?” I ask him.

“Terrible. Like a guy who works a real job day after day, because that’s the responsible thing to do, then once a year gets thrown back into the mountains because my best friend who disappeared five years ago happened to love camping, and his father has hated us ever since.”

“You don’t hike on your own?”

“What’s your name again? Frankie?”

“Frankie.”

“Take it from me, Frankie, I would never step foot on a trail again if I had my choice. And Josh, Neil, Scotty—they agree with me. We lost enough that night. Martin’s yearly death marches don’t make anything better. They just torture us all over again.”

“Is that why Josh drinks so much?”

“Maybe. You’d have to ask him.”

“Are you four still in touch?”

Miggy picks up another pebble. He slices it through the air, watches it skip three times across the water. “They were my brothers,” he states quietly. “I thought nothing would break us.”

I understand what he’s saying. Or rather, not saying. That shared trauma can bond, but more often than not, it severs. The guilt. The pain. The need to move forward, the agony of letting go. Five guys went into the woods. One has never been seen again. And the other four . . . they are not who they used to be either. Life is like that.

“Do you still live relatively close?”