I could hear the panic in his breathing, imagined him pushing himself to standing. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
My eyes roamed the woods, looking for the source. I lowered my voice. “I don’t know. I feel like someone’s here.”
I heard him curse under his breath. “I’m coming. Stay on the phone with me. Make it known that you’re on the phone. Be loud, Nic. And walk straight for home.”
It would take him twenty minutes to get here if he were home. Longer if he were on site somewhere.
I had no idea what to talk about and ended up sharing the most idiotic thing I could imagine: “I’m thinking about eloping.” Something totally vacant. “I can’t stand the idea of a big wedding. All these people I don’t know—Everett’s family knows everyone. There will probably be two hundred people from his side and five from mine. And Dad . . . what if that day he doesn’t know who I am? What if he won’t walk me down the aisle? Or maybe we should have a destination wedding, just family. Somewhere warm.”
“Where are you?” he asked.
“Yeah. I’m on the trail, there’s this cool oak tree, you remember it?” I picked up a sharp rock off the path, spun in a quick circle. Heard a noise to my left. A crackling of leaves. I kept moving, with more purpose now.
“I hear you,” he said.
“If Everett’s family insists on a wedding, I guess I’d have Olivia—she works with Everett—and Laura, of course, if she wants. And probably Arden from college.” I couldn’t think of any other names. “Keep it small, you know? Meaningful.”
“Keep talking,” Daniel said. “I’m on Fulton Road.”
I kept moving, kept talking, and had no idea whether someone was still here, still following.
Daniel and I didn’t talk about personal stuff, about anything that wasn’t an essential conversation, anymore. If he called, it was for a reason. If I called, it was to give him a new address, to tell him my Christmas plans, to let him know I got engaged.
“I once went to this wedding when I was interning for an ex-student’s parents. It was so weird. The dad was getting remarried, and the son asked me to come. It was probably totally inappropriate, now that I think of it, an eighteen-year-old bringing a twenty-three-year-old teacher as a date, but I didn’t think of it like that at the time. It was in the summer, right after he graduated, and it wasn’t like a date—it was just like he got me on the invite list. I thought he was trying to tell me something. Anyway, the wedding was ridiculous. Those people were beyond rich, Daniel. Like, rich is an understatement. A wedding that could pay for college, that could feed a small country. I don’t know why he brought me. I don’t know what he wanted me to see. I don’t know where he is now.”
“Cranson Lane, now. Do you see anyone?”
I spun around again but couldn’t get a sense where the feeling was coming from. “No. I feel like I should look him up. And ask him. I had this other kid, later, who told me I just had to see his football game. I was there anyway—we have to work a certain number of games each semester. But he didn’t care about me seeing him play, really. He was showing me something. His father laying in to him after the game. The pressure. He didn’t want to say it, right? Sometimes it’s easier to show.”
“Where are you?”
I checked over my shoulder, but my vision was going a little hazy from the adrenaline, or maybe the panic. “Oh, I’m almost home now. I need to call that kid. Shane something. God, I can’t even remember his last name. I’ve been to his father’s wedding, and I can’t remember his name? They all start blending together. There are just too many of them. Hey, I can see our house.”
“Nic. Get in the house and lock the doors.”
I did. I dropped the rock and ran, the phone cutting through the air with each pump of my arms. I ran the remaining distance between the woods and the house, slamming the door behind me and turning the lock, like Daniel had said.
“I’m inside,” I said, out of breath, walking to the kitchen window, staring into the woods. I couldn’t see anything. No sign of life.
“You’re okay?”
“I’m inside,” I repeated, my hand over my heart. Slow down.
“Stay in the house,” he said. “I’m here.”
His blue SUV pulled all the way to the garage, and I watched him exit the driver’s side, but he didn’t walk toward the house. He went straight for the woods.
I ran out front again. “Daniel! What the hell are you doing?”
“Stay inside, Nic.” He started jogging away from me.
Like hell. I wasn’t about to stay in the house while he went into the woods I’d just run out of in a panic. I walked back to the edge of the woods and stood outside the tree line, trying to keep my breathing quiet and measured. I watched him disappear in fragments—a sliver of him sliding behind that tree, an arm lost to a branch, his footsteps to the wind. I kept my eyes focused on the spot where he’d disappeared, willing him to return.
I waited, my breathing growing louder, my pulse gaining speed, and jumped at the phone ringing in my hand. Everett. I hit the silence button and immediately heard footsteps coming closer. “Daniel?” I whispered, craning my neck to get a better view. And then louder: “Daniel?”
I saw a shock of blond hair first, then a shoulder. Half a face, his long, lanky legs. He came out shaking his head, tucking something in the back of his pants.
“Didn’t see anyone,” he said.
“Is that a gun?”
He didn’t answer. Kept moving toward the house, expecting me to keep up. “Are you sure you heard someone?” he asked.
“Why the hell do you have a gun?”
“Because we live in the middle of nowhere and it takes the cops too long to get to the house. Everyone has a gun.”
“No, not everyone. That can’t be safe, just walking around with it tucked inside your pants.”
He held the door for me, waited until we were inside, and took a deep breath. “Nic, are you sure? Tell me exactly what you heard.”
I couldn’t meet his eyes. “I was at the clearing, the one where we used to make forts, and I thought I heard footsteps.” I strained to hear in my memory, but I felt like I was forcing it, making the leaves crunch, turning up the volume. “I thought I smelled someone smoking. But I’m not sure.”
Maybe someone was watching me, but maybe there wasn’t. Like Daniel said, there’s a monster out there. It’s not too much of a stretch when you haven’t been sleeping enough, when you’ve just been threatened, when the people you love have disappeared. It’s not too hard to believe in monsters here.
“Maybe you should’ve figured that out before you called, scaring the shit out of me.”
I glared at him. “I was scared.”
He did that deep-breathing technique, trying not to explode at me. I felt my shoulders tightening, like his did when he was tense. “Your eyes are all bloodshot. Have you been sleeping?” he asked. I could tell he didn’t quite trust me. As the time grew between then and now, I didn’t quite trust myself, either.
“A little . . . I can’t, really,” I said. “I can’t sleep here—”
“I told you to come stay with us, Nic. Come stay with us.”
I started to laugh. “Because that would solve everything, right? When did you get the gun, Daniel?”
He picked at the pile of receipts on the table, narrowing his eyes, putting them back where they’d been. “Laura told me what happened at the shower. She feels terrible. Let her take care of you. She’s driving me crazy.”
“And how would you explain that? Why I suddenly want to stay?”
“Air-conditioning,” he said, the side of his mouth quirking up for a second.
“I can’t, Daniel. Besides, and no offense, but Laura is really nosy.”
He shook his head but didn’t argue. “Listen, I have to be on-site tomorrow, but I’ll swing by in the morning to check on you. If you can’t reach me, you know you can call Laura. She can handle it.”
“Right.”
“You don’t give her enough credit, Nic.”