Chapter Fifteen
Tuesday morning dawned misty and warm. There were geese on Charles’s back lawn, a whole flock of them. He walked around every room of the house, looking at their furniture. He gazed across the street at the silent, identical houses. He noted the property line between his house and his neighbor’s, so clearly defined by a crisp line of cut grass on their side, a scruffy tuft of longer grass on his. Then he got into his car.
His heart beat uncomfortably in his throat the whole drive down the turnpike. The seat belt cut into his chest. When he got to the exit, he nearly drove into a lane of oncoming traffic.
He arrived at the Back to the Land site too early, so he pulled into a gas station to kill some time. He went in, bought a cup of coffee, and used the bathroom, shaking out the nerves in his hands. He walked outside again and leaned against his car’s hood, looking around. It was just farmland out here. The day was still, sober—a sickly gray. A crow cawed from a tree; a piece of loose metal fence flapped. Across the street was another gas station, much older, all the pumps vacant. A string of frayed, faded flags hung from the eaves of the little mini-mart, probably once announcing a grand opening. After a few moments of staring, Charles’s body felt shaky. It was the coffee, probably the wrong thing for him right now. He swirled it in the cup, feeling the liquid slosh back and forth against the sides, and then threw it into a trash can.
The turn to Back to the Land was a pitted gravel road. After about a mile, he came upon a log cabin. It was the visitor’s lodge—he knew from all the pamphlets he’d looked through. Residents lived much farther inside the woods, secluded from the highway.
His was the only car in the lot, but there was a light on inside the cabin. Charles wondered how the person inside had gotten here. Had he or she walked? Bronwyn was supposed to meet him here, too; would she also walk? He gazed into the thick woods. The ground looked soggy and half frozen. The only things he could see in the distance were more trees.
The little beep of his car alarm activating was jarring in the stillness. He crunched up the crude gravel path and knocked on the door. “It’s open,” a woman called. Charles’s heart thudded. When he opened the door, he saw a large, older woman at a desk, staring at a computer screen. A phone sat next to her, a fax machine next to that. A fluorescent light shone above her head. Off in the cabin’s corner was a bathroom, the door propped slightly open.
Charles breathed out. It was a relief to see technology, as if he’d been away from it for years.
The woman looked up at him. She had short gray hair, down-slanted gray eyes, and a straight mouth. “Hi?”
“I’m from Fischer Editorial,” Charles said. “We’re producing your promotional materials. I’m supposed to meet someone here for an interview. Bronwyn … Pembroke. But I’m early.”
The woman plucked a Kleenex from a box on the desk and shook her head. “You didn’t get her message?”
“Message?”
“She said she was going to call. She wanted to meet you at nine, not ten. Really killed her, having to come down here and use the phone. But it was important she keep her doctor’s appointment today. He’s making a house call, a last-minute thing.”
Charles blinked. He hadn’t checked his office voice mail before he left last night; she must have left a message there. Only, if she had, she would have heard his name on his outgoing voice mail message. This is Charles Bates-McAllister; I’m not available, et cetera. She might not have left a message at all.
“She was here at nine,” the woman went on, turning back to her work. “But she only left a few minutes ago. You might still be able to catch her.”
Charles’s heart lurched again. So she had come. “Which way did she go?”
The woman pointed out the window. “Through those trees there. You’ll probably see her. She’s not walking too quickly these days, because of how far along she is.”
Charles bolted out the door and into the woods, slogging through the soft, murky earth. Far off in the distance, he smelled wood smoke. And then he heard a twig snap. A footstep. He stopped and quieted his breathing. There it was again, ahead of him. He ran a few steps and saw a figure walking quickly down a ravine.
She had dark hair and that same sharp profile. She wore a simple gray dress, a black coat, and black loafers. And she was hugely pregnant. He sucked in his breath, stunned.