Page 39 of Glimmer in the Darkness

“Besides you?”

He glanced back to see she’d stopped.

“I’m just saying—”

“I’m back because he’s back.”

They walked a minute or two in silence.

“Let’s say he moved somewhere and has been doing this for years,” she said. “What if the authorities were closing in on him, so he came back?”

“Police have been in contact with the FBI, who tracks these things. They say there aren’t any similar crimes in the US. So I don’t think that’s it.”

“Could have been a tourist,” she suggested.

“In January?”

“There’re winterized places,” she said. “And now it’s summer.” They walked a few minutes in silence. Long enough that, when she spoke a few minutes later, he was surprised to find she’d fallen behind.

“You remember how we used to contact each other?” she asked.

She was studying a tree trunk. There was a knothole in the side. She stuck her finger in it.

“Careful. You never know what’s made its home in there.”

She smiled at him. “No notes.”

He trudged ahead.

“You know what I’m talking about, right?”

How could he not? Cassidy hadn’t had a cell phone, probably the only kid at their high school who didn’t. Her foster parents were strict and didn’t like her getting phone calls from boys. So, James used to leave her notes in a hole in a tree on the grounds of their high school, which was walking distance from where she lived. On those notes, he wrote times he could get away to meet. Invitations for dates. Eventually, love notes.

Stupid, teenage stuff.

She said, “Remember the time—”

“This isn’t a stroll down memory lane.”

“I know. I just thought…” But her words trailed. He shouldn’t have been short with her, but he couldn’t let himself recall how they used to be. How much he used to care for her.

Fortunately, the way got steeper, and Cassidy quit trying to make conversation, just followed a few feet back.

She kept up, her heaving breaths the only indication that she was having any trouble.

And then, a thump and gasp.

He turned just as Cassidy rolled ten, twenty feet down. She crashed into the trunk of an old oak.

He scrambled to her. “You okay? Cassy?”

She sat up slowly and propped her backpack against the tree. “Just like Disneyland.”

He crouched beside her and studied her legs, her arms, her face. Saw no blood, no protruding bones. “What hurts?”

She touched the hip that had hit the tree. “Nothing serious. I’ll have a few nasty bruises.”

“Did you hit your head? Can you move everything?”