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Then an incoming message pops up, again from West.
West: Violet. Answer the phone.
West: Don’t do it.
Part of me wants to ask him what he means by that last text. But I ignore it and send the photo to myself. At least I’ll have it to look back on when I inevitably get lonely. Once the remnants of last night are gone and all I have are memories. I toss Cody’s phone on the driver’s seat of his truck and lock the doors before hiding the key inside a pair of workbooks in the bed.
I slide into my car and roll down the window in case Blue is going to hitch another ride. Pulling my own phone out and plugging in the charger, I consider stopping at Rosie’s house. She’ll just try to stop me, though, and I can’t stay here. I can’t handle the possibilities if I do. This town is suffocating me and running is the only option. I know I won’t regret finally getting away from here.
A text lights up my screen.
West: If you run, we’ll find you.
Blue flies into the car just as I put it in gear. We’ll see about that, West.
PartTwo
THE RECKONING
ChapterTwenty
FOUR YEARS LATER
Lines of binary code scroll past my screen as I tackle a network issue for my clients. I lean back in my chair and reach for my coffee just as Cody walks into our rental. We graduated from college two months ago and came back to Roaring Forks to regroup and figure out what we want to do from here.
Our house is just big enough for the three of us to share. A nice little craftsman style bungalow with three bedrooms and two bathrooms. Dark wood, and deep blues and greens fill the space with a kind of masculine energy. Especially with all the electronics strewn about from gaming systems to computers.
“Did you see the text from Blake?” he asks as he leans against the counter.
“No.” I gesture at the screen with my mug after taking a sip. “I’ve been working on this all morning. What’s up?”
“He wants us to meet him at Tanner’s. Said he overheard something at the bank today about Vi.”
My eyes meet his, taking in the way the gold swirls in an excited gleam. It’s hard to say what type of excitement it is. We all have such mixed, complicated feelings about her and what she did. How she ran from us, fromme, again.
We woke up in that hunting cabin expecting to see her, to start our summer together, and she was gone. Ran off in the early morning with Cody’s keys and phone, but not before taking a photo of the three of us, naked and snuggled up like she’d never been in the middle of us.
She didn’t send the photo to anyone but herself, but it ended up in Cody’s family’s cloud. His dad bought him out of his inheritance on their family ranch and hasn’t had contact with him since. So it wouldn’t surprise me if he was already planning retribution. I know I am, and I didn’t lose anything beyond my own dignity.
“Does he know where she is?” I ask.
He shrugs. “I don’t know, but it’s almost lunch time, so why don’t we go find out.”
I pause what I’m doing and stand up, dumping my coffee in the sink and rinsing the splatters away. Cody tosses my hat to me and I slide it on as we walk out to his truck. The house we rented after graduation is on the outskirts of town and on the opposite side of the valley from Cody’s family ranch. We’ve seen various members of his family out and about over the years, but they never acknowledge him. It never fails to piss me off and I know that Blake feels the same.
Tanner’s is a local bar and grill. A little off the beaten path with greasy food and cheap beer. There’s no corny mountain decor to make the tourists feel authentic, just weathered ski posters and some local sports memorabilia.
Blake’s shiny black Land Rover is sitting in the parking lot when we arrive. We find him at a booth in the back corner, looking out of place in his fancy suit and tie, a pitcher of a local pale ale already sitting beside him. I slide in the booth across from him and Cody slides in beside me, pouring two beers for us.
“I know where she is.” Blake doesn’t even wait for us to take a drink before laying the reason for this impromptu lunch out on the table.
A heavy pause settles over the table as we each take in those words. We’ve tried to find her for so long that now the idea that it’s possibly happening means there are feelings and thoughts to figure out. From the moment we burst into her uncle’s trailer after she ran off on the mountain, only to find her meager belongings gone, to just a week ago, we’ve never stopped. I’ve probably broken about twenty federal laws trying to figure out a cyber trail— anything that could lead us to her. It’s like she disappeared into thin air.
“How?” Cody asks.
“Where?” I throw my question out at the same time.
“Her uncle came in and asked to open a new account.” He rolls his eyes. Her junkie uncle is well known in town for being a pain in the ass to deal with. “He answered a phone call mid-way through the process and mentioned Violet by name, saying that he finally found her, in a place called George’s Landing.”
