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“Really?” I imagined the woman was telling me about a new species of drug-resistantPseudomonasshe’d discovered. “Tell me more.”
“Interested in travel, are you? Let me start at the beginning. It was ’93, and I planned a trip to the Baltic countries with a very old friend. Actually, she was my fourth cousin on my mother’s side, but that’s such a distant connection that I never introduce her as family.”
My eyes continued to dart around in search of Jenna while my dinner companion told me about her decades-ago trip. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t stay mentally engaged with the story long enough to catch the part where she received the scarf, but she did regain my attention when she broke off from her story.
“Oh! Don’t do that!”
I jolted, worried my preoccupation with looking for Jenna had caused offense, then realized she was talking to the young couple sitting opposite us. They were attempting to burn the white rose centerpieces in the flames of the little tea lights sprinkled across the table.
The woman was still lecturing them about the fire hazard when the man I thought was the groom stood. “Thank you all for coming. I’m going to let my beautiful bride say a few words to you before we start the dancing.”
The bride shed the groom’s coat and revealed an elaborate white gown.
I frowned. I didn’t think it was customary to wear one’s wedding dress to the rehearsal dinner. And surely Jenna wouldn’t miss her sister’s speech?
“It means so much to us that you came to celebrate our special day. You know, I always felt lonely growing up an only child...”
Jenna’ssistercouldn’t be an only child. I was at a wedding reception for another couple. I grimaced in frustration with the young man who’d given me the wrong location and for myself for not confirming I was at the right place. I had no idea how to find Jenna now. I might not even be able to find my way off the mountain.
“Excuse me,” I whispered, then slipped away. As I left, I spied the waitress carrying a sizzling steak toward my table. My empty stomach gave a wistful gurgle.
In case I could still catch Jenna, I scrolled back through the email she’d sent and saw the information I needed buried in a paragraph I hadn’t bothered to read after scanning for the rehearsal address. The dinner was at Three Bears Barbeque in Asheville, not fifteen minutes from the chalet. I could be there by nine fifteen.
Hoping she’d stick around for a little bit after the end of the dinner, I headed back down the mountain. My mapping app took me on an entirely new route, even more treacherous than the first had been. It would all be worth it, though, if I could just see Jenna tonight.
“Turn left in half a mile,” the map announced as I carefully navigated a hairpin turn. “You are on the fastest route.”
I glanced at my phone to get a street name or landmark for the turn, but there was none listed.
“Recalculating,” the map announced. The arrow representing my car had disappeared from the screen, GPS signal lost.
I watched my odometer for half a mile then turned left down a country road with a string of numbers instead of a name, still no cell signal to confirm I’d found the right road.
By the time I’d gone fifteen minutes without any sign humans existed other than the pavement beneath me, I knew I was lost and started to look for a place to turn around
Fifteen more minutes of nothing but rapidly darkening woods on either side, and I got the eerie feeling I was the last living person on the planet. There were no streetlights to illuminate the road, and it was the kind of dark that drew would-be astronomers from the city.
At least Mom, Nicole and Grandma knew I was headed for the North Carolina mountains and could send a search and rescue team if they didn’t hear from me. And thank goodness they expected an update on the Jenna situation, or they might not have gotten worried at my silence until I’d grown a beard worthy of a Bigfoot wandering around in the mountains. Surviving off mushrooms covered in pathogenic fungi. Drinking water laced withGiardiaandCryptosporidium.
I shuddered violently and continued scanning the landscape for a good place to turn around, but the road was narrow, and the trees pushed right up to the edges, just like they had been for a few miles already. Hoping I could find a better spot, I decided to take my chances turning down another road.
Instead, the lane was even tighter and more overgrown. I winced at the branches scraping against my car.
A tree appeared in the middle of the road and I slammed on my brakes. Either I’d finally entered another dimension, or I’d left the road behind entirely.
I carefully backed up the car, trying to ignore the sound of things snapping under my tires, reminding myself this was all for Jenna. I was about to turn back to the road I’d been on—at least I hoped I was—when a pair of headlights came closer to me and then stopped.
I rolled down my window in relief. Hopefully this person could help me get back to Asheville.
A wiry man in a baseball cap rolled down the window of a giant truck. “What do you think you’re doing on my land?”
“I’m so sorry,” I apologized quickly. “I got lost. Can you tell me—”
“I don’t hold with trespassers. You got ten seconds to get out of here.” The barrel of a rifle slid into view.
Adrenaline flooded my system. Without another thought, I hit my gas pedal to the floor and peeled out onto the road as one, then two, shots fired in the distance.
I drove like I was auditioning as a stuntman in a spy movie, jerking around turns left and left again, slamming the brakes to drift across the bends until I made it to the well-lit four lane highway into town. I’d had no reason to test the max speed of my Camry before then, but I hit one thirty-five before I convinced myself the man wasn’t following me so he could execute me for trespassing.
