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Rhiannon clenches her jaw. “There are so many kids here. We don’t want anyone to get out and wander around the open desert.”
Lenna feels faint. “Is this really the only option?”
“Please, please trust me,” Rhiannon begs. “I will help you.”
There are new crinkles around Rhiannon’s eyes. Her cheeks are flushed, which Lenna remembers used to happen when Rhiannon became overwrought. On one hand, Rhiannon is the last person she wants help from. On the other hand, Rhiannon is the person Lenna knows best at Halcyon. Lenna wants to break into sobs. Daniel was right about Rhiannon. She never should have come.
“What am I supposed to do until you sort this out?” she asks, resigned.
“Stay in your room. The doors have locks, if you really want. We’ll leave tonight, I promise. Sarah won’t even know you’re here.” She looks uncomfortable. “You can trust me.”
Lenna sits down on the bed and puts her head in her hands. There is definitely something Rhiannon isn’t telling her.
But Rhiannon also looks caught unaware—especially about Lenna getting her fired. Is it possible Gillian never forwarded her that email? Maybe she just said it to rile Lenna up. And also, if Rhiannon intends to hurt her, Lenna realizes with sickening clarity, she would have maybe done so already.
“Okay,” Lenna says reluctantly. “Fine. I’ll wait.”
And then she peers out the window. The yard is empty save for the kids on the playground. But in the distance, by the rocks, for abrief second, she thinks she sees multiple figures, a whole bunch of shining wild-animal eyes watching from behind a tree.
But then, in a blink, she sees nothing. Whatever it is has gone.
Rhiannon promises that she’ll tell Marjorie and the others that Lenna isn’t feeling well and is going to rest all afternoon. Once her door is closed, Lenna picks up a pillow and presses it into her face, letting out a long, muffled scream.
Once that is over, she reaches for her phone and the charger. She plugs the phone in, and a wave of relief washes over her. She did what she came to do. She told Rhiannon the truth.
And now she can’t wait to get out of here.
She sends Daniel a quick text:Coming home.He writes back immediately:Thank God. When?
Soon. Hopefully tomorrow morning.
Late afternoon, she dozes alongside the baby. Her sleep is restless.
Gillian’s face shimmers in her mind. That photo with Sadie on Gillian’s dashboard is etched in her brain. She thinks, too, of the top of Sadie’s head as she left Lenna’s apartment building once Gillian was missing. Why had she come, and why didn’t she come back, especially after she’d been brought in as a person of interest? Why had she never named Lenna as someone the police should look into?
The plan is that they’ll leave around elevenp.m.—it’s a good time because most of the residents will be asleep. Rhiannon can only drive Lenna to the turnoff, no farther. A cab will be waiting to take Lenna to the nearest motel. Rhiannon will make the arrangements.
“Do you still have an ATM card?” Rhiannon asks through the crack in Lenna’s door when she brings her dinner. “I’ll book your room. I know of a good place.”
“What if a man answers?” Lenna challenges.
Rhiannon frowns, caught off guard. “I think we can bend the rules. Anyway, I’ll wait for you outside, next to the Suburban. Though…I really don’t think you should leave.” Her eyes search Lenna’s. “Why won’t you tell me what’s going on?”
Lenna just shakes her head.
Eventually, Rhiannon leaves. It’s amazing that Lenna is able to fall asleep, but she places Jacob in his little crib for what she hopes is the last time, shuts her eyes, and sinks into restless dreams. One of them is about the morning she found out Rhiannon blocked her texts; in it, she tries again and again to retrieve them on her phone, but the screen keeps frosting over, obscuring the letters. In another dream, she wakes on a cold canyon bench to see Gillian rising from the rocky depths like a sea monster. In a third dream, Jacob is crying. She rises to retrieve him from the crib only to see an enormous snake at the corner of the mattress, creeping toward Jacob’s bare foot. She shrieks and grabs for him, but someone yanks her from behind and spins her around. It’s Daniel. How didheget here? “We need to help the baby,” Lenna protests, pointing toward the crib. But Daniel shakes his head. “It’s too late. What’s done is done. You should never have come. You should have seen the writing on the wall.”
Except in her muddled brain, he doesn’t saywriting on the wall. He says the writing on theblog.
This jars her awake. She’s sweating so profusely that the pillow is soaked through. She leaps to check the crib; there are no snakes. The sheets are white and smooth, perfect. But there’s a rattling sound somewhere. Lenna whirls around. It’s the doorknob. It’s…twisting.Someone is trying to open it.
Lenna’s hand flies to her mouth. The rattling stops. She waits. Her ears ring. The doorknob doesn’t move. In the dark, she reaches for her phone on the bedside table, wanting to call someone. Her fingers automatically dial Daniel’s number, but then she doesn’t go through with it. Even if she confessed she was scared, even if she confessed she and her baby were in danger, he’d want answers. And what can she tell him?
A few minutes before the designated meeting time, she quietly straps the baby to her chest, hefts her luggage in both arms, and heads down to the garage to wait for Rhiannon. The door creaks loudly, and she freezes, wincing, certain someone has heard.
Silence. She presses on.
The night is stippled with stars. Crickets chirp madly. Lenna has never been somewhere so remote. The air is unbelievably still. The mountains are out there, but because of the darkness, she can’t see them. She thinks about all the other things she can’t see. At everycrack, every tinywhoosh,she stiffens, certain it’s something that might bite her—or worse.
