Page 10 of Cut Off from Sky and Earth

Ten

Tristan

S omehow—don’t ask me how—I manage to steer the car down the steep hill with shaking hands.

But there’s no way I’m going to attempt that hairpin turn until I steady my nerves.

I coast to the edge of the road at the bottom of the hill and put the car in park.

Then I crack my knuckles, one by one, pulling on each joint until I hear that satisfying crunch of synovial fluid bubbles popping.

By the time I’m working on the ring finger of my right hand, my pulse has slowed some, and my breathing, while still fast, isn’t quite as shallow.

I run a hand through my hair and sort through my jumbled thoughts.

Crossing paths with Lexi Lincoln has thrown me for a loop.

I pound the steering wheel, pissed at myself for my carelessness.

Then Dr. Wilde’s gravelly voice sounds in my mind, asking me if it’s loving or even reasonable to fault myself for expecting Alex Liu, owner of a farm located outside a remote North Carolina mountain town, to be an Asian man and not a White woman from the same accursed coastal town as me.

Maine is a long way from North Carolina.

And the names Alex Liu and Lexi Lincoln conjure up two very different mental images.

“No, of course it’s not,” I say aloud trying to absolve myself.

There’s no way I could have known. Not really.

But that doesn’t change the fact that my grand plan to get Emily safely out of town may backfire spectacularly. Although I haven’t seen Lexi since I was nine years old, I placed her the second Em said she was from Windy Rock.

I spend a few minutes doing the deep box breathing Dr. Wilde is so fond of.

Breathe in for a four-count. Hold for a four-count.

Breathe out for a four-count. Hold for a four-count.

Repeat. The rhythmic pattern helps more than I expect it to.

I think I have a chance of making it down the mountain without running myself off the road.

Then a thought stops me cold. What if Lexi/Alex confides in Emily—or pumps her for information?

Now I have to worry about Emily having a panic attack, and the stabbing back home, and Alex telling Emily about the past. Two decades of lying, running, and hiding are about to catch up with me, possibly putting my wife in the crosshairs.

My pulse jumps again, and I work to regain control of my fear.

I just have to hope Alex gives Emily a wide berth.

After all, we’d expressly booked the cabin so Emily could work without interruption.

And given the way the woman bolted from the cottage, she’s as intent on running from the past as I am.

There’s no way she’ll drop by to regale her guest with the story of the time someone tried to kill her. Right?

I give the steering wheel another heavy thump for no reason other than it’s a satisfying way to take out my frustration. I have to get down this blasted mountain and back to Pennsylvania. I’ll deal with Alex when I return to pick Emily up. She has to be at least as rattled as I am—if not more.

I can almost convince myself that everything will work out.

I blow out a long breath and shift the car into gear to resume the painfully slow crawl off this mountain and back to civilization.

After I negotiate the heart-stopping turn, my shoulders drop down from my ears.

I didn’t plunge over the side. My constant checking of the rearview mirror has convinced me Alex isn’t pursuing me.

And the drive will be easier from here on out.

I’ll compartmentalize what happened in the cabin and forge ahead with my plan.

If there’s one thing I’m a pro at, it’s compartmentalizing.

I bark out a bitter laugh at the thought and switch on the radio.

I’m sure the stations here are going to be staticky and crappy, but I didn’t take the time this morning to download episodes of the true-crime and unsolved murder podcasts I subscribe to, so whatever FM station has the strongest signal will have to do until I get to the interstate.

As the road rolls out in front of me like a ribbon, my scattered thoughts ping-pong from the evidence waiting for me at the lab to Alex and back to the recent stabbing. My mouth tastes sour and my gut roils. Queasy and wired, there’s no way I’m going to make it to the highway without stopping.

I pull into the first tired-looking gas station I see to grab a can of cold brew and a protein bar.

The clerk, a bird-like woman in her sixties or seventies, rings up my purchases without tearing her eyes away from the weather map on the television hanging over the counter.

As I tap my card to pay, I follow her gaze.

She’s fixated on a graphic of what looks like a blob in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico.

“Bag?”

I turn away from the screen. “No, thanks.”

“They’re saying this could be a big one.”

“What?”

“The storm that’s forming.” She jerks a thumb at the TV. “Saying it could be as big as the Storm of the Century.”

I give her a blank look.

“The Superstorm of 1993.” She squints. “You old enough to remember that?”

“I was born in ’94,” I tell her.

She scoffs. “It was one helluva storm. It hit in the middle of March. Hurricanes and tornadoes and even a dusting of snow down in Florida. They got fifty inches of snow over in Mt. Mitchell. More than that in Tennessee. The whole East Coast got hit, all the way up to Canada.”

I don’t care about a storm that’s older than I am, not even a little. But she’s waiting for a response, so I say, “Wow.”

Satisfied, she hands me my receipt, and I jog back to the car.

I steer one-handed through the lot while I devour the bar and wash it down with the canned coffee.

The caffeine and dense bar won’t do my stomach any favors but it should help me focus.

I pull out and get stuck behind a logging truck chugging along at twenty miles an hour with its heavy load.

There’s not a passing zone on this stretch of road, and I’ve seen the aftermath of too many head-on collisions to do anything risky. I settle in for a slow ride.

My thoughts return to the latest stabbing—less than a mile from the house that I vowed Emily would feel safe in.

I need to camp out in the lab until I find the evidence that connects this new victim—a twenty-one-year-old ballet dancer named Giselle Ward—to Cassie’s murder.

They’re connected, there’s no doubt about that.

The only question is whether the evidence will show it.

What about the attack on Alex?

Should I try to get the cold case files from her attempted murder, too? I know without having to check any databases that the case is unsolved. I wonder for the first time how much evidence the Windy Rock police actually collected, and what state it will be in now—twenty-one years later.

The logging truck’s right turn signal blinks and I mutter a thank you to the Universe. The trucker comes to a complete stop before turning. I bite back an oath, but then he’s gone. I accelerate to seven miles over the speed limit when I see the sign for the interstate on-ramp.

As I merge onto I-81, the radio signal strengthens and a whiskey-voiced deejay repeats the gas station cashier’s warning about the storm system that’s forming:

Could be a big one, folks. We’ll know more in another day or two. Meteorologist Chaz Thunder will have more at the top of the hour.

I’m doubly glad now that Emily doesn’t have a cell signal or internet access. Storms freak her out—especially this time of year. Hearing that a major storm is forming while she’s alone in the cabin would send her into a tailspin.

I don’t know if she’s ever made the connection: The night she found Cassie’s body, there’d been violent storms—rain, not snow—but enough to flood the side roads and knock out a power station or two.

This line of thought leads me to wonder if Alex Liu has a PTSD response to storms. I know for a fact that a huge nor’easter hit the coast of Maine the night she was attacked.

A buzz in my brain tells me that I’ve just had an important insight. What, though? I concentrate harder, but no clarity comes. After a long moment, I shrug. Must’ve been the coffee, not an epiphany.