Page 105

ONE HUNDRED ONE

AROUND AN HOUR LATER, I take the exit off the interstate to Hemingway Grove with a flutter in my chest. I don’t know where Blair is or how much he knows, but I assume he’s here in town, probably with Silas, ready to pounce the moment they see me.

I pick up David’s phone and do a search for the Hemingway Grove Police Department. I click on the number and wait for an answer.

“I need to speak with Sergeant Kyle Janowski,” I say. “This is Marcie Bowers. It’s urgent.” I stay on the outer rim of the town, opting for a route that outsiders like Blair and Silas wouldn’t know.

“Please hold.”

My stomach knotted up, my back and shoulders aching, I feel like I’m tapping my last reserve of energy. But we’re almost at the end, for better or —

“Marcie?”

“Kyle.”

“Where are you? Are you okay?”

“I’m okay. Listen. Do something —”

“Don’t run, Marcie. Don’t run, okay? Whatever it is you did —”

“I’m not running, Kyle. Listen — do something for me. Check your email.”

“Check my … email?”

“Check your email and wait for my call.”

I punch out the phone. I’m almost there.

I drive down a two-lane road in my rental car, seeing in front of me a clearing, and then the Cotton River. The road slopes downward as I descend the bluff, as I pass a sign saying ROAD CLOSED AHEAD, though I keep driving. A second sign again telling me ROAD CLOSED, though this time it’s blocking the road. I navigate around that sign, tires crunching rocks on the shoulder, and continue driving until I reach another sign, the reason the road is shut down:

Bridge Closed

DO NOT ENTER

Anna’s Bridge, named for Anna Hemingway, the daughter of the fur trader who founded this town, still closed after a man suffering an epileptic seizure lost control of his vehicle and broke through the guardrail, plunging into the Cotton River.

Had this not happened, we would still be one happy, if blissfully ignorant, family. I would continue to live a lie that I didn’t know was a lie. However long I live, another fifty minutes or another fifty years, I will always wonder if believing a lie would have been preferable to knowing the truth.

I wipe a tear off my cheek, as if I have time to cry right now. I don’t. I won’t.

It’s not easy getting around this last sign, but having an SUV helps as I maneuver along a sloping shoulder and get back onto the road. A road that quickly becomes the bridge.

The bridge rocks ever so slightly as my SUV climbs onto it. I feel a rush, the sensation of not knowing whether the ground beneath you will hold, whether you will plunge fifty feet into freezing, turbulent river water. But this bridge was always a little creaky. It always held, and it holds now. The truss’s guardrail is what gave way, smack in the middle of the bridge, the area I slowly approach.

That portion of the guardrail has been removed entirely, replaced with nothing, a gaping hole. A section of the bridge’s roadway is gone as well, leaving only the beams below it.

I’m alone out here for the time being. I won’t be for long. I reread the last paragraphs of David’s letter, left for me in the vault.

… didn’t know what the money was for …

… didn’t know which agent …

… didn’t know whom to trust …

… didn’t feel safe telling anyone …

I release a long, trembling breath. I believe you, David. If this is it for me, if this is the end, at least I know I’m doing what’s right.

“I love you, David,” I whisper. “I love you, Grace. I love you, Lincoln.”

I pop the trunk and get out of my SUV. There is wind, probably more so on a bridge, threatening to blow the baseball cap off my head. I Frisbee the hat through the gates of the bridge until it disappears out of sight. I close my eyes and let the wind lift my hair.

Then I go to the trunk and pull out the duffel bags. I drag them along the grated floor of the bridge, away from the SUV.

I remove the four pairs of handcuffs, open them from their packages, make sure I know how to work them.

Then I reach into my pocket and pull out my cell phone, my personal one. I power it on and watch it come to life. This tiny little device, providing so much information, desperately searching for cell towers to ping. Which FBI agents use to locate you.

“Here I am, Blair,” I whisper. “Come get me.”