Page 5

Palm Springs

January 3, 2023

6:00 A.M.

I don’t think Hobie ever slept. When I opened the door and saw him waiting for me, he looked like a burglar with his black beanie on his head, dressed for hiking. The air was crisp and the sky was still dark. He led me to his car in the parking lot. It was a Toyota Corolla from the eighties that wouldn’t start unless he hit the engine with a brick, making a sound that went straight to my already-jangled nerves.

“He’s fine, right? It’s been two nights and two whole days now.” Only once before had Grant ever been gone this long, and that time I knew where he was.

“That’s a long time, but survivable,” Hobie said.

That word, survivable, swirled around in my head.

“Thing is, the cold might not be the thing that gets him in the end. You can trip your mind into thinking you’re going to die. It’s easy to say you’re not okay, to panic yourself to death. Fear can kill you before anything else does.”

Hobie was the best and worst possible person to be with during a crisis. On the one hand, as an occasional volunteer with the Palm Springs Mounted Police, he knew the mountains better than almost anyone else, and he was committed to searching for Grant nonstop. On the other, he always said whatever was on his mind and seemed incapable of recognizing boundaries. At least now I understood he wasn’t being malicious; he just couldn’t help himself.

“I think today’s the day they’re going to find him,” I said, trying to stay positive. “I have a hunch.”

“He shouldn’t have left without me. If I was with him, this never would have happened. Hell, I never should have taken him hiking in the first place.”

“No, you brought Grant back to life. It was wonderful to see him passionate about something again.”

“Passionate? You’d think I dipped the guy in holy water.”

We drove past the mid-century modern homes in Canyon Estates, with their breeze-blocks and painted doors. It was the kind of neighborhood that could make you believe there was order in the universe.

Hobie continued, “I keep trying to remember how much I’d taught him before he started going out there without me. Did I tell him to find the rivers and roads? Did I remind him to pack matches? I know I didn’t teach him how to make a fire, and he’s no Eagle Scout, that’s for damn sure. He’s probably rubbing two sticks together at this very moment wondering why nothing happens. Starting a friction fire is a royal pain in the ass.” Hobie took a sip of coffee from his thermos. “If he drinks the water, he could have giardia. That’s a nasty little bug. Even if he’s found, I’m just warning you, could be months before he’s off the toilet.”

The woman who worked at the entrance gate to Indian Canyons knew who we were by then. She checked our IDs because she had to and waved us in, her expression filled with pity. We parked behind the trailer, and Hobie reached into the back seat for his pack. “I’ve got extras of everything. Extra food, extra water, an extra headlamp. Portable charger.”

I gave his hand a squeeze. “I can’t thank you enough.”

“Usually, I hike just to hike. Now I’m hiking with a purpose.”

We walked into the command center as if we were about to punch the clock at work. I felt like the only woman in the men’s locker room. Brady and a few trained volunteers were sticking thumbtacks into a giant map on the wall. They gestured for Hobie to confer with them while I stood by, useless. “Think he might have found the old switchback trail on the desert side? The one that hooks up to the PCT?”

One of the rescuers pointed at another part of the map. “We already checked the north side over here.”

“How about going with us in the chopper?” Brady asked Hobie. “Thought we’d circle around, see what we see.”

I stepped forward. “The chopper? Can I go?” I wanted a different vantage, wanted to be helpful. Besides, if anyone could spot Grant from a distance, it was me. He had a distinctive walk, a certain way of holding his shoulders.

“We need you to stay right here,” Brady said firmly. “Promise me you won’t go looking for him. One needle in a haystack is enough.” I’d heard a lot about needles and haystacks since Grant went missing. I could just imagine Grant lecturing the rescuers about their need for new idioms.

“Don’t worry.” I pointed at my foot. “I had surgery. My foot is better but I’m still not ready for hiking. I also hurt my shoulder, but it’s fine now.”

“Your shoulder? When did that happen?” Brady seemed suspicious that Grant had done something to me, or that perhaps I’d hurt myself while trying to hide a dead body. He must have seen everything in his line of work. Anyone and everyone can be a suspect, even nice middle-aged white women from Wisconsin. A part of me loved being thought of as dangerous.

“I tripped on a rug. A few months ago.”

“That so?” He eyed me skeptically, sensing that I had complicated feelings about my accident. “Do you want to tell me about that?”

“I just fell.” I shook my head. “People fall all the time.”

“And they get lost all the time, too. That’s why I have job security.”

Did Brady think that I had something to do with Grant’s going missing? Did Brady think I’d messed with Grant’s compass magnet or poked holes in his water bottle? Or—a new thought occurred to me—was I supposed to be hysterical? Was that how Brady thought wives were supposed to react? I did feel hysterical, actually, but I was hysterical on the inside. Brady couldn’t know that; half the time even Grant couldn’t tell how I was really feeling—I made sure of it.

Before I could explain any of this, Brady led me out of the trailer, reminding me I was an interloper. Outside, the sky was already lighter. A new day. It was still so cool we could see our breath in the morning air. The chopper was waiting.

“Did you find the car yet?”

“No, but that doesn’t mean much. Cars get stolen all the time when they’re parked by the trails, which is why you never leave anything inside. But regardless, an old truck like that is easy to hot-wire. There’s a pipeline from here to Mexico. It’s probably been painted black and had the bumpers stripped off it by now.”

Hobie and some other rescuers ran to the helicopter. The blades began to spin wildly. The sound was deafening, but Brady kept talking. I missed half of what he’d said.

“—we have to track them based on what we know about how their mind works. I’m sure he knows the best thing to do when you’re lost is to stay in place. You think he’d do that? Just wait to be found?”

“No. He’d keep going.”

What I didn’t tell Brady was that Grant always came back, eventually, although I’d sometimes worried that he wouldn’t. That sometimes, I’d even wished it.

I imagined what Polly would say, if she were still alive. “This is why I told you to live your life on your own terms, Kim. You don’t need to put up with this shit. Why do you think I stayed single?”

My former mother-in-law pulled up in her Jaguar. I worried that her car would give Brady the idea that we were extremely rich. When we’d first arrived, Grant would park by the Walmart near the airport and count the private jets that landed and took off in an hour. “This isn’t a place where money is made,” he’d said. “It’s a place where money is spent.”

Melody emerged, looking grand in her Russian Cossack hat and fur coat. She pulled a foldout table out of the trunk of her car and two chairs. She shouted, “Today, Kimberly, I will teach you how to play mah-jongg. You won’t make it in Palm Springs unless you learn. Come.” She patted the chair. “Let’s arrange your tiles.”

“It’s not even seven in the morning.”

Brady started walking away from us. He held his walkie-talkie in his hand the way teenagers hold their cell phones, as if it were part of his body. I began to panic. “But… But… Brady!” I called. “I want to do something. Anything. I can’t just sit here and play a stupid game while Grant is in trouble.”

The older woman looked at me with irritation. “Tell me, if this game is stupid, why was it banned in China for forty years?”

Brady clearly found Melody amusing. She cut quite a figure in all that fur, pushing tiles around a makeshift table with her long, elegant index finger, the mountains behind her, fiddling while Rome burns.

Brady said, “I know you want to help, Mrs. Duffy, but there’s nothing for you to do. You may as well play a game if it keeps your mind off things. Just stay where I can find you. Here, or at home. Make sure your phone stays charged at all times. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get going so this search doesn’t turn from a rescue into a recovery.”

Melody chattered about the game to keep me distracted. I recognized this was an act of kindness, but I couldn’t process what she was saying about jokers, flowers, winds, and dragons. I only heard her mention good luck and bad, and the strategic removal of matched pairs.

She said, “We have much to learn. Come. You must first sit in an auspicious direction.”

I sat looking at the mountain, hoping I would see Grant climbing down.

She frowned. “Oh no, sit over there instead. This is no good.”

“Why?”

She began sorting tiles. They made a wonderful sound clicking together, a sound that became spooky when she said, “You’re looking west. West means two things: heaven, or death.”