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hear him say my name. Eyes and lips may not change too much, but voices do. Or at least our memories of them do. It was jarring,

really. Not because I didn’t know his voice. I did. But I’d gotten used to hearing it say, “I’m Wesley Hobbes and I approve

this message.” Hearing him say my name after twenty-two years felt like a little too much reality a little too quickly.

I’d walked into the airport, overheard him on the phone, and turned around as quickly as I could to scurry back to the vehicle.

Lay low. That had been the plan. Joel had always told me that “Lay Low” should have been the motto of the CIA rather than “The Work

of a Nation. The Center of Intelligence.” I was very good at laying low. Usually. But you don’t lay low by making eye contact.

Still, it was surprising that he recognized me so immediately. In his two decades away, he hadn’t once had to watch national

coverage of me delivering a stump speech.

“Yeah, I know it.” I shifted my eyes away from the mirror as his rose in my direction.

“Great. Thanks. Um... so how have you been?”

I chuckled humorlessly and signaled to pass the little front-wheel drive Mazda going a snail’s pace in front of me as snow

began to fall. “We’re not doing that.”

“We’re not doing what?”

“Talking.”

“But—”

“Nope.”

“Come on, Addie, don’t—”

“Wes.” I met his eyes in the mirror, and he leaned forward for just a moment, until I added, “Stop talking.”

His mouth opened, but thankfully he thought better of saying anything else and instead scoffed, crossed his arms, and turned

toward his window.

I had always excelled at patting my head and rubbing my stomach at the same time.

Well, not literally. For whatever reason, that particular skill had always been out of reach for me, and any attempts resulted in either a whole lot of patting or a whole lot of rubbing.

Never both. But I could pilot an F-15 Eagle through maneuvers while concurrently annihilating whoever was on the headset in a round of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.

I could comb through hours of poorly translated transcripts of a recording from a cave somewhere in Yemen while simultaneously quoting to myself the entire episode of Friends in which Chandler pretends he’s moving to Yemen just to get away from Janice.

I could do those things. Once upon a time. Now, apparently, I was going to require complete silence in order to drive a familiar

road and, you know, think at the same time.

I was an analyst. No, I didn’t get paid any longer to be an analyst, but that changed nothing. I was an analyst. So it was

time to do what I had done countless times before and separate the data from the emotions. It was as simple as dividing the

yolk from the rest of the egg. Sometimes messy, sure. Sticky. A delicate process—one that could go wrong so easily and so

quickly, and once it did, there was often no turning back. But that didn’t make it any less simple. So, setting the emotions

aside, what data did I have to work with?

Senator Wes Hobbes was in the back of the vehicle I was driving.

He was alone. In other words, he was sans entourage and security and advisers and press. He was wearing a ball cap with sunglasses

resting on the bill.

Steve, the pilot, had radioed ahead to Roland at the airport that someone was arriving.

In turn, Roland had called Valet Forge and passed the info along to Neil.

But Neil had said nothing to me about it being a VIP, which meant Roland had said nothing about it being a VIP, which meant Steve had said nothing about it being a VIP.

That meant that neither Steve, who was not from Adelaide Springs, nor Roland, who was, had recognized the passenger.

And they both most certainly would have recognized Senator Hobbes unless Senator Hobbes didn’t want to be recognized.

He’d been surprised to see me. That much was certain. Anyone who wasn’t a proficient reader of lips (and perhaps also a retired

expert in the field of Wes Hobbes) would have missed the barely there whisper of my name, but no one could have missed the

startle in his eyes, most commonly found in deer pausing in the middle of the road and children caught with their hands in

cookie jars. It remained to be seen if he had been surprised to see me at all, or just surprised to see me then.

My eyes flitted back to the mirror, and I took the opportunity to study him while his focus was on the passing scenery out

the window.

Fascinating. I think in the past, since the split in time and certainly since I met Joel, I wouldn’t have had any difficulty being cordial

with Wes if I had bumped into him in a cocktail bar at the Hay-Adams, for instance.

“My goodness, how long has it been? It’s lovely to see you. Joel, you know Wes Hobbes—oh, sorry, Representative Hobbes. Or wait—it’s Senator Hobbes now, right? Congratulations on that, by the way . This is my husband, Joel. Tell me, how’s Wray doing? Please give her my best.”

No, it probably wouldn’t have gone exactly like that, but we no doubt would have achieved some equally schmoozy level of DC

small talk, and then we would have gone back to our respective tables and each spent a couple of minutes wondering what we’d

ever seen in the other. Then we would have stuffed our faces with oysters Rockefeller without another thought or a single

flash of nostalgia.

But that would have been DC, and this was Adelaide Springs. Joel was dead. Wray was dead. Wes was about to become president.

And I was his chauffeur.

Didn’t see that one coming.

And still, I felt nothing. I didn’t hate him.

I certainly didn’t love him. I didn’t think, He looks good , or Do I look that old?

I didn’t even wonder what I had seen in him.

No, all I could think about was what a tactical error he was making by coming back here.

Ever , but especially now, so close to the election.

“Even if we only have a couple days together, it’s on them. It’s time to let bygones be bygones, and if they behave, we’ll

all get to be part of a little feel-good piece on the nightly news.”

The comments hadn’t been about us. It wasn’t about Adelaide Springs. Whoever he’d been strategizing against during that little

snippet of phone call I’d overheard at the airport, he couldn’t possibly be so stupid as to talk about his hometown that way.

No, actually, let me restate that. I had no idea what he said about Adelaide Springs. I had no idea what he thought or felt

about the little town where he grew up. More than twenty years gone without so much as a mention in a feel-good interview

on the The Drew Barrymore Show , from what I knew, of where or how he grew up certainly didn’t make me think he had been missing me. Us , I mean. Adelaide Springs. He wasn’t missing Adelaide Springs. But whether or not he was stupid enough to talk about his

hometown that way, he definitely wasn’t stupid enough to believe he could get the people he deserted to “behave” so he could fly away in a couple of days

with a few more votes that weren’t going to make any difference at all in the election. No. He most definitely hadn’t been

strategizing against Adelaide Springs.

But it was still a tactical error for him to come back here. Wherever he went, the press was sure to follow eventually. Wes

wouldn’t lead—no politician in the world would intentionally lead—the press to the closet where all the skeletons were hidden.

And maybe it was possible that he didn’t realize just how unforgiving his former friends and neighbors were still feeling

after all this time.

But he’d realize it soon. Probably as soon as he got to the inn and encountered Jo Stoddard.

Mrs. Stoddard had, at some point or other in our lives, been the closest thing any of the five of us had to a mother.

For Wes, it was junior year, when his mom was in and out of the hospital fighting cancer, and senior year, when she lost the battle.

It was Mrs. Stoddard who gave him a place to stay and Mrs. Stoddard who helped him with college applications, and it was Mrs. Stoddard who was preparing to share a dance with him at our wedding reception while I danced with my dad.

And then he deserted her just like he deserted me.

He was going to walk into the Inn Between, wanting a room at the only option that came up when he googled “where to stay in

Adelaide Springs, Colorado,” and he was going to come face-to-face with his past. At least in the Bronco he had the benefit

of only coming face-to-back-of-head with his past.

“Hey, Addie,” he began softly behind me, shuffling in his seat to lean forward just a bit as I turned off the road and onto

the inn’s gravel driveway. “I can’t just sit here and not say anything.”

“You can.”

“Okay, but I don’t want to. You weren’t expecting to see me tonight any more than I was expecting to see you, but we’re here

now, and I think we should talk.”

I came to a stop and shifted into Park before cutting the engine and opening my door. It was such a practiced move. This old

vehicle didn’t have a trunk I could pop open from the inside, so I was used to getting out, unlocking the trunk, helping with

bags, visiting with the tourists for a moment—being sure to recommend the Bean Franklin for breakfast, Cassidy’s for lunch,

and Milo’s for dinner—and then making sure they had Valet Forge’s number for all their transportation needs. But this tourist

didn’t have a lot of bags, I wasn’t voluntarily going to sic him on my friends and their various dining establishments, and

I sure didn’t want to stand around and chat for a moment. And as for his transportation needs, he had long ago proven he could

wrangle a ride out of town when he needed one.

I pulled my foot back in and shut the door again. “Have a good night, Senator.”

He sighed and unbuckled his seat belt. Then I felt his presence over my shoulder. Too close. Too intimate. And so familiar,

even after having been without him longer than I had been with him, that my pulse began racing.

“I get it—”

I laughed. “You don’t .”

“No, Addie, I really think I do. I know I don’t have any right to ask you to listen to anything I have to say, but—”

“You need to back away.”

I met his eyes in the mirror again, and there was a flash of confusion. But then awareness dawned, and his eyes softened into

sadness as he cleared his throat. And then his eyes were gone and he was pressed against the back seat as he whispered, “Sorry.”

I didn’t know what to do with this data. I didn’t know what to do with the fact that I saw pain in his eyes and that I didn’t

really enjoy hurting him. I certainly didn’t know what to do with the fact that it hurt me, too, to treat him like someone

I didn’t trust. Of course I didn’t trust him. I couldn’t trust him. He had taken my trust and made a mockery of it. But until now I hadn’t had to act on that lack of trust.

Every muscle in my body was as taut as a tightrope, and suddenly my emotions felt every bit as precarious as one.

“Get out of the car, Wes.”

He sighed. “Okay.”

He opened the door and gathered his belongings, which had been on the seat beside him, as he stepped outside. All that was

left was for him to shut the door.

Shut the door, Wes. Just shut the door.

“Um, do I pay you, or—”

“No charge.”

He set his bags on the ground and leaned back inside. “Come on, Addie.”

“I insist.”

“But—”

I turned in my seat to face him, suddenly feeling like the greatest disservice he had ever done me was not allowing me to

end this encounter on my terms.

“Tell me,” I seethed. “What sort of federal penalty will I face for the hit-and-run squishing-in-a-car-door of a United States

senator?”

I faced forward again before I could see what his initial surprise morphed into, and the instant the car door shut behind me, I was gunning the old Bronco into action and barreling down the driveway and back onto the highway.

And I’d be lying if I said it didn’t feel pretty good to be deserting him for a change.