Chapter 17
The next morning, Olive was awoken by an odd, heavy pressure across her legs and was unable to move. Her eyes flew open to find Holmes lying across her, sleeping. On top of the dog sat Pepper, not sleeping. Her sharp eyes were narrowed on Olive. Clearly, the kitten was in bodyguard mode, and it wasn’t Olive she was guarding.
“I love him too, you know,”
Olive said.
Pepper didn’t look impressed.
“I’m going to need my legs back.”
Pepper licked Holmes’s forehead.
Holmes opened his eyes and yawned.
Pepper licked him again and leaped gracefully to the floor, then trotted to the door, where she turned back and gave Holmes an expectant look.
Holmes jumped down with a fraction of the kitten’s lithe ability.
“Mew.”
Pepper looked expectedly at Olive.
Right. She wanted the door open. “I live to serve,”
Olive said dryly and cracked the door to let the fur babies out, not sure who’d let them in.
She then checked her phone for a message from Buddy or her parents. Still nothing, which meant it was time to take the next step and start looking into yurt rentals. But first, caffeine. She staggered downstairs and found Katie cooking . . . “Blueberry pancakes?”
“Want some?”
“More than my next breath.”
Olive sat at the island to watch, impressed. “Your cooking skills used to be ordering takeout.”
“Things change when you have a kid. Had to learn to eat better.”
Olive laughed. “You sound like your brother.”
“Bite your tongue.”
But she smiled. “And who do you think taught me to cook?”
Olive felt her brows raise. “Not your mom?”
“No, we lean more toward murdering each other if we spend too much time in the same ten square feet.”
Katie expertly flipped the pancakes.
Olive watched, fascinated, even as she realized with new awareness that Katie really wouldn’t need her around much longer. It should’ve thrilled her, knowing she could go home. But . . . well, being needed had been nice.
“What are you thinking about?”
Katie asked.
“Once Joe comes home, and I hear from my parents, I guess it’ll be time for me to go.”
Katie looked up from the pancakes. “Is that what you want?”
“What I want has nothing to do with it. My life’s in London.”
Katie was quiet as she scooped pancakes out of the pan and poured more batter into it. Then she turned to Olive again. “Your life’s wherever you make it. Are you ever going to tell me why you think you can’t make that life here? I know you’re holding on to something, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out what. If you’re over me, over us, just say so.”
“No! Oh my God, no.”
Olive’s heart twisted that Katie could actually think that. “There are things you don’t understand.”
“Then help me.”
“I would. If I fully understood them myself.”
“If it’s about something that happened when we were teens, then that’s just dumb,”
Katie said. “It was a long time ago.”
“It’s not.”
Well, not exactly. She told herself it was about the simple fact that she’d needed to leave to grow up. And she had grown up. She was incredibly proud of that, of the life she’d built, and more than a small part of her worried that being back here would turn her into that overly anxious, overly stressed, constantly worried if she belonged girl.
Katie studied her. “Does it have something to do with my brother? Because that would also be dumb. Or maybe not, given that you’re both two stone walls when you want to be.”
“It’s about me.”
“And your ridiculous need for independence to the point of alienating those who love you?”
Olive had to laugh at how true that statement was. “Well, when you put it like that—”
Her phone buzzed. Stephanie. “Work’s calling,”
she said. “We’re trying to get the zoo event nailed down.”
Katie waved a spatula. “You can run, but you can’t hide.”
Sure Olive could. She’d been hiding for most of her life, right in plain sight. She was rather good at it, if she did say so herself.
Olive got a shocking amount done over the next eight hours, migrating from her bedroom to the kitchen to the back patio as needed while everyone came and went throughout the day.
The zoo fundraiser was shaping up to be . . . well, amazing. She had a pet shop donating the cockroaches in exchange for a sign at the entrance of the zoo and placement in all the ads. A Tahoe eatery discounted their catering bill for the same deal. A local bar was providing mocktails named for zoo animals, such as the Bees Knees, Lion’s Tail, Flying Goose, and White Dragon. These sponsors, and all the others, would be listed on the swag bags, as well as on the giveaway T-shirts.
When Olive’s stomach growled, she shut her laptop and realized from the patio chair that daylight had faded and she sat in the dark. Someone had turned on the lights for her, pretty strings of fairy bulbs that crisscrossed overhead, casting the evening in a beautiful glow.
Gathering her things, she stood up and walked into the kitchen, then stopped short. Seated around the table were Katie, Amy, Gram, and Noah. They all had a laptop open to what looked like lists. But even more confusing, each was also talking quietly on their cell phone.
Noah disconnected his call first.
“What’s going on?”
she asked.
Gram ended her call as well. “Noah used one of his work programs to cull a list of yurt rentals within a hundred miles of the Mount Eagle area.”
Olive stared at Noah.
“What? You asked for help.”
He shrugged. “So we’re all helping.”
“Also, the shock in your eyes is insulting,”
Katie said.
Olive let a laugh escape past the lump in her throat. “I just . . .”
It’d been clear that no one else had been all that worried about her parents, but because she was, they’d stepped up. “I’m just so grateful. Thank you.”
“Don’t be grateful yet,”
Noah said. “There are still a lot of calls to make.”
He pointed to the different lists. “These are privately owned yurts. And these are yurts attached to resorts. Then there are yurts on federal property and yurts owned by companies known for metaphysical retreats. We’re starting there.”
He looked up at her. “Unless your gut tells you differently. You know your parents better than any of us.”
Olive’s gaze slid to Amy, wondering if Amy might pipe up with the information that she too knew Olive’s mom. Possibly even knew her better than Olive herself did. But Amy didn’t meet her gaze.
Noah used a foot to nudge a chair out for Olive. When she sat, their thighs brushed. Sucking in a breath, she pretended that Noah’s screen was the most interesting thing on the planet. Much more interesting than how the soft denim of his jeans felt against her leg, or the fact that he looked sexy as hell with at least two days’ worth of stubble on his jaw. Plus, he smelled delicious. It felt like too much goodness, kind of like looking directly into the sun. “They wouldn’t be interested in any yurts attached to a resort. They also have a thing against The Man, so I doubt they’re on federal land.”
“Good point,”
Gram said.
Noah nodded. “That leaves the yurts on privately owned properties, and the metaphysical retreats.”
“The private ones would have to be something woo-woo or ridiculously hippy in the description,”
Olive said.
“Remember that time they went to live at a llama rescue and stayed in a yurt?”
Gram asked. “I think that was a nudist retreat as well. They do love those.”
Olive grimaced. “Maybe we should add nudist colonies to the list.”
“Can you think of anything else?”
Noah asked. “It’d be great to narrow this down even more.”
Olive thought about it. “My mom’s becoming known for her natural soap, lotions, and candles. Which means she might be drawn to areas where she could sell at a nearby craft fair. She’s also one of the western states’ leading photographers on rock stacking, sometimes called cairns. She’s taken pictures somewhere known for that. Oh, and we know my dad also sells his weed, along with the products he makes from it, so he might be visiting dispensaries or dealers.”
Everyone stared at her.
She ignored that. “Oh, and my mom’s been kicked out of state parks for stacking rocks so many times that she’s actually on a national database. Stacking rocks is frowned upon on state and federal lands because it can be considered culturally offensive, as well as disrupt wildlife habitats, but that would only be a draw for her.”
“Is it possible they’ve been arrested?”
Gram asked. “Maybe they’re incarcerated somewhere.”
“I mean, it’s happened,”
Olive said. “Twice— No, wait, three times. But they’ve always called me to bail them out, so I’d probably know that by now.”
A stunned silence, during which Katie reached out and squeezed Olive’s hand in a rare show of physical affection.
“Aw. Are we going steady?”
Olive asked.
“It’s just me reminding you that not a single one of us has ever called you for money. We love you, Olive.”
“Wow.”
She smiled instead of crying because she didn’t want to be pathetic. “You must really feel sorry for me if you’re throwing around the L-word.”
“Can you think of anything else?”
Noah asked, fingers moving on his keyboard, Mr. Stay Focused on the Task at Hand No Matter What. “I’m checking right now to see if they’ve been arrested. But is there anything else to narrow down the search beyond soaps and rocks?”
“And the weed,”
Olive reminded him.
Noah shook his head. “Let’s just hope you’re right and they’re not on federal land doing anything with drugs.”
“Doubtful,”
Gram said. “As Olive said, my daughter-in-law isn’t a fan of the government in general. In fact, I think she tried to stop paying taxes, but thankfully even my son knows better than to not pay his taxes.”
“Seriously,”
Katie said to Olive. “How are you so normal?”
“Because of you guys.”
The words popped out before she ran them past her brain, but it was true.
Amy’s eyes filled. “That’s so sweet.”
Noah handed his mom a napkin and looked at Olive. Something in his expression had warmed, which she decided to ignore. Any more warm fuzzies and she’d need a tissue as well.
Noah used the revised criteria to create new lists, and they began making calls again, this time with Olive helping as well. She made her first call while listening to Noah next to her say into his phone with a deep, authoritative voice, “This is Special Agent Noah Turner from the Investigative Services Branch of the NPS. I’m calling about two missing persons . . .”
Before she could hear more, or figure out why that bossy tone of his was really doing it for her, her call was connected. And so began a very long hour, until she heard something change in Noah’s voice as she disconnected with another dead end.
“When?”
he asked. At whatever answer he got, he put his phone on speaker and snapped his fingers for everyone to move close.
Which they all did without question. Olive decided she wanted to learn how to do that, command a room with a single snap.
“I’ve got their daughter here with me right now,”
Noah said.
“Hello,”
the woman on his phone said. “As I mentioned, we don’t know a lot about them. They paid in cash. Our office is in South Shore. Three hours from the yurt, so I’m not able to check if they’re there right now.”
“How long did they rent the yurt for?”
Noah asked.
“They have another two days.”
Olive’s mind went blank. She could hear Noah still talking, asking a few more questions, but didn’t realize he’d disconnected the call until he said her name quietly.
She glanced up and found everyone looking at her. “You found them,”
she said, not quite believing it’d been that easy. She got up and took a step back from the table, shaking her head.
Noah stood and reached for her hand, but before he could say anything, she threw herself at him in a hug that was sheer relief. “You found them.”
He wrapped her up and hugged her back. “We all found them.”
Olive looked at his list, and at the map where he’d circled an area quite a ways north of them.
“It’ll take at least three hours to get up there,”
Noah said. “We can leave in the morning, if the weather is going to hold. I’ll check.”
“We?”
She stared at him. “There is no we. You’ve got to stay here for Katie and Joe and Joey.”
“No,”
Katie said. “He doesn’t. Joe’s awake and going to stay that way. And I’ve got Mom, she can help me.”
Amy nodded. “Of course.”
“Me too,”
Gram said.
“No.”
Olive shook her head. “You’ve all already done so much for me. I came here to help you, not the other way around. I’m not asking Noah to come with me.”
“You don’t have to,” he said.
“He’s going with you,” Amy said.
“Most definitely,”
Katie said.
“One hundred percent,”
Gram said.
The four of them stared at her. She stared right back.
“Look,”
Noah said. “The Mini isn’t going to make it up there. This is an extremely remote location, with the last leg of it nothing but a dirt fire road.”
“I know.”
“So you also know it will require four-wheel drive, plus an off-road vehicle for that last leg.”
They stared at each other, because the last time they’d been on an off-road vehicle together, she’d destroyed his life.
And hers.
“Why haven’t they contacted me?”
she asked. “Do you think they ran into trouble on the way up there?”
“Your dad can handle himself,”
Noah said. “I’ve been up that way several times for work. There’s little to no cell service.”
“You think it could be that simple?”
“Yes.”
She thought about it. “So either they’re totally fine, or . . .”
Yeah. It was the “or”
she was having trouble with. “Excuse me,”
she said softly. “I need some air.”
She stepped out the back door.
The moon was showing off tonight, full and bright, making the few clouds glow. She was staring up at the sky, the iciness of the air making every exhale a little puffy cloud, when she heard the back door open and close.
Katie came to stand at the deck railing with her. “Hey.”
“I’m okay,”
Olive said.
“I know.”
They stared at the sky some more, the silence comfortable and filled with all the sweet, sensitive things Katie had trouble saying. Finally, she sighed. “Noah wanted to come out here, but Mom made him play rock paper scissors for who got to go first, and I won. But the thing is . . .”
“You don’t have the words?”
Olive asked, amused.
Katie sighed again. “Look, if it was my mom out there, I’d go. For what that’s worth.”
Olive turned to her. “It’s worth everything. But I’m here to help you with Joey. Even if we leave at dawn, we’ll be gone until late.”
“I’ll take him with me to the hospital. Mom said she’d come to help out.”
Katie looked back at the house, and at whatever she saw, she let out a low snort. “Brace yourself. Here comes Mr. Bossy-Nosy-Know-It-All.”
Katie walked off and Noah took her spot, leaning on the railing. He didn’t look out into the night. He faced Olive, waiting for her to look at him.
With a sigh, she turned to him.
“I’m going with you,”
he said in that no-nonsense voice.
Because that made her stomach go a little squishy, she ignored it. “I still don’t feel right leaving Katie—”
“I’ll be fine,”
Katie said from the doorway.
“And you called me nosy,”
Noah called back to his sister.
“Yeah, because I’m better at adulting than the two of you put together!”
“Hey,”
Olive said, but also . . . true.
Katie pointed at her. “You fled the country rather than deal with conflict.”
She jabbed that same finger at Noah. “And you. You wouldn’t even let me say her name.”
Amy, standing next to Katie at the window, laughed until they all looked at her. Then she gestured with her hand that she was locking her mouth and throwing away the key.
Noah, ignoring that and his sister too, said to Olive, “We leave before dawn. Pack light but warm.”
“Ha,”
Katie said. “Have you never met her?”
Noah didn’t take his gaze off Olive, clearly waiting for her to object.
She wasn’t going to. She wasn’t stupid. Even she knew going alone was a really bad idea. She also knew if she had any hopes of finding that yurt and her parents, she’d need someone with tracking and survival skills. And unfortunately, that wasn’t her.
It was Noah.