Chapter 13 #2
“And even better: Allie had set up a surface watch, remember? A responsible person who wouldn’t be present on the trip but who’d know everything—where we went, where we parked, when we were due back.
I knew that when Allie failed to check in with him in the next few hours, he’d take the appropriate steps and report us missing. ”
His name remains unspoken, like she doesn’t want to say it.
Washington writes: Ethan Ramirez.
Allie’s boyfriend of a little over a year. Physician on his second year of pediatric residency, hiking enthusiast, frequently
credited on Keep Calm as Allie’s photographer and travel partner. At first glance, an uninvolved party to the attack.
“Ethan would report us missing,” Tess whispers. “All I had to do was stay alive long enough.”
“Were you and Ethan on good terms?”
“Sure.”
“Can you describe him?”
“Just under six feet tall. Black hair—”
“I know what he looks like. What kind of person is he?”
“He’s . . .” Tess licks her lips, like she’s trying to think of something nice to say. “Ethan always seemed like a decent
guy.”
“Decent?”
“A good person. A gentle person. He was always kind to Allie.”
Good. Gentle. Tess is being surprisingly vague about Allie’s boyfriend, someone she should have strong opinions about. There’s always tension
between a best friend and a romantic interest, between the one who knows you best and the one who’s trying to. Washington
studies the survivor for signs of discomfort. Why are you evading?
What are you holding back?
“You didn’t trust him?”
“It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Ethan, or suspected he was secretly dangerous or anything like that. I just thought he was . . .” Tess hesitates, as if searching for the right word. “To be honest, a bit of an airhead.”
Washington laughs. “Dumb?”
“Simple. Like a puppy.”
“People love puppies.”
“I’m more of a cat person.”
“Were they happy together?”
“From everything I saw they seemed like a perfect couple,” Tess says. “But Ethan was always so . . . guarded around me. Like
he was afraid of me. Whoever he really was, I felt like I never actually knew him.”
“I need specifics, Tess.”
She nods, trying to remember.
“Okay.” She studies her Starbucks cup on the hospital tray, still untouched. “Allie told me this once. Last year, she took
him to a conference in New York to accept one of her awards. They were out to dinner, and Ethan was just stepping out of their
Uber or something, and he froze suddenly and pointed down at the sidewalk. Look at this, he said to her. It sounded important, urgent even, so Allie scrambled over to him so fast she almost tore something on her
dress, certain it was something terrible on the concrete.”
“What was it?”
“A flosser.”
Washington blinks.
“One of those little plastic dental flossers, used by some stranger to scrape crap off their teeth, discarded on the sidewalk.
And Ethan looked up at her, straight-faced, dead serious, and said, I think we can use this.” Her lips curl into a wincing smile. “It became their running joke. Whenever he found one, he’d take a picture and text
it to Allie out of the blue. Think we can use this? She actually kept an album of them on her phone, all these photos of used plastic flossers in different colors, different
cities.”
“Gross.”
“They’re everywhere. Once you start noticing them, you can’t stop.”
“Not sure I get the joke.”
“Honestly, I didn’t, either.” Tess’s smile slowly dims. “But you wanted an example of who Ethan was, right? That was him.
He could make Allie laugh so hard she snorted. In just a year he’d figured her out somehow, unlocked all her secret codes.
It felt like he already knew her better than I did.” She’s about to say something else but stops herself.
Washington is detecting jealousy.
On Keep Calm’s social media, Allie and Ethan appear almost insufferably privileged as they tour the world on their six-figure incomes,
whiskey tasting in front of a mossy Scottish castle, giggling on a beach in Thailand, snuggling up with a bottle of wine and
watching the northern lights over Reykjavík. Who wouldn’t be jealous of that life?
She pushes a little harder. “Any trouble in paradise?”
“That morning, I’d sensed something was bothering Allie.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. It had something to do with Ethan, though.” Tess shrugs emptily. “They’d had fights before, but this was different.
Something serious was weighing on Allie. And she never had a chance to tell me what it was.”
Washington underlines his name.
No relationship is perfect, and the ones that appear so are often hiding the most rot. Right now the young physician is at
Providence Portland, a much larger hospital than this one. When he’s questioned, what might he have to say?
Who are you really, Ethan?
“In that moment, it gave me hope,” Tess says. “Back home, Ethan knew exactly where Allie and I were, and he was waiting for us to check in. He was familiar with the cave and the area.” Her voice creaks with sadness. “And . . . he had no idea his girlfriend was dead.”
The detective nods gently.
“Once Ethan reported us missing, I knew the killer would have no choice but to run. That hope kept me alive, kept me focused
in all that cold and pressure and blackness. I couldn’t wait to see the look on the asshole’s face when it happened.”
When search parties arrived at the Devil’s Staircase, the situation would change. The killer’s best chance to avoid arrest,
his only chance, would be to flee the scene. And when there’s video footage involved, runners don’t often make it far.
“All I had to do was wait,” Tess says. “Just stay crammed inside that little crawlspace for as long as the air lasted. It
was unpleasant, but it was survivable. Just a few more hours until Ethan realized Allie’s text was overdue. Help was coming.”
It was a waiting game, then.
“Until”—Tess sighs—“I remembered our valuables were all in Allie’s main pack.”
Back in the Upper Vault.
With her body.
“Meaning, the killer had access to our phones.”