21. Jessika
TWENTY-ONE
JESSIKA
Grant brings Nova home at ten-thirty.
Nova has clearly been crying, though she's got her composure back by the time they come through the door. She looks at me across the kitchen, and I look at her, and something passes between us, some renegotiation, some understanding.
"I'm sorry for what I said," she says. Her voice is steady.
"I know," I say. "I know you are."
"I meant the underneath of it. Not the words."
"I know that too."
She crosses the kitchen and puts her arms around me and holds on for a moment, brief, fierce, the hug of someone who still needs their mother but finds it nearly impossible to admit, and then steps back and looks at Grant.
"Tell her," she says.
Grant tells me about the messages. He shows me the phone. He walks me through the conversation thread while Nova sits at the kitchen counter, and my father, who has come downstairs, drawn by voices, leans against the door frame and listens.
The messages are careful. The person texting Nova is careful.
They haven't said who they are, haven't given a location, haven't said anything that would constitute direct contact.
But they've talked around Morgan, his habits, his stories, the particular texture of his personality with an intimacy that cannot be faked. And the fox story.
Morgan told me the fox story. He told Nova. He told, I think, almost no one else.
"He's reaching out," I say. "Indirectly."
"Why indirectly?" my father asks.
"Because he's scared," Grant says. "He doesn't know who's watching. He knows someone's looking for him. So he reaches out through a channel they might not think to monitor."
"His niece," my father says quietly.
"The person they'd least expect to be a communication channel." Grant looks at me. "He trusts you, Jessika. He trusts the ranch. He doesn't trust much else right now."
I look at the thread.
"Can we message back?" I ask.
"Nova has been," Grant says carefully. "The last message tonight is from the unknown number. About forty minutes ago."
I look at Nova. "What does it say?"
She takes her phone back. Reads: "He says he knows we've been asking questions. And he says to tell Grant that the place with the three pines is still there."
Grant goes very still.
I look at him.
"What's the place with the three pines?"
He's quiet for a moment. "There's a hunting camp north of the county line," he says. "I've been there twice. With Morgan, years ago." He pauses. "There are three white pines at the entrance. Distinctive. Visible from the road."
I hold his gaze.
"He's telling you where he is," I say.
"Yes."
We look at each other.
"Tomorrow," I say.
"It's a three-hour drive."
"Tomorrow morning," I say. "Early."
My father straightens. "I'll stay with Nova."
"Dad—"
"I'll stay with Nova," he repeats. Firmly, with a quality of authority he hasn't used since before the stroke. "You and Grant go find your brother."
I look at him. At the exhausted, hopeful lines of his face.
"Okay," I say.
"Okay," Grant agrees.
Nova is looking at the fox story message on her phone.
"Tell him we're coming," she says. "Tell him we're coming and it's okay."
She hands me her phone.
I type: We're coming. It's okay. I love you.
We wait.
Thirty seconds.
Then four words, from an unknown number.
I know. Me too.
I press my hand to my mouth.
My father turns to the window.
Grant, very quietly, gets up and puts his arm around me from the side, just briefly, just enough, and I lean into it for exactly one second before he moves away.
But even that second is enough to be real.