Chapter 30 Caro
CARO
CARO HAS ALWAYS LOVED a rock shop. While Ash, Spencer, and Spencer’s friend, who appears to go simply by Coop, huddle around the lockbox, she walks up and down the rows of shelves to distract herself.
Enormous geodes that look like portals to another world, bins of smaller rocks sorted out by type: quartzes, fluorite, obsidian.
Her dad used to bring her here. She always planned to bring her own kids. Caro swallows, hard.
If anything has changed since she was a child, she can’t tell. There’s the shelf of amethyst, which she’s always been drawn to—she likes the richness of the color. Her wedding ring is, in fact, amethyst.
“Are you sure you don’t want a more expensive stone?” Dan had asked her.
She was sure.
There are small cards by each of the stones describing their meanings and energetic properties.
Caro has no time for such things. She keeps walking, looking at another shelf.
She doesn’t know what they’ll do if they can’t get the lockbox open.
Coop has it now. He’s an old man in suspenders and jeans, his salt-and-pepper hair neatly combed.
Caro pauses. She knows it’s ridiculous, but ever since she was a kid, she’s been drawn to the animals carved out of calcite and other stone.
She runs her fingers over the back of a simple, pleasingly shaped bear, the animal suggested by only a rounded back, a snout, two legs.
She picks it up, liking the feel of it in her hand.
It’s orange, Dan’s favorite color. Honeycomb calcite, she sees on the card next to it, which looks like it’s been typed out on an ancient typewriter.
Maybe she will buy it for Dan, though as a rule they don’t bring each other souvenirs from their travels.
Neither of them likes superfluous stuff and clutter.
She keeps walking, letting her eyes soak in the familiar colors.
She’s come to the pawn part of Cooper’s Rock and Pawn.
A cabinet holds a few odds and ends—a camera, an old iPhone, several pieces of jewelry.
Disconcertingly, a gun, which seems like it should be locked in a more secure place than a glass cabinet.
There are two watches, one of which is a gold-plated Timex like the one her dad wears, which, she knows, is worth less than $50.
Caro hears a click and a “Got it!” from the other side of the room.
“Thank you,” Ash is saying, and Coop says, “No problem,” and hands her back the box. Caro is at Ash’s side as Ash lifts the lid.
Caro’s heart skips a beat.
There are only two phones inside.
Caro recognizes hers, and she also recognizes Ash’s, with its special translucent case that holds pressed flowers from her farm (phone cases are some of the items Ash sells in her online shop).
“What’s wrong?” Spencer asks.
“Anything missing?” asks Coop.
And Caro suddenly trusts no one, nothing. “We’re good,” she says. “Thank you so much for opening this.”
“Not a problem,” Coop says. There are lines around his mouth and eyes that make her think of her father. “Happy to help.” He smiles, the wrinkles deepening. “You want to buy that?”
“What?” Caro asks, and then she remembers that she’s still holding the bear. “Oh, right, I’m sorry—”
He holds up his hand. “Don’t worry about it,” he says.
“Take it.” He’s already shuffling out from behind the counter, putting whatever small tool he used to open the lockbox back into his pocket.
“And tell your dad I said hello. If you want. I know he might not remember me.” He starts for the door.
“Good to see you again, too, though I’d never have recognized you if Spence hadn’t told me your name. Kids tend to grow up.”
“Oh.” Caro’s impressed he remembers her and her father.
It’s been so long, and she didn’t know that she and her dad would have left any impression.
Just another parent and child coming through the shop.
Her heart aches with what will never be again and what will never be. “Thank you,” she says. “I’ll tell him.”
“He was in here last week,” Coop says. He’s almost to the door, and Caro’s there to open it for him. “My dad?” she says, surprised. “Here?”
“Yup.” Coop nods in thanks and assent. He walks past Caro and turns to lock the door after the others have exited, too.
“Thank you so much,” Ash says when he’s finished. Coop waves a hand at them as he heads back toward his apartment, his gait suddenly very much that of an old man. Spencer catches up with him and walks him the rest of the way to his door.
Ash and Caro turn to each other as soon as he’s out of earshot.
“Hope’s phone and the burner phone,” Caro says. “They’re both gone.”
“Which isn’t necessarily bad news,” Ash says, a feverish note in her voice. “If Hope took the phones with her, maybe there’s a way to contact or track her. Maybe she is the one trying to message and call us.”
“Why would she take them with her, though?” Caro asks. “She promised us she wouldn’t.” She looks at her phone. “And the number for the missed calls that have been happening while the phones are in the box say Unknown. Not Hope.”
“Exactly!” Ash says. “Could that be the burner phone?”
Spencer’s heading back toward them. Caro doesn’t want him to overhear. “I think it’s time to make the police talk to us again,” she tells Ash quietly. “And I think it’s time to contact Raye. Hope’s agent.”
“I don’t have her number,” Ash says. “Do you?”
“No,” Caro says. “Okay. The police, then.”
“But we promised—” Ash begins.
“All bets are off now that she’s gone.” Caro keeps her tone gentle. “They have to be, Ash. We’ve waited long enough. I know you want to stick to the plan because we promised we would. But the plan doesn’t work anymore.”
Ash puts her face in her hands. She says something that Caro can’t entirely make out. Then she lifts her head. “You’re right. If she does have the phones, there’s no way to track her in the canyon, right? That was kind of the whole point. So why would she take them?”
Caro hesitates. She’s had a thought. “Well…” she begins. There are other ways to get into the Underground. Tiny slot canyons. But you’d have to be an expert canyoneer to do any of them, and they’re illegal, most of them protected now.
Right then her phone begins to vibrate.
Caro jumps so hard she drops her phone on the ground and has to crouch down to get it. When she reads the message on the screen, her head snaps up. Her eyes lock with Ash. She holds up her phone. Wordlessly, Ash does, too.
They both have the same message.
It’s me.