Chapter 37 Ash
ASH
“IS THIS HOW HOPE feels all the time?” Ash mutters as she and Caro run the gauntlet into the police station. Spencer took them to retrieve Caro’s car from the trailhead parking lot earlier, and they’re driving it now, but they had to park several blocks away, thanks to the crowds.
The town of Spring Creek is charming: ice cream and sandwich shops, outdoor equipment rentals, Mexican restaurants, pizza parlors, art galleries, rock shops, electric bike rentals, hotels—all tucked in pioneer-esque buildings or newer, tasteful, modern ones against the base of towering red-rock cliffs.
And it’s busy. To Ash, Spring Creek feels like the opposite of Story, the dead little town on the other side of the Devil’s Backbone.
The police station is also charming—a red sandstone exterior with wooden beams and xeriscaping.
It looks fairly new. A small army of reporters, paparazzi, and hangers-on are milling about, and when they got wind that Ash and Caro are Hope Hanover’s friends, they moved as one in their direction, like a school of fish or a flock of birds. It’s unsettling.
“Where’s Hope?”
“Have you heard from Hope?”
“Are you here because the police found her?”
“Or her body?”
“Ghouls,” Caro mutters.
“Have you heard from her agent?” asks a person holding a microphone (a reporter? a podcaster? it could be anyone, in this day and age). “She’s supposedly trying to get in touch with you.”
“Do you think that’s true?” Caro asks Ash.
They’ve only met Hope’s agent once—briefly, online—but she seems like someone you’d want to have on your side. Hope never gave either Ash or Caro contact info for Raye, though. And Hope didn’t tell Raye where she’d be. Is there a reason for that?
Before Ash can answer, someone shoves into her from the side. “Hey!” Caro says, immediately pulling Ash closer to protect her. “Give us space.”
Don’t engage, Ash thinks, but the mistake has been made. The press of people is fully upon them, and there are so many people shouting out that she can’t tell what any of them are saying.
But then a voice pierces the cacophony. “What are you doing to find her?” someone shouts. “You’re her friends! You’re in all those pictures with her!”
Pictures? Ash thinks. There’s more than one?
The door to the police station opens and Officer Flanigan comes out. “You didn’t tell us you were coming,” she says to Ash and Caro, her voice tight. “Hey!” she shouts at the crowd. “Move back!” They obey, but barely.
“You have our phones,” Ash says as Officer Flanigan ushers them in the door. She takes them past the officers and receptionist in the foyer, through a metal detector, and down a hall past cubicles teeming with people.
“Here.” Officer Flanigan opens the door to a small room with two-way mirrors, a table, and four chairs. The room is cold and overly air-conditioned. “I’ll be back.” She closes the door behind her, and things are quiet.
“She seems pissed at us,” Ash says, rubbing her arms.
“She does,” Caro agrees. “But maybe she found something out about the anonymous numbers.” She pulls out one of the chairs and sits down, stretching her long legs in front of her.
The gesture is one of trying to ease discomfort, not of nonchalance.
“Did you talk to Wade this morning before we let them take our phones?”
“Yeah,” Ash says. “Did you talk to Dan?”
“Yeah. It was good to hear his voice.” Caro sounds wistful, and Ash feels a tinge of jealousy.
Caro and Dan seem so evenly, perfectly matched, in sync in every way.
They don’t have kids, and Ash wonders if that’s because they don’t feel like they need anyone else.
They even look a bit alike—tall and lanky, skin that easily tans, warm brown eyes.
In fact, Ash thinks, Dan and Spencer look alike, too, except for the fact that Spencer’s bald and Dan has that thick shock of dark brown hair.
Caro definitely has a type. Does Ash have a type?
Wade used to have (more) blond hair; he still has blue eyes.
Does Ash usually crush on people who look like that?
She doesn’t know if she has a type. She’s had Wade for so long.
“I called my dad’s care facility, too,” Caro’s saying. “He was resting and couldn’t come to the phone, but they said he’s been doing well the last couple of days.”
“That’s great.” But Ash isn’t ready to move away from Dan and Caro and what Dan knows. “Did you tell Dan anything about where we are?”
“Not yet,” Caro says. “But when we get our phones back, we’d better let them know. If our photos are all over social media, someone’s going to see that and send them any second now. It’s better that it comes from us.”
Ash is grateful that Caro didn’t ask if she’s said anything to Wade.
Ash didn’t tell him where they were this morning, but he didn’t ask.
Maybe because he already knows. She gave him plenty of hints during that phone call the first night.
“Do you think you could really have gone the whole time without talking to Dan?” she asks Caro now.
“I was planning on it.” Caro turns to look at Ash, and Ash wonders what she’s thinking. Does Caro know that Ash broke the rule the very first night?
“Do you think you could have?” Caro asks Ash.
“I guess we’ll never know,” Ash says.
Caro rotates her neck, as if it’s giving her discomfort, too. “How is your family? I’m sorry I didn’t ask yet.”
“They’re fine,” Ash says. “Wade actually ended up going on a trip. His mom is watching the girls.”
“Really?” Caro says. “Does he do that kind of thing a lot?”
“No,” Ash says. “Especially not on his own, like a guys trip. I’m glad he’s doing it.
Usually I’m the one who’s traveling.” She sits down next to Caro and lowers her voice in case there’s someone behind the one-way window.
“To be honest,” she says, and she’s not sure why she’s telling Caro this, she’s never told anyone, “I never know what I’m going to find when I get back from a trip these days.
” She exhales. “The last time I went out of town, for a buying trip, I came home and found out that he’d bought a new car. ”
“Oh?” Caro says.
Ash knows it doesn’t sound that bad. None of the things that happen are things like He cheated or He hit me or He doesn’t do anything with the kids or He can’t hold down a job or He’s an addict. The things Wade does are really, truly, not that bad, on the surface. But they hurt.
How do you describe it? The way he undercuts her, taking the wind out of her sails, wearing her down?
“He did it without talking to me about it,” Ash says at last. “We’d always discussed big purchases before.”
“Oh, of course,” Caro says, and the matter-of-fact way she says it feels so validating that tears start to Ash’s eyes. “That’s the kind of thing couples should talk about. I’d be livid if Dan did that without our having a conversation first.”
“Right?” Ash says. “When I said that, Wade got mad. He said it was his money and he could do whatever he wanted with it, and he didn’t have to run it past me first.”
“Hold on.” Caro sits upright. “What does that mean, it’s his money?”
“I mean, it was his money,” Ash says. “The money he makes from his dental practice.”
Caro looks Ash straight in the eyes. “Yeah, but do you talk about any big purchases you make with your money?” she asks Ash. “Money from Three Sisters? If you went ahead and bought a car without talking to him first, would he be mad?”
“Well, yeah, but that’s both of our money,” Ash says.
“And the dental practice isn’t?”
“Well, he helped me so much with getting the business off the ground…”
“And you didn’t do the same for him?” Caro asks. She pushes the chair back, and it screeches across the concrete floor, making them both wince. “Plus bear his children?”
“Our children,” Ash says.
“Still,” Caro says. Then they’re both quiet. Ash hears the air-conditioning kick on again, and she rubs at her goose-bumped arms.
“What else has he done while you’ve been gone?” Caro asks.
Ash sighs. “The trip before, he cleaned out our closet.”
“And what was the catch?” Caro prompts, and Ash feels that wash of relief again. Caro understood that there would be a catch, that it wasn’t purely a kind, helpful action on Wade’s part.
“He only cleaned out my part of the closet,” Ash says. “He took all my clothes, shoes, everything out of the closet, and it was all on my side of the bed when I got back. He said I was taking up more than my half of the space.”
“I don’t understand why he would do that,” Caro says. “Did he need more space?”
“Not really,” Ash says. “He hadn’t ever complained about it before.”
“Don’t all women take up more than half of the closet?” Caro asks. “I do.”
Ash shrugs. “I could see his point. Like, sometimes you want the space even if you’re not going to use it. It was—”
“The way he did it,” Caro finishes.
“Yeah.” Ash’s throat tightens. “Exactly.” She tries to laugh. It doesn’t work.
“That was childish,” Caro says. “Both of those things are extremely childish.”
Wade is so supportive, people are always telling Ash.
As if her venture is cute and sweet and—hobbyish.
Not the main source of their income. Wade has a great job, yes.
But she’s making more money than he is these days.
So why does she have to fit her work in around his instead of the other way around?
“Where’d he go on his boys trip?” Caro asks, and Ash feels that contrary, protective surge of emotion again. Why does boys trip sound so dismissive? And Wade is a great dad, and he does works hard…
“He didn’t tell me,” Ash says, and she sees Caro’s mouth twist, but before she can say anything the door to the room opens and they both straighten up. It’s Officer Clark this time.
Did you find anything out about the calls? Ash is about to ask. But before she can say anything, Officer Clark speaks. His tone is gentle, and his words are directed at Caro. “We’ve had a phone call from Lookout Pointe.”
At first, the name means nothing to Ash—is he talking about a hike? Is it somewhere they could have found Hope?—but Caro blanches visibly, and then Ash remembers that that’s the name of Caro’s father’s care facility.
“What happened?” Caro asks, standing.
Officer Clark doesn’t gesture for her to sit down. Behind him, in the mirror, Ash can see his straight back, Caro’s wide-open eyes. “Your father is missing.”