Chapter 44 Page
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HOW MANY DAYS CAN you survive without food? I think it’s like a week. But that’s if you have a clean source of water, and if you don’t get hypothermia or heatstroke or sick or injured.
Better take more.
I’m stuffing my backpack full of snacks in the staff tent when Skye, Gareth, Mal, and Addie come inside.
I zip up the bag quickly, even though I’m not stealing. I don’t want them noticing how much I’ve taken or wondering why I’d need it all. “We’re one of the top three stories on CNN today,” Addie says. She reads from her phone. “‘Body Count Rises in Eden National Park After Tragic Flash Flood.’”
“That’s nothing,” Skye says. “Did you see TMZ? The Daily Mail? People again?”
I have what I came for. I should go. But I want to know how much—and what—information is out there.
“Did you know that Hope Hanover was staying here?” Gareth asks me. He sounds accusatory.
“Yeah, Page,” Skye says. “Did you?”
I don’t answer. I wonder why Gareth is so grumpy.
And why Skye is in such a bad mood if all her dreams of media attention are coming true.
Have her LikeMe numbers plateaued? Have people started turning to other sources of information, like the @findhopehanover account?
Has she found herself threatened by the force of Hope Hanover’s presence, even in her absence?
Because Hope is a force to be reckoned with. I knew that the very first time I met her.
“I looked at the log, and you’re the one who checked her in when she got here,” Skye says.
“Hope Hanover used her real name?” Addie sounds skeptical.
“No,” Skye says. “She used a weird one. Chastity Bentley. But Page was the one working when she checked in. And even Page would recognize Hope Hanover. Right?” She takes a couple of steps closer. I keep my mouth shut and don’t move.
“Come on,” Addie says. “Why are you being so weird about this, Skye?”
“I’m not the one who’s being weird,” Skye says airily.
I’m so tired. I haven’t slept well in days—or maybe it’s been weeks, or years. I haven’t been eating great, either, grabbing what I can find on my way from one problem to the next.
“Did you creep around her tent spying on her like you did Colby?” Skye asks.
The shot hits home. She knows about that?
“She was staying in an Airstream,” I say, and I immediately want to bite my own tongue off. What the hell, Page? I want to ask myself. You know better than to respond. You’ve gone all summer without letting Skye get to you. Why are you allowing it to happen now?
“For all we know, Page murdered Colby,” Skye says. “No one’s seen him in days.”
I have to hand it to Skye. I didn’t think she’d come to that conclusion.
But maybe I should have. I shoulder my bag in one quick motion, trying not to give any indication of how heavy it is and how much food I’ve stashed inside.
Don’t give them what they want. Don’t respond. That’s the advice. It doesn’t work.
There are some people who will always hound and hunt out the weak. You can’t stop them. It’s how they feed.
But sometimes they make mistakes. I’m bone-weary, but I’m not weak at all.
“Skye, come on,” Mal says. “Shut up.” He catches my eye. “Skye’s talking out of her ass,” he says. “None of us think that you murdered Colby. We know he’s out of town and you’re covering for him.”
Skye’s pissed now because Mal is taking my side. “I do,” she says. “I think that. Why’d he leave all of a sudden? Why isn’t he answering any of our texts?”
“You’re being a jerk, Skye,” Addie says. “Stop.”
I stand there, for one more moment, looking at them. I think, I don’t want to be here anymore.
And that makes me sad, because, for a while, Sonnet was the closest thing to home that I’ve had in years.
I open the door and slip through. But as it’s closing behind me, I pause to hear a little more of what they say.
“I still think it’s weird that Colby disappeared and one of our guests disappeared and Page was one of the last people to see them both,” Skye says.
“If anything, Colby would be the one to kill Page,” Addie says, and my heart almost stops. “They were so close. And he’s so much older than she is. Didn’t it feel kind of, like, inappropriate? Like he was grooming her?” I hear her slam the fridge door shut.
I feel like throwing up. I like Addie. We’ve been friendly. Is this what she thinks was going on?
“What about these?” I hear Skye rustling around, and I move closer to listen better. “These freaky pictures that someone keeps taking and putting up on the photo board with the other normal ones?”
A chill runs through me. I thought I was the only one.
“What’s creepy about these?” Addie says. “They’re just, like, candid photos of you around the resort and on hikes.”
“They’re like stalker photos of me,” Skye says. “I don’t know who’s taking them.”
“Before you say anything, Addie, it’s not me,” Mal says. “I didn’t take any of these.”
Addie must be looking at the photos. “Huh,” she says after a second. “I can see what you mean. They are only of you. None of the rest of us are in these pictures. And why do they look weirdly old?”
“Because they’re using a disposable camera and developing them from film,” Skye says with confidence. “I know photos and filters and cameras pretty damn well, thank you very much.”
“Okay,” Addie says. “I agree, this is kind of creepy.”
“It’s been going on all summer,” Skye says.
“Normal staff photos go up of us doing stuff together, printed from the office computer or whatever, and then pretty soon after a couple of these show up on the board. Me at the campfire. Me eating my lunch by the food truck. Me walking across the resort. Me swimming in the pool.”
“Why would they put them on the board?”
“To get my attention,” Skye says. “To freak me out.”
“Have you told Colby?” Addie asks. “Or the police?’
“I told Colby, and he said he’d look into it, but then nothing happened,” Skye says. “And then he left. And put Page in charge. There were a couple of people I thought might be stalking me, but now I know who it is.”
“Who?” Addie asks.
“Page,” Sky says.
My heart hits pause. I can’t breathe. All of this is so bad.
“Come on,” Addie says. “Not Page again. Why would it be her?”
“Maybe she has a crush on me,” Skye says. “Maybe she’s jealous of me. I don’t know. But she definitely hates me—”
“Because you’ve been rude to her all summer—” Addie interjects.
“—and why else wouldn’t Colby do anything about it?” Skye says. “Something is definitely off there. You’re right. Maybe it’s grooming, maybe they have some weird arrangement where they cover for each other’s deviant behavior. I don’t know.”
“Skye,” Mal says.
“Why don’t the rest of us know where Colby is?” Skye asks. “How come it’s only Page who’s in the loop?”
“We don’t even know that she is in the loop,” Mal says.
“Well, she’s acting like he died and left her in charge,” Skye says.
“I believe that someone’s creeping on you,” Addie says. “But I don’t think it’s Page.”
“Ugh.” Skye groans in frustration. “She’s not as innocent as you all believe she is.”
I close my eyes. Skye’s wrong about so many things, but she’s right about this. I’m not innocent. I haven’t been for a long time.
“And Colby’s not grooming her,” Mal says flatly. “Colby’s gay.”
“What?” Skye asks. “Are you sure? Why didn’t you say that before?”
“I didn’t want to out the guy when he hadn’t been specific about it with us,” Mal says. “His personal life isn’t our business.”
“And she wasn’t one of the last people to see Hope Hanover,” Addie says. “Hope’s friends were the ones in the Underground with her when she disappeared.”
“I still don’t believe that about Colby.” Skye is hung up on the latest revelation, which wouldn’t be that much of a revelation if she’d been paying attention.
Colby never tried to hide anything, but he’s also discreet. “I don’t know that it’s fully safe to be out in southern Utah,” he’d told me.
“You’re probably not wrong,” I’d said, thinking of some of the people I’d gone to high school with.
“Although it’s probably not fully safe anywhere in this country right now,” he’d said.
But I can’t fault Skye for missing that, when I’ve missed so many other things. Okay. How does knowing all of this change what I need to do next? I don’t know yet.
“And did you see the way she looked at me a minute ago?” Skye asks. She looked like she wanted to kill me.”
I do, I think. I really do.
Ty’s walking from the parking lot, his arms full of boxes.
Probably food for the food truck. He’s like me; he comes to work sometimes even when it’s supposed to be his day off.
He lifts his chin at me in greeting. Before he can ask me what I’m doing or offer to get me some food again, I head down the gravel road toward the drive.
I’ve done the best I can for Colby. He was due back today. The situation was supposed to be handled by now. I haven’t heard from him yet, but I’m out of time. I have to go.
Everything is hell. But I’m laughing to myself as I cross the staff parking lot to find my Blazer because I’m so, so tired, and because Skye is so right about some things and so wrong about others. And the staff, the people I spend the most time with, don’t know me the way they think they do.
What would they do if I told them that I’ve seen Hope Hanover?
What if I told them I’d identified the body?
Would they believe me?