Chapter 18
PIPER
“Yoo-hoo!” Mom calls over to Dad. “We’re here!”
I’m having an out-of-body experience, watching my legs move like they belong to someone else, while every cell inside me screams, “Brody was in love with me!”
I don’t even stop to question whether he was talking about me or Harper. I just know.
The memory of our almost-kiss on the porch when I was sixteen hums in the air. It echoes from the past, like I could reach out and touch it. He did want to kiss me back then. I hadn’t imagined it. And the reason he didn’t—well, one of them, anyway—is standing in front of us now.
My teeth grind together as rage floods my mouth, crystallizing into hard words of anger.
How fucking dare he? Brody wasn’t some high school jock who saw me as a notch on his hockey stick.
He was a good guy, Ethan’s best friend. And my saintly older brother has no leg to stand on.
He and Olivia were having sex when they were both sixteen, so why deny me someone I loved, just as they loved each other?
I’m shaking now. All this time. Twelve years that I could have been with Brody. Over a decade spent trying to find someone—anyone—who could make me feel even ten percent of what I felt for him.
If Ethan hadn’t stepped in, we would have been together.
I know this in my bones. I would have shown him that he didn’t need to chase fame the way he has, or run from Hideaway.
We could have grown together, and it would have been a beautiful adventure for both of us.
He wouldn’t have acted out because he would have known he was loved. He was perfect, just as he was.
Yes, Brody left Hideaway and never came back, and why would he when his best friend in the whole world told him he wasn’t good enough?
“Oh, look, Martha, honey! It’s starting to snow!” Mom says, catching a snowflake on her glove and holding it out for her to see.
And that little girl is the only reason I bite my tongue and swallow my fury. I can’t even speak right now, so I hang back as everyone greets each other, gripping Brody’s arm as if it’s the only thing stopping me from launching myself at my brother.
“Daddy took me to the spring to make a wish!” Martha is telling Mom.
“And what did you wish for?”
“I can’t tell you, or it won’t come true!”
“But the Hideaway spring is magical,” Mom replies. “Every wish comes true, so you can tell me.”
Martha doesn’t sound convinced. “I’ll think about it.”
She looks up at Ethan and pokes the end of his nose. “Daddy, don’t you have something to say?”
He faces Brody and clears his throat. “I …”
“We had words,” Martha says to Brody. “And now he’s going to say sorry. Aren’t you, Daddy?”
Ethan nods. “I was out of line yesterday, and I want to apologize.”
“No need,” Brody replies. “We’re cool.”
My grip on his arm intensifies, and he puts his hand over mine, stroking the back of it.
“I wondered if you wanted to come to my place after the race for a bit, watch the game?” Ethan asks.
Brody looks at me as if he needs my permission.
Using all of my willpower, I force a smile.
“Yeah,” Brody says. “That would be great.”
Martha claps. “And I can give you the tour, Uncle Brody.”
He gives her a genuine smile. “I’d like that.”
“Great!” Mom says enthusiastically. “Now, I don’t know about you, but I need a hot dog and some spiced cider.”
“Let me get them,” Brody says. “What does everyone want?”
Mom raises her hands as if to stop him, but Dad gives her a look, and she puts them in her pockets. He knows that Brody needs this. This is him saying thank you to all of us and building bridges with my brother.
Brody takes everyone’s orders, then goes to the food tent with me and Cara so we can help carry it all back.
The snow is still falling, but not enough to make it impossible to be outside, and the hot food warms us up from the inside out. There’s no chance to talk to Brody right now, so I listen to the chatter about the race. Hudson has been training all winter and is pumped.
“You’d better be ready at the finish line to take my picture when I win,” he tells Mia.
She scoffs. “I’ve got more important people to be photographing.”
“I’ve got the mistletoe in my bag!” Mom calls over. “And some white string to tie it up with so no one will see it against the snow.”
“You’d rather shoot a Hallmark Christmas card than me?” Hudson asks Mia.
“Well, duh! One of our generation’s finest actors, or someone who thinks fart jokes are funny?”
“I don’t need you anyway,” he replies. “Channel 6’s Down East News Now is sending a crew to cover it.”
“That’s exciting, honey!” Mom says. “We’ll all be there cheering you on when you cross the line!”
Woven rugs have been placed at the start and finish lines of the race to help with traction, and marshals are verifying the socks that competitors are wearing. Hudson takes off his boots and puts on two more pairs of socks.
“How many are you allowed to wear?” Brody asks him.
“As many as you like, but three are recommended,” he replies. “And the outer one must be 100% wool and either knitted yourself or made by someone in Hideaway.”
He pulls the socks up his calves and secures tape around the top so they won’t fall down while he’s running.
“There’s a two-kilometer or a six-kilometer race,” Dad tells Brody. “With different categories, as well as prizes for the best outfits. The faster runners usually compete in the longer distance, meaning the two races don’t finish too far apart in time.”
Hudson gets his socks checked, has a number pinned to his front, and then joins the fastest at the front for the beginning of the longer race.
Despite claiming not to want to photograph him, Mia still gets into position to shoot the runners as they set off.
The gun fires, and Hudson sprints away, leading the pack as we all shout and cheer. The marshals give them a five-minute head start, and then the two-k race begins.
“Photo time!” Mom cries, brushing snow off the top of her bag. “I’ve got the mistletoe right here.”
I swallow. Yes, of course I want to kiss Brody, but even more than that, I want to talk to him. To untangle our history now that there’s a new lens on my memories.
“We don’t have to do this,” he says quietly to me.
“It won’t take long, and we’ve got time to kill before the runners return.”
He nods, seeming as unsure as I am. The photo Mom has planned feels wrong. It’s not that it won’t be pretty; it’s just too staged. Like something you’d do to celebrate an engagement.
“John!” An older man runs toward us from the direction of the town, one arm raised.
Dad strides to meet him, and we all follow.
“Walter, is everything all right?”
“No!” He reaches us and bends over, his hands braced on his thighs as he catches his breath. “My grandson’s missing.”
“Cathy! Bryan! Pete! Get over here!” Dad yells at the race marshals. Then he turns back to Walter, who’s still struggling to breathe. “What can you tell us? Have you called the police?”
Walter shakes his head. “Not yet. He was spending the afternoon with me, you know my house is at the edge of the reserve, and I fell asleep.”
He covers his face with his hand as he sobs. “John, I’ll never forgive myself if anything happens to him.”
Mom rubs his back. “I’m sure he hasn’t gone far. We’ll find him. I promise.”
“What was he wearing, and where do you think he went?” Dad asks.
“He had on his boots and coat and took his backpack. He came this way with his dog. Have you seen them?”
Brody goes rigid beside me. “What’s the dog’s name?”
“Lucky,” Walter replies. “That’s what Billy called her. She’s a golden retriever puppy, about seven months old.”
“Jesus Christ,” Brody mutters, then looks at me. “It’s the kid from the library this morning.”
“Why would he come this way?” Dad asks as Mom relays what happened to the people Dad called over.
“In the summer, I started teaching him how to track animals. We went on the trails through the reserve, so I guess he thought he’d see what he could find in the snow.”
Ethan’s on the phone. “Yes, I’d like to report a missing child. Let me give you to his grandpa.” He passes the phone to Walter. “The signal isn’t great.”
Dad addresses Ethan. “Round up anyone dressed for the weather, and we’ll start searching now.”
Ethan gives him a grim nod, then hands Martha to Mom.
“Daddy?” she asks him, a frown puckering her forehead.
He kisses her. “It’s gonna be okay, sweetie, but I need you to stay with Grandma right now. Can you do that for me?”
She nods, and he sprints away.
“It’s my fault,” Brody mutters under his breath.
I draw him aside. “How on earth do you figure that?”
“That damn book. We were talking about how to track down a yeti.”
“Brody, that’s crazy. You cannot take responsibility for this!”
He looks around the snowy landscape, then up at the wintry sky. The snow is falling faster now, and I’m trying not to panic.
“I’m just going to check something out,” he says, then sprints off in the opposite direction of the main trails, toward the steep slope of the mountain.
In the next few minutes, Ethan and Dad have a plan in place. The police, Warden Service, and the fire department are on their way, along with the volunteer search and rescue team that Ethan helps with when he’s not on duty. People have also been sent to fetch Billy’s parents.
But they don’t want to waste time waiting for the services, so Ethan organizes a line search. He’s giving people their positions when Brody runs back and straight up to him.
“I don’t think they went on the trails,” he says. “I think they went that way, up the mountain.”
“He wouldn’t have done that,” Walter says. “We always stick to the trails.”
“Ethan,” Brody pleads. “Just let me show you something.”
Ethan hesitates, then faces the group assembled around him. “Set off now, and I’ll follow as soon as I can.”
He gives Brody a nod, and they run off in the opposite direction. I follow, even though I’m so much slower than the two of them, and we head into the tree line to the edge of a gorge.
It’s not deep, maybe twenty-five feet, but the sides are steep, and you wouldn’t want to fall down them. The area was always strictly off-limits to us kids when we were growing up, and not many people trek through it.
“Look,” Brody says to Ethan as I arrive. “He could have gone this way.”
A large tree has fallen, creating a bridge across the gorge, but it’s not straightforward. The side we’re on involves a climb up the tangled root structure to the trunk, and the other end is a mess of snow-covered branches.
“Why?” Ethan asks, his tone clipped. “He’s seven. It’s far too high and difficult for him to get up there, let alone across safely. There’s no way he’d have gone this way.”
“But if you cross to the other side, there’s a cave up on the mountain.”
“And?”
“Billy’s trying to find a yeti, and yetis live in caves.”
“Have you lost your goddamn mind?” Ethan shouts. “This isn’t a fucking movie. This is real life, and a little boy’s life is on the line.”
“You think I don’t know that? I’m trying to help!”
“Well, you’re not. You’re just wasting time. If you want to do something useful, you can help Mom keep people calm. You can distract them by signing autographs and taking selfies.”
“Shut up, Ethan!” I yell.
He turns to me, looking surprised I’m even here. “Piper, go back—”
“No. Why don’t you listen to what Brody’s saying instead of dismissing him?”
“Because he’s an actor, Piper. His life is a game of let’s pretend. It’s not real. And he doesn’t know these woods like I do. Hell, he hasn’t even been here for the past twelve years!”
“And why the fuck do you think that is, huh? When the one person he loved like a brother told him he’d never measure up? That he wasn’t worthy? That he didn’t deserve happiness?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Piper …” Brody begins.
“You told him I was off-limits. So, being the best friend he was, he did what you said. Of course he did. He had no one apart from his mom, and then not even her by the time you graduated. And what did you have? Everything. A large, stable family with a dad who’s the fucking mayor.
How dare you make decisions about our life? What about what I wanted, huh?”
“You were only sixteen.”
“So? You’d been sleeping with Olivia since you were sixteen yourself. What makes you so special compared to us?”
His face darkens at the mention of Olivia, and my heart stutters inside my chest. But he’s not going to use her death as a get-out-of-jail-free card for the rest of his life.
“Do you know how lonely I’ve been?” I cry. “You stole twelve years of happiness from me, Ethan. From Brody. What do you think Brody’s life would have looked like if you hadn’t stuck your sanctimonious nose into our lives?”
My heart is hammering so fast I think I might faint, but I’m not done yet.
“You’re making Brody out to be the bad guy for never coming back, but you need to take a good, hard look at how you were part of the reason. You called yourself his best friend, but then told him he wasn’t good enough for me. What message do you think he took from that about his worth as a person?”
“It wasn’t like that—”
“Yes, it was.”
“Ethan—”
Ethan cuts Brody off.
“Screw this. I’ve got better things to do than stand around arguing when a child is missing. You two do whatever the fuck you like, but I’m heading somewhere useful.”
Brody’s shoulders slump as Ethan runs off. I throw my arms around him as we watch my brother disappear through the trees.
We stand for a moment as the snow falls silently around us, then I pull back. “Okay, tell me why you think Billy went this way.”
He straightens, and the fire returns to his eyes.
“From the top of Seller Hill, you can see a cave partway up this side of the mountain. When we were kids, we made up stories about ghosts, or bears, or bandits that lived up there. What if Billy and his friends do that too? And he told me he wanted to hunt a yeti.”
“Okay, let’s climb up and see if there are any tracks.”
We hoist ourselves up through the roots and reach the trunk of the tree. It’s wide enough to walk along, but I can’t see any sign that Billy came this way.
Dropping to his knees, Brody brings his face almost level with the snow and carefully brushes some of it away.
“Piper! Look!”
Holy shit. A footprint.