Chapter 4
Chapter Four
CHARLIE
“Charlie Roscoe, what are you doing?”
This is not how I wanted today to end: caught. But I’m crouched behind a row of lilac bushes at the wilderness resort when that voice echoes behind me, trying to get one last glimpse of Alice and her boyfriend. And I’m as caught as it gets.
Raven Lake-Myers is standing on the grass behind me like a harbinger of doom, her dark hair framing her pale face. Giving me her best stern look while trying to hide how amused she is.
“Are you getting ready to commit a crime,” she asks, “or are you practicing for later? Because I saw you through the window while I was behind the front desk, and I was pretty sure we were about to get robbed.”
Nice try.
Raven plays a pretty convincing Concerned Employee—arms folded, hip cocked—but she’s basically my honorary older sister. If anyone from the wilderness resort had to catch me acting like a fool behind some lilac bushes, I’m glad it was her. She waits for me to crawl out of hiding, but I don’t. Carl sent me on a very specific mission—to make sure Alice is okay—and I’m not convinced.
It took her boyfriend forever to show up, and he hasn’t hugged her once. That can’t be good. What kind of long-distance boyfriend doesn’t immediately hug his girl?
It doesn’t help that I can’t hear what they’re saying. I’m wedged behind the long row of lilac bushes that frame the south wall of the main lodge, but even when I peer around the side of the building, I can’t see Alice clearly. Her back has been pointed toward me the entire time. How will I know she’s okay if I can’t see her face?
Raven taps her foot, still waiting for me to crawl out of hiding and explain myself. I shake my head and nod around the corner. When she catches on, she inches toward me, crouching on the other side of the nearest lilac bush before dropping her voice to a whisper. “What are we doing?”
That question sums up everything I love about Raven. Exactly why she’s honorary-older-sister material.
It doesn’t matter that it’s five fifteen in the afternoon, and I’m hiding behind shrubbery like a weirdo. Raven is the kind of girl who would never put my mission at risk. Sneaking around isn’t her thing, but she’d rather go full accomplice than hang me out to dry, even if she has no idea what I’m doing.
I gesture around the corner again, voice low. “I have to check on a girl—Carl’s orders. She got stranded at the bus station today when her boyfriend didn’t pick her up; he works here. I’m just trying to make sure everything’s fine before I leave.”
Raven’s eyes narrow. “He works here? And he left his girlfriend stranded at the bus station?”
She says that like she’s going to fire him herself, or maybe murder him slowly. Just as soon as she figures out who he is.
I nod and tell her everything. His name escapes me, but I recite the other stuff Alice mentioned on our drive. “He’s originally from Texas, but he got a job out here a few months ago. It was too good to pass up. He works in your marketing department.”
Beside me, Raven gets quiet. When she speaks, her voice sounds hollow. Like she’s a character in a horror movie, and she just realized the call is coming from inside the house. “Charlie…we don’t have a marketing department.”
All I can do is stare. Those words don’t make sense.
“It’s a mom-and-pop resort,” she explains. “Our marketing department is Aaron posting about the weather on Facebook while Dean posts sunrise pictures on Instagram. If anything else needs to get done, they divide and conquer.”
The wilderness resort is a family-run business that’s been around for over a century. The Myers brothers she mentioned are the next in line to run this place, and Raven married the oldest, Dean, last year. If anyone would know about the existence of a marketing department, it’s her.
Alice’s boyfriend lied about his job?
“What’s his name?” Raven asks.
I can’t remember, so I describe him instead. But that doesn’t help.
“Tall, blond, and grumpy?” Raven frowns. “That could be twenty different guys.”
She’s not wrong, but Alice’s boyfriend stands out in other ways. He’s far from your typical wilderness resort employee; he looks like he belongs on Wall Street. The kind of guy who’s never even seen the wrong side of the tracks, let alone grown up there.
“He looks like his dad owns a yacht.”
That’s the simplest way to describe him, and it works. Recognition washes over Raven. “Jason Markham?”
That’s the one.
As soon as she says his name, I can almost picture Alice saying it on our drive. Though Raven doesn’t seem relieved we figured it out. Her face gets real pink, real fast, and she looks more upset than before.
“He works in the kitchen, and he’s been acting single since he got here. He has a girlfriend?”
Raven’s timing is unreal. The moment she says that, a perky brunette joins Jason by the main lodge. And they look a little too happy to see each other.
“Has he been getting cozy with anyone in particular?” I ask, and this time, my voice is the one that sounds hollow.
“One of our servers in the main dining hall, a brunette named Tiffany. Why?”
“Because I think she just showed up.”
The full nightmare hits us at the same time. Raven and I have been friends for years, ever since she showed up in Ponderosa Falls, and this is a sore spot for both of us: cheaters. I’m the one who found out my dad wasn’t being faithful to my mom when I was a preteen, and Raven moved here after she realized her fiancé was creeping around.
That’s the first thing we bonded over—our joint trust issues—and that’s the only explanation for what happens next. For the way we both fall apart.
Raven loses it first, burying her face in her hands and going full PTSD. As if that’s her boyfriend across the lawn, not Alice’s. “Now she has to meet the other woman? After he left her stranded at a bus station?”
I should probably talk her down, but I’m too busy having a meltdown of my own. “She’s too nice for this,” I mutter as their voices drift toward us. “She didn’t deserve this.”
Nobody does, but I can’t shake how sweet Alice is. How she traveled all this way to see him and wasn’t even mad when he tried to cancel and didn’t pick her up. That girl is a walking rainbow. Breaking her heart should be a crime.
I knew that boyfriend of hers was bad news. Not hugging her right away was definitely a sign.
The fact that his other woman isn’t surprised to see Alice makes it worse. She clearly knew he had a girlfriend back home. Tiffany has one of those voices that carry, and her words cut through Raven and me like a thousand rusty knives.
“He just wasn’t sure how to tell you it was over. You have so much going on with your family. He didn’t want to make it worse.”
Raven is still crouched beside me on the other side of that lilac bush, her face in her hands, and she mutters something I can barely hear. It sounds a lot like he talked to her about his girlfriend’s family problems?
Around the corner, Alice basically says the same thing, but Jason isn’t fazed. “Well, I had to talk to someone.”
I see red for a split second, and Raven makes a soft oof sound beside me, as if Jason’s response punched her in the gut.
“I’m so sorry about your sister,” Tiffany says. “That’s rough.”
“You told her about my sister?”
Alice’s voice is so quiet when she says that, I have no idea how it carries as far as it does. How anything that soft and hurt can travel all the way around the corner and stab me in the heart. But it does, and it hits Raven too.
I’m not sure what’s going on with Alice’s sister. She didn’t mention her once, but I can tell it’s serious. There’s no way she wanted her boyfriend talking about it with his girl-on-the-side.
But Alice doesn’t say that. She doesn’t say anything. She just stands there, frozen. Probably because she thinks she’s stranded with nowhere else to go.
“We have to help her,” Raven whispers. “We can’t leave her out there alone like that.”
Done.
I’m out of my hiding place in seconds flat. Raven is too focused on hyperventilating to follow me, but that doesn’t matter. I have no problem handling this on my own.
Even if I don’t have a plan.