Chapter 14
During the hours after Celia returned to the Eco-Lodge and left Ruth to her own devices, Ruth struggled to make sense of anything. Her eyes burned with the image of the Caldweck mansion, sitting there on the opposite side of the fence, waiting for her.
Eventually, Ruth collapsed in a little French café not far from the courthouse, where she ordered a glass of wine and tried to will her hands to stop shaking.
The woman behind the counter eyed her as though she wasn’t sure whether to call an ambulance.
Ruth took a breath, then raised her glass, smiling to herself. She’d never felt weaker in her life.
In her little notebook, she wrote: I’ve never felt so close nor so far from what I need.
I don’t know how to break this boundary.
I know better than to go to the library and dig around.
I know they’ll start watching me the minute they get wind that I’m here.
I know I’m taking a risk, just sitting in this bar.
Maybe I’m playing an elaborate game of chicken with them.
Maybe I want them to approach me so I can finally tell them to their face what I think of them.
Eventually, Ruth paid for her wine and walked the rest of the way to the Eco-Lodge.
She made up a story in her mind about what she did in town, just in case she ran into Celia and had to answer questions.
But when she entered the Eco-Lodge, a woman behind the front desk she didn’t recognize greeted her, and Ruth breathed a sigh of relief.
It was clear that they’d hired new people for the summer season.
Maybe she could be more or less anonymous.
Upstairs, she opened the window of her new, smaller room and lay on the bed, listening to the laughter and conversation at yet another Harper family party.
It seemed there was no end to the joy they could find with one another.
Sometimes Ruth was reminded of the horrible fights and crying that broke out during her childhood, when she’d been responsible for so many brothers and sisters, as well as for her mother’s happiness.
Not for the first time as of late, her stomach felt tight with sorrow over the death of her mother.
Ruth hadn’t known she was sick. She would have gone to her bedside if she’d been told.
But her siblings had always thought she was “too good” for them after she’d graduated from Yale.
She’d only introduced her siblings and her mother to her daughter, Sloane, a handful of times.
It was then that, down on the Harper porch, she overheard Celia ask her daughter, Sophie, yet again about her thesis, her research, and all she still needed to do that summer to please her professors back in East Oregon.
Ruth’s ears perked up. As Sophie spoke about her research plans and thesis obligations, Ruth realized Sophie was lying. The girl was hiding something.
Ruth wondered whether she only sensed that Sophie was lying because she herself was lying so frequently now. Maybe all liars could recognize one another. Maybe it was a curse.
And then, it occurred to Ruth that maybe Sophie could help her.
Ruth sat up in bed, her heart pounding. She reasoned that if she paid Sophie to do a little more digging into the Caldweck family, the Caldwecks wouldn’t catch on that Ruth was after them.
Maybe they’d learn that Sophie was looking into them, and maybe they’d assume it was all because of their awful environmental practices.
Maybe Ruth could learn more about them without exposing herself at all—until it was too late for them.
Pleased with her idea, Ruth fell asleep with the slightest of smiles on her face.
Maybe everything would be all right.
She had to believe it, anyway. Otherwise, she wouldn’t find the strength to keep going.
But when Ruth woke up the following morning, everything in her world crashed in on itself. She was poised on the middle step, preparing to charge the rest of the way downstairs and into the breakfast nook, when she heard his voice. “Good morning!” It was Quentin.
Ruth gripped the railing with all her strength, conscious of how easy it would be for her to fall down the stairs, especially now.
She couldn’t breathe. What was he doing here?
How had he found her? She thought she’d been so careful.
Of course he'd found her. She'd published an article with her full name attached to the very place she was staying.
What had she been thinking? She'd been so focused on establishing a cover story that she'd handed him a roadmap.
Slowly, she took a step backward, praying that she could make it back to her room before he discovered her. He was only twenty feet away, speaking to whoever was at the front desk.
“Morning,” Sophie answered in that semi-bored way of hers, proof that she hated working at the Eco-Lodge and wanted to be anywhere else. “Can I help you with something?”
“Maybe you can,” Quentin said. He was just as charming as ever, flirtatious in a way that, surely, Sophie wasn’t immune to. Ruth hated how much she wanted to see his face, to see what he looked like in the flesh, so many years after she’d fallen in love with him.
“I’m a Bluebell resident, in fact, but I hardly ever come out this way. I was walking by and spotted this place. I remember it from years ago, but it’s quite a bit different. Has it changed owners?” Quentin asked.
Sophie was quiet for a moment. “Um, not really. It’s still in the Harper family.”
“The Harper family! That’s it,” Quentin said, snapping his fingers. “I had that name in the back of my mind but couldn’t nab it. Did Mr. Harper pass?”
“About three years ago, yeah,” Sophie said.
“Was he your grandfather?” Quentin asked.
Sophie was quiet for a longer moment, as though she wanted to show Quentin that he was wrong to ask so many questions. “He was, yep.”
Hesitantly, Ruth took another step backward. But she also wanted to linger outside her room a bit longer, if only to figure out what Quentin was after and why he was here.
“That’s too bad. I remember liking him.”
“I don’t think he was very well liked,” Sophie said.
Quentin laughed in a way that suggested he was almost nervous. Ruth’s eyes widened.
“Well, I remember respecting him, which is better than liking him,” Quentin said.
“Sure. Can I help you with anything else? Mr.…” Sophie asked.
“Caldweck,” Quentin said. “Quentin Caldweck.”
Sophie didn’t say anything. Ruth was flushed. Sweat poured from the back of her neck.
“I was wondering,” Quentin continued, “if you have any travel writers staying here at the moment? I saw an article about the Eco-Lodge recently, and I thought it was so well-written and wanted to talk to the writer about it.”
“I thought you said you just happened to be walking by,” Sophie said stonily.
Quentin laughed. “I guess I fibbed a little. I actually wanted to—”
“We don’t have any writers here at the moment,” Sophie interrupted him.
Quentin’s voice grew more sinister. “Is it possible that one of your guests is a writer? Maybe you don’t know, but…”
“Anything’s possible, I suppose. But I don’t want to bother any of our guests,” Sophie said. “They come here to rest and relax and eat food. Actually, I need to check on the breakfast. Can I help you with anything else?”
“I’d love to come check out your breakfast,” Quentin said. “I’m sort of hungry.”
“It’s only for guests.”
“It says right there that you can buy the breakfast without being a guest,” Quentin said.
Ruth took another step back, praying that the staircase wouldn’t creak and give her away.
She knew that Quentin was hunting her, that somehow he’d discovered her recent article about the Eco-Lodge and decided to come here.
What did he want to do? Threaten her? She was already scared out of her wits.
“Right. Well. I guess I can’t stop you,” Sophie said. “I can tell you that the breakfast is really bad today and you’d be an idiot to buy it, but that’s on you.”
Quentin had had enough of Sophie and her mischief. “Can I talk to someone? A manager or…”
“I’m the manager today,” Sophie said snidely. “It’s this or nothing, Mr. Caldwell.”
“It’s Weck. Caldweck,” Quentin corrected her.
Ruth smiled, remembering how much Quentin had hated when people had mispronounced his name. It was as though Sophie intuitively knew that.
Sensing that Quentin wasn’t going to leave without eating his weight in bacon and pancakes, Ruth crept the rest of the way to her bedroom, closed the door behind her, and locked it.
Her heart fluttered in her neck. For more than an hour, she sat on her bed, watching the clock and praying for Quentin to leave.
From where she was, she knew she’d see him walking down the sidewalk when he finally left.
But nothing could have prepared her for seeing him, striding along, his hands in his pockets, his hair still black and glowing in the sunlight.
He was still staggeringly handsome, which felt unfair. Anger made her stomach roil.
Within a minute, she called the front desk and got Sophie on the line.
“Oh, hi Ruth,” Sophie said.
Ruth’s breathing was ragged. “Hi.”
She sat quietly for a moment, willing herself to ask Sophie what she needed to ask.
“Can I help you with something?” Sophie asked finally.
Ruth squeezed her eyes shut. “How did you know? To send him away, I mean.”
“It’s like you said. Bad men in Bluebell,” Sophie said.
“Right. Yes.” Ruth furrowed her brow.
“The thing I don’t understand,” Sophie explained, “is why you won’t tell me what’s going on.”
“We all have our secrets, don’t we?” Ruth asked.
Sophie laughed gently. “Nobody wants that Caldweck guy lingering around the Eco-Lodge,” she said. “But I need to know if he’s dangerous. I need to know if we should hide you.”
Ruth squeezed her eyes shut and reminded herself she was too old to burst into tears. She had to keep it together—if not for Sloane’s sake, then for herself.
“It’s difficult to explain,” she whispered.
“I know all about difficult things,” Sophie said. “Try me.”