stop. Jerk forward, back. Reverse. Do half a K-turn until my lights splash against the trees. I don’t see him anywhere. He’s animal-fast. He’s gone. And I’m panting. Panting. Clutching my chest as I breathe.
I remember him now. The man who grabbed Astrid’s waist. My flashes have been of a bodiless arm, but now I remember the rest of him—or at least what he wore: welder’s mask, gloves, waders. Black on black on black.
eight
Dr. Lockwood would write this off, tell me I’ve internalized a description of Astrid’s kidnapper, regurgitated it as an image indistinguishable from memory. Eric would say I read it online. But they’d both be wrong. Wikipedia only said the man wore a mask. Not what kind. And Astrid’s prologue said she hadn’t been allowed to share that detail until now. She promised it would appear in a later chapter, one I’ve yet to read.
Still. I have to be sure.
Stray pebbles pop under my tires as I climb Ted’s driveway. I picture the man again—waders, welder’s mask, gloves—and there it is, the pounding in my chest that makes me believe in this image as memory. As fact. But as I close my car door, as I enter Ted’s house, I still need to see it in Astrid’s memoir—printed, published, permanent. Because wherever she is, Astrid might be counting on that witness from twenty years ago, and I can’t waste the time she has left by being wrong.
I’m halfway up the stairs when Ted calls out to me from the first floor. “Fern?”
And just like that, I stop. My foot hovers in midair.
“Come here,” he says.
My body obeys. My flip-flops clunk down the staircase. Even with all the adrenaline pumping through my veins, even with how fiercely Astrid might need me, I still feel a whoosh of warmth in my chest.
Ted’s asking for me. I can spare a minute for that.
I find him in the kitchen. He’s putting a plate into the microwave, then setting the timer. The microwave whirs into action.
“Hi,” I say.
He turns around, leans against the counter, crosses one foot over the other. “I noticed the boxes you bought yesterday are still in the living room,” he says.
I glance at the gray stubble along his jaw. He must have been working the entire day. For all his untucked shirts and misaligned buttons and wild wisps of hair, he likes to keep an impeccable face. Each follicle sliced away before it has a chance to grow.
“Yeah, sorry,” I say. “I’ve been busy.”
“Busy,” he repeats. “With what?” He narrows his eyes. Studies me for several seconds. “Where have you been all day?”
“Oh. Well, actually…”
I’m about to answer him, unburden myself of all I suspect, but his gaze is relentless. Sharp and focused as it ever was, every time I sat in the interview chair. He’d pounce on me if I told him. You think you witnessed a kidnapping? You must have been terrified. We have to explore this, Fern, come on. He’d drag me up the stairs, straight into his office. My stomach churns with the image. I can practically feel the tug of his hand on my wrist.
“I’ve just been out,” I tell him.
“Out,” he repeats, his voice spiky with suspicion. “But you came here to be in. To pack. And look—” He nods toward the living room. “Rusty brought over newspaper for wrapping things up. You haven’t even touched them yet.”
The microwave goes off—too soon, it seems, to have heated up his meal. But he spins toward it, anyway, opens the door, and takes out his plate without closing it again. He grabs a fork from the drawer and stabs it into the food. No steam rises from the noodles—my noodles, I realize, as he twirls them up and thrusts them into his mouth.
“Those are my leftovers,” I say.
He chews slowly. Takes his time.
“Oh,” he says once he swallows. “You want a bite?”
The smell wafts over to me. Nausea surges up. I press my lips together and breathe until it passes.
“No,” I say. “It’s just—you know, polite—to ask someone before eating their leftovers.”
He chomps on another forkful. “We’re family,” he replies. “We don’t need to be polite.”
The warmth in my chest is rapidly cooling. I cross my arms. Try to look impenetrable. “Eric’s my family. And he would ask before eating my leftovers.”
Ted’s laugh is a snort. “Eric does a lot of superfluous things.”
I straighten for a second, open my mouth to respond. Then I stop, force myself to relax. This is not the time to