My head came up when the Rolls made a turn and the road got bumpy.
We’d been following a mountain path for so long, the twists and turns, I’d been lulled. We were at least a half an hour, maybe longer, from the center of town.
Truth be told, to keep my mind from this upcoming meeting, I wished I didn’t get car sick when I focused on something while riding in a vehicle. I’d have been all over marathon texting one of my kids. Getting caught up on Insta. Playing that game I downloaded which I seemed to be able to get lost in for hours.
Hell, just last week, before I found out what had happened with Corey, my phone had warned I was at 10%. I’d looked at the time and it was two in the morning. I’d started playing when it was 8:30.
And, of course, being one of his dearest long-time friends, Imogen Swan, America’s sweetheart, had to have something public to say about it.
What to say about my beloved Corey?
My childhood friend.
The boy, and then man, who’d been in my life the longest.
There weren’t enough words in all the languages of the world to share how shattered I was that he’d taken his own life.
I closed my eyes tight, before I opened them and stared out the window at the thick trees we were (very slowly on this gravel road) passing.
Because this would be what Corey would do.
What was happening right now.
Me, on my way to visit Bowie.
Bowie hadn’t come to the funeral. I had no idea why. And I thought the worse of him for it.
Then again, it didn’t take much for me to think the worst of Bowie.
In grade school, all through high school, they’d been the best of friends.
Duncan “Bowie” Holloway and Corey “The Stick” Szabo.
The jock and the nerd.
Impossible.
But there you are.
Then, when Bowie got shot of me, he got shot of Corey.
I had no idea why.
On both counts.
Though, Bowie had told me, rather explicitly, if completely, tortuously and heartbreakingly erroneously, why he was done with me.
Therefore, it was only for Corey’s sake I would be in the back of that car, right now, heading to Bowie’s house.
I knew he lived in Arizona, like I did.
I knew this because somehow, the fates had made him impossible to avoid.
Like Corey.
And me.
Knowing Duncan was that close, it had honest to God been the only reason why I hesitated moving my family from LA to Phoenix.
But he didn’t live in Phoenix.
And I was done with the industry, the traffic, the mudslides and fires, and it bears repeating, the industry, but I did not want cold, snow or the possibility of days filled with fighting what humidity did to my hair.
I’d talked Tom into it.
Then we moved to Phoenix.
Suddenly, the landscape opened up, and I wasn’t the only one in the car that gasped. Rodney, my driver did too.
Good Lord.
Was that…?
I clenched my teeth as my heart squeezed.
This would be what Duncan would pick if he had the money.
And he had the money.
So there he was.
That lake.
God.
And that house.
Sheer sprawling, rustic, monied perfection.
Even with the lake surrounded by the trees and mountains being such a breathtaking vision, I couldn’t take my eyes off the house as the Rolls rounded the graveled drive and came to a stop at the bottom of the steps that led to the carved-wood front door.
Wrap-around porch. Pine-green tin roof. Log cabin style. Multiple stone chimneys.
Outbuildings, several of them.
It was like I drove two hours out of Phoenix and found myself on the set of the Yellowstone series.
But with better scenery.
As Rodney got out, my stomach pitched, not with nerves, but with fury.
Why did Corey, as one of his last wishes, decide to put me through this?
Seriously.
I pushed open my own door and folded out, just as Rodney got to my side.
“Can you get the box, do you mind?” I asked him.
“Of course, Ms. Swan.”
I nodded. Smiled.
And braced.
I looked up the steps.
As the years passed, I tried not to pay attention. He wasn’t like Corey. Me. You couldn’t escape Corey or me.
But he looked how he looked. And he did what he did.
Therefore, he was in the public eye and he got photographed.
And I figured he lived up here in the middle of nowhere to do what he could to avoid it.