Come and Find Me A Novel of Suspense - By Hallie Ephron Page 0,55
I understand everything I found out.”
The room went fuzzy as Diana’s throat constricted. She tried to swallow.
“Meet me,” he said.
“When? Where? And how will I know who you are?”
But before she had an answer, GROB had vanished.
“How do you make rice?” Ashley called out to her from the kitchen.
A moment later, a text box appeared. It contained the words:
I’LL KNOW YOU. NOON TOMORROW.
Beside that were two numbers—a pair of real-world GPS coordinates.
Ashley cleared her throat. “Diana?”
Diana looked up and saw Ashley staring at her from the doorway and holding a glass measuring cup.
“Okay, now I know someone died,” Ashley said.
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong.”
“Now you’re being ridiculous.”
The last thing Diana wanted was for Ashley to worry, not until Diana knew what they should be worried about.
“Okay, okay. You’re right. It’s GROB. He wants me to meet him.”
Ashley’s face broke into a grin. “That’s great. Oh, honey, that’s really wonderful. Are you going?”
Diana forced a smile. “I’m going to try.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Where?”
“I’m not sure.” Diana brought up a map and entered the coordinates. “Somewhere in New Hampshire.”
Ashley’s look turned somber. “Diana, it’s been a long time since you were out there. Are you sure you know enough about him? I mean, he’s just someone you met online. He could be anyone.”
“You’re a fine one to talk, Miss Match Dot-Com.”
“Diana.” Ashley gave her a hard look.
“Ashley . . .” Diana stuck out her tongue. “Listen, you’ve been wanting me to get out. I’m getting out!”
“Promise me you’ll stay out in the open where there are lots of other people.”
“And if I get into trouble, I’ll call. Promise.”
Ashley shook her head and sighed. “So, where in New Hampshire?”
Diana turned the computer so Ashley could see a little flag that was midway between Concord and Manchester at a town called Mill Village.
Ashley sat beside her. “You ever been there?”
Diana shook her head.
“Me either. But it looks like that’s about a ninety-minute drive. You up for that? Alone?”
Diana zoomed in and toggled to STREET VIEW. A black-and-white photo of a street lined with typical, mid-twentieth-century New England storefronts came up. Cars were parked at meters on the street.
She rotated the view. Down the street was a brick building from the fifties with plate-glass windows, probably once a department store, and the same vintage motel. She rotated the view some more. Across the street was a broad expanse of lawn, the town green with trees and benches and a bandstand, and beyond that a neat row of Victorian houses with gingerbread trim.
“Looks like a very darling village. Très New England,” Ashley said. “Want me to come with?”
Diana shot her what she hoped was a withering look. “Don’t you have to work?”
“Okay, okay. Just asking.” She held up the glass measuring cup. “Rice?”
“One part rice to two parts water,” Diana said. “Salt and a little butter.”
Ashley flashed her a thumbs-up and returned to the kitchen.
Diana toggled back to the map and street view. Mill Village was set on the banks of a tributary of the Merrimack River, just south of where it widened into what looked like a lake.
She could hear GROB’s synthesized voice in her head: . . . that diagnosis? It’s bogus.
Chapter Twenty-Four
That night, Diana tried to fall asleep on Ashley’s pullout couch. What could GROB have to tell her? That Ashley hadn’t been sick at all? Or that she had something more serious wrong with her, like HIV/AIDS or MS? Or—and now Diana knew she was being paranoid—that she’d been exposed to some highly contagious viral infection or deadly toxin that would panic the public. And what did Pam, aka PWNED, have to do with all of this? Diana’s mind churned the possibilities.
She took a pill and finally fell asleep. But an hour later she was awake again, bathed in anxiety. She’d been dreaming that she had to pack her clothes and meet Ashley at the airport, only she couldn’t find her suitcases, then she couldn’t find Ashley’s car. She fell back to sleep, only to wake up terrified by the kind of mountain-climbing nightmare she hadn’t had for months.
The next morning she felt more exhausted than she had when she’d gone to bed. Before Ashley left for work, she insisted that Diana take her GPS tracker, loaded with the coordinates of her destination. Ashley’s parting shot had been “I can’t get used to that hair,” followed by “Call me. Because I’m calling the police if I don’t hear from you by five o’clock—”