here she felt a certain perverse pride: I made it, dammit.
This was crazy. Even Kayleigh Crocker thought it was crazy, and Kayleigh was usually the passionate cheerleader for any sort of wild, outlandish behavior. “I don’t know, Carla,” Kayleigh had said, as Carla was leaving the apartment. “I’m not sure you should do that.”
Carla had given her friend a brief, highly edited rundown on the situation: older guy (she did not say how old), who had given her a fake name (she did not mention that he had taken the name of someone who had died in a motorcycle accident), and who she had not known very long (she skipped over the fact that it was a single twenty-minute conversation in her car in the Driftwood parking lot). And now, Carla explained, she was compelled to find out what the hell was going on. Why did he lie to her? To his employers?
Her plan was to drive out to Thornapple Terrace and find him. She would simply ask him why he was hiding who he really was. It was only four p.m. Even with the heavy snowfall and the slickening of the roads, she would be back in Acker’s Gap by dinnertime. No problem.
The mission reminded Carla just a little bit of her quest for a can of Diet Dr Pepper on the snow-laden day she had driven back to Acker’s Gap: It sounded silly on the face of it. Nobody else in the world could possibly understand. But she understood. She got it. She had to do this. She had to know who he really was. And then she could let it be. She didn’t want anything from him—just an explanation.
She would not go to the reception desk this time. She had learned her lesson. She would go to the maintenance building. If Travis—or whoever he was—was not there now, he would be there shortly. All she needed was a few minutes with him. Just long enough to get an answer. She would assure him that she had no intention of ratting him out—she would never do that—but he had helped her, and if he was in some kind of trouble himself and needed help, she could return the favor.
She had a new text. It was from her mother. Carla read it quickly: Working 2 nite. Houseguest in spare room FYI. She didn’t reply to it. She had more important things on her mind right now.
The door to the building was unlocked. It was a large, square, aluminum structure and its insides had the feel of an airplane hangar: no windows, pristine concrete floor. It was filled with items carefully segregated into specific areas: spare bed frames, extra dressers, and rocking chairs; electrical cables wound tightly on wooden spools; shovels, ladders, buckets, and hoses; a long tool bench with an array of serious-looking tools, from jigsaws to miter boxes; a riding lawn mower and two snowblowers.
Carla did not see him at first. And then she did: He was over by the tool bench, his back to her, working on something. He had not heard the door open because he was making noise himself, pounding nails into the end of a board.
Without even seeing his face, and even though he was dressed in ubiquitous light gray coveralls, she knew it was him.
Before she could speak, he finished with what he was doing, and he turned. He took off his goggles. She would never forget the look on his face—surprise, mingled with a happiness he could not hide, and then the dissolving of that happiness into annoyance.
“Hey,” Carla said.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he said. His voice wasn’t nearly as harsh as the words were.
“Needed to talk. You’re not Travis Womack.” She did not say it accusingly. She said it with a sort of bemused wonderment. “So who are you?”
“You need to get out of here,” he said. “Now.”
“Just tell me who you really are. And why you lied about it. Are you in some kind of trouble? Because if you are, I can help. My mom’s the Raythune County prosecutor. We can go talk to her, and if there’s a way to get you out of—”
“Listen to me,” he said. He walked several steps toward her. The building, she realized, was not heated. He must be freezing in only the coveralls.
When he got close enough to reach out and take her arm, he did. He did it gently, and then let it go again. “Carla, I really need