Page 3 of Our Last Resort

Shit.

I duck behind a large planter. There are dozens around the hotel: oval-shaped, each the size of a small bathtub and housing a lone tree. The soil is hidden beneath a layer of decorative rocks. “A lot of trees in the desert manage to grow through cracks in the stone,” Catalina, the hotel’s manager, explained when she gave us a tour on the first day, her sleek, dark ponytail gleaming in the sunlight. “Our architect was very inspired by them.”

These rocks aren’t ordinary, though. Nothing at the hotel is. “White marble chunks from Italy,” Catalina said. “You won’t find them anywhere else in the region.”

I crouch as low as I can behind the planter and its expensive rocks. My heartbeat pulses in my ears.

“What are you looking at?” William asks, imperious.

Is the sound of his voice closer, or am I imagining it?

“Nothing. I’m not looking at anything.”

Still crouched, I inch behind a nearby wall.

Like a coward.

No.

Sabrina doesn’t want me to get involved.

“Leave me alone,” she tells her husband.

“And what would you do, if I left you alone?”

Her answer is muffled as I sidestep back toward the suite. There are words I can’t make out, then: “I would thrive.”

Her tone is clear and self-righteous. The tone of a woman who knows she contains limitless worlds, and who is sick of reining them in.

Tomorrow, I’ll talk to her.

I won’t say anything about her husband. I’m not an idiot. But I’ll do what I’ve avoided for the past four days: I’ll introduce myself, ask her how her stay is going. I’ll make a comment about the weather.

I’ll let her know that someone’s here for her, that she has a friend if she wants one.

Tomorrow. In a few hours.

Everything’s easier in the daylight. We’re all braver in the morning.

2Escalante, Utah

The Fourth Night

A decade ago, a developer looked at this flat patch of the Escalante Desert and thought,I will build a hotel here.This became the Ara. Hidden from the highway, accessible only via an unmarked dirt road. There’s a gym, a spa, a boutique. Of course, the pool. An open-air entrance lounge leads to the lobby, which itself leads to the dining room. The hotel’s sleek lines melt into the desertscape. There are no barriers around us, no fences.

A cold splash of water on my face. The moon shines directly into our bathroom, the ivory belly of our soaking tub glowing beneath the arched window. When I return to the room, it’s quiet.

Too quiet.

I peer at the two queen-size beds. Mine is on the right, the million-thread-count Italian cotton sheets folded back. On Gabriel’s side, a blur of linens where his resting body should be, pillows still punched with the outline of his head. The alpaca wool blanket he plucked from the sofa lies abandoned on the floor.

“Gabriel?”

I switch on the ceiling light.

He’s not here.

I pick up my phone from my nightstand, find our most recent text (yesterday afternoon, when Gabriel messaged me from the pool bar asking if I wanted a smoothie), and press the call button.

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