Page 21 of Love at First Sighting
“Good girl. Now come on,” he drawls. “Show me what those Stagecoach sandals can do.”
Chapter 6
Carter
Subject and Special Agent are both ill prepared to hike up a mountain.
With the help of El’s phone flashlight and myactualflashlight, wemaystand a chance of making it, but I have rocks in my shoes, and this suit is going to have to go to the dry cleaners after all. There hasgotto be an easier way to take photos.
“You good back there?” El calls. She fumbles with her next step and I shine my flashlight on her. There’s a sharp rock sticking out of the bramble in front of her.
“Careful.” I wave the flashlight around the area to attract her attention there. “And yes, I am good.”
“You were right. I should have worn better shoes.”
As El takes another step, she kicks a rock loose, sending more dirt and mud tumbling down on me. Yep,definitelydry cleaning.
“Well, why didn’t you?”
“What if someone sees me?” she shouts back. “What if I have to take a picture or something? I can’t have the internet thinking I forage berries!”
I’m not fully sure how foraging berries is a career killer, but what the fuck do I know? I’m just following a hot girl up a mountain at night and trying my hardest to not look at her ass. So far, not so good.
Special Agent clearly needs to get laid.
“This was easier during the day,” she clarifies.
“I simply can’t imagine that. Why not take pictures at the overlook? You wouldn’t have had to go far at all.”
She pauses. She wouldn’t have encountered what she suspected was a UFO. Her life would have gone on as it was. I’d still be fixing the printer and teaching Toby how to do expenses, at maximum.
“You can’t shoot something at an overlook—everyone will know—and there’s a clear line between a micro-influencer and a macro-influencer. I knew this would get me a good shot, so…I climbed up here.”
“Perfectly reasonable.”
The hills part, and a small path cuts through them. I’m so grateful to be on semi-flat land.
“Okay, so I was coming up on this bend here,” she says, guiding me down a curve in the hillside.
It’s eerily quiet out here, much like the night my dad and I were taking pictures. I’d just gotten the camera for my tenth birthday and was trying to learn and push the boundaries of what it could do. I was constantly playing with lenses and lighting, and that was my first attempt at nighttime photography.
I wonder what would have happened if one thing had been different that night. If I’d taken a picture of another part of the sky or come another time. Each what-if comes as another gut punch as I imagine my dad in memories of birthdays andgraduations and visions of the future—marriage, kids. But he’ll never be here again.
El and I have the chance to find answers and close painful chapters. That begins tonight, as we approach the clearing in front of us.
I vaguely recognize the setting from the darkened backdrop of El’s video, but it looks different in person. Most importantly, it’s got a bigNo Trespassingsign on full display. The text is badly faded, but it’s easy enough to guess what it says.
“Uh, El, you do know we’re not supposed to be up here, right?”
“Yeah, I’ve gathered.”
“Oh, good.”
I survey the site in front of us. The overlook is quiet and desolate, with dry dirt hills and even drier brush lining the ground. A hill crests in front of us, and that’s when I spot it.
A door.
“El?” I nudge her shoulder.
