Page 28 of Threat of Danger
As she drove home, a little voice in her head asked if she might be overreacting. She told the pipsqueak to stuff it.
Then, halfway between Burlington and Taylorville, she realized what she’d forgotten. She hadn’t asked her mother where that old diary went.
She could look again later today. Her room wasn’t that big. She would find her little pink book before she left.
Jess pushed all that from her mind and thought about meeting up with Eliot when she got back to LA.
She felt much better by the time she drove into the woods and parked by the jumble of pickup trucks so she could go with Chuck to walk through the sugar bush. She greeted workers, most of whom she didn’t recognize. These were temporary jobs, filled by high school kids and people who needed a little extra money. A good worker could make a nice chunk of change during a season.
“I want to walk to the cliffs,” she told Chuck when they were done. “Haven’t been there forever.”
“I’ll walk with you.”
They talked about Kaylee and high school as they went. The more Chuck told her, the more Jess realized how much she’d missed. Not coming back was one thing. But she should have done a much better job at staying in touch.
Before she knew it, they were at their destination. The cliffs were like two white towers, a hundred feet or so high, with a thirty-foot gap between them. People around here called them Short Stack and Tall Stack, although the difference in height was minimal, no more than four or five feet. The cliffs were surrounded by the river on one side, tall pines on the other, the far side of the cliffs tapering off to lower ground and blending into the forest. Jess and Chuck walked in that way, all the way to the highest point of Tall Stack.
Jess snapped a couple of pictures and sent them to Eliot. She was looking at the LCD screen when she caught sight of a limping figure down by the water, walking with a stick.
“Derek,” Chuck said unnecessarily. Jess had already recognized his shape. Despite his injury, he was still unmistakably a warrior.
“How bad is his leg?”
“Seems to be just the limp. He walks by the river every day. Goes all the way down to the bend and back.”
At least five miles, walking on uneven ground. Wouldn’t his leg hurt?
None of her business. Jess turned away. “I’d better get back to the house.”
She wasn’t even half finished with her furniture shuffle.
“I think I’m going to fly back to LA early,” she told Chuck. “There isn’t much for me to do here.”
“How early?”
“Tomorrow, if I can get on a flight.”
Hurt flashed across his face. “Rose loves you,” he said after a moment. “We all do.”
“I know.” She filled her lungs and looked away. “It’s still hard being back in this place.”
When she glanced at him, he was nodding, nothing but warmth and kindness in him. “Maybe you’ll come back again, and next time you’ll stay longer.”
She didn’t want to promise. She didn’t even fully understand what had gotten to her this badly, enough so once again she felt the overwhelming urge to run. Maybe the little voice in her head was right, and shewasoverreacting. But she didn’t seem to be able to stop herself.
In LA, she was a strong and confident woman. Yet by coming back here, she’d lost her footing. She felt as if she’d been smacked right back into the past. She felt as if all her fears and insecurities and pain had hung around Taylorville, preserved, waiting for her return. The urge to flee was just as strong as it had been a decade ago.
“Kaylee will want to see you before you go,” Chuck said.
“I want to see her too. We can hang out for a while before I go into the city.”
Chuck gave her a hug, holding on for an extra second or two, which made Jess’s throat tighten and her eyes go blurry.
“I should get back to the house,” she said when they pulled apart. But when she reached her car, and Chuck had walked off to talk to the workers, Jess didn’t get in. Instead, she found herself walking down the path to the old cabin.
She wasn’t sure what pulled her. A need for closure? And why not? Closure was a good thing, wasn’t it?
If seeing the place would give her some small measure of peace over the past, she would take it. Because she wasn’t sure if she’d ever come back home again. This might be her last chance to feel whatever she needed to feel here.
