by Amy Waeschle
She and Quinn changed into their neoprene wetsuits—Quinn in a 5/4 borrowed from a friend, and Cassidy in the winter suit she had packed next to her heels and black wool dress, her jewelry case and pajamas. “You remember how to do this?” she asked Quinn, squinting at him through the tight opening in her hood.
“I guess we’ll find out. You remember how to save me if I start to drown?” His gray-blue eyes twinkled.
Cassidy tried to smile, but it felt more like a twitch.
They grabbed their boards from the roof, and she clipped the dry bag containing Reeve’s remains around her waist with a nylon strap. Then the two of them walked down the steps to the cold sand. None of the surfers at Ocean Beach wore booties or gloves, even in February. It was some sort of code of toughness, and Cassidy felt the need to comply, for Reeve, even though she couldn’t explain why it was important. The icy water froze her toes instantly, and the heavy water pushed and pulled at her as she waded in quickly, eyeing the incoming waves. When a break came, she hopped on her board and began paddling hard; in her periphery, she saw Quinn do the same. The dry bag rolled side to side on her arched back as she sprinted.
Ocean Beach’s main challenge was the relentless number of waves a surfer had to dive under to get outside the breakers. Another challenge resulted from the currents, which were some of the strongest on Earth. Her first duck dive froze her cheeks and forehead, and Reeve’s dry bag resisted submersion so that she almost didn’t get under the wave. Quinn popped up too, and they stroked and dove under six, seven, ten waves, until she lost count and the effort took over her whole being. It seemed to take an hour, or maybe longer, but when they finally surfaced to see unbroken, shifting ocean, her entire body shuddered with relief.
“I’ll never understand why you think this is fun,” Quinn said to her between heaving breaths. Even though a fit runner and something of a fitness geek, paddling a surfboard in stormy surf was no small feat.
“Sometimes it’s not fun,” she replied. Her shoulder muscles throbbed with a pleasant ache, and her core felt warmed by the battle. “It’s necessary.” She knew he understood this because he ran marathons.
They sat on their boards for a moment, catching their breath. Cassidy paid attention to their position and the incoming waves, making sure they were safe.
“Shall we do this and get out of here before we get clobbered?” Quinn said, his wet eyelashes looking thick and dark against his pale, freckled cheeks.
Cassidy unclipped the dry bag and opened it, breathing hard with the strain of staying afloat on her short board while her hands reached in and removed a plastic bag. It felt surprisingly heavy. Quinn held the bag while Cassidy re-clipped the dry bag to her waist, her frozen fingers fumbling with the clasp.
“Well, Reeve,” Quinn said, eyeing Cassidy. “Here’s to a happy afterlife.” He handed the bag to Cassidy.
She looked at the gray ashes. “I’m sorry,” she said as the sadness dropped through her like a stone. “I never gave you a second chance. And I wasn’t there for you.”
“Hey,” Quinn said. “You’re here now, okay? Quit beating yourself up. Reeve wouldn’t want that.”
Cassidy looked at him, and then at the blue expanse. “But if I had taken his call, maybe I could have done something.”
Quinn shook his head. “You were going through hell when he called. And you were in Eugene. What could you have done?”
Cassidy’s logical mind wanted to believe him, but her emotions felt stuck.
“You tried, Cass,” he said. “And it almost cost you your life.” He put his hand on her shoulder. “I think it’s safe to say you did your best. It’s okay to let him go.”
Cassidy took a deep breath and tore open the bag. Gritty ash spilled into the ocean, some of it sinking, some of it floating off on the swift current. Quinn reached for her hand, and the two of them watched it all disappear.
Cassidy wheeled her suitcase up the cracked walkway to her house. Though gone for only four days in California, it felt longer. Quinn had offered to take some time off and come with her, but she had declined. She needed to get back to her life.
She unlocked her door and stepped inside, and the emptiness enveloped her like a cold draft. After removing her shoes, parking her suitcase by the couch, and turning on the heat, she poured herself a glass of water from the kitchen sink. The stove light shone over the empty range, with a welcome home note from her neighbor, a retired schoolteacher whom Cassidy had asked to collect her mail. The previous tenants must have spent a lot of money ordering clothes and electronics because every day her mailbox was stuffed full of catalogues. She had heard of a phone number she could call to stop this ridiculous waste of paper, but somehow she never took the time to look it up.
Cassidy scooped up the bundle and headed for the recycle bin when the yellow edge of a manila envelope flashed among the colorful glossies. The returns stamp read Library of Congress in Washington D.C. In a flash, the memory of when she had placed the request for all of Pete’s articles returned.
Months ago, she had woken in the middle of the night, but not by her usual nightmare of Mel’s face hovering over hers, his eyes soft and sad as they watched her drift away. Instead, she had dreamed that she, Pete, and Reeve were part of a crowd of people who were all flowing into a giant stadium. Pete carried a tray of food and beers, protecting it by hunching his body and extending his elbows. “That story you did about the Hernandez family,” Reeve was saying. “How did you know all that stuff?”
Pete had worked on that story nonstop for weeks, staying up late, fielding calls from his editor at all hours of the day and night. He had piles of notes—hand scribbled, scraps of pages he had printed, lime green sticky notes affixed to it all like giant confetti. It hadn’t struck her as particularly odd because Pete had cracked big stories before. The difference was what happened after the story was published. He started getting mail from readers. The New Yorker called, and soon he had his dream job writing for them.
Something Bruce had said that last day had been bothering her. What was it? Something having to do with not dying in vain. She had thought that he meant Reeve. But after the dream, she wasn’t so sure. On impulse, she had requested all of Pete’s published stories. But now that they were here, she felt less sure of what to do with them.
Cassidy pulled the blanket from the easy chair and draped it around her, and then she sat down on the couch with the manila envelope in her lap. The big window looking over her neglected lawn and the single tree extending into the night sky reflected her image. Her long braid draped over her shoulder, the wispy hairs at her forehead loose about her face. What would the papers inside the envelope tell her? She rubbed its yellow surface. The idea of revisiting what had been in Pete’s heart and mind, looking for something she could barely sense let alone understand pulled at her like an intoxicating puzzle.
What if there was a connection between Pete’s work and his death? Cassidy looked away from her image in the window, unable to banish the vision of Mel and Pete engaged in a motorcycle chase on a foggy night. Even though she knew this was impossible, the image had been a frequent visitor in her nightmares. Pete died because he was driving too fast on an unfamiliar road in bad weather, she told herself.
Cassidy put the envelope aside and walked to her desk. Inside her filing cabinet, where she kept records of everything, she pulled out the file marked Costa Rica. After spreading the file open on her desk, she sifted through the receipts and notes she had made while hunting down supplies in San José. There was even a brochure on the Hot Springs Resort near Arenal. Bruce’s card was underneath all of this, a simple phone number, and she pulled it out, the crisp corners poking her fingertips.
If she was going to start this, she couldn’t do it alone. She flipped Bruce’s card over and over in her fingers, thinking about the way he’d looked at her in the SUV in Liberia.
Cassidy returned to the couch with her cell phone, and dialed.
THE END
M
eet Me on the Mountain
Book 2 in the Cassidy Kincaid Series
Copyright © 2018 by Amy Waeschle. All rights reserved.
Published by: Savage Creek Press
Genre: Adult Women’s Fiction.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. While as in all fiction, the literary perceptions and insights are based on experience, all names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously.
Editor:Melaine Austin
Cover Photograph: Breslavtsev Oleg (top), Janfillem (Bottom)
Cover & Interior Design: Fusion Creative Works
Published by Savage Creek Press
For my brother
One
Mount St. Helens, Washington
October 21, 2014, 5:11 a.m.
Cassidy Kincaid blew on her cold fingers and checked the clock on the dashboard again. I’ll wait four more minutes, she thought. She reviewed her phone conversation with Peter O’Dea, the journalist who had practically begged to volunteer as her field assistant today: yes, he had agreed to meet at 5:00 a.m., yes, he knew the name of the grocery store (the only one in Randall, Washington), and, yes, he understood that with the day’s ambitious to-do list, she couldn’t afford to waste a single minute of daylight.
Even though their meeting was far from anything resembling a date, she couldn’t help but wonder if she was being stood up. It wouldn’t be the first time. No matter how hard she tried to push the thought away, it crept in, settling into her gut. Irritated, she turned the ignition key and the Suburban’s engine roared to life.
Looking back on this day years later, she would be amazed at how easily her beaten-down heart and stubbornness dominated her thinking. If she had left only a moment sooner, she and Pete may have met on different terms. Though whether this idea would soften the blow of the tragedy that befell she would never know.
Just as Cassidy had put the rig in gear, a set of headlight beams approached. A dented, blue Volkswagen Jetta entered the parking lot and coasted to a stop next to her. The window rolled down to reveal a clean-shaven man in his late twenties or early thirties with sandy brown hair. He wore a flannel shirt and navy blue down vest. From a hole in his seat’s upholstery, clumps of yellow stuffing bloomed like fungus.
“Cassidy?” he said.
She gave him a nod.
In the low light she couldn’t determine if his eyes were grey or blue, but the humble, earnest way they connected with hers quelled her frustration in an instant.
“Hi, sorry to keep you waiting. I had—”
“You can park over there,” Cassidy interrupted, indicating a line of empty parking spaces to the left of the store entrance. “We should get going.”
“Sure,” Pete said.
Moments later he had jumped into the University of Washington field vehicle and stored his backpack between his feet. Thankfully, his hiking boots looked seasoned.
“Coffee?” he asked, sliding a thermos from the side pouch of his backpack as Cassidy pulled out of the parking lot.
Cassidy blinked in surprise. “Sure,” she replied.
A moment later he handed her the lid of the thermos filled with steaming coffee. “Thanks again for letting me tag along today,” he said.
Cassidy sipped the coffee, which was wonderfully strong. “You promised to be useful,” she said, raising an eyebrow.
They talked about how her project studying seismic data from several different volcanoes around the world helped to map the magma chambers and better understand eruptions. Most of it was review from their initial phone conversation, but as they drove, his questions led to more questions, and by the time she stopped in front of the yellow Weyerhaeuser gate, Pete had written several pages of notes.
Cassidy parked the rig and reached behind the seat for a pile of clothing. She slipped on a canvas coat, bug hood, and thick work gloves. Then she grabbed a ring of silver keys tied to a leather lanyard.
“All this to open the gate?” Pete said from his spot in the passenger seat.
“Stay in the truck,” she warned, then shut the driver’s side door.
But the lock box held no surprises. “Whew,” she said out loud. After storing the extra clothes, she climbed back behind the wheel. “When I was here in August we found a wasp nest in one of the lock boxes. Josh and Natalie got nailed,” Cassidy explained. She drove through the gate then hopped out to close it. When they were underway again, she noticed Pete scribbling away in his notebook.
“You’re not gonna write about that, are you?” she asked, appalled.
“Why not?”
“Because it has nothing to do with the project.”
“You’re telling me that facing hazards like wasps and earthquakes and poisonous gasses aren’t important?” he asked.
Poisonous gasses? She looked at him skeptically. “It’s just part of the job,” she said.
“But it makes your work unique,” he said. “Did you know that volcanology is considered one of the most dangerous careers?”
Cassidy squinted at him. “Compared to what? Preschool teacher?”
“You ever spend time with toddlers? Those wood blocks can be deadly,” he said with a shrewd look in his eye, and when she caught on, he broke into a wide grin.
Cassidy laughed. What have I got myself into?
After a short drive, they reached a narrow pullout leading up to an open ridge. “Here’s where the fun begins,” Cassidy said and hopped out of the truck, the delightfully crisp bite of the October air filling her lungs.
Pete stepped out on his side. “I read that you’re a former ski patroller,” he said, glancing at her through the open space across the front seats. “What made you want to go back to school?”
Cassidy took a moment to formulate an answer. It had been a while since she had talked about her patrolling days, or how her devastating breakup with Luke had ended her love for the job. “Um, well, my advisor at Berkley and I kept in touch. I did some fieldwork for him in the summers, that kind of thing. He really encouraged me to pursue a graduate degree. I think deep down I knew I wanted to, it just took me a little longer to follow through with it.”
“Do you miss it?” he asked, their eyes connecting.
“Yes and no,” she answered, trying to focus on his question. “I don’t miss skiing in the whiteout conditions or when it’s ten below zero, or dealing with belligerent guests. I don’t miss some of the emergencies.” She pushed away the real reasons she didn’t miss the job. “But I do miss skiing first tracks on bluebird days. I miss throwing avy bombs.” She grinned. “I guess I have a thing for stuff that explodes.”
Pete laughed. “Patrolling in Tahoe must have been an adventure though.”
Cassidy inhaled a shaky breath. “You could say that,” she said as they met at the back doors of the Suburban.
“I skied there once,” he added, looking pensive. “It was a clear day and the view was incredible. Snow wasn’t bad either.”
“Compared to what we get here I’ll bet it blew your mind,” she said.
“Ha! That’s for sure.”
Cassidy swung the doors open to reveal a pile of equipment, including the rescue litter and its wheel, an empty external frame backpack, work gloves, a can of Raid, and a shovel.
“I take it this isn’t to rescue one of us,” Pete said, helping her tug the litter from the pile.
Now that the sun’s light had filled in the shadows, Cassidy noticed that his eyes were a serene grey-blue. His sandy brown hair hung a bit long, like he hadn’t bothered with a cut in a while, giving him a rugged look. With surprise, she realized how good-looking he was. “Let’s hope not,” she said. “So far the worst injuries out here have been bee stings and twisted ankles. On our last trip my a
dvisor’s dog found a skunk.”
“I had a pet skunk once,” Pete said with a half-grin.
“A skunk?” she said, sliding the litter to the edge of the tailgate. “Why not a puppy or a rabbit?”
Pete shrugged. Together, they lowered the litter to the ground. “I had those too. I grew up on a farm, so there were always lots of animals. My skunk was an orphan. My dad accidentally killed his mom with our tractor.”
The word orphan set off alarm bells inside her head, but she silenced them with a huff, annoyed. Her parents had been dead for over a decade. “And it never sprayed you?”
Pete shook his head. “Though it got the farm dogs.”
He followed her lead and helped put the rescue stretcher together and load it with the gear.
“So if these stations you installed are giving you the data you need to map the magma chamber under the mountain, why take them out?” Pete asked.
They each shouldered a small backpack; Pete slung a small SLR camera across his chest, and Cassidy closed all the doors to the Suburban.
“The study is done. We’ll get the final piece today when we acquire the data stored over the last two months, plus we can’t leave the equipment out over the winter. The solar panels will get buried, and without power the recordings will stop. And those seismographs cost about twenty grand, so we don’t like the idea of them sitting out here indefinitely,” she answered.
Cassidy readjusted her grip on the handles as they ascended to the top of the road cut. Her right foot snapped through a compressed layer of bone-dry branches, startling two birds that rose into the sky in loud protest. After she and Pete crested a small rise, Mt. St. Helens came into view, the sun’s low light illuminating the dusting of snow covering the crater rim. Below, her slopes became an ashy grey that transitioned to a forest cloaked in darkness. The image filled her with gratitude; not many people could claim such a glorious view from their office.
