by Amy Waeschle
Never? Cassidy wondered. “So you’re always alone?” Cassidy asked, curious. “Don’t you get lonely?”
The man shook his head. “They used to allow one family member, but I don’t want my family exposed to this life.”
“Would you mind if I just looked inside your cab? I’ll be fast,” she said, feeling bold.
The man blinked away his surprise. “All right,” he agreed. “But then I must go.”
Cassidy stepped around the cab door and climbed up to the wide seat. A modern-looking dashboard curved around the front. A smartphone extended from the vent from a prong-type holder. Hanging from the top of the window, a maroon banner edged with white fringe hung a quarter of the way down—a homey touch to the space that probably shielded the driver’s eyes better than any visor. In the adjacent seat, a box of tissues and a banana stood at the ready. On the other side of the black curtain tucked behind the driver’s seat, Cassidy noticed a small fridge and freezer unit.
She climbed back down. “Thank you,” she said to the driver, who in two giant steps swung into the cab.
“I hope you find your friend,” he said, reaching wide for the door’s handle, then closing it with a dense thump. Cassidy stood back as the engine rumbled to life and the truck rolled slowly towards the road.
Cassidy interviewed two more drivers, but their answers echoed the first’s. It was strictly against policy to accept passengers that were not approved by the company.
“Over the years, I’ve had a passenger or two,” one bearded man with a round gut told her. “But not so much anymore,” he added, tossing a finished bottle of Pepsi into the trash can. “Too dangerous. You don’t know what kinda drugs or whatever a person might bring onboard, or leave behind. There was a woman hitchhiker who was a serial killer in Idaho a few years back. As I heard it, she pretended to be all down on her luck and as soon as she got them alone she stabbed them to death.” He shuddered.
Cassidy flashed Izzy’s picture. “Would you have taken her?” she asked.
The man’s eyes shifted. “No, ma’am,” he said, his eyes looking anxious.
“Would someone else pick her up?”
“Hell, I’m sure somebody wouldda,” he said with a guffaw that made his belly jolt upwards.
“What do you mean?” Cassidy asked, even though she had a pretty good idea what he would say.
The man removed his grease-stained trucker’s hat and wiped his brow with the back of his wrist. “Well, look at ’er,” he replied. “There’s creeps in this world, lady. That’s all I’m sayin’.” With that, he climbed back into his cab.
Cassidy went inside the Pilot, grateful for the air conditioning, and repeated her questions to the clerk inside, but wasn’t surprised when the clerk shook his head. She bought a soda and stepped back out, leaning against the side of the building in the shade.
So, it was possible that Izzy caught a ride from some driver—a semi or other, but not likely. What about a car? Cassidy could imagine Izzy asking someone trustworthy, like a mom with her husband and kids, telling them some made-up story. I’ve just escaped my horrible stepdad. He beats me. Please, I just need a ride to . . .
To where? Sacramento? L.A? Mexico?
Cassidy groaned.
It was too hot now to stand around in the sun, asking drivers about Izzy. She was ready to call it quits. Izzy was likely on her way south, but Cassidy had no idea where. Why hadn’t she just gone home to Eugene and driven her car to wherever she needed to go?
A sudden gritty pop from a pair of decelerating motorcycles startled her. Cassidy pushed off the wall to return to her car where she would call Dr. Gorman with a report. As she passed in front of the two motorcycles, parked on either side of the fuel island, she felt eyes staring at her, and glanced over.
Two bikers had dismounted from their black, shiny motorcycles. Each man wore a black leather vest and chaps over jeans, the fringes on one of them shifting like a mane of a horse. Black tattoos decorated both men’s arms. One was busy punching in numbers at the gas pump, but the other, who stood carefully removing his gloves, started straight at her. When their eyes connected, the biker’s face broke into a sideways grin that made the hairs on the back of her neck prickle.
“Hey, gorgeous,” he called. “Need a ride?”
Nine
Not breaking her stride, Cassidy swallowed her annoyance. She was dressed in a pair of shorts, flip flops, and t-shirt, her long hair tied back in a loose braid—why would she draw this kind of attention? It wasn’t as if she was dressed in high heels and a fishnet dress, for crying out loud. Just because she was alone meant she was fair game? The thought infuriated her.
Two more motorcycles rumbled into the gas station and parked at neighboring pumps. Cassidy’s ears throbbed with the noise and she hurried to the curb, still steaming. She was about to jog across the road when an idea stopped her.
If Cassidy—no makeup, hair escaping its tether, in a tee and shorts—drew heckles, surely Izzy had drawn attention. Cassidy thought back to watching her climb into the back of the van: cutoff shorts, the hem fraying dangerously, a blue camisole, black Chaco sandals, her long blonde hair wild and tangled.
Like sex on a stick, Cassidy thought. Especially if she wanted something.
Cassidy did not glance over her shoulder to see if the biker was still watching her but paused for a moment to gather her strength. Not only did she feel repulsed by the idea of talking to him, but ever since Pete’s crash, motorcycles terrified her—the sound, the look, all of it. Quinn had since replaced the motorcycle Pete had driven that night, but Cassidy refused to get on it.
The hot sun felt like a supernova as she turned on her heel and walked back to the pump.
The biker, who looked to be in his mid-fifties, had a round, tanned face and quick, dark eyes. A red bandana hugged the top of his head; graying curls escaped at the nape of his neck. He crossed his arms, which doubled their size and showed off the tattoos: the left, some kind of ghost-like portrait of a female face, the other, a red dragon snaking down to his forearm.
“Well, well, well,” he said, his sideways, confident grin showing a bottom row of crooked teeth.
“I’m looking for a friend,” Cassidy said, forcing her voice to steady.
“Look no further,” he replied, swaggering forward, the heels of his black leather boots scuffing the stained pavement.
“No,” Cassidy said, putting up her hand to stop him from coming any closer. Out of the corner of her eye, she sensed the other bikers watching but didn’t break eye contact. “I mean, my friend went missing. Yesterday. Her name is Izzy.”
The man’s eyes crinkled at the corners. He leaned back, studying her with sudden suspicion.
“I’ve been interviewing people here, to see if anyone saw her get in someone’s car or get on a bus.” Cassidy realized the futility of what she was doing. She had no way of knowing where Izzy had gone, if she was safe. Maybe she was already home, and this was all a waste of time. She pulled out her phone, noticing several new texts, and swiped up to reveal Izzy’s picture.
The biker held Cassidy’s phone and studied the screen, then shook his head. “Haven’t seen her.”
The biker next to them started his engine, startling her. Cassidy suppressed the desire to cover her ears as he revved it.
“Do you pick up hitchhikers?” Cassidy asked the biker, almost shouting over the noise. She took the phone back just as it chimed with an incoming call. Quickly, Cassidy silenced the ringer and slid the phone back in her pocket.
“Hell yeah, if they look like that,” the biker said, grinning.
A sudden thrill tingled through her—this could be the answer, she knew it, but the biker was about to leave. “Is there any way you can ask around, see if anyone has picked her up?”
The biker mounted his ride and rocked it to release the kickstand. “Sorry, honey, it don’t work like that.”
“Please, I think she might be in trouble.”
His face harden
ed. “They usually are.” He kicked his starter and the engine roared. Cassidy felt like her hair was blown back.
The biker slid on his helmet.
“Wait!” Cassidy yelled over the noise. She hurried to the gas station attendant. “Can I borrow a pen?” she asked him. The man slipped a blue ball point pen from his uniformed pocket and extended it to her while his other hand inserted the pump into a SUV with California plates.
Cassidy hurried back and wrote her name and number on the receipt for the soda she’d bought. “Here,” she said, extending the paper to the biker.
“Now we’re gettin’ somewhere,” he said with that same lewd grin, tucking the paper into the breast pocket of his leather vest and buttoning it. “This means that if I call, you answer.”
“That’s the whole point,” she said, losing her patience.
“U.W., huh?” he said, sliding on a pair of sunglasses.
Cassidy wrapped her arms around her chest, as if he had seen more than the lettering on her shirt. “Yes.”
“See you around, Cassidy,” he said, then lifted his feet and accelerated.
Back near her car, Cassidy scrolled through her messages in the shadow of the Kwik Mart building. Dr. Gorman had sent her a PDF of Izzy’s latest transactions courtesy of Preston Ford. Cassidy enlarged the image. There were no new charges since the 300 dollars at the ATM, which meant either that Izzy was being careful, or she hadn’t needed more money. Could Cassidy obtain Izzy’s phone records? She remembered using Reeve’s phone to help follow his trail in Nicaragua. That had been a lucky break—Benita had told her that outside of a subpoena, phone records were only released to a parent if they’d cosigned the account. Cassidy made a note to ask Richard if Preston Ford had such access to Izzy’s records.
“I think she went south,” Cassidy said to Martin. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. Bend, Mt. Shasta, Sacramento . . . I mean, those sound a lot better than Yakima, don’t you think?”
“Huh,” Martin replied.
“What?” Cassidy said, hearing the hesitation in his voice.
“Well, it’s probably nothing, and I never believed it,” Martin said, his voice turning uneasy.
“I’m grasping at straws here, Martin.” Cassidy said. “Everything’s important.”
“There was a rumor going around that Izzy was sleeping with Charlie.”
Cassidy sucked in a gasp. She pushed off the brick wall. “Was she? Oh my God.”
“I don’t know. Like I said, it was a rumor. You know how Izzy is. She even flirted with me sometimes.”
Cassidy blinked away an image of Izzy jutting her skinny hip at bearded, geeky Martin. “But Charlie is married, has kids.”
“I know,” Martin replied. “Once, when I was roving, helping students, I came across the two of them. At the time, I didn’t think anything of it, I mean, you end up alone with students sometimes, some of them do their mapping solo, right? But the way she was looking at him . . . ” Martin groaned. “I don’t know what it was, but it seemed . . . private somehow.” Cassidy heard a heavy sigh. “I guess I just didn’t want to believe it. I mean, he’s my advisor. But that look . . . I don’t know, Dr. Kincaid.”
“Wait, what does this have to do with Izzy going south?”
Martin didn’t hesitate. “Remember I told you that Charlie is holed up writing his book?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s where he’s working. His family’s cabin is in Bend.”
Cassidy tried Charlie’s number again. Fuck. This was not good. She accelerated onto the 97 South, Bend 130 miles away, remembering how Martin’s voice had become distraught. “How can this happen?” he groaned. “If she’s run off to . . . be with him, how is this my fault?” Cassidy had no answer. “He’s my advisor, for fuck’s sake,” he said. “And he’s going to ruin my career.”
Martin had no address for Charlie’s cabin. Bend wasn’t exactly a small town—and Tucker wasn’t an uncommon last name; there had to be hundreds. “Can you find it for me?” Cassidy had asked Martin. “Quietly?”
“I’ll try,” Martin replied, and hung up.
She had almost called Dr. Gorman to update him on this development, but stopped herself. Something told her that it was better that he be kept in the dark for now. All that mattered was finding Izzy. If she ended up being with Charlie, then Dr. Gorman could take it from there. Cassidy huffed in frustration. Why would Charlie sleep with a student? Sure, Izzy was young and beautiful, with that confident attitude that men probably went nuts for. But he had to know the risks—his job, his marriage . . . his work, even.
His life.
Cassidy didn’t believe it. Nobody could be that stupid. At most, maybe he and Izzy had some kind of . . . connection. Maybe Charlie acted like a mentor to her. Cassidy imagined that Izzy’s dad, someone so big and powerful, might not have much time for his daughter, which left room for a surrogate like Charlie.
Cassidy knew this firsthand—her own father had passed away when she was a teenager. They had been very close, almost like friends, and living the rest of her life without him would never be easy. In college, it came as no surprise that her senior advisor, mineralogist Dr. John Morrow, had played a fatherly role in her life. At his urging, she had applied to graduate school, and had kept tabs on her academic progress, even serving on her thesis committee. He had even played a crucial role during an especially dark time in her life—her breakup with Luke and leaving behind her life as a ski patroller.
Maybe Izzy shared something like that with Charlie, and she had run off to be near him again. But why ditch in the middle of the drive home? Yes, Highway 97 intersected in Biggs Junction, which could have created a kind of opportunity, but why not ride the van home and drive to Bend from Eugene in her own car? Unless . . . Cassidy realized that there had been something urgent about Izzy’s action.
Cassidy put herself in Izzy’s shoes. Field camp was challenging: camping for weeks, hiking long miles every day, dealing with camp chores and eating burned mac ‘n cheese and soggy sandwiches. And then, finally, the trip home. I’m so over riding in this stinking van…time for an adventure.
Was that it? Was Izzy itching for freedom? If so, why choose that moment to pursue it? Why risk her life hitchhiking to Bend? Or could Bend be a stopover to somewhere else?
Whatever her reason, something had happened in Biggs Junction to create—at least in Izzy’s perception—an emergency.
Cassidy played the series of events in her mind, from her goodbye to the students at the campground to when Izzy would have slipped from the van, hid until it left, then used the ATM to withdraw cash, and finally, hopped a ride with a stranger.
A sudden thought surfaced: could Charlie have picked her up in Biggs? Cassidy thought of the report from Bridget about Izzy texting someone at the rest area, so involved in the exchange that she lost track of time. Could Izzy have been texting Charlie about a ride? Why would he agree to do something like that, especially when it would be obvious that she was ditching the van. Charlie wouldn’t have let her to that.
Cassidy made a mental list of the other students sharing the same van as Izzy: Alice, of course, then McKenzie, Serena, Toshi, Josh . . . could one of them explain Izzy’s need for escape? Then it came to her: Cody and William had also climbed in Izzy’s van. The same two who had been on the dock with Izzy the night before, smoking pot and playing music until the wee hours of the night.
With a jolt, Cassidy remembered that she still needed to ask Alice for a critical piece of information: When had Izzy come back from the resort area that night? Alice would know—they shared the tent. Cassidy made a mental note to call her. Though what would such information tell her? Her zeal died instantly.
Cassidy watched the open hills of black, cindery lava covered with dead sage turn to farmland, the perfect squares of harvested wheat passing in a blur. The little towns blipped by: historic buildings, tired and dusty boardwalks, sad-looking playgrounds baking empty in the hot sun. Little by little, the la
ndscape changed to one of sparse, high pine forest as she rose in elevation, then after cresting to a flat ridge, descended into the broad valley. The towns were bigger, more modern, the farms became more industrialized, the land greener.
She passed a town named Deschutes, named after the famous rafting river, and her mind wandered to a time when Pete was researching for his book and had tried whitewater kayaking. The person he’d interviewed offered to take him on a mellow section of the Skagit, but even Pete, who could play any sport, pick up any new skill in a flash, had managed to flip his boat in a Class II rapid. Unable to roll it upright in time, he had to eject from his boat and swim for it. “I was upside-down, just like that,” he had said, snapping his fingers, his bright blue eyes humbled.
Seeing him again in her mind caused a slug of pain to loosen from the place she kept it hidden, smearing its terrifying thickness over her insides, making her feel heavy and tight. The sob choked out of her gut, sounding so loud inside the empty cab. Her eyes blurred at the expansive landscape but she was quick to wipe the tears away. A few months from now, she will have been without him for two years and this was still happening to her. While her career continued to progress, she felt like her mind—and her heart—were stuck in the past.
Her phone chirped with a text from Martin.
Found it: 1220 Hawthorne Ave
Cassidy immediately loaded in the address, which pulled up her map program and pinpointed Charlie’s location. She checked the time: almost four o’clock.
If Izzy’s with you, she thought, trouble is coming.
Ten
Cassidy pulled up to Charlie’s green A-Frame style cabin, her tires crunching the crushed-rock driveway. A two-car garage that matched the house stood connected via a breezeway. Cassidy parked at the edge of a faded brick patio and sat for a moment, listening, breathing the dry air. From her open window, she could smell the sweet Ponderosa pine coming from the sparse forest surrounding the property. She had passed the last neighbor nearly a mile back and wondered the extent of his family’s land. From the vast feel and stillness, she guessed at least several acres.
