Five Total Strangers

by Natalie D. Richards

  It isn’t possible. I have to snap out of this and hold on to what’s real right now. I have to use my head.

  But my head is one hundred percent sure that’s the man I keep seeing.

  After the rest stop, running into him at the gas station was weird. But here? It’s too much. It’s not possible.

  But it’s happening all the same.

  November 15

  Mira,

  You’re lucky I found out what happened. If I hadn’t looked so carefully at all of your accounts—if I hadn’t figured out all the names and places you hide—Well. Let’s just say things weren’t going to go well for you.

  I was angry, Mira. Thinking you could deny the connection we share. Thinking you could pretend this isn’t fate. That it’s something you can ignore.

  But I found the truth. An envelope came, thick and heavy, full of all the unopened letters I’d sent. Your friend at the art gallery must have made a mistake. You didn’t live in that house. And I should have known long before now. How many nights did I watch those windows, waiting for a glimpse of your beautiful face?

  But I will see your face again soon, Mira. I know you’re going home for the holidays. I know exactly where to find you. Won’t that be a gift? I can’t wait to see your surprise.

  See you soon,

  Yours

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The moment we’re outside, I search the parking lot. Compared to the darkness of the bar, the snow on the lot makes visibility easy. He couldn’t have been more than two minutes ahead of us, but the man in the yellow hat is gone. Vanished like a phantom.

  Joyce locks up and then tugs on the thickest bright blue gloves I’ve ever seen. She doesn’t offer help, but she does say, “Hope you get home for the holiday,” as she strides to her car.

  Smitty waits a touch longer, asking about our fuel level and making sure we’ll be warm. He recommends a truck stop that will be open, but it’s ten or fifteen miles away, which feels pretty daunting. Finally, he pulls out his keys and looks toward the cars. Joyce almost has hers scraped clean.

  “You all take care of yourselves,” Smitty says.

  “We will,” I say.

  We wish him well and watch as they both scrape their cars and leave the lot.

  “Where did that other guy go?” Kayla asks. “The weird one.”

  I sag, relieved that someone else saw him. “I don’t know, but we need to stay away from him.”

  Everyone’s gaze turns on me, and a shiver runs up my back. I sigh. “I saw him earlier. At the rest stop. And then the gas station. I don’t like it.”

  Brecken’s eyes widen. “Did he see what happened with—”

  “No,” I correct him, but I pause because he looks worried. More worried than I think a person who accidentally hit someone should be. “Not that rest stop. The first one. All the way back on I-78. I bumped into him in there first.”

  “On I-78?” Harper wrinkles her nose. “That’s like three or four hours away. What would he be doing here?”

  “He wouldn’t be here,” Brecken says.

  Josh frowns. “It would be an…unlikely coincidence.”

  “Well, call it what you want. I saw that guy. In the rest stop by the vending machines. I remember the scars on his hands and his yellow hat.”

  Brecken scoffs. “You—”

  “Wait,” Josh says, interrupting him with a raised hand. “No, I think I remember this guy. I saw him outside the stop. Yellow baseball hat, right?”

  “Exactly!”

  “Okay, but he’s gone, so who gives a shit?” Kayla asks.

  Harper crosses her arms. “I don’t like some guy lurking around.”

  Brecken throws up his hands. “He’s not here to lurk!”

  “Why are you so tense?” Josh asks Brecken.

  “I’m not. I’m just cold and sick of this damn storm.”

  “We should get in the car,” I say.

  Harper hesitates. “I want to check something.”

  Kayla and Harper cross the lot for the back of the car, where they begin rummaging. Harper, I assume, is looking for a backup battery or something. Who knows about Kayla. Maybe she’s still trying to find whatever drug paraphernalia she lost.

  “I’m going to scrape the car,” Brecken says, but the wind has kept most of the snow from sticking, so the job is pretty easy. He’s tucked inside—sulking, presumedly—in no time.

  Josh steps in closer to me. “What if we leave him here?”

  I look at him, snow and wind whirling around us, both of our coat hoods whipping in the cold. “What?”

  “Brecken.” His voice is steady. Even. “What if we leave him and go?”

  I go still. “You can’t be serious.”

  Josh closes his eyes, exhaling. “Mira, I know I sound paranoid, but I’m telling you—he hit that kid. It wasn’t an accident. If he did that to a random kid in a parking lot, what else is he capable of?”

  Brecken stares out the windshield in the car. Harper is still wrestling in the back, looking through the luggage. Kayla is empty-handed, wandering toward us, and then back to the car. She makes me think of a pinball in slow motion, ricocheting off every surface with no mind of her own. Finally, she circles around the opposite side of the car and gets in the back seat. She pulls her hood up and leans against the window.

  “How are you so sure?” I ask.

  Josh crutches a step closer to me. “Because I was trying hard to pull him away from that kid. He jerked the wheel back.”

  I look at him, not sure what else to say. Would anything else even matter?

  He goes on, barely breathing the words. “I know Harper is determined to defend him. He has her fooled somehow, but he knew what he was doing in that parking lot. I’d bet my life on it.”

  “We can’t know. Not for sure,” I say, curling my hands into fists in my pockets.

  It’s cold, but the wind feels quieter. I don’t know if the storm is done, but I’m grateful that it has loosened his grip for now. The silence is a gift and I close my eyes briefly to drink it in.

  “Maybe we can’t know,” Josh says, clearly not content with my short response. “But he did steal the gasoline, right?”

  “Right.”

  Josh is so close now, I can’t see anything beyond his face. Flecks of silver glimmer in the green of his irises. “Don’t you think that says something about his character?”

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  We spring apart at the sound of Harper’s voice.

  Heat flashes over my cheeks like a hard slap. I want to tell her it’s not what I think. I want to apologize. I want to know how she got over here so fast without us hearing, but the howl of the wind makes that part clear enough.

  “Harper…” I say, but I don’t know what should come after. She’s staring at us stony-faced, and a sickening surge of adrenaline runs up through my middle. How long has she been standing here? How much did she hear?

  For his part, Josh waits her out, his expression giving her nothing. She returns the look, not breaking eye contact even when she pulls the keys from her pocket and starts the car with the remote.

  The sudden noise is startling and her expression is unsettling. It makes me think there are two sides to Harper. One girl seems to be falling to pieces. And the other has the whole world held tightly in her fist. The panicky version of Harper annoys me, but when she’s like this? On the plane it impressed me, but now… If I’m honest, this side of Harper is scary.

  Why is she so determined to protect Brecken? What secret are they hiding?

  “Look,” Josh says. “I’m not trying to play judge and jury here, but I’m worried about you. I’m worried about all of us.”

  “Because of Brecken? Because he’s a big, bad guy?” Her voice is a candy-coated razor.

  Anger flashes over Jo
sh’s face, brief but intense, but he swallows it down, giving Harper a tight smile. “Suit yourself. I’ll be in the car.”

  Harper whirls on me, face hard. “I suppose you want to leave him here, too?”

  I hesitate. Even if Josh is right, and part of me thinks he is, leaving Brecken here feels ridiculous. There’s a good chance he’d freeze to death, and I’m not super keen on letting someone die based on speculation from a handful of sleep-deprived strangers.

  On the other hand, he’s smack-dab in the center of all of this—the stealing, the thing with Corey—so can we risk being in the car with him again? What if Josh is right about none of this being an accident? What if Brecken doesn’t want us to get home?

  Realistically, what could he do? We’ve been through his things, so we know he’s not hiding a stash of weapons or anything. How would he stop us?

  Maybe hitting us like he hit Corey?

  “You’re awfully quiet,” Harper says.

  “There’s a lot to consider.” My last thought is still dancing up my spine with icy fingers. “A lot of terrible things have happened.”

  “That doesn’t mean we need someone to blame. Brecken didn’t cause these things.”

  Maybe. Maybe not. But I’m still not ready to get back in the car until I’m clear on one thing.

  “Why are you defending him?” I ask.

  “I’m not.”

  I shake my head. “Yes, you are. All of this would come down on you more than any of the rest of us. The car is in your name.”

  “That’s why I called the cops!”

  “But you’re also treating Josh like he’s a monster for thinking maybe Brecken is a danger to the rest of us.”

  “I’m not—” Harper cuts herself off and takes a deep breath, slowing down her words. “I’m not treating Josh like he’s a monster. Josh is a textbook nice guy.”

  “So, what’s the problem?” I ask. “Why not listen to him?”

  “Because guys like that give guys like Brecken a bad name.”

  “I think Brecken is doing a fine job of giving Brecken a bad name.”

  She shakes her head. “Forget it. You’re not going to understand.”

  “Then explain it.”

  Harper rubs her arms and sighs. “We should get in the car.”

  “No!”

  She stops short at that, staring at me. “Mira, try to take a—”

  “Okay, this is part of the problem!” I exhale hard and look briefly skyward, trying to collect the thoughts rolling around in my head. “I don’t get some of this. You constantly treat me like…I don’t know, like your pet project or little sister.”

  She looks down. “You just…”

  “Remind you of someone?” I laugh. “I know.”

  “It’s Ella’s roommate,” she says, and her whole face softens in pain over those two syllables. It says plenty. Still, she clarifies. “Ella was my girlfriend. Her roommate, Jane, is a freshman. She doesn’t have a lot of family and I have sisters. I guess we sort of took her in. She paints, like you. Looks a little like you, too, though maybe not as short.”

  I nod, digesting this. It explains the way she treats me, but it sheds zero light on the Brecken situation.

  “Okay, that’s why you’re nice to me, but what about Brecken? He stole gas in a car he’s not legally supposed to drive. Then he hit a person with the same car. I know that you’re smart enough to know that if the police ever do get here, you’re going to get in some kind of trouble for all of this.”

  “I seriously doubt me letting someone drive my rental car is going to be a federal issue.”

  “You don’t care if you get in trouble with the police?”

  Her expression darkens. “Let’s just say my concerns are larger than a rental car mishap.”

  The quiet stretches between us. I’m not sure how to reply, so I take a step to the side, my boots crunching in the snow. Everything is still. The snow holds our voices close, cushioning the sound. It feels close. Private.

  Finally, she takes a breath and continues. “I got a call at the airport. I was standing in line at the car rental booth. Brecken was behind me; he actually told me which line to get in. Only a couple of the places will rent to you if you’re under twenty-five.”

  “Wait, Brecken was renting a car?”

  She shakes her head. “He was, but he decided to let me have it as long as I dropped him home. He paid for practically half of the rental. That’s why he doesn’t have cash.”

  The car door cracks open, breaking the spell of quiet between us. Brecken pokes his head out.

  “What’s going on?” he asks. “Are you all right?”

  “Fine,” Harper says without looking. “We’re fine. Just give us a minute.”

  He hesitates for one minute, his expression changing as he watches her. I feel that invisible link between them again, a connection stretching across the parking lot. And then the door closes and the tether snaps. Harper meets my eyes.

  “We were chatting,” she says. “Brecken commented on the flight and complimented my bag. Small stuff. Then I got this call, you know? From home. It was my mother.”

  I nod.

  Harper goes on, her gaze drifting downward. “I couldn’t hear her very well. She was crying so much.” She stops to take a quick, harsh breath. “The connection was bad, and there were all those stupid airport announcements.”

  “It was loud in there,” I say.

  She nods. “I had to ask her questions, because I couldn’t totally understand. I had to ask pretty pointed questions.”

  “About what?”

  “About my father.” Something ripples over her face, a brief flash of pain before she swallows it down. Lifts her chin. “My dad’s in trouble. He works for a financial firm, and it’s something to do with that. The police came. They arrested him and took computers. Mom doesn’t know what’s happening. My sisters are home with her and they’re younger. Everyone’s scared and none of them understand.”

  Imagining it makes my chest hurt. Harper in line, asking increasingly frantic questions. Brecken overhearing, whether or not he wanted to.

  “Brecken heard you,” I guess.

  She nods, swiping at her eyes. She’s crying. “He did. I was so scared and stuck in the middle of the stupid airport. I couldn’t even get out of line, and I was so flipped out. I blurted everything to him. Every awful embarrassing thing.”

  “Harper,” I say softly, not knowing what to say. What even to ask.

  “He was nice to me, and he’d never even met me,” she says. “He knows I’m desperate to get home, and I think that’s why he stole the gas. I even think that’s why he wanted to drive. I know, it’s stupid. Total pompous man bullshit, but his intentions aren’t evil.”

  I nod, not because I agree with her, but because I get it now. To her, Brecken is some kind of hero.

  I try to play my opinion close to the vest, but whatever expression crosses my face must say I don’t share her view.

  “I get it,” she says. “I know some bad things have happened.”

  “He ran over someone,” I respond. There’s no way to make those words sound anything other than ugly.

  “That was an accident,” Harper says. “Obviously that was an accident. Do you believe it could be anything else?”

  “After everything that’s happened today, I have no idea what to believe.”

  Her gaze is unflinching. “I believe it enough that we are not leaving him out here.”

  “Then we’ll wait here for the police,” I say. “All of us.”

  Brecken opens the passenger door again, and Harper rolls her eyes. Before she can complain or even take a breath to speak, he’s out of the car, moving with long heavy strides in our direction.

  I tense because something’s wrong. Very wrong. I can’t tell what he’s lookin
g at, but every hair on my body is standing on end.

  “What is it?” Harper asks, and in that second, Brecken stops in his tracks, eyes fixed on something near the building. I turn to look, but there’s nothing but shadows and snow and—

  Movement.

  Gooseflesh rises on my arms. It could have been a trick of the eyes, except Brecken is out here, and he’s staring at that darkness. I scan the length of the building again, searching for something. Looking for—there. Another vague impression of movement in the shadows, near the corner of the building.

  It’s too dark to see. It could be anything. Nothing.

  My eyes find their target and my heart lodges into my throat. The moving thing steps out of the shadows. It’s not nothing.

  It’s a person.

  They step into the murky light of the parking lot, snow crunching. I don’t want to look, but I do. And I immediately see a familiar battered yellow hat. He lifts a recognizable withered hand and my insides freeze.

  “Cold one, innit?” His voice is as gnarled as his fingers.

  “It is cold,” Brecken agrees. His eyes are hard, but his tone is polite. Distant and clipped, but undeniably polite. “Which is why we need to get moving.”

  He puts a hand behind him, waving the two of us back to the car. He’s discreet, but I think the man notices. His face turns, still lost in the darkness under his hat, but tilted in a direction that tells me he’s watching this. Watching our retreat.

  “I’m not here to hurt nobody.”

  “No one says you were,” Brecken replies.

  Another door opens. “Everything all right?”

  Josh. Somewhere behind us, near the car. I hear the chink of one crutch hitting the snow-covered pavement. I inch my way backward, but I feel the man’s eyes on me. I still can’t see his face under that hat and I don’t want to.

  “Have a good night,” Brecken says to him abruptly. “Be safe on the roads.”

  “Just the thing I’m getting to,” the man says, slurring the last bit of the sentence. “You might see I’m traveling without a car.”