The cloud-covered moon cast an ambient glow over endless verdure, overgrown and dense, and a narrow trail up the steep hillside. Ethan plowed upward, maneuvering through the thick vegetation. He hoped it led somewhere, hopefully not to another lion’s den. He could hear the dogs barking; they were ascending the trail, not far behind.
Twenty minutes in, Ethan reached the zenith, a narrow ledge with a gnarly drop down to a dried lakebed. He looked for another option but the posse was getting closer. He sidestepped the ridge, slowly at first, and then he picked up speed. After traversing fifty yards or so, his foot hit a loose patch of dirt. He slid and went over, bouncing hard off the jutting, rocky slope as he tumbled. Luckily, he grabbed a thick tree root embedded into the protuberance and broke the fall, just in time.
He watched Brooke’s copy of Tropic of Cancer soar into the frondescence abyss, as if he were watching her—or her last words to him—fly away.
Then he had an epiphany.
The reference about her being his missing piece could only mean one thing: she wanted him to know that it was real, their love, their bond.
When you know, you know.
Anna Gopnik had doubted their love, even when she’d handed him the book. Bailey and Emily had warned Ethan that he didn’t really know her. And after she left, even Ethan had doubts. She knew he would, considering the way she left. She also knew that he would be so determined to find her that he would ignore her wishes that he leave her alone, especially if he thought she was in trouble. She wanted him to know that she wasn’t running from him. She knew he’d need to know if what they’d shared was real. So she left him a passage that referred back to their first meet-cute, when he told her that he would never give up until he found his missing piece.
That was all he needed to know and it gave him the strength of a thousand men. He pulled himself up the side of the mountain, hand over hand. If the tree root hadn’t spent the last hundred years growing exactly where it had, he would be dead. He looked down at the heart-stopping drop. He lost her book instead of his life and he remembered Brooke often talking about life being full of paradoxes, and her definition of mindfulness resonated: “Life is just a series of perspectives that shift from moment to moment.”
But when he pulled himself up to safe ground, his perspective changed once again, as did his circumstance.
Half a dozen police officers were pointing guns at him. One of them said, “Hands over your head where we can see them.”
Ethan squinted as a flashlight shined in his eyes. “I can explain everything. I’m unarmed—”
“Hands!” The officer shouted.
Ethan obeyed.
Another officer pulled back on snarling canines. “Relent!”
Two more officers approached. One of them pulled Ethan’s arms back and clamped handcuffs on his wrists, the other patted him down and said matter-of-factly, “You are under arrest for the murder of Wade Franks.”
“Wade Franks? I don’t even know who that is. I didn’t kill anyone—”
“Save it,” the cop patting him down said, now satisfied that Ethan wasn’t packing a gun. “You are a criminal suspect in police custody, and I’m going to explain your rights, do you understand?”
“Yes, but—”
“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law…”
“This is a mistake,” he protested.
“Walk!” The officer shoved Ethan forward and finished the Miranda rights as they all headed back down the mountainside.
Next thing Ethan knew, he was in the back seat of a police car, alone and cold; the damp chill in the air made him shiver, as did his worsening situation.
As they drove by Dancing Rabbit, he saw Elvis and other Rabbits standing out front, watching Ethan pass in a caravan of police cars, as if they had captured him themselves.
Was it pride or pity on their faces? Ethan wondered, feeling angry, betrayed and more confused. He had gone back to Dancing Rabbit for answers, and he was being carted off to jail with more questions.
The policeman riding shotgun told his partner that they had orders to take him to the Monterey County Sheriff’s Department. He didn’t say why, but he mentioned that it was a bit of a drive and he wanted to get home as soon as possible to celebrate his birthday.
Ethan and Jack had recently celebrated their thirtieth birthday, the big three-oh. He thought about how his worst problem back then was not making Fast Company’s top thirty under thirty.
Perspective.
He remembered how Brooke had pulled off his birthday celebration without a hitch, when he walked onto the Pacific Terrace at One Pico, the elegant restaurant at Shutters on the Beach, and a cacophony of a hundred or more shouted, “Surprise!” Stunning LED light balls dropped from the sky and the entire courtyard overlooking the beach was illuminated by hundreds of tree bulbs. A sea of people cheered. Music blared. Champagne flowed.
“Told you I could pull one over on you,” Brooke bragged when she saw the look of surprise on his face. “You have to be on your toes with a girl like me.”
Now Ethan was staring out the window of a police car and thinking he should have paid closer attention to the details.
—
Monterey Sheriff’s Department was swarming with news reporters and cameras as the Big Sur police car drove up. Ethan covered his face until they disappeared into the underground parking. The arresting police officers led him inside and delivered him to the Monterey team. They booked him, took his mug shot and prints, and locked him in an empty jail cell.
He lay down on the cot and stared at the ceiling, thinking that it would be a long night, but it wasn’t five minutes before an officer summoned him.
“Let’s go, Stone,” the officer said as he unlocked his cage.
“Am I being released?”
The officer laughed. “Not a chance.”
Ethan was told to wait in the interrogation room. A few minutes later, Big Sur Detectives Ramsey and Johnson came in and took seats across from him.
“Remember us?” Ramsey started, flashing his Big Sur badge.
Ethan felt relieved to see familiar faces. They were honest-looking faces. “Yeah, from the car accident.”
“Do you understand why you’re here?” Ramsey asked.
“It’s obviously a mistake,” Ethan tried to explain. “They said I was being arrested for murder, which is ridiculous. I didn’t kill anyone, I’ve never even heard of the guy they say I killed…It’s all just absurd!”
“Is it?” Johnson held up his smartphone so Ethan could see and played a shaky video.
Ethan watched the video clip of Jack standing over Wade’s dead body and then running away.
“Jesus, Jack!” Ethan muttered.
“Who’s Jack?” Ramsey asked.
“My brother. We’re twins.”
Johnson laughed. “Haven’t heard the evil twin excuse in a long time.”
“He’s not evil,” Ethan snapped. “And how can that possibly be me since the guy in the video is clean-shaven?” Ethan tugged on his facial hair. “Do you think I grew this in a few hours?”
Johnson adjusted his thick geriatric glasses and turned to Ramsey. “You caught that.”
Ramsey nodded.
“Let’s say that this is your brother,” Ramsey pressed on. “Any idea why he did this?”
“He couldn’t have.” Ethan folded his arms and shook his head. “He was obviously scared. Something made him run.”
“Innocent people don’t run,” Johnson said, “they call the police. He’s standing there in broad daylight holding a Ruger nine-millimeter semiautomatic.” Johnson held up his phone again so Ethan could see the frozen image of Jack.
“The murder weapon,” Ramsey added.
Ethan shook his head. “I don’t know.”
After a long pause, Ramsey continued, “Tell us about Dancing Rabbit. You had said that your girlfriend worked there.”
“Yeah. She did. About a year ago.”
“Her name?” Johnson said as he pulled a pen and small notepad from his shirt pocket.
“Brooke Shaw.” Ethan watched Johnson scribble her name down and wondered if he should say something about her false identity.
“What did she tell you about Dancing Rabbit?” Ramsey asked.
“She liked it.”
Ramsey stared back, waiting for him to elaborate.
“It’s one of those self-sustaining ecovillages. They promote community, teamwork, social responsibility. We did our corporate retreat there.”
“Is that how you met Anna Gopnik?”
Ethan nodded. “That’s right.”
“The Dancing Rabbit folks didn’t have any information about Anna, no forwarding address, no idea where she came from. We found that strange.”
Ethan was just about to tell them what Anna told him—without telling them he had seen her—when it dawned on him: he was picked up in Big Sur.
“Why did you drag me all the way up here to the Monterey station?” Ethan asked.
“This was closer for the FBI,” Johnson told him.
“The FBI?”
As if right on cue, the door swung open and a hard-boiled, steely-eyed woman in street clothes and an FBI badge around her neck barged in.