Audrey’s voice sounds like it’s a thousand miles away. It’s like she’s speaking to me from under water. I’m standing outside the festival grounds, looking down the road.
“Mom?” She says gently.
I’m pulled out of my stupor and look at my young daughter. Her face is drawn, with her eyebrows pulled together and her eyes full of concern.
“Are you okay?”
“Of course, Audrey,” I lie. “I’m fine.”
Where will we go?
Stupidly, I’ve moved all my things to Ethan’s house. I’ve moved all Audrey’s things there, too! I’ve moved her all the way from her home to come to this godforsaken place! A place full of lies and deceit and decades of animosity. Why would I willingly come to a place like this? Tears cloud my eyes as I curse myself.
Audrey tugs at my arm and nods toward the McCoy hotel. “Let’s go see Katie,” she says, and I follow my daughter numbly.
I should be the responsible one right now. I should be the mom. I should be the one telling her where we’ll go and what we’ll do. But all I can do is follow her lead and let my feet take me down Main Street toward the largest building in town. I stumble on the pavement, and Audrey squeezes my hand. Her lips are set in a thin line, and she keeps her eyes trained on the hotel. She looks much, much older than eight years old.
Guilt floods through me and swirls in my stomach with the pain of Ethan’s betrayal. If it were just me that was hurt, I could deal with it. But now I’ve dragged my family along, for what? My mother has died and now Audrey has to deal with her own pain and mine.
I’m a horrible mother. Selfish, short-sighted, and careless. Tears well up in my eyes and I try to blink them away. Audrey stomps beside me, all but pulling me toward the McCoy hotel.
When we get there, she pushes the door open and guides me to a couch in the lobby. She sits down beside me and lays her head on my shoulder. I lift my arm and snuggle her into my side, squeezing her and kissing the top of her head. I inhale the scent of her hair and my heart squeezes again.
She puts her arm on my leg and takes a long, shuddering breath. After a moment, she looks up at me.
“Mom, what happened with the fire?”
My chest squeezes and I shake my head. “Don’t worry about that, Audrey. It was before I got here.”
“Tell me,” she says, and the maturity in her voice surprises and saddens me. “I want to know what happened.”
I take a deep breath and glance at her before shaking my head. “I’m not sure, baby.”
“I’m not a baby,” she says automatically, and I smile. It feels like my face is cracking from the effort, but the weight on my heart lifts just a little.
“No, you’re not.” I answer, almost to myself. “Well, all I know is that there was a big hotel being built, and people were worried that it would bring lots of people to the area that wouldn’t care about the mountains. So some naughty people burned it down.”
“Was Ethan one of those naughty people?”
My heart breaks all over again and I try to swallow past the lump in my throat. Finally, I nod. “Yeah. He was.”
Audrey is silent for a while. We both turn toward the sound of footsteps and I hurriedly brush the tears from my eyes. I breathe a sigh of relief when Katie appears. Her face is drawn and she rushes toward the two of us.
“I heard what happened,” she breathes. “Are you okay?”
“How did you hear what happened already?” I ask, frowning. “We only left a few minutes ago.”
Katie looks at me and cocks her head to the side. She grins and shakes her head. “It’s Lang Creek, Zoe,” she chuckles. “News travels fast.”
Her eyes turn to Audrey and she kneels in front of us. She pulls out an envelope from her bag and holds it out toward Audrey. “Can you find Mara and give her this?” she asks in a somber voice. “It’s very important. She’s in the office.”
Audrey is still for a second and then tentatively takes the envelope. She nods once, and then turns to lay a kiss on my cheek. I try to smile at her, and inhale deeply as she walks down the hallway toward the office.
Katie slides on the sofa beside me and takes a deep breath.
“Katie, what am I going to do?” I hate how whiney I sound. I hate how small and thin my voice is, and how painful it is to say those words. Katie turns toward me and puts her hand on my forearm.
“You’re going to breathe. Right now you’re just going to breathe. Then you’re going to go to work. You’ll do your job, and you’re going to be there for your daughter. Do not for a second think that you’re going to run away from this. You’ve seen how Audrey has brightened since she moved here. You told me she was being bullied back in Seattle, and even after the accident she seems happy here. Plus, you said yourself that this job is a huge step for you.”
“Yeah, but…”
Katie shakes her head. “The Clarkes are sexy, irresistible men,” she starts. She looks at me and grins. “Trust me, I know. I’m a little jealous that Ethan is so in love with you.”
“He’s not–”
“Please, Zoe,” Katie grins. She shakes her head. “He’s in love with you. But all three of them have a wildness to them that no one can tame.”
“He’s an arsonist.”
“He did what he thought was right. Most people here agreed with him, for what it’s worth.”
My heart shears again and I shake my head. “I can’t approve of something like that. He lied to me about it.”
Katie is quiet for a while. She pats my arm and takes a deep breath.
“Yeah,” she finally says. “He did.”
I look at my friend and the pain in my chest is almost unbearable. I finally felt like I’d found a place for my daughter and me to be happy. I’d moved up in my career. I’d found a man that I cared about. I thought he cared about me. But do I even know him? He committed a felony, and most importantly, he lied to me. To my face! I asked him a direct question and he didn’t even have the guts to be honest.
“I’m just not sure if I can get over that,” I finally say.
Katie takes a deep breath and nods. “That’s understandable.”
I brush hot tears off my cheeks and shake my head. My thoughts are muddled and I feel like a failure and a fool. I feel like a bad mother and an even worse daughter. I thought my life was going to get better by moving here, but it’s only gotten worse.
“What do you want to do?” Katie asks. I look at her and see real concern in her eyes. I see friendship in them, too. I haven’t had a real friend in so many years that the look in her eyes shocks me.
I open my mouth to answer when a blood-curdling scream floats down the hallway where my daughter disappeared. Both of us jump at the sound. I scramble to my feet.
My heart stops as my blood runs cold. I can only say one thing in a breathless, panicked whisper:
“Audrey.”