Beck trembled, her face awash with a sickness that was part horror, part heartbreak. Ever since they were tiny children there was one thing above all others that brought Imogen to instant tears: Beck, in any sort of emotional distress. Even as a child Beck was stoic, and when her pain surfaced Imogen felt it as if it were her own.
Tears stood in her sister’s eyes. Imogen knew everything she was feeling: this wasn’t supposed to happen. Not here. Not on Beck’s watch. Not when people were counting on her. And not when I’d warned her. There was a faceless who out there, indifferent to the sanctity he’d shattered. Imogen felt exposed again, like she had the night before, knowing someone had been watching them. There was nowhere to hide. He would take what he wanted.
“I’m sorry, Beck, I didn’t mean…” To blame her? Imogen was equally mad at herself.
But Beck wasn’t listening. Her shock abruptly became urgency and she darted to the biggest pile—ditty bags upended, socks and underwear and toiletries—and dropped to her knees, searching, making a frantic exhumation.
“What’s happening?” Tilda asked, confusion and panic in her voice. “Were we robbed again?”
“I told you I saw a flicker of light.” There was no point in adding and no one believed me.
“The same person who took my protein bars?”
“We don’t know!” Beck kept digging, sorting her urgent piles.
Imogen looked up toward the rocky embankment. Tilda took off her sunglasses and gazed with her. “What did they look like?”
“I couldn’t see—”
“Look, we still don’t know if it was the person from Hermit,” said Beck. “Other people are allowed to camp here.”
“Two different thieves?” Tilda snarled. “Seriously?”
Imogen hated everything she was feeling: anxiety, dread, guilt. And her old enemy, futility. She was afraid if she tried to help Beck she’d only be in the way, but she didn’t like the sarcastic hostility Tilda had turned on her sister. At this point she and Beck would look even stupider if she admitted to having found a remnant from a wrapper suspiciously like Tilda’s.
“This is so fucking…” Tilda anxiously glanced around, as if a taxi might come by and carry her away from this unruly place.
“We’ve never had anything like this happen before,” Beck snapped. “It didn’t seem possible that it could happen again.”
“That’s illogical, Mr. Spock—if it happened once of course it could happen again.” Tilda glared at Beck.
“Wrong,” Beck countered. “If something unlikely happens, the odds don’t change—it’s still just as unlikely to happen.”
“Guys, this isn’t helping.” Imogen really didn’t want to put herself in the middle of their fight, but bickering over semantics, or statistics, or whatever the fuck they were arguing about wasn’t going to fix the situation. “We should’ve done things differently. But we did the best we could with the facts we had. At least we have all the food.”
Yes, Imogen was sticking up for her sister. Beck, ultimately, was the leader, but Imogen couldn’t fault her for being skeptical. Even now, they had little in the way of hard facts: stolen protein bars (when the thief could’ve taken much more); a torn wrapper (which could’ve been from anything); a camper in the rock shelter with a cigarette. Colonel Mustard in the library with the candlestick. Only someone like Imogen would connect those dots, and the odds were always in Beck’s favor that they were unrelated.
“Even I didn’t think I was right,” she said. Which wasn’t exactly true, but she worried about such things so often that she didn’t always know what was real. She felt a twinge of guilt knowing it was her own neurotic behavior that made it easy for them to dismiss her. But alongside it came a stab of anger; hadn’t she earned the right to be taken seriously? And couldn’t they see how the Grand Canyon had already restored a missing piece of her confidence?
“Okay.” Beck, with the mess hastily sorted, bolted upright, on a mission. “Here’s what we’re going to do.” She looked at Tilda. “Can you get this stuff back into its proper bags—the fire ditty, the toiletries, get the clothes and stuff separated?”
Tilda hesitated. “Yeah…I guess?”
“Is that a yes?” Beck, no-nonsense, wanted confirmation. Seeing her take such decisive charge, Imogen felt a glimmer of hope. Maybe everything was going to be okay.
“Yes,” Tilda said.
“Good.” Beck turned to Imogen. “You and I are going to go have a talk with our neighbor.”
Beck snatched up her walking stick, already on the march, heading for the creek. Tilda and Imogen exchanged openmouthed expressions of flabbergasted dismay. Imogen had zero interest in confronting an unknown thief who was hiding in a rock shelter, spying on them. And why had Beck chosen her? Nothing about Imogen’s stature or presence said Ooh, I’m so tough and scary!
“Uh…Beck?” Beck must have grasped that Imogen hadn’t fallen in line. She stopped. Imogen couldn’t shake the impression that Beck had become a soldier, the walking stick her rifle. “Think this is a good idea?”
“This is not a good idea,” Tilda insisted. “We don’t know who this guy is.”
“He could be…dangerous.” This, Imogen told herself, wasn’t paranoia; this was a logical conclusion drawn from the mayhem at their feet.
“Maybe he already booked on out of here with our stuff, but we have to try.”
“Maybe he didn’t book on out of here with our stuff,” Tilda said. “Maybe he’s thinking ‘No way those stupid chicks would come after me, not if they know what’s good for them.’”
Beck considered her words. And quickly formulated a new plan. “Okay. Let’s all go. You have your knife on you?” Imogen nodded. “Bring your walking sticks. Let’s try to look like we mean business. I know you’re upset. I know this is fucked up. But we can’t let this guy win. We have to demand our stuff back, and look like we won’t take no for an answer. Okay?”
Imogen and Tilda exchanged another round of stunned looks. Where was levelheaded Dr. Beck, and who the fuck was this reckless person who’d taken her place?
“Why don’t we sit and talk about this.” Tilda took her best shot at calming Beck down. “We’re mad, upset, this is a violation of our space, of our beings, but the worst has already happened. We don’t need to rush in and put out a fire.”
“Yes, we do.” Beck, wired, was ready to go. “Look, I’m sorry if there’s something else I should’ve done. I’m glad you had us bring the food bag—”
“We should’ve taken our packs.” Imogen hadn’t meant to blurt it out, but the truth of it was so obvious. They wouldn’t be in this position now if they’d just lugged their damn packs the one mile to the river.
“Maybe.” Beck sighed. Her zeal for the mission wavered for a moment, and the pain returned to her face. Pain, and sadness, and worry. “We have a problem.”
“No shit,” said Tilda.
Ignoring Tilda, Beck kept her gaze on Imogen. “He took the iodine tablets.”
In spite of the sweat in her armpits—part nerves, part the flurry of activity—icy dread plucked at Imogen’s skin. Now she understood her sister’s call to action. Something electric passed between them.
Tilda looked from one sister to the other, desperate to know. “What’s going on? You guys can’t keep leaving out the important parts!”
Beck hadn’t bothered to mention the loss of her sleeping bag; on the priority scale, it wasn’t critical. But without the iodine they couldn’t purify their water. They’d have nothing to drink, unless they risked having untreated water—and whatever ailments that might cause. Without the iodine tablets they couldn’t stay even if they wanted to, and fleeing the Canyon would become a painful exercise in dehydration. Or worse.