Saturday, 2:09 p.m.
Rocky had returned to his cottage to stock up on supplies, since their mission had changed—now the goal was to find someplace safe to wait it out. The sky reflected the flames coming for them, and the wind rumbled in warning. Olivia took a step forward and stopped at the edge of the back patio, her gaze fixed on the tree line. “What do we do now?” she asked Richard.
She kept her voice low so Thea wouldn’t hear. About twenty feet in front of them, their daughter watched the forest as intently as Olivia did, Goose a lump at her feet. From the way the dog’s chest heaved, she could tell the heat and thick air were getting to him.
Richard moved closer so his arm brushed hers. Even with the smoke, she could smell him—musk and breath mints. A week ago, she would’ve found comfort in the scent.
“We need to get to Hermann Creek,” he said.
With the lack of rain that winter, Olivia worried the creek would be dry. “What about the golf course? It’s flat. Open, with not many trees.”
“Rocky should be here any minute,” he said. “We’ll all go in his truck since it’s equipped for off-road driving. If the usual roads are closed, we can make our own. Follow the creek away from Ridgepoint.”
The creek wouldn’t save them. Years of pretending kept Olivia’s face neutral, but she knew there was no way out, and beneath the mask, guilt pricked. If something happened to her children, the blame would be hers. She shouldn’t have stayed. As soon as the deputy delivered his warning about the fire, she should’ve taken her kids and gone. But even that would have guaranteed only survival, not salvation. To truly save her family, she should have left long before the fire started.
When Olivia pictured Richard with those other women, she flashed to an image of herself at fourteen, her mom beside her at the bathroom mirror teaching her how to contour her cheeks.
So many men are going to love you, Livvy, her mom had whispered. Be sure and pick one who doesn’t fuck around.
“It’s too late.”
Olivia thought the words existed only in her head until Richard said, “It’s not too late. We just need to find a safe place, like the creek.”
Safe? Such a place didn’t exist here. Had never existed here.
“Even if there’s water in the creek, it won’t protect us from the smoke.” Her voice was sharp, her calm starting to crack.
“Rocky knows this place better than anyone. If he believes the creek will work, it will.”
Richard’s voice had risen too, and Thea shot them a look over her shoulder. His smile, meant to be reassuring, was more a grimace. Olivia hoped their daughter didn’t see it.
“Come closer, Thea,” Olivia said.
Thea took only a single step before she knelt to pet the dog, but Olivia was too tired to start another argument with her daughter.
Richard dropped his voice again. “When Rocky gets here, he should take you, Thea, and the dog. Dominic and I can take his SUV when he gets back.”
Olivia looked at her daughter and the wheezing dog. Her heartbeat seemed nearly as loud as the wind. Richard leaned in, his breath warm on her neck. “Do you want me to go look for him?”
Olivia shook her head and scoured the shadows between the pines for movement. Dominic was an adult. She couldn’t justify waiting much longer.
She said, “Rocky and Dominic will both be back soon, and then we’ll all leave together.”
He’ll be okay out there. He will.
Why had Dominic gone with Leyna in the first place? Olivia should’ve tried harder to stop him.
Olivia carried a mental picture with her always: Adam learning to walk, Dominic, two years older, by his side all summer. Adam’s legs still slightly bowed; Dominic’s face earnest as his hand wrapped around Adam’s, helping to keep his younger brother steady.
Sometimes, though, they’d stumble, hands unclasping the moment Adam hit the ground. Even as a toddler, Adam hated to fail, and at the indignity of a butt-plant, he would usually howl until his cheeks flushed red. But not if Dominic was next to him. Those times, Adam’s pudgy hands would shoot into the air, waiting for Dominic to help him get back on his feet.
That was the image Olivia held to fiercely. Her boys, hand in hand. Stronger together. Happy.
But there was another image that sometimes snuck in at two in the morning, when she was groggy and too slow at erecting her walls, of Dominic and Adam toward the end. They’d been fighting over Grace. In the weeks before Grace’s disappearance, her moods had darkened, and she’d grown more mercurial. That along with Adam’s blind crush had finally shattered the trio’s childhood friendship.
The last time Dominic was home from college, he’d tried to warn Adam away from Grace.
Be careful, he’d said.
We’re in love had been the reply.
I’m not sure she knows how to love. At least, not anymore.
And those had been the last words exchanged between the brothers before Dominic headed back to the University of Nevada, and Adam headed back to Grace. The last time Adam had fallen—for a girl who demanded love but was incapable of giving any in return—Dominic hadn’t been there with an outstretched hand. He’d been a state away, and then Adam was gone, and there was no taking any of it back.
“I’ve changed my mind,” Olivia said. “Maybe you should go look for Dominic.”
Too tentative, she decided, as usual. So she said more firmly, “Find our son.”