Due to traffic, leaving the city took longer than she wanted, but once she was accelerating north, her mind settled into the silence. Thoughts and memories blended, rose, and fell away. She reviewed the interview in her mind, recalling Special Agent Harris’ stern face and cold blue eyes, the surprise of seeing Dutch. She had to smile when she remembered his “were you, now?” response, his cocky eyes playing her, as if they hadn’t parted ways via an ambulance in a dark alley.
With her mind free to process without having to also manage field work or a media appearance or an interview with the FBI, the drive passed quickly, Quinn’s air-conditioner cranked as the brown hills whizzed by.
Just outside of Redding, her phone rang: Quinn.
“You just getting home?” Cassidy teased, noting the late hour.
“A bit ago. The car working okay?”
“Good so far. Hey, guess what?” she asked. “I saw Bo in the lineup today.”
“No huge surprise. He and his gang brag about surfing there.” Pots and pans clattered in the background.
Cassidy remembered the uneasy expression on Bruce’s face. “He seemed harmless. And he wants to meet with you.”
“Why?”
“He says he’s got friends in the restaurant supply industry who can save you money. I don’t know, he seemed pretty persistent.”
“Nah. I’m already set up.”
“I figured you were. Maybe just give him a call and hear him out.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Will I see you tonight?” she asked. “Emily’s coming. You want to meet us at Hook Fish?”
“Can’t,” Quinn sighed. “I gotta fire a manager, and then brief the staff. I have someone to fill in, but I’ll need to be there for the rush.”
“Will you be home in the morning so I can say goodbye?”
“Aw, leaving me so soon?” he teased. “The FBI is through with you?”
“They didn’t say anything to me about staying.” She slipped her left foot from her flip flop and tucked it against her thigh. “I have a pile of work waiting for me, Q. I can’t sit around here forever.”
“I guess they can call you if they need to. When’s your flight?”
“Noon,” she said.
“Okay, I promise I’ll be home before you go.”
Once at the garage, Shane led her to the chained-up lot adjacent to the office. The midday sun baked the dry lot with an intense heat, like an oven. She wished she had a wide-brimmed hat, or one of those personal fans.
Her car had been sequestered halfway down the row, between a rusted truck chassis and a silver compact car with a shattered windshield. Shane handed her the keys, then wiped his forehead with the back of his wrist. “Let me know if you need anything.”
His heavy footsteps faded, and Cassidy forced her feet to advance. Opening the back hatch, a blast of superheated air blasted her lungs and face. Squinting, she reached for the large Tupperware box, the lid so hot it felt ready to melt in her hands. Inside were rockhounding and road trip essentials: a rock hammer, a spare pair of wool socks, raincoat, water purification tablets, a scattered collection of power bars snatched from the sale bin at REI—most of them several years old by now, a first aid kit, and a collapsible snow shovel.
Forcing herself to move swiftly, she gathered up the loose items stuffed in the cubbies lining the side—a bandana, a melted tube of lip balm, several colored pencils from one side, and to her delight, her field guide to wildflowers in the other. She sank onto the tailgate and flipped to the opening page, where Pete’s handwriting scrawled: Are there any you don’t know? Then: Love, Pete.
After tracing the indentation of his print one last time, she set the book on the lid of the Tupperware box and carried it to the backseat of Quinn’s car. Then, she wiped the sweat from her brow and slipped into the driver’s seat of her dead vehicle.
The heat of the day plus the turmoil of memories enveloped her like a suffocating fog. She lay back for a moment, reliving the first time Pete drove with her, that trip home from Mt. Baker. He needed to get back for a deadline, and she offered to give him a lift. Halfway home, they switched so she could grade a stack of undergraduate geology labs, and when she dropped him off, he kissed her. She tried to remember what his lips felt like, what he smelled like, but everything felt faded, diffused. An ache behind her breastbone tightened. She balled her fists and tried to get more air into her lungs, but the heat filled her like fire.
Fingers shaking, she opened the glove box, but there was only a spare pen—hers—and a mixed collection of maps. The center console contained her last find: a card Pete had written. She knew the message by heart and didn’t trust herself to read it now.
With the car emptied of all its treasures, Cassidy closed the doors and gave it one last look. Goodbye, old friend.
After signing the final paperwork with Shane, she returned to Quinn’s car and drove slowly to the interstate.
She checked the time and though it was midafternoon, risked calling Emily.
To her relief, Emily answered. “How’d it go?”
“It sucked,” Cassidy sighed as she accelerated onto the freeway, Quinn’s air conditioner jetting air just barely cool enough to keep her from feeling like a cooked chicken.
“I would have gone with you,” Emily said.
“I know,” Cassidy replied. In truth, maintaining her friendship with Emily since Costa Rica hadn’t been easy. Sharing what had happened to her felt like a burden, so she had tried to downplay it. Thankfully, Emily hadn’t given up on her. Meaning no way was she going to add the strain of a tearful visit to a vehicle, of all things.
“How do you feel now?”
“Better, in a way, and worse in another. I feel like I’m betraying something by selling it.”
“There’s a lot of memories in that car.”
“Yeah.”
“But now you
