Alice nodded.
“I heard some of you come in around midnight.”
“That was probably the group that left when the bar closed.”
“Not you?” Cassidy asked.
Alice shook her head. “We were at the dock.”
“Who was there with you?”
“Me, Franklin, Izzy, Will, and Cody.”
Cassidy thought through this. Martin and Bridget had likely come back from the bar with the main group. Cassidy couldn’t fault them for this—though she would have felt better if at least one of them had acted as a chaperone at the dock. Especially because the students had been drinking and Wallowa Lake was freezing cold. What if one of them had fallen in? My God, Cassidy thought, realizing the risks, it’s a wonder they let us run field camp at all.
“Did anything happen on the dock?” Cassidy asked.
Alice put her mug down, still staring into it. “No. We just hung out.”
“When did everyone head back?”
“I’m not sure, maybe one, one-thirty? It got cold.”
I must have finally been asleep by then, Cassidy thought.
“And the next day, what happened?”
Alice looked up, surprised. “Nothing. I mean, we had breakfast and all that, and finished packing, and we got in the van.”
“Did you talk to Izzy? Did she seem upset or anything like that?”
Alice shook her head. “I don’t think we talked at all except to pack up the tent.”
“Is it hers or yours?”
“Mine. She has a fancy one her dad bought her, but she didn’t like it. They’d been fighting a lot. After the first night she took it down and moved in with me.”
“And that was okay with you?”
Alice shrugged. “I didn’t mind.”
Cassidy’s phone chirped from her back pocket; she glanced at it. “Sorry,” she said to Alice as her heart swung down to her stomach. “I have to take this.”
Alice nodded. She nodded at Cassidy’s mug. “Do you want a refill?” she asked as Cassidy brought the phone to her ear.
Cassidy nodded gratefully.
“Sorry I couldn’t take your call earlier,” Bruce’s voice said.
Cassidy plugged the other ear with a finger so she could hear him better.
“And I’m sorry about the press. I’ve been meaning to call you. Are you doing okay?”
The compassion in his voice vibrated through her, and Cassidy had to pause to absorb the way it made her feel. After the crazy adventure they’d shared in Central America, she felt drawn to Bruce in a way that confused her—sometimes she felt ashamed for making so many mistakes, other times she felt the warmth of friendship, other times she felt something else, but its meaning eluded her and only made her head hurt whenever she tried to understand it.
“Yeah,” she answered. “Though I’m sort of in a jam,” she admitted. “Do you have a minute to help me with something?”
“Shoot,” Bruce said.
Cassidy gulped a deep breath and told him about Izzy and how she had been tasked with finding her.
“Cassidy, this is a job for the police.”
“I know,” Cassidy sighed. “It’s complicated.”
“It always is,” Bruce said seriously. “Okay,” he sighed when she didn’t elaborate. “So, what do you know so far?”
Cassidy summarized what she’d learned from Martin, Alice, and the credit card record.
“It’s classic missing persons,” Bruce replied. “You’re going to Biggs Junction, right?”
“Yes,” Cassidy replied, realizing she shouldn’t be surprised that Bruce was one step ahead of her already.
“Sounds like there’s a reason she chose that location to ditch her escort.”
“That’s what I’m beginning to think, too,” Cassidy said, dreading the three-hour drive. I’ll have to queue some new podcasts, she thought.
“How much did she withdraw from the ATM?”
“Three hundred.”
“Yep,” Bruce said, as if confirming a suspicion. “That’s the limit, so she had a plan.”
“What do you mean?” Cassidy felt lost.
“She gets out of the van without anyone seeing her. She hides somehow and makes it look like she’s still in her spot in the back. Once she’s sure they’ve driven off, she goes into the convenience store and withdraws as much as the machine lets her. I bet she bought stuff too. Food, water.”
Cassidy scanned the credit card record. “No, or at least the charges haven’t come through yet.”
“Sometimes it takes purchases longer,” Bruce explained.
“Okay, so once I get to Biggs Junction, then what?”
“Ask around. Maybe someone saw her. Do you have a picture?”
Cassidy racked her brain. “No, but I can get one.”
“Okay, so ask around, but also spend some time there, observing. This is on a major freeway, right?”
“Yeah, though it’s in the middle of nowhere.”
“But lots of traffic?”
Cassidy knew the stop from when she taught field camp in years past. “Yeah. Pretty busy. There’s another freeway that intersects there, too.”
“Hmmm,” Bruce said.
Alice returned with her refilled coffee, but Cassidy stood. She covered the phone with her hand. “I have to go,” she whispered.
Alice looked surprised, but quickly nodded.
“Thank you,” Cassidy mouthed.
“I just hope she’s okay,” Alice whispered.
Cassidy nodded and stood to go.
“Okay,” Cassidy said to Bruce, moving quickly for the exit. “So, what exactly am I looking for once I get there?”
As Cassidy rounded the doorway, she caught a glimpse of Alice, still standing at the empty table holding the two mugs of coffee.
Seven
A sense of urgency overtook Cassidy once she got into her car. Bruce told her to look for traffic patterns. Were there busses that stopped in Biggs? What kind of travelers did she notice?
“Could she have hitchhiked?” Cassidy asked.
“For her sake, I hope not,” Bruce replied darkly.
But Izzy had money, so could have paid for a ride.
“You’re going to have to go with your instincts,” Bruce said as Cassidy pulled onto the street. “She could have gone in several different directions. But she got off there for a reason. Maybe she was meeting someone. Maybe the intersection provided her with an opportunity. Examine the possibilities, then go with your gut.”
“But what if my gut’s wrong?”
“You can’t think about that. Just keep moving forward.”
Once on the freeway, Cassidy tried to keep an open mind about Izzy’s intentions. Could she have been meeting someone? If so, whom?
Her phone chirped but the number was unfamiliar, so she silenced
