With the list of contacts spread out on her console, she dialed Bridget first, but she only confirmed what Cassidy already knew: that Izzy got out at the first stop—the rest area and was deeply engrossed in texting someone—but had stayed in the van at the Chevron. Cassidy made a mental list of the students who had interacted with Izzy recently: William, Franklin, Cody, Alice, and a few others.
Then, she realized that she had completely forgotten about Charlie Tucker, the geomorphology professor in charge of the first half of field camp and who was now holed up writing a book. Even though Charlie hadn’t been a part of camp since Cassidy took over for the volcanology unit three weeks ago, she added him to her list. Everyone loved Charlie, aka “Professor Handsome.” Maybe Izzy had confided in him, though Cassidy doubted it would be relevant.
Of the four calls she made to students, only Franklin answered.
“Oh, uh . . . hi, Dr. Kincaid,” Franklin said.
Did he sound nervous? Cassidy pictured his tall, lanky frame. His face sort of matched his body, with a nose like a beak pinched between narrow cheeks. He had a habit of hunching.
“Have you heard about Izzy?” she asked.
“Yes,” he replied, making a sound that was part sniffle, part snort. “Excuse me,” he said. “My allergies have been really bad since we got back.” He blew his nose.
“What are you allergic to?” Cassidy asked, unable to stop her curiosity.
“Mold,” he said. “I’m moving apartments, but not for another week.”
Cassidy rounded the final bend in the freeway leading to Snoqualmie Pass and the location of a broad ski area, its empty chair lifts dangling over a patchwork of rusty brown and yellowed grass and weeds. She had only skied at this area a handful of times with the U.W. Ski Club, and only at night. To her, ski areas always looked so forlorn in the summer. She wondered if Pete had ever skied here, and imagined herself running into him on one of those nights. The idea sent a charged ache through her—it was what she always wished for—more time.
“ . . . roommate is moving in with his boyfriend.”
Cassidy realized she had completely missed Franklin’s reply. “I see,” she answered. “Well, I’m helping to . . . er, track Izzy down. Her father thinks she’s just hiding out somewhere. Apparently, she’s done this kind of thing before.”
“Really?” Franklin asked.
Cassidy didn’t take the time to explain. “Has she tried to contact you?”
“Uh, no.” He gave a little chuckle, which then turned into a cough. “Izzy and I aren’t really friends.”
“But you guys hung out at the dock together Friday night,” Cassidy said.
Franklin made a soft choking sound. “You know about . . . ” Cassidy waited through a pause. “Right. Well, yes, we ended up at the dock after the bar closed, but that’s the first time Izzy and I have spent any amount of time together.”
“Whose idea was it to go to the dock?”
“I don’t really know,” he said. “But probably Cody.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because he’s pretty much always in charge,” Franklin answered, his voice hardening.
“What did you guys do at the dock?”
“Hung out, you know, talked. William played some tunes . . . ”
“Were you drinking?”
“Me?”
“The group. Were you guys still partying?”
“Uh,” Franklin muttered. “Uh,” he said again. She pictured his mouth opening and closing silently, like a fish.
“I’m not the police, Franklin. You can tell me. This might be really helpful.”
“Someone had a bottle of whiskey, it might have been Izzy, I don’t know. Cody . . . had weed.”
Cassidy suppressed a groan. Even though pot was legal in Oregon and Washington, it was against policy to smoke it at field camp—though no professor in their right mind enforced this. If they did, half of the students would be sent home. “Did Izzy smoke some?”
“I think so.”
Cassidy was getting annoyed. “C’mon, Franklin. You guys were all together. Did she or didn’t she smoke Cody’s pot?”
“I don’t know,” Franklin replied, sounding flustered. “Yeah, we were all on the dock, but I wasn’t really paying attention to what Izzy was doing.”
Cassidy drove past a second set of ski lifts, the central one extending up and over a hog’s back summit. “Then what were you paying attention to?” she asked, tightening her grip on the wheel.
Franklin didn’t answer for a moment. “I can promise you that it’s not related to anything going on with Izzy.”
Cassidy scowled, even though Franklin was now almost a hundred miles away. “Humor me,” she said.
Franklin seemed to be thinking, because the connection hummed with his silence for what felt like a long time. “Alice,” he said finally.
“Oh,” Cassidy replied, her frustration deflating like a punctured tire. She remembered seeing Franklin and Alice swing dancing at the resort and the ease with which they moved. Had that been going on all along? Or had their relationship bloomed that night? Cassidy cringed at the idea of prying into Alice and Franklin’s private lives. “Okay. So, when did you guys return to camp?” she asked.
“I don’t know, really. Alice and Izzy were cold, so Alice and I left first. Cody and the other two were behind us.”
“Alice says maybe one or one-thirty.”
“That’s probably about right,” he said. “Where does Alice think Izzy’s gone? I don’t really know her, Dr. Kincaid. Alice does, though.”
“Just think back to that night, Franklin. I know your focus was . . . elsewhere, but, can you think of anything else, about Izzy or what was going on that might be important?” Cassidy cleared the final ski area and felt a strange form of relief wash over her. “Did she say anything? Do anything?”
“Cody picked her up and was going to throw her in the lake,” Franklin said. “It happened a little after we got there. But he didn’t.”
“Did Izzy seem upset?”
“No, she was just Izzy.”
“What do you
