“And you did this all through college?”
“Sort of.”
“You said Dad was good?”
She relaxed at that one. Smiled a little. “He was amazing. He came alive when he was out on the water. It wasn’t Sawyer and a boat, two separate things. The kayak acted as if it knew his every thought before he’d done a thing. Like a centaur, but half boat, half human. He was fearless. Class V rapids, flood-stage water, long-distance races—he’d tackle anything. The harder it was, the happier he got.”
Fearless. I liked the idea of a fearless dad. I wished I knew that trick, because every day that went by, I got more worried about Mom, thinking about Carl and drugs and disappearance and death. Fearless was a long way out of reach.
Bryn was on a roll now, so I stayed quiet and still, hoping she would forget I was listening.
“He was a perfectionist. He spent one whole summer testing out different kayak paddles. Narrowed it down to the top three, then had me video him going down the same rapid with each one. He ended up picking this short, stubby, composite one people laughed at, but he didn’t care about the laughter as long as that ugly paddle gave him an edge. One time we …”
She broke off, and the smile that had been getting bigger turned off fast, like someone had jerked an electric plug out of its socket and cut the current. She cleared her throat. Looked away. “There’s a rest stop a mile ahead. Let’s stop and let Tellico out.”
The way she said it, like an order, told me I wasn’t going to hear anything else about my dad, but I figured I could sneak in one more question. “If you did all that whitewater stuff back then, could you teach me like Dad taught you?”
Bryn’s tense frown gave me the answer before she said anything. “Sorry, kid. I’ve sworn off whitewater. Nothing could get me back out there again.”
And that really did shut down any more questions.
It wasn’t until we got past Denver that I could see mountains ahead—a wall of them, stretching right and left as far as I could see. I glanced down at Landon’s carving on the glove box, but those mountains of Bryn’s looked nothing like these. Some of these had snow on top, even though it was June. I tried to pretend I was a pioneer ready to cross them, like in the Oregon Trail game, but if I were in a wagon instead of a truck and spotted those mountains ahead, I would have turned around and headed back home.
We started up into them, the road still a highway, but twisty. The truck roared like it was angry on the steep stretches, and a bunch of cars zoomed past us. When we turned off on the road to Aspen, mountains closed in on all sides.
Huge mountains. Jagged and gray. Rocky, like their name. They were a little spooky, not at all like the curvy green mountains at Bryn’s homestead. Looking at them made me feel cold, even though it was warm out.
I started seeing big open paths carved down the mountainsides, with towers along the edge and chairlifts. “Ski slopes,” Bryn said. If those paths were covered in snow, there’d be people flying down them on skis and snowboards. I’d watched that stuff on TV, but seeing how steep it was for real was a whole lot different.
“Can we start looking for Mom now?”
Bryn didn’t answer. We were passing huge houses, and when we got into Aspen itself, there were stores and hotels and ski shops and more stores. Everything looked very clean and very fancy. Narrow streets zigzagged every which way. Clumps of people waited outside restaurants and wandered the sidewalks. How could we ever find Mom in the middle of all this?
Bryn slowed the truck way down, and she looked right and left and then right and left again, like she was wondering the same thing.
I rolled down the window. The air was a mix of green smell like at Christmas and the smell of pizza from a Domino’s we were passing. “Have you been here before?” I asked.
“Long time ago.” She looked around again, frowning. “We were just passing through. I don’t remember all these stores and bars and restaurants.”
“So, can we start looking for Mom now or not?”
She made a don’t-bug-me face. “Not. It’ll get dark soon. Let’s find a grocery, get some supplies for dinner, and figure out a campground. Tomorrow we’ll get started.”
I started to argue, but she cut me off.
“It’s late, we’re tired, and we have to figure out how to tackle this. Tomorrow we’ll get started for real, and I even promise a hamburger lunch. It’s cool enough here that Tellico can hang out in the truck while we go in places.”
“Yeah. Okay.” I didn’t like it, but I didn’t have any better ideas. This town didn’t look very Mom-like. Too clean, too dressed-up, and too expensive. What if we’d come all this way for nothing?
So it ended up the only place I searched that day was the inside of City Market while Bryn picked through the produce. I looked hard for Mom there, but I didn’t see anyone like her.
We drove on a little farther, and we got the last campsite at a campground that was part of the National Forest. No showers, which Mom would have fussed about, and pit toilets, which would have sent her stratospheric. I had to hold my nose to even get close. A huge creek roared right by our campsite, with a big metal bridge crossing it and lots of hiking trails. We took Tellico for a long walk and then set up the tent.
We had scrambled eggs and pan toast and apple slices for dinner, the hot food tasting good because the air got a whole lot colder once the sun went down. A few other campers had campfires going, and everything smelled smoky. A big motor home a few spaces down had a satellite dish and a row of colored lanterns hanging from its awning, making our tent look small and fragile.
I waited until after we’d eaten before I started asking questions again. “How are we going to find Mom?” I hoped Bryn had had the chance to think about it and come up with one of her plans.
But she looked puzzled. “I’m not sure.” She drummed her fingers on the picnic table for a few minutes. “I guess what we need to do is think like her. If she came here to look for the man Dave saw, what would she do first?”
I tried to think like Mom. She’d need a place to sleep. She’d need food. She’d need a drink, after all that driving. “She’d look for the bar Dave told us about. The one with the baseball stuff on the walls.” I pulled out my phone. “What was it, the Red Sox?”
“That’s what Dave said.”
I typed it in. “No hits under Aspen Red Sox Bar. But there are sports bars. I’ll start looking through photos.”
“Great. And we can ask around. Based on the bank statements, she didn’t have much cash with her, so she’d need to do something to get money.”
She didn’t have much cash. My stomach turned into a hard, heavy lump the way it did nowadays whenever I thought about how long she’d been gone, and I was sorry I’d eaten that third piece of toast and honey. She didn’t have cash, but she had the pills. Carl had said so.
I opened a new tab and looked up hotel prices. Most were hundreds of dollars, and there was no way Mom could have even paid for one night after buying gas and stuff to get here. She’d have to sell some of the pills, which meant we’d never be able to get them all back for Carl. There were way too many ways for that to go wrong. “Maybe she met someone.”
I knew how that sounded, and I felt like a traitor for saying it. But that was better than picturing her out there selling drugs.
Bryn frowned like she wasn’t all that convinced. “Maybe.” She stood up. Started a pot of water heating on the stove for washing dishes. I scooted closer because the warmth felt good. “See if you find any clues to the right bar in the photos. Tomorrow, we’ll go for an early hike while we wait for things to open. Then we’ll start with the sports bars and go from there.”
“Okay.” I’d thought getting to Bryn’s would solve everything, then I thought going back to Memphis would work. Now we had to find Mom in Colorado, and Bryn didn’t sound too sure we could do it. “The sign in front says there’s a five-day limit to camp here.”
“There are other campgrounds. B
ut you’re right—we can’t waste time. I need to get back home sometime. I need to get back to work.”
She didn’t look at me, and I could tell she was being careful not to say anything about Carl and his countdown. It was nice she’d quit looking around for him everywhere, but even with him back in Memphis, we needed to hurry. He’d said one week when he first came to Bryn’s place. We’d spent one day getting to Memphis, one day there, and two days getting to Aspen. Today’s text message had said Today is Wednesday. Deadline Saturday. Three days left to search. The heavy stone in my stomach grew into a giant boulder.
No matter how I looked at it, we didn’t have enough time.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Bryn
It had been years since I dreamed about drowning, but that first night in Colorado my nightmare returned, familiar and frightening. Maybe it came back because Del and Sawyer were so present in my thoughts again, or because the sleeping bag I was using still carried a vague scent that made me think of Sawyer. Maybe the sound of the rushing stream by our campsite dragged the dream out of hiding, or perhaps my subconscious chose this way to warn me of danger.
Whatever the reason, the nightmare returned, a vivid Technicolor replay of things I didn’t want to remember.
The accident happened a week after I’d discovered the truth about Sawyer and Del. Five of us met on a chilly spring Sunday at the Chattooga River in northern Georgia. Its fearsome reputation had been forged by the movie Deliverance, but to me it meant distraction and escape. I was the odd woman out, our three-couple weekend skewered by the minor little detail that my former fiancé wasn’t with us. I tried not to picture him tucked in bed with my sister.
The trip had been planned weeks earlier, and I didn’t even consider cancelling, bizarrely convinced that if I acted as if nothing was wrong, the pain of Sawyer’s betrayal would ease. Stay busy, forge ahead, forget what happened. That was my mantra.
I wasn’t sleeping. I wasn’t eating. I wasn’t thinking clearly. But the water, the river, the intense adrenaline rush of successfully running a major rapid, had always been my escape valve. Pressures at school? Layoffs at work? A worrisome bank balance? Head to the water as soon as possible, and all my problems became inconsequential. It had worked for everything else, so why wouldn’t it work for a shattered heart?
Sawyer and I had met the others in Asheville at a kayaking competition the previous fall. We’d connected and quickly made plans. Their real names were somewhere in my jotted-down contact list, but in private Sawyer and I had nicknamed the photo-worthy pair Barbie and Ken and the super-fit outdoorsy couple, Jane and Tarzan. We met as arranged at the put-in point and unloaded the boats amid laughter and high energy. Theirs was real. Mine was a meticulous fake.
“Sawyer came down with a bug,” I explained. “He’s so sorry he can’t be with us.” The last thing I could face from these not-quite-friends was pity, and they accepted my easy lie.
“No worries.” Jane distributed power bars and energy gel, the mother figure of the group. “We’ll stay together. We’ll watch out for you.”
Tarzan nodded dutifully. He was the one most familiar with this stretch of the Chattooga. I’d never paddled it before. “The river’s not all that high. It’ll be an easy run.”
Easy wasn’t what I was looking for. I wanted danger and diversion. I wanted oblivion.
Ken was focused on a gadget that was new at the time—a GoPro camera he wore on his forehead.
Sawyer would love one of those. The thought came unbidden and left a stale taste in my mouth. I choked it down and tried to act normal. “Can you send me the video later?”
“Absolutely. Once we’re done, I’ll post it online and send you a link.”
His confident statement had the effect of further minimizing the river’s risks. An easy run. Once we’re done. A successful conclusion was preordained.
We zipped into life vests, double-checked safety supplies, and launched the five kayaks into the current. My tired muscles protested, my foggy brain fumbled, but I shrugged it off, telling myself I just hadn’t warmed up yet. Once I got moving, all would be well.
The river and the surrounding wilderness brought a harsh beauty to the day. Rock formations rose on both sides of the water, framed by the emerald green of a dense growth of conifers. A kingfisher swooped overhead, his strident rattle warning us to get lost. A startled doe darted from the water’s edge at our approach. The clean, fresh air almost sparkled in the sunlight.
I hung back at first, taking last place as Sawyer had taught me, seizing the opportunity to evaluate the skills of these paddlers I didn’t know well. Identify the weak link so you can keep an extra eye out.
I pushed his voice out of my head, but I followed his advice and watched the others. Ken and Tarzan knew their shit. Jane was damn good. Barbie was the novice of the group, the most likely to get into trouble, but she stuck close to Ken and followed his lead. He checked on her often, acting responsible. There was no reason to expect trouble from that direction.
The four of them twisted around every few minutes, looking back to make sure I was following, and after half an hour, I decided to save them the neck strain. At the first opportunity, I passed into the lead. Easier for them to watch me that way, plus, when I was first, I didn’t have to see them behaving like well-established couples. Pointing out the best route. Cheering a particularly good run. Chatting in quiet moments about earlier trips. The things Sawyer and I would be doing now if he were here.
I focused on the river. A long chain of Class II and III rapids, a short calm, then a zigzagged Class IV that burned off the day’s chill. My body hummed with contentment, my adrenaline ensuring deep, efficient breathing and fast responses. I would never be as good as Sawyer, but I was a reasonable second best.
I’d been right to come. To hell with grief and pain and betrayal. This was what I needed; this was what I craved. The roar of the water, the bite of the paddle, the scream of arm, shoulder, back, and stomach muscles as I placed my kayak in exactly the right place, run after run. Sawyer couldn’t take this from me. He could take everything else, but not this.
Sawyer.
I pulled farther ahead, trying to outrace my own unhappiness.
A spot of bright red waved in the breeze along the left bank, positioned just before the river twisted into a narrow rock-bound chute. A red bandanna, maybe a piece of a red T-shirt. A warning. A warning I should have taken seriously.
Sawyer would have paid attention and eddied up at once. He would have gathered the group, told them to hold steady. He would have put into shore, forced his way forward on foot to assess. Was there a problem ahead? Was it safe to go forward?
But Sawyer wasn’t there, and my head was back in Memphis. I whipped past the warning flag with barely a glance and executed a nicely timed pivot to head through the narrow gap in the rocks. The river, compressed in this cleft, surged forward with added power, and I bit hard with my paddle, exultant in my supercharged haze.
Too late, I saw the blockage ahead.
“Strainer!” I screamed the last-minute warning to the others. A tangle of downed trees formed a wall just past the outflow of the chute, and I had no way to go around, no way to eddy up, no way to stop. It was a major obstruction, and I was in serious, heart-stopping trouble.
I tried to angle toward the edge that looked less dense, digging my paddle in deep to minimize the impact, but there were only seconds between recognizing the danger and the nauseating crunch of fiberglass smashing against wood. I slammed into the massive trunk, bounced off the rock wall, and flipped upside down.
The shocking cold of the water. The pummeling churn of the current. My hair ripped from my ponytail and wrapped around my submerged face, making it impossible to see.
The tremendous force of the plunging water wedged my kayak into the angle between tree trunk and solid rock and forced me forward, my chest pressed tight against the front edge of the cockpit. A boulder at my back kept me from moving.
I’d practiced recovery rolls in swimming pools, lakes, and rivers of all sorts. On whitewater trips, I’d rolled so many times, my body’s response had become pure reflex. Arms, paddle, stomach muscles, shoulder power. Flip the boat upright. Or, if in a serious mess, rip off the spray skirt and scramble out of the boat. I was no amateur. I knew how to save myself in a crisis.
But not this time. I was firmly pinned, my paddle useless, my legs locked into the kayak, with no way to extricate myself and no way to take in oxygen. My chest clamped painfully, its command insistent—breathe, breathe, breathe. Every fiber of my being wanted to inhale, but all I would suck into my lungs was river water. Every instinct told me to move, but I couldn’t.
Panic exploded.
My head pounded with every heartbeat. My useless arms twitched. My vision narrowed. One minute. One and a half. Two. Two minutes and fifteen seconds. Thirty seconds. I was so oxygen deprived, the world spun, and I started hearing voices.
The kayak jerked. Jerked again. Its bow lifted a few amazing inches and then lifted more, creating a narrow gap, and oh my god, there was suddenly air. I twisted my head sideways out of the water’s churn and took huge gasping breaths, desperate to fill my lungs before I found myself drowning again.
“Hang on!” The voices weren’t imaginary. Ken and Tarzan, Jane and Barbie. They were out of their boats, perched on and in the downed tree. They hauled the bow of my boat up by brute force, creating just enough of an air-filled space to save me.
I concentrated on pulling in oxygen. Fear still swamped me. What if they let me slip under again?
“Is she breathing? She’s breathing! Oh my god, she’s alive.”
“Shit, Bryn, are you okay?”
“We’re getting ropes in place. Sit tight.”
Sit tight. As if I could do anything else.
I watched the video later, posted on YouTube, out there for the entire world to see my helplessness. Rescue on the Chattooga. Fifty thousand views.
The others had seen the warning flag, heard my shout, rammed their boats to shore. A path through the underbrush, beaten down by previous paddlers more cautious than I, let them race around the blockage, the camera view jiggling as they stumbled over rough ground. The four of them, these people I barely knew, whose real names I couldn’t even remember, hadn’t hesitated. They’d risked their lives, organized fast, clambered out on the downed tree, and dragged me into air.
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