I didn’t even know what I was looking for… a flash drive, money, the stolen Sillin? Oh my God. What if it was the Sillin? What if Everest had planted it in my room to make me look guilty again? What if he’d popped each pill from the foil packets and hid them among the dried rose petals? My stomach began to cramp with a sudden upsurge of nerves. I was going to be sick. I reached for the banister to steady my swaying gait.
“What’s going on?” August stared at my face, then at my abdomen.
Had I paled, or had he felt my jarring stress through the tether? I didn’t want to carry the burden of Everest’s voicemail alone, however unfair it was to push it upon someone else. I swallowed, my throat feeling as dry as Lucy’s potpourri.
“Dimples?”
I closed my eyes, then opened them. “Everest left me a message.”
He didn’t say anything for so long that I began to tremble.
I gulped my saliva, trying to wet my throat. “He left me a message thanking me, and then he said some other things, and-”
“Why don’t you play me his message?” August’s eyes gleamed in the semi-obscurity of the staircase.
I nodded and dug out my phone. With shaky fingers, I located the message and pressed play. I watched August’s features shift and realign, first in a frown, then in suspicion, then in shock.
“I swear I didn’t warn him the pack was coming,” I murmured after it ended.
His gaze hadn’t moved off my phone. “What could he have left you?”
“I don’t know. I don’t even know what fl- could be. I was thinking flowers. Lucy leaves these jars filled with potpourri in the bedrooms, but I got rid of the one I had.”
He dipped his chin into his neck.
“Please tell me you believe me.”
He sighed.
“August, I swear-”
He finally raised his eyes back to mine. “I believe you.”
Relief gushed through me.
In silence, we went to retrieve my key from the back office. I told Emmy I needed to grab something from my bedroom even though she hadn’t asked for an explanation. Concern made her kind eyes crinkle.
As we made our way down the deathly quiet hallway, I asked August, “Do you have any other ideas?”
“I’m thinking.”
The tether that linked us was as taut as a bowstring. I tried not to wonder why that was.
I pushed open the door and flicked on the lights, then walked down the short vestibule. I scanned my room for flowers-any flowers-but there wasn’t even a jar. August knelt down and peered under the bed before lifting the mattress and checking under it. While I clanged open every drawer in my room and dismantled the flannel-covered armchair, he caught the edge of the area rug and tugged it free from the bedframe, spraying the air with flickering dust motes.
“Nothing here,” he said.
I checked my closet next while he went into the bathroom and banged open the cupboards. I heard the distinct clang of porcelain-probably the toilet tank.
“Did you find any-” My skull throbbed so suddenly with a voice that I lost my balance, and my head bumped into something cold and hard, but the rest of my body landed on something warm and soft.
“Ness!” My name vibrated inside my ears.
I rolled my head back. August was gaping worriedly down at me, my limp body clutched in his arms.
Had I imagined the word Boulders screamed into my head? “Did you hear someone-”
“It’s Liam.”
The voice boomed again, and I clutched my forehead. Rodrigo and his team just located Everest’s car in a ditch off Beek Ridge. I’m on my way there.
August’s rounded green eyes came in and out of focus.
“Oh my God,” I murmured.
August’s face swam back into focus. He unwound one arm from around me. Suddenly, his phone was pressed against his ear, and he was speaking into it.
“Fuck,” he rumbled. “Fuck.”
Two pennies for Isobel’s jar, I thought.
Such a silly thought.
I stared at the small buzzing spotlight above my head. Or maybe my head was buzzing.
Everest’s car was in a ditch.
Was Everest in the car?
I must’ve asked this out loud, because August said, “He was.”
Tears curved around my cheeks, disappeared into my still-wet hair.
“Is he-” I couldn’t push the last word out.
“He didn’t make it.” August brushed his thumbs over my cheeks, but the tears fell faster than he could wipe.
“T-Take me to… to him.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Please,” I wheezed. “Please, August.”
“Ness-“I touched his cheek, beseeching him with my wet eyes.
He sighed and finally relented.
As we drove to the scene of the accident, neither of us spoke. August had turned the heater up, but that didn’t stop me from trembling.