Over the Falls Page 15

  Bryn found a parking spot away from the terminal. “Do you want to wait in the truck with Tellico? You could play your game. It shouldn’t take long.”

  It was nice to have a stronger cell signal here so close to town, but I stuffed my phone into my pocket. “No. I’m coming.” Bryn thought Dad was dead, so she wouldn’t ask the right questions. I needed to be there to do it.

  The terminal wasn’t all that big, but it was hard to find someone to talk to—people busy at counters, busy with luggage, busy with a short line through an area labeled “Security.” People lined up who had their family right there with them, moms and dads both, on vacation, going somewhere fun.

  Bryn walked up to a woman at a check-in counter. Her nametag said “Suzie,” and she had picked up her purse and was stepping away like she was done for the day.

  “Excuse me.” Bryn stopped in front of her so she couldn’t leave. “We’re looking for someone who might have been here a few weeks ago.” She held out her phone with Mom’s picture on it.

  The woman acted like she wanted to be somewhere else, but Bryn just stood there and waited. When Suzie finally looked, she took her time, then frowned and waved at us to follow her. She walked over to a counter that said “Information,” where a lady with gray hair sat behind racks of maps and brochures. “Hey, Martha. Were you here a while back when that crazy lady tried to talk her way out onto the tarmac without a ticket?”

  Martha looked at the picture. “Yeah, I was here. She’s the one. High as Mt. Elbert. Yelling that her husband’s plane was parked out there, and she needed to get to it so she could talk to him.”

  Bryn gave me a quick look, like she thought I’d be upset to hear Mom acted that way. All I cared about was the fact she had been here. We were in the right place.

  “When was this?” Bryn asked. “I’m her sister, and we’re trying to find her.”

  The two consulted. “A week or ten days ago.”

  “What happened to her?”

  Martha made a nothing-good face. “The TSA guys called for additional security, but I don’t think they called the cops. I mean, she made a lot of noise, but once they pulled her away, she just sort of sat over there on a bench and rocked herself back and forth. Talked things that didn’t make sense. It wasn’t like she was making threats or trying to hurt anyone.”

  I’d seen that rocking thing before on Mom’s worst days. I would try and get her to eat ice cream when it happened or watch a favorite show. Try and make her rest. But now she was out there with nobody taking care of her. My teeth ground together so hard my jaw hurt.

  Bryn gave me another worried glance. “What did security end up doing?”

  “I’m not sure. They talked with her for a while, then led her away.”

  Suzie gave a nod and walked on. Bryn started to turn away, as if she was done asking things, so I jumped in. “Did her husband really have a plane here?”

  That earned me a frown from Bryn, but Martha just shrugged. “Who knows? She said his plane was here, but then she said it crashed and he died a long time back. Just mixed up, I guess.”

  “Thanks so much. Appreciate it.” Bryn turned to leave.

  “Hey. Wait a sec. Did you say you were this woman’s sister?” Martha leaned across the counter.

  Bryn nodded.

  “And you?” Martha looked at me.

  “She’s my mom. We’re trying to find her.”

  Her face softened, and she seemed to come to a decision. “Come with me.”

  She pulled a set of keys out of a drawer, put a “Back in Five Minutes” sign on the desk, and led us to a tall metal cupboard that sat to one side of the security line. She unlocked it. The shelves inside were stacked with all kinds of stuff, each item in a clear plastic bag, each bag with a tag and writing on it. Hats, coats, sweaters. Glasses. A stuffed turtle. An iPad, a few cell phones, a laptop. She rummaged through a box of small things.

  “I wouldn’t have remembered except I did Lost and Found inventory yesterday, and I was looking at it.” She flipped through a few more bags. “Here you go.”

  She held it out to me. “Is this your mom’s? It showed up on the floor over there by where she was sitting, after the security people led her off.” She looked at me like she felt sorry for me. “My kids made them like this for me when they were at camp.”

  I took the bag, and it was all at once hard to breathe, like a giant was sitting on my chest. It was Mom’s lanyard bracelet. Blue and green and purple stripes. It didn’t look right, seeing the bracelet in a bag instead of on Mom’s wrist. The knot was untied, with one end short like it had given way when the bracelet got jerked.

  “Yeah, it’s hers.” I turned to Bryn. “I made it in third grade, back when I still had after-school care. They had us do stupid art projects sometimes, and for Mother’s Day we were supposed to braid a bracelet.”

  I hadn’t wanted to make one, but I picked strips in her favorite colors, and even though it turned out lumpy, it ended up kind of pretty. I figured Mom would say thank you and then lose it, but no. She cried when I gave it to her and put it on right away. I’m never taking it off. I’ll think of you every time I look at it.

  “She tied it on with a tight knot and said since it was plastic, it would last forever. It was one of those times when she threw out all the beer in the fridge and said she was done with bars and parties and late nights out.” Her promise didn’t last, but the bracelet did.

  Bryn gave my shoulder a squeeze.

  “Can I keep it?” I tightened my grip on the plastic bag. There was no way I was giving it back.

  “I’m not supposed to sign things over except to the original owner, but something like this …” Martha pulled out a clipboard, scribbled something, and handed it to Bryn to sign.

  I vaguely heard Bryn thanking her again. Then we were back at the truck. Without her bracelet, Mom was more lost than ever. Without her bracelet, maybe she wouldn’t even think of me. I swallowed hard and it tasted all salty, but I scrunched my eyes closed a few times and stuffed the tears back inside.

  “You okay?” Bryn asked. She didn’t start the engine back up.

  “Yeah.”

  “Here. Let me see the bracelet a minute.”

  I made my fingers let go, and she took the bag and looked at the writing. “They were right about the date. She must have come here to the airport right after she got to Colorado.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I know all this is hard, but this is good news. Seriously. Now we know she came to Aspen. We know she was looking for Sawyer. That means our plan for tomorrow still makes sense—we can ask at the outdoor shops. And for sure they didn’t end up arresting her, because an arrest would have shown up in the search Steven did.”

  “Uh-huh.” She was forgetting the part about Mom acting crazy and then sitting and rocking. I wouldn’t call that good news.

  She slid the bracelet out of its bag and held it out to me. “Here. Which wrist?”

  I didn’t understand what she meant to do, but I held out my left hand, and Bryn tied the bracelet on. She had to work at it because of the torn part, but my wrist was skinnier than Mom’s, so it worked.

  “There. Now you can think of her when you look at it.”

  She sounded so much like Mom when she said it, I had to look away. I didn’t need a bracelet to remind me. I thought about Mom all the time anyway. But its weight on my wrist was a presence, like Mom reaching out to hold my hand.

  * * *

  Next morning, we stuck to the plan and visited outdoor stores, showing Mom’s picture to one clerk after another. Lots of walking and no news at all. Same at the kayak sale and rental places, and it didn’t take long to run through them ’cause there weren’t that many. We stopped at a café in town for lunch, and they had racks of free magazines out front. Bryn picked up one for tourists, and she flipped through it after we ordered lunch. Burger and fries again for me. Something weird, as usual, for her.

  “I’m not sure where else to look.
” She sounded more hopeless than I’d ever heard her, and I wasn’t sure how to make sure she’d keep going. “We haven’t even figured out where she was staying. We’re assuming she’s still here, but it’s been more than a week. She could have moved on.”

  I figured she was looking at the magazine so she wouldn’t have to look at me, which was for sure a bad sign. Next, she was going to tell me we had to stop looking and go home. I could tell.

  Easy for her to quit, but I couldn’t give up. “We just need to look harder. She’s here somewhere.”

  “She used to be here. Who knows where she is now? With Carl so desperate, I hate to think what will happen if we can’t find her.” She glanced up at me for a second, but she must not have liked what she saw in my face, because she went back fast to the magazine. “Maybe I should just call Steven and let him know what we learned here. Leave it up to the police.”

  “Do you think they could find her?”

  Bryn sighed one of those from-the-toes sighs, still turning the pages of her stupid magazine. “I don’t know. I’m just frustrated. Running out of ideas.”

  I’d thought plenty about finding Mom, but with Bryn talking about quitting, I started thinking about what if we failed. “What happens to me if we can’t find her?”

  She scrunched down in her chair and avoided my eyes. “After we get back to Memphis …” She stopped. I thought it was because she didn’t know what would happen to me when we got back, and I opened my mouth to argue—shit, I had a right to know. But she was staring hard at the magazine like she’d found something important.

  I stayed quiet.

  Our food came, smelling hot and greasy. The fries were the super-skinny kind I liked best, but I hardly noticed, watching Bryn. My stomach growled its hunger, which didn’t seem right since the rest of me was too mixed up to want to eat.

  I couldn’t stand the silence any longer. “If you can’t tell me what’s going to happen to me, could you at least pass the ketchup?”

  She shook herself as if she were coming out of a trance. “You want the truth? At the moment, I don’t know for sure what happens to you if we can’t find your mom. But in the short run, I’ll make sure you get back to Memphis, and we’ll figure it out from there.”

  Such a vague statement didn’t make me feel all that cheerful, but it was better than hearing a bunch of talk about foster homes.

  She passed the ketchup, but instead of starting to eat her bowl of chopped-up vegetables, she nodded like she’d made up her mind. She slid the magazine in my direction. “Take a look at this.” She tapped a half-page advertisement.

  Mountain Games. Starting the next day. Some place called Vail. Food, beer, vendors, family entertainment. Yoga. A fun run. Lots and lots of paddling competitions: flatwater races, whitewater races, canoe, solo kayak, tandem. A freestyle kayak rodeo, whatever that was.

  “So?”

  She took a bite of her food. “So. Maybe there’s one more thing we can try.”

  I looked again at the ad. “This? Mountain Games?”

  “Exactly. See the line that says they have a kayak rodeo? Well, if your mother saw that listing, and if she’s still around here looking for Sawyer, this is where she would go. Because your father would never miss something like that. Not in a million years.”

  “You mean Dad could be there?” Maybe Bryn was starting to believe.

  “No.” She said it fierce and sharp, and she glared at me like she was trying to hammer the word in. “Your dad will not be there, because he’s dead, got it?”

  I got it. Pretty harsh, but I got it.

  She pointed her fork at me. “If your mom thinks he could be alive, then she could be there.”

  In other words, it was a great place for me to look for both of them. “Where’s Vail?”

  Bryn was smiling now, liking this idea. “We passed it on our way here. A couple of hours away. We can pack up, find a campground closer to the Games, check out the area. Then we go to the kayak rodeo tomorrow, and we do some serious looking.” She gave me a narrow-eyed stare that would have looked good on a Klingon commander. “And then, Josh, we will have tried everything. Everything. No options left. If we don’t find your mom there, we’ll have to leave the search to people who know what they’re doing and figure out how to deal with Carl. Okay?”

  “Yeah, I get it.” I tried to sound like I meant it. Letting her think she’d convinced me.

  I ran my finger along Mom’s bracelet for luck. No matter what Bryn said, I wasn’t going home to Memphis without Mom. This plan gave me the rest of that day and all of the next to think of something, and I intended to do exactly that. The next day was Carl’s deadline, but with any luck maybe we’d be with Mom by then, and she would know what to tell him.

  I took a huge bite of my burger, suddenly hungry again.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Bryn

  I had definitely lost my mind, promising Josh we’d go to the Mountain Games. Going to this festival was the longest of long shots, and I fully expected it to be a bust. But if we didn’t give it a chance, I would always wonder. What if, against all odds, Del did show up, and we weren’t there to find her?

  The next day was also day seven of Carl’s one-week countdown, which was another reason it had to be the final day of our search. I would have to call him, convince him we were closing in, and buy enough time to get the police involved. His daily texts were a steady reminder of his threats, but I clung to the reassuring belief that he was halfway across the country. The homestead was still at risk, but here in Colorado, Josh and I were safe.

  Damn Del and her drugs and deceptions. This entire mess was her fault. If she wanted to live a drug-addled life, that was her call, but she had a kid. A nice kid. I’d tried to offer him some on-the-fly reassurance, but the chances were good he was going to end up in foster care again, and this time it wouldn’t be temporary. Sister or not, anyone who left Josh adrift that way got little sympathy from me. If it wasn’t for him, I would let Del sink.

  And yet, in the middle of the Del tirade that played steadily in my head, I remembered that long-ago tea party—the sun warming my skin, the feel of delicate porcelain and crystal in my hands, Del’s delighted laughter as she served cookies to her favorite stuffed bear. Josh had stirred up more than thoughts of Sawyer. After years of living comfortably with a black-and-white story—me, victim; Del and Sawyer, evil traitors—I found myself confused by these multicolored memories.

  * * *

  Josh and I broke camp, piled all the gear into the truck, and drove east. Just before dinner, we reached another national forest campground near Vail. I’d exceeded my maximum-tolerated dose of expensive ski villages, but after we set up the tent, we went into town to pick up some food for dinner.

  Work crews scurried everywhere, putting up canopies, posting signs, and setting up temporary bleachers at event sites. There would be thousands of people here the next day, packed into a small space. Music and noise. Junk food and souvenir stands. All in all, a claustrophobic crunch.

  Crowds made me jumpy. To make matters worse, at the Games, I wouldn’t be able to escape watching the whitewater competition because that’s where Del would be if she came here. Being here would thrust me straight back into the whitewater crowd, into the middle of avid paddlers reporting water levels, exaggerating exploits, talking shop. Debating equipment and tricks and judges’ scores. It was the last thing I needed when my head was so anchored in the past and my nightmares were keeping me so off balance.

  In contrast, the frenzied preparations in town had Josh bubbling with enthusiasm about the next day’s events. “We’ll find her here. I know it. I can’t wait to see the kayakers. Can you teach me more once we’re back in Tennessee? You said no whitewater, but what about teaching me on the lakes you like to visit?”

  The question sideswiped me, and I bent to tie a shoelace to give myself a moment. Josh was assuming a lasting connection—assuming his mother would set aside past differences and allow such a thin
g. This was such a leap, I couldn’t quite process it.

  He was so excited about the festival, I didn’t want to say anything pessimistic about finding his mother, and I didn’t want to dash his hopes of staying in touch. Somewhat to my surprise, I could indeed imagine Josh coming for a weekend now and then, or maybe even a whole week in the summer. I was usually ready to poison houseguests after a day or two, but this nephew thing was growing on me. “We’ll see. Maybe your mom will let you come visit. There are quite a few spots you’d like that are an easy drive from the cabin. I could borrow a second boat.”

  The answer seemed to satisfy him. At the very least, it promised a vision of a more normal future.

  We grabbed our groceries and chatted about paddling and the next day’s schedule on the way back to the campground, but all talk stopped when we reached our campsite. Our bright orange tent, the camp stove, and the full water jug on the picnic table made it obvious the site was occupied, but a car with Colorado plates was parked squarely in our pull-in space. Two men, dressed in jeans and short-sleeved shirts, sat on the table with their feet on the bench. Waiting.

  Josh noticed them an instant after I did. “Oh no.” His face lost all color.

  “Do you know them?”

  He nodded with a sharp jerk. “I saw them one time talking to Carl. Back home when he and Mom were dating. He was telling them something, and they were listening like he was the boss.”

  Shit. Both men looked tough and ready for trouble, characters straight out of central casting. Far more threatening at first glance than Carl had initially seemed in his fancy clothes. I debated simply driving away, but where would that leave us? I pulled off the road and parked, careful not to block their car in. I wanted them gone, not trapped.

  “Stay here. I’m taking Tellico.”

  Josh caught his upper lip in his teeth, his eyes darting from me to the men and back again, but he nodded.