Andy looked into the night. “As of right now? Seven hundred thousand dollars.” He arrowed a sarcastic glance at Eliza. “See? Far worse.”
Lincoln’s finger quivered at Andy. “You can’t blame everyone else for that. It’s like when I’m working with my clients. I give them stockbroking advice and they decide if they want to follow it.”
Andy sneered. “Really? Do you give them that speech when your advice is bad for them, and they lose all their money? It’s not your fault?”
Eliza’s mind whirled as it scrambled for a grip on anything tangible. Her planned intervention was more than a failure. It was severing old ties. How did they get here so quickly? She had to get them back on track. “What can we do for you, Andy?”
He pulled his hoodie tight around him, shoulders hunched. A beaten man—one who had taken on the world but cowered on the canvas with rounds still to fight. “How about you leave me alone? Leave me to do what I wanted to do. Disappear.”
Eliza kept her voice flat. Unthreatening. “You can’t do that.”
He turned on his heel. “Watch me.” Andy stormed between the swags and beyond the safe circle of light around the campfire. With the crunch of gravel and the soft thud of feet climbing the crater wall, he was gone.
Eliza reached out to her two remaining old friends. “We should go after him.”
Lincoln leaned away from the fire. “Leave him. We’re not responsible for him or his problems.”
Eddie’s gaze followed Andy into the darkness as the sky flashed turquoise again. “I’ll go after him in a few moments.”
* * *
Silence, spoiled only by the spitting of rain on glowing coals and the gentle flap of canvas crinkling in the breeze. Silence, amplified as the unspoken tension ratcheted up another notch in between shallow breaths and the choking back of tears.
Lincoln stared at Andy’s empty swag as Sloaney watched him from across the campfire. “Are you okay, mate?”
Lincoln nodded as Eliza rushed to wrap a blanket around Bree. He processed the last ten minutes, but the temerity of Andy’s accusation jagged on his self-righteousness. He was tired of people blaming him for their unhappiness. “This isn’t our fault. He’s got to own up to what’s going on in his life and be honest with himself.”
Bree’s voice emerged from under the blanket. “That’s rich coming from you.”
Lincoln felt like he’d been slapped. “Why is this about me?”
Bree threw off the blanket and glared at him. “You like having things in the open, do you? If you want Andy to be honest, how about you start? You hide a huge thing from us about being married—so much for your honesty.”
Eliza nearly snapped her neck as she spun to face Lincoln. “You what?”
Oh no. Lincoln’s pulse quickened. “Since when do I have to report to everyone about what’s going on in my life?”
Eliza wasn’t backing down. “You’re married?”
This was not how he wanted Eliza to find out. “It was a mistake.”
“And you didn’t think your old friends would be interested in knowing that?” Eliza’s head shake grew in intensity. “And you talk to me about rekindling things?”
Bree shuffled around the fire to join Eliza as the breeze gusted into a steady wind. “What’s in that letter that so terrifies you if we know about it?”
The battle inside Lincoln raged as the rejection from his youth and the rejection of the present melded to form an unstoppable force. The mercury inside him rose as the wind rushed through the campsite, extinguishing the remaining flame clinging to life on unburned wood. “You want to know what’s in the letter? My very-soon-to-be ex-wife wants a divorce, and she’s coming after the fortune I amassed from my sheer talent and fifteen years of working hard. And she’s coming after me for more than her fair share. She wants it all.”
Eliza thrust out her hands. “Well, tell her she can’t have it. Why would she do something like that?”
Lincoln folded his arms as the story he wanted to stay closed was pried open inch-by-inch. “She kept going on about all these other women—”
Eliza scoffed. “I can see why. Your social media over the last year or so has been nothing but you and other women.”
Lincoln raised a deliberate, quivering finger and pointed it at her. “Don’t you lecture me on relationships. None of that happened before she left. Look, it’s no big deal.”
It was as if Bree’s voice was strengthened by being next to Eliza. “No big deal? You got married! Why wouldn’t you tell us?”
The wind now howled through the campsite, embers sailing as Eddie rushed to check the swags. “We weren’t expecting any kind of weather tonight.”
Lincoln wasn’t expecting anything like this either. He struggled to hear Eliza’s voice over the wind. “Wait a minute! You are still married?”
Lincoln shielded his eyes from the sand that swirled throughout the crater. “She kicked me to the curb.”
“But you were still married and that would have crushed her. It would probably feel like you’d already moved on and left her behind.”
The fuse that had been slow burning for fifteen years flared to life with Eliza’s comment. “And there it is. You did exactly the same thing to me at graduation—moved on with your life without even looking back or asking me if this was a direction we could go in together. Who packs their bags for LA and moves on without looking back?”
“Lincoln, I was trying to—”
“What? Do what was best for you? And then you built this perfect life that revolves around you.”
The wind flung Bree’s blanket high into the air, where it disappeared into the darkness. “How different is that from your life? You never were like this, Lincoln, but now you’re all about yourself.”
He wasn’t finished with Eliza. “You said this trip was going to be significant. What does that even mean?”
“It means something is missing in my life, and I’m taking the time to find out what it is.”
Eddie returned to the campfire. “We should think about finding Andy—”
“Shush!” Bree raised a hand. “Can you hear that?”
Beyond the gusts of wind, there was a different sound. A heaviness. A rushing. Like a distant freight train.
Eddie threw a panicked look at Sloaney. “That sounds like it’s going to hit us.”
Bree stood. “It sounds like a train.”
Eddie shook his head. “No trains around here.”
The roar grew louder, deeper, and in an instant the campsite was lashed with a gale-force wind, knocking them off their feet.
Bree yelled, “It’s a hurricane. We have to find Andy.”
Sloaney cupped his hands around his mouth. “We don’t get hurricanes out here. Get to the four-wheel drive. Hopefully Andy’s got enough sense to find it.”
Eddie yelled into the howling wind, “I’ll go and find him.” A faint flashlight beam rushed away from the camp as the dust circled the crater, the campfire seemingly in the eye of the storm.
Eliza stood, hands on her hips. “That was fifteen years ago and I’ve moved on.”