After the letter burned to ashes, I stood, walked through the cabin, turned off all the lights and kicked off the heat. I made sure everything was locked up behind me, then stepped out onto the deck with Archie by my side.
I traipsed through the woods just to clear my head and tried to rid myself of the impulse of chasing after G. When I finally walked through the front door of my home, my sister was sitting on the sofa, laptop aglow on her face, typing away.
When she heard the door click shut, she looked up at me, her glasses sliding off her nose. It took about a second of recognition before she set the laptop aside, pushed her glasses to the top of her head, then bolted up off the sofa.
“Where have you been?” she said, nearly tripping over her own two feet as she dashed toward me.
“I went on a walk.”
“Where is she?”
I shrugged off my jacket, placed it on the hook, then turned back to her. “Gone. Vanished. Probably halfway down the mountain by now.”
My sister shook her head. “We have to go after her.”
I raised a brow. “I thought you wanted me to stay away from her?” In all my life I would never understand women completely. Say one thing, mean another.
“You have to see this.” She tugged me by the hand, dragging me over to the sofa, then turned her laptop toward me and pulled up the web browser. Turning to me, she pointed to the screen.
Leaning in, I looked at it. It was a news article. Another woman from Long Island, Hope Martin, was found dead. Home invasion. I glanced back to my sister and held my palms up, not getting where she was heading.
“Hope Martin was Gianna’s friend,” she explained.
“How do you know that?”
Turning, she clicked the mouse and went to the next tab on the browser. Facebook. Gianna’s profile was open, all her public photos displayed, which weren’t many. And yeah, right there was G next to the woman whose photo was in the other article. It looked like an older photo. Her hair wasn’t blonde like on the newscast; it was dark, as I knew her now. Both girls had red Solo cups in their hands, looked like a college party of some sort. “If there is one thing that girls know how to do well, it’s to find things out through social media.” She cringed. “Not proud of this, but I may have looked up one or two of Brock’s ex-girlfriends.”
“So, you’re saying that G killed her best friend? Then what? Took the cash, and fled to leave the country?” It would explain the money, the ring. Why she was on the run.
My sister rolled her eyes. “No. Hope was killed late last night. No way your girl did it. I think G’s husband did.”
I crossed my arms, stepping back. That was a far stretch.
“I need you to pull your head out of your ass and catch up quick here because we are wasting precious time.” She blew a strand of hair out of her face. “After you went off to your room, then went traipsing in the woods, I did some digging. I pulled up Gianna’s Facebook profile. It’s pretty much on lockdown, but I saw a few profile pictures.” She waved her hand. “Anyhow, about that time the news went on to talk about another story, a home invasion with a woman about the same age that had gotten killed in Long Island. Something seemed off. Why would two women of the same age in the same town have something happen to them in the same week?”
“Uh, because it’s New York. And G isn’t dead; she ran away.” Seriously, my sister had watched too many thrillers.
“Hush, let me finish. So, my head popped up, and I listened. And that’s when I saw the girl. The same girl that was in one of G’s profile pictures.” My sister clicked on another browser. Hope Martin’s profile. Most of it was set to private, except for her job. Doctor of obstetrics and gynecology. “As much as this pains me to say, you were right. I was wrong. G isn’t a criminal trying to take advantage of you. She’s an abused woman on the run.”
I rubbed my face. Maybe it was because I was emotionally spent and exhausted, but I still wasn’t seeing the connection.
My sister tapped my shoulder. “You gotta think like a girl here. The first thing a woman is gonna do when she finds out she’s pregnant is book an OB appointment. Now, if I was G, and married to a man who was beating the ever-loving shit out of me, I’d go to someone that I trusted. Someone that had the means to help me. Now you think like a dude. Your wife goes missing and…” Her eyes grew misty saying that, a tear trickling down her face, knowing how much those words stung.
My expression mirrored my sister’s. “I’d go to her best friend to look for her.” Because that was exactly what I’d done with Alex. Because when Alex left, that’s where I assumed she’d gone to stay. Of course, I was wrong. Her car had veered off the road and the snowstorm covered all the tracks and the car, which was why finding her was so difficult.
“This dude she’s married to, Antonio Giordano, is bad news. Italian American. He’s been on the fed’s radar, but they can’t pin anything on him. But he’s been suspected of money laundering, trafficking, smuggling, you name it. He’s got connections with law enforcement, judges, politicians. Friends in high places.”
G’s words echoed in my head. You don’t understand what you’re asking for.
“Do you think she suspects her friend is dead?” I asked, that thought settling like a brick in my stomach. If her husband got to her friend, it was likely that the girl spilled the beans on where G was headed before he killed her.
“Doubtful. She’s not a girl who’s behaving like her best friend just died.” My sister choked a little as she said that. She would know.
I grew nauseous thinking about what could happen if this man found her. Then, suddenly, a wave of protectiveness washed over me. I still wasn’t sure I could trust this woman, but I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to her. “She’s safer here in the middle of nowhere. He’ll be watching the border.”
My sister nodded.
I stood. “Let’s go get her.”
Thankfully, I’d packed the car before I’d gone to Tanner’s to fetch my phone, so it didn’t take me much time at all to bug out.
Though, I spent several precious extra minutes composing a letter to Tanner. I couldn’t live with myself if I’d left it the way that I did. After I finished the letter, I carefully folded up some cash in the envelope. I knew he probably wouldn’t want to accept the money, but I was leaving it anyway. It was the right thing to do.
And then I was on my way. The first turn I slipped and skidded a bit. Tanner was right. The roads were still pretty bad. So, I slowed my pace to a snail crawl and just took it nice and easy, heading back down the mountain the same way that I’d come.
My mind raced. What would happen to me once I reached the border? Would the dye job on my hair do the trick? Would my identification pass scrutiny?
But more than anything, my heart ached. I didn’t want to leave. I was headed into the vast unknown, to a country that wasn’t my own. No friends. Nobody to help me. Utterly and completely alone.
For nearly an hour, I’d gripped the steering wheel so tight on every winding twist and turn, I was certain that my fingers would give out on me, but by the grace of God, I made it to the highway.