Page 30 of A Sea of Unspoken Things

He tipped his head toward the window, where we could see Smoke sprawled out across the sidewalk. “I’ve got venison curin’ out in the shed, and I warned your brother what would happen if—”

“Okay, Rhett. Go on and get your seat before someone takes it.” Sadie tried to smooth it over with a placating grin, but Rhett’s gaze was still fixed squarely on me.

“Been sayin’ it for years. Got no business keepin’ a wolf as a pet. That animal will tear your throat out if he catches you not lookin’.”

“All right, that’s enough,” Sadie said, more firmly.

Rhett’s lips pursed before he finally relented, his knobby hands reaching up for the zipper of his coat. He was shrugging it off a moment later, boots shuffling toward a table along the wall.

I looked up at Sadie, eyebrows raised in question.

“Probably best to steer clear of him.” She sighed. “He wasn’t too happy when he heard you were coming back to town.”

I watched him from the corner of my gaze. It was no secret that we were all there the night his son Griffin died—me, Johnny, and Micah. I’d been the one to leave the gorge, driving the treacherous roads back to town to get Timothy Branson. And while the story we told had been accepted by everyone else in Six Rivers, Rhett had never believed us. Not really. For months after I left, I had nightmares about waking up in my dorm to find him standing in the dark. Watching me. He had that same look as he eyed me now. Like he still hated me for what happened.

Ben appeared beside Sadie, breaking the spell around us, and he slid the bowl of soup across the table. It was followed by a small plateof cornbread. I’d convinced myself that I was being paranoid about Ben snooping in Johnny’s cabin, but the way he avoided my eyes now made that sense of disquiet resurface. Ben wasn’t comfortable around me, and I didn’t know why.

“Thanks,” I said.

He gave me an almost imperceptible nod and Sadie watched himgo.

“I swear to you there aresomepeople in this town who have manners. Unfortunately, none of them can be found at present.” She gave me an apologetic smile before she moved to the next table.

I took a sip of my coffee and closed the notebook before I opened Johnny’s email inbox. It was flooded with unread messages, and I scrolled, looking for one that mentioned the name Josie. When I didn’t readily spot it, I typed the name into the search field at the top of the page. A few letters in, the email address populated.

Josie Garver [[email protected]]

I hit enter and a series of emails filtered from the inbox and archived messages. None of them appeared to be unread. The most recent was from August 4, but there was nothing in the subject line.

I opened it, eyes scanning the one-sentence message.

Stop or I’ll report you to CAS.

I read the message again, staring at it for several seconds, unease gripping my stomach. What could that mean? Stopwhat?

I clicked back to the search results and skimmed the other emails from the same address. They all looked like they were related to the project, arranging meetings, or exchanging information on different sectors. But there were no more emails after August 4.

My mind jumped from one possibility to the next, trying to place the missing context. The other messages were all professional, familiar, and friendly, but the last one had a tone that felt pointed. In fact, it was threatening.

I scrolled to the bottom, copying down the phone number under the signature of the email. It was possible Johnny had gotten involved with Josie outside the bounds of a professional relationship, but Micah hadn’t alluded to anything like that.

I typed a quick message from my own account, asking if Josie would be willing to meet and copying Quinn so that it looked like official business for CAS. When I hit send, I sat back in my seat, fingers slipping from the edge of the table.

My eyes lifted to the booth across the diner, half expecting to see Johnny again. I waited for him to take shape, piece by piece, like the strokes of a paintbrush. But there was only the bend of evening light on the table. The shadows of passersby on the street. Now, I wasn’t even sure of what I’d seen. I wasn’t sure of anything anymore.

Ten

I could hear the old Ford Ranger before I could see it. The rumble of the engine broke the silence of the forest, growing louder until the light reflected off the windshield like a spark in the trees. Smoke’s head lifted from my lap, his ears perking up before the truck pulled into the drive.

I stood from the top porch step and slung my bag over my shoulder as Micah shifted the gear into park, resting one hand at the top of the wheel. His beanie was pulled low over his ears, making the ends of his hair curl along his jaw, and he hadn’t shaved since I last saw him, making him look gruffer than usual. I was still trying to get used to the ways he’d changed. Knowing him at eighteen wasn’t the same as knowing him at thirty-seven. The kind of shifts that happened in that time were more felt than seen, but there were some things, like the width of him or the look of his hands, that were different now. They were details that measured time, and that was something I tried not to think about.

I opened the door and Smoke jumped into the cab, finding a spot where he could look out from between the driver’s and passenger’sseat. The truck was a model from the nineties with a topper on the back, and it was surprisingly well-preserved for its years in the unforgiving landscape. It had been converted into a camper, so the backseat was gone and the entire space all the way to the tailgate had been retrofitted with a pallet bed and several compartments fixed to the inside frame.

“Morning,” Micah said, voice rough with cold and sleep.

“Morning.” I lifted myself inside and he took my bag, setting it in the back. “One of these for me?” I asked, eyeing the two coffees in the cupholders.

“Picked them up at the diner on the way.”