Page 84 of A Sea of Unspoken Things

“I wanted to let you know that if you ever want that test,” I paused, “we can do it. You and me. It’s not too late.”

Ben’s eyes went past me, and I followed his gaze to where Sadie stood on the other side of the diner.

“If you decide you want to, Micah knows how to reach me,” I said.

He nodded, a shy smile lighting up his face just a little, and I thought, not for the first time, that I didn’t need a test to know. I wasn’t sure Ben did, either.

Micah was only a few steps away when I turned back into the crowd. “What was that about?”

“I’ll tell you later.”

I eyed the long counter stacked with food. There were already people making their plates, and for the first time in days, I was actually hungry.

We got in line behind Harold, and Micah stuck close to me as I said hello to familiar faces and accepted a string of condolences. When he set a plate into my hands and nudged me forward, I was grateful. I cradled the plate in one arm, leaning over the table so I could reach the bowls of salad and trays of lasagna. Everyone had brought something, and I couldn’t help but compare the entire scene to the ones I was used to now. Champagne fountains and cocktail dresses and twinkling votive candles. Six Rivers was a far cry from all of it. I wasn’t sure anymore which one felt like home.

Ahead of me, Harold took up a spoonful of mashed potatoes, roughly plopping them onto my plate.

“James,” he greeted me.

I grinned. “I’m starting to think you live here, Harold.”

“I don’t trust anyone to cook for me but Sadie.”

I glanced across the room again, to where she was tucked into a corner talking with two other women. The champagne glass was still dangling from her hand.

“ ’Bout rioted when she closed up that one day a while back. Nearly starved to death.” He handed me a dinner roll.

“Thanks.”

Once Harold moved along, I cut into one of the lasagnas and served myself, then Micah. But when I looked up, Micah had a lost look on his face, eyes roaming over the table like he was thinking.

“What’s wrong?” I tapped him with my elbow.

“Wait,” Micah said, his attention jumping to Harold. “What day are you talking about, Harold?”

Harold scratched his beard, balancing his overfilled plate in one hand. “What now?”

“What day was that when the diner closed up?”

He frowned. “When the whole blame town was shut down for the tourney in Redding.”

The question was just beginning to thread together in my mind, but I was several beats behind Micah. Beside me, I watched as the color drained from his face.

“What is it?” I whispered.

His piercing gaze met mine. “That was the weekend Johnny died.”

Slowly, sickeningly, the circle of thought connected, like a snake eating its own tail. Sadie had told me that the reason she couldn’t leave town on game weekends was because she had to keep the diner open. That it never closed.

The weekend Johnny died, Six Rivers was in the middle of hunting season. But the town had been virtually emptied of its residents thanks to the high school soccer tournament in Redding. Even Amelia Travis, the only law enforcement they had, was gone.

“James?” I heard Micah’s voice beside me, but I couldn’t move.

Johnny had gone out to the gorge to work on November 10. He’d found the backpack, but then he’d come back to a ghost town. When he couldn’t get ahold of Amelia, what had he done? Exactly what I did. Johnny had come here, to the diner. He’d come to ask Ben if he’d heard from Autumn. Only, Ben wasn’t here. But Sadie was.

My gaze trailed the room until I spotted her again. She was smiling. Laughing.

I could see it, suddenly. Johnny standing at the counter. Telling Sadie what he’d found in the forest. How long would it have taken her to think back to that night when her son disappeared only to show back up in the morning wasted? How many minutes would have passed before she connected the dots to Ben’s depression that followed? To the moment he had tried to take his own life? She was a mother with a broken child. A mother who had been undeniably shocked when Amelia gave her the news that Ben had an alibi for that night.