My Family Abandoned Me in the Woods novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Deposition

Callie plays Nolan her recording, hands her ring back to Trevor on his own livestream, and a new account pins one line on Brooke's video: ask her about Sable Creek.

I played him the recording with the volume all the way up.

Trevor's laugh came out of the little speaker first.

Then Brooke's voice, bright and close. "Cry a little. Please."

Then mine, flat and calm. "I ended it three weeks ago. I just didn't tell you."

The recording ran through my mother's silence and my dad's footsteps and the cars driving away.

Nolan listened to every second of it with his jaw set.

When it ended he put the handset back on its hook.

"That doesn't sound like a woman who ran off in the woods," he said.

"I walked off a gravel lot. On purpose. With a lease in my pocket."

I took the folded paper from my coat and handed it over.

He read it under the dome light.

A one-bedroom in Missoula. First month paid. A start date on Monday.

"You sold your car," he said, reading the second paper.

"Three weeks ago. After I found the folder."

"Which folder?"

"My fiance's second phone. He's my sister's boyfriend, Nolan. He has been for a year. I was the season-two storyline."

He didn't say he was sorry.

He handed the papers back.

"Then you weren't fooled," he said.

"No."

"You took five buses anyway."

"I wanted them to say it to my face. The way they said it to everyone else's."

"That wasn't gullible," Nolan said, and started the truck. "That was a deposition."

I almost laughed.

It came out as a cough, and my eyes stung, and I pressed my wrist against them.

He pulled back onto the road without a word, and the heater roared.

"Here's the deal," he said after a mile. "The pass over the ridge closes in the snow. It will be shut until Monday at least. If you want a deputy to take you to Leland, I'll radio now and tell them exactly where you are and that you are fine."

"And if I want to stay?"

"There's a cot and a charger. I stay on the couch."

"What's the catch?"

"You stay until the pass opens, and I don't ask about your family." He tapped the wheel. "Unless you bring it up."

"That's all?"

"I don't like questions I can't use."

I looked at the side of his face.

There was a scar running across the back of the hand on the wheel, white and old.

"Okay," I said. "Until the pass opens. No family."

"Good."

Headlights flared in the mirror.

They came fast around the bend behind us, high and white.

Nolan checked the mirror and slowed.

A silver SUV pulled up flush against our bumper and stayed there.

I knew the grille.

"That's Trevor," I said.

"The fiance."

"The one who laughed."

Nolan stopped the truck in the middle of the road.

The SUV stopped too, and the driver's door flew open.

Trevor jumped out in his good wool coat with his phone held up in front of him, the screen already lit.

"Callie!" he shouted. "Babe! The joke's over! Come on, everyone's worried!"

His breath puffed white in the headlights.

"He's filming," I said.

"I see that." Nolan opened his door. "Stay in the cab if you want to."

"No," I said. "I don't."

I got out too.

The snow came down between us in slow flakes, catching in the beam.

Trevor lowered his phone just enough to find my face over the top.

"Cal. Honey. Your mom is in tears. Brooke thinks you're having an episode."

"My episode is the one who ended our engagement," I said. "You were there."

"Don't do this on camera."

"You turned the camera on."

Nolan stood beside me with his arms folded, in the uniform jacket with the state patch.

Trevor's eyes went to the patch and flickered.

"Officer, my fiancee is upset. She may need medical help."

"I'm a ranger, not an officer," Nolan said. "She's not under any order. Anyone who wants her can ask her."

"I'm asking," Trevor said. "Callie. Get in the car."

I walked right up to him, to arm's length.

He smiled, because that was what he did.

I held out my palm.

"My duffel."

"It's at the house."

"There is no house."

His smile slipped, just at one corner.

I reached into the pocket of my coat.

Nolan had handed me the ring back in the lot, and I had been holding it in my coat pocket since.

I took Trevor's wrist, turned his hand over, and pressed the ring into it.

"Return it to the store," I said. "Brooke can have the credit."

The phone caught all of it.

Trevor stared down at the ring.

Then his face went hard, and his voice dropped so only I could hear.

"You have no money, no car and no job on Monday. You've got a mother who thinks you're sick. Who's going to believe you?"

"Everyone who hears the recording," I said.

He swung his phone away from me, but I saw his thumb go to the screen.

He was posting something.

Nolan's own phone buzzed in his pocket.

He took it out, looked at the screen, and went still.

"Callie," he said.

"What?"

He turned the phone to face me.

It was Brooke's livestream, forty thousand people watching, and in the comments a single line had been pinned at the top by a new account with no photo.

"Ask her about Sable Creek."

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