They Left Me at the Canyon, So I Came Back for the Wedding novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: Brett Talks

The detective's office smelled like burnt coffee and carpet glue.

Brett sat across the desk with an ice pack on his eye.

Rachel sat beside me, still in her scrubs, and Carrie sat on my other side.

Nobody had asked Carrie to come, and nobody had suggested she leave.

"Start with the permit," the detective said.

He was a heavy man with reading glasses on a cord, and he wrote in a notebook, not a laptop.

"I bought it," Brett said. "Five weeks ago. Joanna sent me the link and told me which trail."

"She picked the lower wash."

"She picked the day, too. She watched the weather for a month. She said the afternoon of a flood warning, nobody would think twice about a hiker who didn't come back."

I kept my hands flat on my knees.

Rachel's shoe pressed against mine under the desk.

"And the insurance?" the detective asked.

"She bought it on her laptop. She had Caleb accept it in the motel because she didn't want his name on a form she filled in herself."

"Whose idea was it?"

Brett looked at me then.

He had known me since we were thirteen.

"Mine," he said. "I said it as a joke, at first. A bachelor-party joke. She didn't laugh. She wrote the number down."

Nobody spoke.

Rachel made a small sound in her throat.

"Why are you here?" Carrie said.

Brett turned his good eye on her.

"Because last night I found out she's got one on me too."

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