Page 25 of Find Me

“Maybe. I assume you go to the range with your father, like, every time you visit.”

After Lindsay left behind roommate living and got her own apartment in the city, her father had pleaded with her to get a gun and a permit. She finally relented, which meant learning how to shoot, something she had resisted until then. The truth was that she kept the gun in a locked safe and didn’t even own any ammunition, but now she and her father finally had a second joint activity to add to jigsaw puzzles when she visited Hopewell.

“But I’m talking about the time we took Hope with us. It was last Christmas, after you went back to the city. Hope tagged along to the range, and Dad talked her into trying it out. He walked her through all the basics. Well, you know his usual spiel.” Her father had dragged Scott to the range the first weekend she brought him home to Hopewell.

“‘Never point your gun at anything you don’t intend to shoot,’” Scott recited from memory. It was one of many safety tips that her father reviewed before letting anyone handle a gun for the first time. He also had a simple process for explaining the mechanics of firing a weapon. He boasted that every one of his pupils managed to hit within the circle of their paper target the very first time.

Until Hope.

“I could tell Hope was nervous, so I assured her she didn’t need to try it if she didn’t want to. But she said she was fine and assumed her isosceles stance, just as Dad showed her. And then she pulled the trigger. He had given her a nine-millimeter, because she has those super tiny baby hands, plus that weird wrist thing.” Hope had recovered from the physical injuries sustained in the accident, with the exception of what was called partial radial nerve palsy in her left hand. She had regained most of the hand’s function over the years, but still had problems with her wrist strength. “Dad had warned her about the recoil, but it obviously caught her off guard. Dad felt awful, saying he should have started her off with a .22 to be safe. Even the mild kickback was so bad that she wasn’t remotely close to the paper target. But it was more than that. She was seriously rattled. I hadn’t seen her like that since the early days right after the car accident. She was physically trembling. I rushed her out of there as if we were under fire.”

“You think it triggered something in her? So to speak,” he added.

She knew she should probably take a break from talking about Hope, but she was on a roll. “I pressed her on it, wondering if her subconscious was reacting to the sound of the gun, but she insisted it didn’t feel like a lost memory. She said she was just upset that her left hand had let her down so badly. She’s learned so well to compensate for it, she didn’t even realize how weak it was. But now I’m replaying it all in my head. Maybe she pushed the idea away, not wanting to remember. She could have witnessed a shooting, or maybe someone threatened herwith a gun, or even took a shot at her? They might have finally found her. The odds of anyone running into her in Hopewell were pretty low, but then she left the bubble. The move here could have been the thing to put her back on someone’s radar.”

Lindsay felt like she was on the right track, but something still felt wrong. Then she saw it. “The cause and effect could be the other way around. Maybe something scared herawayfrom Hopewell. If someone turned up in Hopewell looking for her, maybe her gut told her to run. She asked Evan to tell her if anyone ever came around with questions about her.”

“But wouldn’t she tell you? She’d be safer in Hopewell where people know her. And your dad’s the former police chief.”

“Unless she panicked. As much as she has tried to get her old memories back, I know there’s a part of her that’s always been afraid to find out what she might have been running from.”

The bartender reappeared carrying two giant oval diner-style plates loaded with food. Hers was especially mountainous. “That’s crazy,” she said.

“It’s a doozie. Occasionally someone will put down the whole thing, but it’s enough to feed three normal people.”

“The bottomless sandwich,” Lindsay muttered. When Hope told her that she was close to achieving “regular” status at one of the restaurant bars, she referred to a gigantic sandwich that she could buy and eat for another two meals.

“Yep. I’ve heard someone else call it that exactly.”

Lindsay fumbled in her purse for her phone and pulled up a picture of Hope. “Was it this woman, by any chance?”

“Yeah, that’s Hope. You know her? I’m Joe, by the way.”

“Lindsay. And Scott. Hope’s my best friend. No one’s heard from her for more than a week.”

Joe looked up at the ceiling before responding. “I saw her maybe two weeks ago. Definitely not last week. Come to think of it, that’s unusual for her. She’s usually here once or twice a week.”

“She was new in town, and I can’t get the police to give two shits about it.”

Joe sighed. “This is a place where people come and go like a turnstile, especially in the summer. But you know what?” he said, the breeziness leaving his tone, “she asked me to walk her to her car, now that I think about it. Usually she was an early bird, so this was a late dinner for her. It was quiet and she was doing a crossword puzzle, chilling out. I think she lost track of time because she was surprised when I told her I was ready to lock up. When I was walking her out, she said she thought someone had been following her. I wanted her to call the police, but she insisted it wasn’t necessary. She made it sound like it was probably her imagination, and she didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. I know my wife does that all the time. If the dogs bark when she’s home alone at night, she’s convinced someone must be breaking in, but not convinced enough to call nine-one-one. But, man—I really hope there wasn’t more to it.”

“Did she say who it was? Or when? Or how often?”

Joe shook his head. “No, that was the last time I saw her.”

Joe’s report lined up with Evan’s. But for some reason, Hope hadn’t mentioned any of this to Lindsay. She suddenly wasn’t interested in her sandwich.

Scott placed a palm on her knee. “You okay?”

“Just really confused.”

Her phone buzzed in her hand.Please stop looking for me. You’re putting me in danger.

The text was from an email address made up of seemingly random numbers and letters.

She typed a reply as fast as she could.Where are you? How do I know this is you?

We left the armoire.

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