Page 23 of The Last Trip

Being a woman means constantly being aware of your vulnerable spots and your weaknesses in any situation. It’s looking for the way out when you enter a room and scanningfor safe faces among the crowd. It’s sizing up the other women, wondering if they’d stand with the men should it come to that.

Sometimes I hate it, the fear and nagging worry that seems to plague me at all times, but my mother always called it a gift. It’s years of our ancestors speaking through our gut and intuition, letting us know when something isn’t right. It’s every bit a superpower as far as she was concerned, and right now mine is firing in every direction.

Something is up with these people. We are not safe around them.

He puts the phone to his ear next to me. “Hello?” There’s a pause and then, “Yeah, unfortunately.” Pause. “Well, we cleaned everything up, and it’s all ready for—no, no, of course, we don’t expect any sort of discount for a change of plans on our end. It was a lovely st—” He pauses. “Um, okay, I’ll have to see. Can I call you back in just a minute?” When he ends the call, he looks at me. “They want us to come back.”

“What?” My stomach plummets.

“Apparently they got you some sort of gift for the baby that they were planning to give you before we left.”

Ice sluices through my veins. “Absolutely not. We’re not going back.”

His face wrinkles. “Are you sure? I could just run by and meet them at the door. You don’t have to get out. It was really nice of them to get you something.”

“No.” The word rips from my throat. “It was very nice, but no. I feel like it could be a trap.”

“A trap?” he repeats, clearly growing annoyed with my fear.

“Cal, please.”

To his credit, he finally gives in. “Okay. Sure. I’ll…I’ll handle it.”

“Do not give them our address,” I say firmly.

“Do you know these people or something? What am I missing here?”

“It’s just a feeling,” I admit.

“A feeling.” He releases a breath. “Got it.”

After he calls and lets them know our decision, the remainder of the car ride is made in silence. With exhaustion coursing through me, I doze in and out. When I’m awake, I can tell he’s angry with me—and the change to his well-crafted plans—but I can’t bring myself to care. Being out of that house has filled me with such a feeling of fresh air, like I’ve stepped out of a dusty basement and onto a mountainside.

When we get home, he stops in the parking lot and goes for our bags without a word. This isn’t new to me. Cal isn’t the type of man to get angry and yell. He’s raised his voice to me less than a handful of times in our relationship. Instead, he closes off. He gets quiet. He deals with the problem inside his head, works out the steps to resolve it, and then comes to me with a resolution. It’s not ideal. I’d much rather talk it all out right here and now, even if it comes to screaming, but I’m trying to be more considerate of what he needs. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about Cal, he has to do things his way, even if I don’t understand it.

When we make it to the front door and inside, I freeze. Immediately, every hair on the back of my neck stands on end.

“What’s wrong?” Cal asks, coming in behind me and setting our bags down on the ground, but I don’t have to answer. He sees it, too.

The blankets he meticulously folded on the couch have been thrown on the floor. There’s a photo of the two of us missing from the wall. Farther down, a lamp has been knocked off the side table.

I turn back to face him, my eyes wide. “Someone’s been inside our apartment.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

HER — PRESENT DAY

“We must’ve bumped the table and couches when we were leaving. We were in such a hurry, it would be easy enough to do,” Cal tells me again.

It’s the fifth time he’s made that argument, and I’m no closer to being convinced than I was last night. We secured the place, checked to make sure nothing else was missing, and I still don’t feel safe. If it were up to me, we wouldn’t have slept here last night. But if we don’t feel safe at the cabin, and we don’t feel safe here, where will we feel safe?

On top of that, I’m having strange pains in my stomach that make me worry about preterm labor. I know they’re probably Braxton Hicks contractions, but with all the stress lately, I’m going to the doctor this morning to ease my fears.

“Don’t you think we would’ve noticed that, though? And, even if we did, it still doesn’t explain the fact that our picture is literally missing,” I remind him. I’m sitting on the end of our bed, begging and pleading with him to step into the reality we’re currently in. “I just don’t think it would hurt to call the police and ask them to patrol our area.”

“Okay, and tell them what? Someone broke in and stole our picture? We have a doorbell camera that would’ve alerted me ifsomeone was here, and it never went off. There’s no evidence anyone was at the door, let alone in the house.”

“Except the missing picture.”

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