Page 27 of What Lies in the Woods

Cass flushed. “I wanted to tell Persephone about Amanda,” she corrected. “I don’t know why, I just did. But I couldn’t find it. Her. Everything looked different.”

“Then we don’t even know if she’s still there,” I said.

“Of course she’s still there. Where the fuck else would she be?” Cassidy snapped.

“Okay,” I said, letting her anger slice into me. I could take it, and if I didn’t put up a fight it would spend itself sooner. And sure enough, her shoulders slumped, and she put her hands over her face.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “This is all so fucked up.”

“We have to go make sure Liv isn’t there,” I said.

“I have a meeting,” Cass objected, but her voice was faltering, and she played with her necklace absently. That wasn’t a refusal, not fromCass. When she was saying no, you knew it. It was the yeses that were harder to suss out.

“Surely you have underlings by now,” I said, making a joking compliment of it. No demands for Cass. I was starting to remember how this worked.

“Percy,” she said, and there was that little nose-scrunch again. “He’s like an Energizer Bunny duct-taped to a wolverine. I’m pretty sure he’s planning to off me and run the lodge himself.” She laughed, but it was a little awkward, like she’d realized halfway through that this probably wasn’t the best time to be joking about murder. She cleared her throat. “I’ll have him take the meeting. With what I’ve got on the guy, he can’t say no to me.” She flashed her teeth, and I managed a smile in return.

And that was that. She’d made her decision, and it was really her idea, not mine at all.

Cass went upstairs to change and call Percy. She returned in more suitable clothes—better suited than my own jeans and sweatshirt, in fact, but I hadn’t expected to be doing any hiking when I packed. She made a few attempts at small talk, asking after Mitch and business before we petered out into silence. At least it was only a few minutes’ drive to where we were going. I pulled off at the Pond Loop trailhead this time. The trail had been built after I moved away, but if it went to the pond, it would put us close to the Grotto.

“I really don’t remember where to go,” Cass said nervously.

“We have a map,” I reminded her. I took the photos out of my pocket and fanned them, finding one that had a sliver of road. “We just passed this tree. Come on.”

We made our way through the woods following Liv’s breadcrumbs. They took us along the trail for a few minutes and then off into the unmarked trees. It wasn’t long before I realized that not all of the photos led to the Grotto—there were others I recognized from elsewhere in the woods, but we were able to cobble together a path.

The sky was clear, the sun high, but I had brought the flashlight.If we got where we were going, we would need it. After a while, Cass started breathing heavily.

“I should work out more,” she grumbled. “You’re still skinny as a stick, I see.”

“It’s either the fast metabolism or the fact that sitting down to eat makes me nervous for some reason,” I said.

“Seriously?” she asked.

I shrugged. “I used to get panic attacks. Still can’t stand the smell of peanut butter.”

She was silent for a few steps. Finally she said, “I forgot about that. That you were eating your lunch when it happened. I thought I remembered every second of that day.” She sounded disturbed.

“It’s been a long time,” I said. I kept my pace slow, keeping level with her.Don’t let anybody be at your back, my instincts said. In these woods, I wasn’t going to even try to talk my hindbrain out of it.

“I don’t want you to think that I’ve forgotten. Like I don’t think about it anymore. About you,” she said. “I’ve done so much therapy, you wouldn’t even believe it.”

I grunted in amusement. “In a competition of who’s had more time getting psychoanalyzed, I do not think you would win, Cassidy Green.”

“I’m not saying it’s a competition.”

“Then you have changed,” I replied, flashing her a smile to take the edge off it, and she sighed.

“I was a little shit back then,” she said.

“So was I. That’s why we got along,” I reminded her. I paused. “And it’s not like I can blame you.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

I paused. “I know it wasn’t easy for you at home. Your parents…”

“I’m not about to whine about my rich parents to you,” she said. “Even I’m not that clueless.”

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