Page 75 of Our Last Resort

Outside-outside, Gabriel was always the one following me, and I was always the one pulling him in new directions. Our dynamic had shifted: Now I was the one asking questions, and Gabriel was calling the shots.

I didn’t like it. It was another thing I’d been robbed of.

“I’ll think about it,” I said. “I mean, we’ll think of something.”

It didn’t take long.

26Escalante, Utah

The Sixth Day

I’m not giving up.

Gabriel is gone.

Doing what?

None of my business. Not right now.

Gabriel’s in trouble. He’s lying to the police, and he won’t tell me why. Meaning: He made some kind of mistake, and now he won’t let me help.

Don’t you realize how fragile your life is?

I can’t fix it if you don’t tell me.

And so I’m going to find out.

Our suite is mine, for now.

I have to move swiftly.

Who did you become, Gabriel, in the years you’ve spent away from me?

I open the armoire in which we’ve now unpacked our clothes twice—mine on the right, his on the left. My piles neat, his forever collapsing. Gabriel is the kind of person who leaves a small trail of mess wherever he goes: a wet towel on our clean beige floor, a worn T-shirt hanging by the soaking tub where a fluffy towel should be, random papers crumpled on his sandalwood nightstand. For six days, Gabriel has made his way around thehotel like a small tornado, and I’ve done my best to contain it. I’ve picked up the towel, folded the T-shirt, thrown away the papers.

But even I can’t fix everything, and housekeeping hasn’t come to lend me the usual assist. The shorts Gabriel wore yesterday are abandoned by the side of his bed. A novel about the Roman emperor Hadrian languishes facedown on the desk. By contrast, my side looks neurotically organized: the two pens in parallel alignment on my nightstand, the espadrilles and clean sneakers carefully tucked against the wall.

Back to the armoire. I riffle through Gabriel’s clothes, his very simple T-shirts, his Old Navy shorts. A humble wardrobe, clothes for a man who doesn’t want to be recognized or even seen. Next to his bed, a single flip-flop. In the drawer of his nightstand: earplugs, eye drops, a metallic tin of all-purpose moisturizing cream. Toward the back of the drawer, a pen and—

Hey.

A notebook. Kind of small, the cover lined with blue fabric.

Has Gabriel been keeping a diary?

For how long?

I shouldn’t read it. Obviously.

And I wouldn’t, if a woman weren’t dead. If Gabriel hadn’t lied to a cop, then lied to me about lying to a cop.

I flick open the notebook.

There’s Gabriel’s name on the first page, and a date from about a year ago, and—

Nothing. The rest of the page is blank.

I flip to the end of the notebook and work my way backward. Here, in an entry from a month ago: “Documentary producers emailed. They want to talk about everything. About A. I think they need to”

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