“The room,” he says. “Caleb Walker’s room. It’s not available.”
What was it I had been thinking a moment ago about Fate?
This is what you get when you high-tail it across state lines on a whim.
Apparently Fate isn’t big on spontaneity.
I throw back my shoulders, take hold of my luggage and move to stomp past the mountain man all the same. I’d come this far.
“Where are you going?” he demands.
I dodge the hand he shoots out to grab at my arm and carry on down the path. There is no way I’m sleeping out here.
“To the Walker place.”
“I just told you—”
“And I’m telling you,” I counter, “that I haven’t walked all this way to turn back on the word of a stranger in the woods. I’ll hear it from someone who knows better, thank you.”
“Who would know better than me?” he sneers. “I’m Caleb Walker.”
I grind to a halt.
“Of course you are,” I grumble. Of course, he’s Caleb. Because East River hadn’t done enough in its power to make this journey as unpleasant as humanly possible. Now, I have to deal with a resentful savior in combat boots.
I plaster a wide smile on my face, cling to the last of my sanity, and wave for Mr. Walker to follow me.
“Well, come on then,” I tell him, with more coy friendliness than I feel. “It’s your home I’m trying to find and you can show me how to get there.”
He frowns ferociously. His eyes spark in the near-darkness.
“You’re not listening to me.”
“Oh, I’m listening,” I bristle back. “But I’m also refusing to walk an hour back to town.”
“It’s ten minutes to town.”
“I’ve been walking for an hour.”
“That’s because you’ve been walking in circles!”
I watch in horror as he reaches for his back pocket.
“That’s how I found you.”
He pulls out a strip of shiny paper and holds it in a patch of dying sunlight. I can just make out the letters ‘JFK’ in bold print.
My luggage tag.
I glance down at the naked handle of my case. Only the residue of paper glue is left on the plastic.
“How did you…?”
Caleb points to a patch of open grass about a hundred yards to our left. “I found it over there. Just after I saw you pass that fallen log for the second time.”
“Motherf—”
I cut myself off and close my eyes.