I kick up my pace as Dalton slows. He’s holding out a ball cap that I didn’t see him grab. I tug it on and pull my ponytail through the back. The hat is navy blue with a militaryesque emblem on the front. Rockton has multiple cover stories, in the event someone stumbles on it. One is “military facility.” That’s easy for me and Dalton to pull off. We’re physically fit and clean-cut, Dalton’s hair clipped to his summer crew cut. The advantage to the military story is that it’s not one the average person will question … nor does it inspire people to want a closer look.
You’ve got an armed military compound out here? Er, okay, I’ll just keep moving, thanks.
I’m thinking that when—
“Shit!” I hiss again and grab Dalton’s arm. “We can’t do military.”
He glances at me.
“It’s a search party,” I say. “Foreign tourists missing in the wilderness. The first thing they’re going to expect is for us to help them. That’s part of the military’s job.”
“Fuck. Rangers, then?”
Park rangers is another option, but it’s the same problem. Any military or quasimilitary organization will be expected to join in the search. We’d happily do that—and steer them in the wrong direction—but they’ll also expect to set up base camp in Rockton.
Ahead, the plane is coming in for a landing.
“Just roll with it,” I murmur, pulling off my hat. “Follow my lead. We’ll … figure something out.”
I have no idea what that even means. Maybe we can be scientists? Pretend we’re a research facility, privately run.
We haven’t seen any hikers, sorry, but we really need to get back to our work.
We reach the landing strip as the tiny plane rolls to a stop. It’s a Cessna TTx, which makes me blink and Dalton murmur “What the hell?” under his breath. The TTx is the Mercedes of small planes—a luxury puddle jumper for wealthy city dwellers with oceanfront summer homes.
My parents had died in a plane like this. That’d been the sort of circle they traveled in after April and I had moved out. They’d eased back enough on the overtime to have a social life, with friends who’d owned small planes and used them where others might have summoned a car service. The independent and the adventurous upper middle class.
The door opens and out steps …
I don’t have grandparents. Okay, that’s a lie. Technically, I do. I don’t know them, though. I think my paternal grandmother is still alive, but the story goes that they’d disowned my dad for marrying a girl who wasn’t white. Then along came April, and they welcomed Dad back into the fold. I followed five years later and … Well, their reaction made it obvious that they’d only reunited with my dad because he’d given them a pale-skinned granddaughter they could proudly push around in a pram. I was a different story.
There are many things I wish I could tell my parents, now that I’ve found my footing in life and found the courage to say what needs to be said. I’d tell them how badly they fucked up, but I’d also tell them the things they did right, and this is one of them. My parents made me feel inferior to my sister in many ways, but the color of my skin was never one of them, and Dad gave up a relationship with his family to protect me from that.
The situation with Mom’s parents was equally complicated. She left China for university and never went back. As an adult, I realize how unusual that is for someone of her heritage. Mom rejected her family and her culture with a ferocity that now speaks to me of deep pain.
So I have no grandparents in the sense that I’ve never had someone to call by that name. If I imagined one, though, my fantasy grandmother would be the woman who steps out of the pilot’s door. Not the soft-lapped grandma with sweets and smiles and a comfy recliner. My fantasy grandmother
was, ironically, the sort of woman my own mother could have grown into. The active granny, embracing adventure after adventure, sometimes scooping up her grandkids to take along. A grandmother living her twilight years to the fullest, fit and nimble and endlessly curious.
That’s the woman who hops from the plane. She’s at least seventy, trim and slight, with silver hair cut short and stylish. Her outfit reminds me of Sophie’s, and a pang of panic runs through me, as if this could be her grandmother, the source of her own adventurous genes. Yet this woman’s outfit is the real thing—expensive because it’s quality. In fact, given the fit of the button-down shirt and khakis, I’m guessing they’re tailor made.
She pushes oversize sunglasses up over her forehead, and dark eyes twinkle as she strides toward us.
“Casey and Eric,” she says. “Exactly who I was hoping would come meet me.” She bends in front of the dog. “And this must be Storm.”
I falter, but only for a second, as her voice twinges something familiar.
She extends a hand. “I’m Émilie.”
* * *
Émilie was one of Rockton’s first inhabitants. She and her husband had been sent here by his parents when their college political activism got them in trouble. After they returned south, Émilie’s husband took over the very lucrative family business, and when Rockton faltered, they stepped up as investors.
At one time Émilie was the council—along with her husband and another couple they’d met here. Two of those four have passed on, and the third suffers from dementia, so only Émilie remains, a holdover from Rockton’s past, when those who ran it were more interested in philanthropy than profitability.
Émilie positions herself as our ally on the council, and we accept her assistance, while knowing she may be playing the good cop. I don’t think she is, but even if she’s really on our side, I fear she doesn’t have the power we need to effect change.
In the beginning, Phil was quick to credit Émilie’s power, but as he’s lowered his guard, he’s admitted that the council sees her the way corporations can view the old guard on a board of directors: furniture that came with the room and is too heavy to move. They work around Émilie as they await the day when her health wanes enough for her to release her tenuous grip on the reins.