Best Laid Plans by Gwen Florio

Author:Gwen Florio
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781448304363
Publisher: Severn House Publishers
Published: 2020-03-10T00:00:00+00:00

TWENTY

Miranda wasn’t in her camper.

Nora stood before it, hand raised to knock again. She’d done little more than glance at it that first night, about a thousand years ago, when she and Miranda and Brad had shared elk steaks cooked over a flame, a moment of unexpected fellowship. She’d looked at it as an omen, a sign that life would indeed go on, that she’d find new friends, new ways of being. And then things had gotten even worse.

She’d paid little attention to the camper in the tumultuous days that followed. It simply sat there, a silent backdrop to the questionings by the sheriff and the organization of search parties and the impromptu news conferences.

No sleek palatial Airstream, Miranda’s abode. The camper sat wedged into the bed of a pickup that looked like the grizzled ne’er-do-well uncle to the model Nora drove. What had Joe called it when he’d bought it? A cowboy Cadillac. Now Nora understood the term. Because Miranda and Brad’s truck looked like something an actual cowboy might have driven, red paint faded nearly to pink and streaked with rust, with a long dent in one fender. The camper overhung the truck cab; Nora imagined that sardine-tin space held the bed. Brad had been – is, she reminded herself, holding onto a newly necessary shred of hope – a tall man. It must be like sleeping in a coffin. As to the rest of the camper, there was no space for even the most rudimentary bathroom. Maybe a two-burner stove and a narrow dinette that allowed only for two people jammed side by side. The camper afforded Miranda and Brad little more room than if they’d simply put a topper over the truck bed and slung an air mattress inside.

Nora knocked again, a final futile attempt. The camper didn’t have that held-breath feeling of someone frozen motionless inside, each of them waiting on opposite sides of the door to see who would give up first.

She headed toward the campground entrance, hoping to find Miranda in the check-in booth. The road bent and straightened, giving her a view of a line of cars waiting at the booth. More curiosity seekers, she guessed. She’d pulled on a baseball cap, tucked her hair up into it, and donned sunglasses. Her legs swam within a pair of Joe’s sweatpants. She hoped she looked nothing like the stylish socialite that one story had dubbed her. She thought the socialite part was a stretch, but she’d put quite a bit of time and effort into style, and now she was working equally hard to appear anything but. Still, she stuck her hands in her pockets, averted her head, and slouched as she approached the booth, slipping through its rear door just as one car pulled away.

Miranda jumped down from her stool and felt about for the extra can of bear spray with which Nora had equipped the booth. ‘Don’t come any closer. I swear I’ll spray you.’

‘I just want to talk,’ Nora began.

A car pulled up.

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