Chapter 4

On the 16th, I stopped by the flower shop.

The moving truck was mostly loaded. Standing in the truck bed, Willow handed me the last crate of glassware.

I stowed my luggage on board and let her know I had stuff at home to deal with.

“It might take a few days, so don’t hold dinner for me.”

She asked me for a timeline.

“I’ll get in touch in three days.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

Back in the mountain lodge, Damian was showing Peyton how to find the right angle on her phone camera.

He wanted to get a lovely video of the family eating by the fireplace.

I strongly requested to get my stuff back, or I wouldn’t be in the shot.

Fed up, Harlan had the storage closet unlocked.

Rufus’ tape player, bundled up in a blue apron, sat there untouched for three years.

I brushed my hand over the lid before handing the toolbox to Ben. I asked him to mail it for me.

“Are you not carrying it with you?”

“The rain is getting heavy. I don’t want the items to get soaked.”

At 4:40 PM, I walked him to his ride and returned to the lodge.

Right around 6:00 PM, a heavy boom rumbled off the back slope, vibrating the window glass.

I urged them to leave right away.

For once, Harlan didn’t snap at me. The family headed for the door.

I followed them to the car. The back door was still open, Peyton’s handbag resting on the seat.

Damian clung to Peyton’s arm, refusing to scoot over.

“I can’t breathe, Mom! Stop squeezing in here!”

Oakleigh threw a worn raincoat my way and told me to wait for the next trip down since the car had no room left.

Not putting up a fight, I put on the raincoat.

Oakleigh barked at me to quit getting in the way and go fetch the driver.

I stepped back a couple of feet, my eyes shifting to the trees on the slope falling like dominoes.

The driver dove into the front seat, yelling for everyone to close the doors.

Peyton finally glanced at me.

“Stay right behind our trail. We’ll wait for you on the other side of the bridge.”

The car door slammed shut.

This exact scene played out in lifetimes 73 and 100.

In both lifetimes, I ran after them.

Today, I simply pulled the hood of the raincoat over my head and headed to the bridge on foot.

Damian stared at me through the back window, his lips curling.

He thought he had beaten me once more.

At 6:07 PM, it was like an invisible force had ripped the mountain in half.

A black-brown wave of mud and fallen trees thundered down the slope, drowning out every honking horn.

Their car had already made it across.

Peyton’s desperate cry pulled my attention to the fact that the car had stopped.

Eve shoved the car door open and stretched her arm out to me.

With the bridge breaking apart between us, she finally remembered that she was supposed to pull me to safety too.

I didn’t run to her.

The fork beneath the bridge was etched in my memory, along with the spot where the rocks would rip through my raincoat.

I clutched the railing desperately, my palms clammy.

As the tidal wave of sludge loomed over me, I still shook in fear.

I didn’t want to die.

In this life, I had someone I needed to get back to.

“Wesley, hold onto the rail!” Oakleigh screamed.

The shrill voice didn’t sound like hers.

I took one last look at them before releasing my grip.

The wall of muddy water violently struck my ribcage.

The bridge snapped.

The last thing I heard was Peyton’s voice cutting out when she called my name.

Ben filled me in afterward on what went down after I went missing.

That night, all four of them stood outside the barricade line, refusing to leave.

Harlan kept repeating how afraid I was of the dark and that I was probably somewhere out there, waiting for them.

Missing one shoe in the commotion, Peyton would hurry over every time she saw a flashlight approaching, asking if anyone had found me yet.

Damian even remarked that I might just be hiding out somewhere.

Eve was the first to push him away.

“I saw it. I saw the whole thing.”

The search-and-rescue team combed the downstream banks all night long.

As dawn approached, a tattered raincoat was brought back to them.

Peyton lunged forward, grabbing the raincoat by the cuffs and shaking it open.

There was no one inside the coat.

She gave it another shake.

Harlan insisted that the old raincoat didn’t belong to me. There was no way a Killington would put on something so ragged.

Oakleigh’s knees buckled.

“I gave the raincoat to him.

“I threw it at him before getting into the car.”

First responders said they’d swept all the reachable parts of the riverbed and come up empty.

“Did you find a body?”

Stunned by what he just said, Harlan clamped his hand over his mouth.

No one answered.

Right at that moment, the family butler, Arthur Smith, called.

The white lilies I ordered had been delivered last night.

Unsure what to do with the delivery, Arthur took a picture and sent it through.

Oakleigh clutched the phone as Peyton leaned in, her eyes still glued to the hollow raincoat.

Raindrops dotted the phone screen, blurring the words on the card.

“Congratulations. You’re finally down to just one son.”