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Chapter 2

Author: Green Wren
It was exactly the price of two sleeper tickets to Daim.

I didn't call Houston again.

At four in the morning, ticket scalpers were crouched beneath the pillars at the bus station, smoking.

"Going to Daim? For the holiday?"

One of them looked me up and down and held up three fingers. "Three times the price. Cash only. No bargaining."

I handed over the cash I had left.

He counted it, stuffed it into his pocket, then pulled a crumpled ticket from his pants and handed it to me.

I took it and looked down. The date was from the previous month.

"This ticket's expired."

"Buy it or don't. I'm leaving." He turned and disappeared into the rain.

I chased after him for a couple of steps, slipped, and slammed my knee against the edge of a stair. Rainwater mixed with mud and ran down my shin into my shoe.

Crouching beneath the bus station's awning, I called everyone I could think of.

My best friend was abroad. My colleagues didn't have cars. The ride-hailing app showed no available vehicles.

The last call I made was to Houston.

This time, he answered quickly, his tone noticeably softer. "I was out of line to speak to you like that earlier. I'm sorry. Don't put yourself through all this alone. I'll borrow Trevor's car and drive back tonight to pick you up. I'll be downstairs by noon at the latest. Okay?"

I said yes.

At noon, there was no car downstairs.

At 12:40, I sent him a message: [Where are you?]

Read. No reply.

At 1:15, the call finally connected, but it wasn't Houston who answered. It was Heather.

"Danielle!" Her voice was hurried, almost tearful. "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry! I twisted my ankle on the stairs. It might be a fracture. Houston brought me to the ER. He left his phone in the car, so he didn't hear it ringing."

My grip on the phone slowly tightened.

"He said he'd come get you as soon as the X-rays were done. You'll only have to wait a little longer..."

"Put him on the phone."

"Huh? He's talking to the doctor right now, so maybe..."

"Put him on the phone."

There was a rustling sound on the other end. Then Houston's voice came through, edged with barely suppressed impatience. "Danielle, listen to me. Let me explain. Heather..."

"You promised me noon."

"I know, but she suddenly fractured her ankle. I couldn't just leave her lying in the stairwell, could I?"

"My grandmother is in critical condition."

"I know! But this is a human life, too. Can't you..."

"Think about it," I said, my voice finally beginning to shake. "Which is more urgent? A twisted ankle or someone in critical condition?"

"Can you act like a mature adult for once?" he suddenly shouted. "I'm just staying with her while she gets an X-ray. It'll take half an hour. Can't you wait a little longer?"

"I've already been waiting for four hours, Houston."

He didn't answer.

During those few seconds of silence, I heard Heather's voice in the background, whiny and petulant.

"Houston, I want those roasted chestnuts from that shop on the south side of town. Could you get me some later? My foot hurts so much..."

I hung up.

I didn't know when the rain had stopped. Soaked to the skin, I stood beneath a streetlight outside my building.

I opened the train-ticket booking app and found a local train departing at 4:20 a.m. It had no reserved seats and required two transfers. The journey to Daim would take twenty-three hours.

The ticket cost $7.

I used the remaining available credit to buy it.

At four in the morning, a sparse line of passengers waited at the train station's ticket gate.

I dragged my suitcase along, clutching the crumpled ticket for my unreserved seat. The wound on my knee, scraped against the bus station steps, was still bleeding. The denim of my jeans stuck to my skin, pulling at the wound with every step.

There were only three people left ahead of me.

My phone rang.

It wasn't Houston. It was Bolton Lewis, the project director at his company.

"Danielle! Houston's phone is switched off. Can you get in touch with him?"

"No."

"Then we're in trouble. Heather was on duty tonight, and she deleted the database's primary tables along with all the backups! The entire project's core data is gone! The portion Houston was responsible for is gone, too."

"What does that have to do with me?"

"Houston... didn't he make an off-site backup on your laptop? I remember you came to the office to help out once, and there was a mirror copy saved on your computer. If it's still there, you could transfer it to me remotely, and we might still make it in time. If we don't..."

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  • The Last Look   Chapter 8

    Another holiday had come around.The sky over Daim was a brilliant blue. A breeze off Lake Silvermere carried a hint of moisture, cool against the skin.Danielle sat on a bench at Willowshore Park, a picture frame resting on her knees.It was the photograph of Grandma shelling nuts. Sunlight fell on the glass, catching in a small patch of glare that landed perfectly on Grandma's smiling face."Grandma, the breeze in Daim feels so nice. You always said you wanted to come here. I kept telling you I'd bring you when I had time."She lowered her head with a small smile and wiped the fingerprints off the frame with her sleeve."I brought the dried bayberries, too. I'll eat the ones you saved for me little by little. There's no rush."Some tourists passed by. They noticed a young woman holding a picture frame and talking to it while facing Lake Silvermere. They glanced at her a little longer, then moved on.Danielle sat there all afternoon, watching the sun slide down from the peak o

  • The Last Look   Chapter 7

    Danielle walked out of the courtyard with her suitcase. When she reached the village entrance, she turned back for one last look at the old house where she'd lived for twenty years.Then she called a real estate agent."Put the property on the market."Six months later, Houston sat in the waiting area of an office building.His suit was new, but he had tried tying his tie three times and still couldn't get it right. His secretary was flipping through the project proposal beside him and spoke in a low voice."Mr. Rodgers, this investment firm is our last chance. If we can't secure this round of funding..."He waved a hand, and the secretary fell silent.In the three months following the disaster, half the company's employees had left. Bolton had taken the core team to another company, and clients had gradually terminated their contracts. After Heather was fired, she became unable to find a foothold in the industry. The previous month, Houston had seen her on the street wearing a

  • The Last Look   Chapter 6

    Houston stood on the steps outside the restaurant, still clutching the divorce papers. The wind lifted the first page, making it flap noisily.He drove back to Daim that very night. He didn't stop once during the seven-hour drive through the mountains. By daybreak, the car had come to a crooked stop at the entrance to the village.The funeral tent still stood in the yard. White flowers and sympathy wreaths lined the walkway, their ribbons stirring in the morning breeze. Rain and dew had darkened the ground near the gate.He knelt before Grandma Yvette’s memorial portrait and pressed his forehead against the brick floor, the dull thud breaking the silence.Grace emerged from the inner room. When she saw him, she paused in surprise. Without saying a word, she turned and went back inside.He knelt for the entire morning. When his knees went numb, he shifted his position and kept kneeling.At noon, Danielle arrived. She wore a faded black padded coat. Her peripheral vision caught sig

  • The Last Look   Chapter 5

    After the delivery courier left, no one at the table touched their food.The slideshow continued, one wedding photo after another rolling across the screen.Houston stared at the black picture frame in his hands. Grandma's smiling face looked back at him, just as it always had whenever he walked through her door.His colleague Bolton Lewis spoke first, "Houston, when did your wife's grandmother pass away?"Houston opened his mouth, but no sound came out."I'll tell you."The voice came from the doorway. Everyone turned.Elina stood there, holding up her phone with its screen pointed at the receiver connected to the projector."Danielle asked me to deliver this. She said Houston likes to maintain a respectable image in front of other people, so she wants everyone to see what that image is really made of."The slideshow changed.The first image was a screenshot from the train station's security cameras. The timestamp read 4:03 a.m.Danielle was kneeling on the floor, her lapto

  • The Last Look   Chapter 4

    I took each item out, unfolded it, smoothed it flat, and placed it in the brazier.The flames licked at the corners of the clothes, curling the fabric and turning it black. The plaid shirt burned the slowest. One of the buttons at the collar snapped in the fire, shot to the ground, rolled twice, and came to a stop.The memorial lamp in front of Grandma Yvette's portrait flickered.I looked at her photograph. It had been taken during the New Year two years earlier. Grandma Yvette had been sitting in the courtyard, shelling nuts, her face creased with a smile.That day, she'd held Houston's hand and said, "Houston, I'm entrusting my granddaughter to you. You have to treat her well."Houston had crouched in front of her, smiling. "Don't worry, Grandma. Danielle has me."I put the SIM card back into my phone and turned it on. I didn't look at Houston's messages again.Instead, I opened my best friend Elina Lynn's chat and sent her a message.[Help me look into something. Where exac

  • The Last Look   Chapter 3

    He paused, carefully choosing his words. "The client will hold us accountable. The contractual penalties will probably be between $180,000 and $225,000. Your husband will most likely be blacklisted across the industry."$225,000 dollars.That was the project Houston had spent six solid months working on. It was also what we'd been counting on to keep up with our mortgage payments.Only one person remained ahead of me at the ticket gate. I pulled my suitcase forward a step."Danielle? Are you still there?"A station employee waved me over. "Excuse me, ma'am. Please show me your ticket."I stood there, clutching the ticket in my left hand and holding my phone in my right.The employee urged me again, "Please hurry. We're about to close the gate."I closed my eyes for a moment. Then I crouched down, unzipped my suitcase, and pulled out my laptop.Right there on the floor of the waiting hall, I connected to my phone's hotspot and logged into Houston's work account.The backup fil

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