Another silence.
Then Rachel said, “I’ve been thinking about that day.”
Hank rubbed his forehead.
“Been thinking about it myself, seeing as it apparently set off the end of the world.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For almost drowning?”
“For everything after.”
That made him pause.
“What exactly do you know about everything after?”
More silence.
Too much silence.
Enough to tell him there was something here.
“Rachel.”
“I know more than I should,” she said. “And not as much as I want to.”
That was a strange answer.
He could hear office noise behind her. Muffled voices. A door shutting. Movement.
“I’m trying to help,” she said.
“With what?”
“With your farm.”
Hank almost barked a laugh.
“You and everyone else, apparently.”
“I mean it.”
He stood and walked to the window, looking out over the lake that still felt fake to him.
“Why?”
Because that was the question beneath every other question.
Why would a woman he’d met for twenty minutes in a storm care what happened to him after?
Rachel drew in a breath.
“Because some debts don’t stay buried just because time passes.”
The tug in his memory pulled tighter.
“Do I know you?” he asked.
A long pause.
Then:
“Not as Rachel Whitaker.”
The line crackled once.
Before he could say anything else, she added, “I can’t explain yet.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Both.”
Then she said she would call again and hung up before he could stop her.
That night Hank did not sleep at all.
He turned her face over in his mind.
The eyes.
The jawline.
The way she had looked at the family photo over his sink.
The way she said Hank before he offered the name.
Something old.
Something from before grief put dust on everything.
On the eighth day, Patricia Hale called and said the intensive phase was ahead of schedule.
On the ninth day, Roy told him a full roofing crew had been on his property.
“That’s not safety review,” Hank said.
“Nope,” Roy agreed.
“What in God’s name is going on?”
Roy hesitated.
“Wish I knew enough to say.”
That was not a lie.
It also was not the whole truth.
On the tenth day, just after lunch, the desk clerk at the lodge handed Hank a note.
Transportation arriving at 3:00 p.m. Clearance approved for site return.
He read it twice.
Then a third time.
His heart started pounding so hard it made him feel young and sick all at once.
Home.
Whatever home meant now.
