Indivisible (16 page)

“She’s not in the shop?”

Piper shook her head. “She didn’t turn the sign and forgot to lock the door.”

“Maybe she had an emergency.”

“Someone on the Hopeline?”

“She’s not supposed to make that face to face. Too easy for people to take advantage or misrepresent themselves. Tia knows that.”

“Someone from the church?”

“Certainly possible.” Mary nodded. “But to leave the shop unlocked?”

Piper swallowed. “It’s not right.”

“No.” Concern furrowed Mary’s brow. “Doesn’t seem right, does it?”

Even with the light appointment schedule, Liz had taken as much time away from the clinic—from Lucy—as she could, waiting for Tia to return. Disappointed that Piper had locked the store, Liz leaned into the glass once more to peer in. She would have liked to walk through again without Tia there, to sense and imagine her, to see what Jonah saw, what he wanted.

She had planned to get a candle for him as a thank-you for the pups—and to see his reaction when she presented it. She wanted him to see that she knew, that she had guessed what he hadn’t told her. But it didn’t matter. All she needed from him now were the littermates, sweet newborn puppies whose existence thus far had been almost entirely wrapped together inside the mother.

She closed her eyes and imagined them, the closeness, the oneness. She had dared to think she might find that with Jonah when she’d seen the hollows in his eyes. But that wasn’t reality. The person she had, the one she’d always had was Lucy.

Nothing mattered now but making things right for her sister, her twin, her other self. As with all identical twins, they’d been one egg that had become two fetuses, their DNA differing only by infinitesimal code changes. But they were closer still. In monozygotic twins, when the egg split in the first two days after fertilization, each fetus developed its own placenta and its own sac. Most of the time the split came later than that, resulting in separate sacs but a shared placenta.

About one percent of the time the splitting occurred late enough to result in both a shared placenta and a shared sac. In that case, the mortality rate was fifty percent due mainly to cord entanglement. In the infrequent instances when the zygote split extremely late, the result was conjoined twins. Mortality was highest then because of the many complications resulting from shared organs.

It was so rare as to be miraculous when such twins survived.

Sixteen

The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together.

—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

T
ia filled the blue plastic bladder with water, stuffed it down into the pack, and pulled the straps over her shoulders. She snapped the strap across her chest and tugged the jacket down beneath the waist belt. Grabbing her walking stick, she limped out the door. Her body was not up to the hike, but her mind insisted.

Jonah had broken her open. She had to go where she felt whole. On the mountain, clouded over as it was, she could ease the horrible pain. The craggy heights had always been her escape. When the weight of inadequacy had crushed in, she charged up the slopes, seeking freedom, release.

She couldn’t charge today. She hobbled up from her backyard to the trail running horizontally across the forested slope. The bruise ached with every step. Her chest burned as she pushed up the steep terrain. That much would pass when she found her stride.

Hiking alone without a word to anyone was stupid, especially with a storm moving over the peaks, but she had to. Customers would come to the shop and find it closed. She frowned, a sudden disconcerting thought catching her short. Had she locked the door? She hesitated, then pushed on.

She didn’t care. It wasn’t even her business. And the candles? What she hadn’t lost to Miles’s destruction would burn away as though they’d never been. That was how she felt too. Burned up, burned out.

She reached the trail and turned, digging the point of the stick in and striding hard. Aspen groves formed golden bands between the blue-green firs and spruces, but the sight failed to move her. By the time she’d climbed two hundred feet in elevation the clouds filled all the gaps like gray batting, much more aligned with her mood. Her damp hair curled wildly, clinging to her face and neck. She breathed the cold wet air like a needy smoker that first long inhale.

She pressed on, harder, faster, not finding her usual stride but making a new one. Closed in by the clouds, she had only a subconscious awareness of the looming peak on her left, the pitch to her right. As the fog settled around her, she eased the pace and kept it steady.

An hour passed and another, scrambling over boulders and rocks that formed the trail. Her throbbing calf registered distantly, as muscle fatigue might inform a long-distance runner without compromising the goal. The clouds broke open, and sunlight bathed her for a time, before the sky darkened, angrier than before. A far-off rumble called from one peak to another, but she climbed on, needing the summit.

That was one thing she and Jonah had in common, not running away but to a place where her lungs expanded to take in the remnants of atmosphere that worked on her like a drug. Though they’d never climbed together, she had often glimpsed Jonah on treks of his own, and she’d known when she had followed that day, that they would share something on the mountain Reba would never understand. Reba breathed oxygen.

Tia’s knuckles whitened on the staff.

“I loved you before I slid the ring on her finger.”

Tia shook her head. From the first time he’d looked into her eyes with his own bruised stare, they’d shared a connection. She had thought only she had taken it farther in her mind and in her heart. Now he’d admitted the same, yet still he chose Reba.

Tia stumbled, recovered, and increased her pace. Thunder rumbled, still far but menacing. Her hair clung, a sodden mass. Jonah had to have Reba. He wouldn’t settle for the reject. He had desired but not chosen her.

“I loved you before we betrayed your sister.”

He had cost her so much. And he dared to call it love. Her hand slid on the wet wood of the stick. Ozone filled her nostrils. Lightning flashed across the valley, deep in the dark heart of the storm.

She should turn back, but she didn’t. More than any place else, she felt God in the mountains. Awe. Majesty. Omnipotence. Power that could annihilate her but didn’t. She rounded a hairpin and stared up into the cloud, a gray silk cocoon, a womb. If she could really climb back to her inception, would she emerge different? Could she be a milder, more compliant Tia, a Tia someone wanted?

She shook the moisture from her hair. Nature versus nurture missed the point. Any nature nurtured would thrive. Any nature rejected would starve. She’d been born with a spark that could ignite a wildfire. People had feared and resisted it, beaten at it, suffocated it, never seeing the glow or breathing the aroma.

Jonah had seen and craved the fire inside her. But even he wouldn’t risk the burn. He’d chosen Reba. Sweet, shining Reba.

Pain speared. Her foot slipped, and the other leg buckled. Her staff tumbled over rocks and juniper, as her hands scraped, her cheek burned, her head and shoulder banged. She grasped for tree trunks, ripping bark and moss and the flesh of her palms before she lodged with a thud in the crook of the ravine.

Piper paced. It was way past time for Tia to call or come home. Even if there’d been an emergency, wouldn’t she make contact? Piper fingered her phone. She’d left three messages. No response. She looked out through the streaming pane. Rain beat at the windows. Lightning flashed and thunder hollered.

She had searched every hangout, even Tia’s church and the library. Nothing. She wanted to tell Jonah, but she had promised Tia not to overreact. If she called the station and said Tia had left without locking up, would they do something? It took more than that for a missing person unless there were signs of struggle or threats or something.

She chewed the nail of her index finger and climbed the stairs. She had not been in Tia’s room uninvited, but she pushed open the door now and went in, hoping to find what? A note? Tia would have left it in the kitchen.

The bedroom was in order. No sign of panic, struggle, flight. She went back downstairs, looking again at the darkening windows. Tia could be at someone’s house, comforting or encouraging someone. She could be with a friend.

But the unlocked door nagged. To leave her shop unsecured, Tia must have been overwhelmed or distracted by something. Or someone. There wouldn’t be signs of struggle if she’d been taken at gunpoint. Her stomach clenched.

Tia had accused her of having a hyperactive worry mode. And it was true. Knowing every time her family members had gone “to work” they might be caught or hurt or thrown in jail had honed her nerves. But she had real cause for concern. Tia unreachable, her shop unsecured.

Piper chewed her cuticle. She’d seen Miles walking by, surprised he hadn’t come into the bakery. Had he gone to Tia’s? Had she made Tia believe he was safe when he wasn’t? She took out her cell and phoned Jonah.

With Jay’s help, Jonah pushed the bureau to the wall. After he had testified at the county court, he and Jay had assembled Sarge’s bed, collected what they could of his belongings. Billie would be delivering him within the hour. When his phone rang, he guessed it would be Lauren, following up on her offer. But it was Piper.

“What’s up?”

“Tia’s missing.”

“What do you mean missing?” He had a flash of her stricken face as he’d left her stunned and wounded.

“I can’t find her anywhere.”

He looked at his watch. “She only closed up a couple hours ago.”

“She disappeared before noon without locking the door. She left the shop unattended and didn’t even secure it. Something’s wrong.”

He silently cursed himself.

“I think Miles went in there.”

Jonah swallowed. “He did, but nothing happened. I talked to her after that.”

“Then she’s okay?”

He pressed his fingers to his temple. “Are you home?”

“Yes.”

“Go down to the mud room.”

“Okay.”

“I want you to look for her walking staff, hydration pack, whatever she usually takes hiking.”

“You think she went hiking in the storm?”

“It wasn’t storming at noon.” Tia knew better than to set out in bad conditions, but when she got upset, she took to the mountains.

Piper said, “The staff is gone. The hydration pack. Her multipocket jacket and her hiking boots.”

He drew a deep breath. She had gone prepared. And she was a competent mountaineer. “Tia’s been hiking these mountains her whole life. She knows them like her own bedroom. Have you looked outside?”

The rain had turned to sleet.

“I’ve tried to reach her. She’s not answering her phone.”

“She goes up there to be alone. And cell reception is spotty.”

“So we, what? Leave her out there?”

He closed his eyes. “I’ll call the officer in charge, put them on alert. If she’s not back in two hours, let me know.”

“What if she’s injured?”

The thought punched through his rationalizations. He knew why she’d gone out there. Tia would be furious if he sent out a team. Unless she needed help. Even then, she wouldn’t want it from him.

A knock came at the door. Jonah swallowed. “Call me in an hour if she’s not back.” The trails up there were clearly marked—if she kept to them. An hour would give her time to get down without causing a scene, and he had other concerns.

Jay admitted Sarge’s daughters. Sarge shuffled in behind them with a rolling walker. It must be eating him up to be so feeble. He looked bleak but no longer desperate.

Jonah had locked the coyote in his bedroom. She made no sound, but he sensed her awareness. He hadn’t mentioned the wild animal to Billie or Stacey, hadn’t put her into the mix when he’d made his offer. He’d have to figure out a way to keep them apart for as long as she deigned to stay, but right now he had another alpha female to placate.

Billie pushed into what would be her father’s room, finding it spacious and airy, the windows taking most of one wall with a view of the creek bounded by evergreen and aspen. The attached bathroom might need some modification if Sarge went into a wheelchair, but he doubted she could fault much else. Stacey fussed over him as he lowered himself onto the padded window seat. Sarge growled.

The sooner the daughters left, the better for everyone. They must have agreed, because in fifteen minutes they had pronounced the arrangement sufficient and made their escape.

Jonah sat on the edge of the bed and eyed Sarge. “This all right for now?”

Sarge nodded.

“Up for steak?”

A smile flickered on Sarge’s mouth. “Up for anything not reduced to mush.”

Jonah nodded. “Three T-bones coming up.”

He headed for the kitchen with Jay on his heels. Sarge was his focus tonight, making this transition as painless as possible. Tia’s wilderness skills and good judgment would get her back—unless she’d been injured. He called the station and put them on alert.

Pelted by rain, Tia raised her head. The scent of mud and piney loam rose up as she assessed her predicament. She had rolled a long way from the trail, and her staff lay farther down the ravine. She didn’t have to guess how much she would need it once she’d dragged herself back to the trail. She rose to her elbows, feeling wrenched neck and back muscles. It could have been worse.

She drank from her water tube, then pulled up her hood to block the icy rain. She pressed her scraped hands to the crumbly ground and sat up. Flashes of lightning darted behind the lumpy oatmeal sky. What daylight was left hardly penetrated. She should have listened to her body, to the pain that had warned her she was weakening. She’d been stupid. And it could cost her.