She shudders and clasps her arms tight as she clicks the Jeep’s locks and hustles away toward the trail. She has fled the Cavanaughs’ house saying she needs to get some air. She evaded Dr. Lerner and bolted, craving solitude, needing to get away from everyone to grapple with Tilly’s awful disclosures. She jogs away from the road, across a footbridge, and finds the trail that heads upriver. How could she have been so dim, so self-absorbed? All this time, while she’s been missing her mother and envying Tilly’s intact family, the poor kid was wrestling with a double dose of terror. Two kidnappers! A lone runner darts past without making eye contact and Reeve hurries on, keeping a brisk pace, carrying Tilly’s secret with her. The trail follows the rush of green water winding through the winter landscape. Thick, ominous clouds mass overhead and the twisted limbs of huge oaks claw the air. She pauses to catch her breath. A single duck wings low over the river’s surface. The air smells of rotting foliage, of wood smoke.
