Page 86 of Fear Me Not

“I have an internet connection,” he announces.

I catch my breath. “How… how long?”

“It comes and goes.”

“But… but your father said it was broken. I’ve never been able to find a connection.”

“He wasn’t lying. It often goes down, but sometimes there are windows where I’m able to get online again.”

I grind my teeth. “I guess it suits Blake to make out like I’ll never be able to get a connection at all. It’s his way of keeping me here. Damn him. He’s so fucking manipulative sometimes.”

His expression is grim. “My father likes to get his own way.”

I remember something. “Wait a minute. I asked you, too. I know I did. Did you lie to me, Dov?” I try to take my mind back to that conversation and exactly what had been said.

But Dov shakes his head. “I didn’t lie. I just didn’t answer the question. The last thing I wanted was to stir up more trouble.”

I cover my face with both hands and fall onto my back on the bed. My head is spinning with possibilities, but also fear. What will I find out if I dare to go online? Will my name be mentioned? Are the police looking for me, too, and is it because they’re suspicious that I had something to do with Tobias’s disappearance? Or do they think we’ve run off together?

My fear of what I might learn holds my tongue. Dov must know. He’ll have read it in a news article. If the cops knew where I was and were coming to get me, he’d have warned me by now.

Tobias was the only person I told where I was going. I try to think if I’ve done anything that would enable the police to track me down. Did I use a credit card? No, Blake gave me cash that day to use in town. Had he done that deliberately to prevent my whereabouts being traced? What about my cell phone? I did get a message here after I’d first arrived, but then nothing. Why was that? I wonder if a single ping off a cell tower is enough for the police to track my location. I have no idea how these things work. The cell tower must be a long way from here, so surely it would only give them a vague vicinity rather than an actual address? It also wouldn’t be recent, so they’d have no way of knowing if I was simply passing through or if I’d stayed.

My brain feels like it’s on fire. I should have known Blake would have no qualms in lying about something like this—in fact, I always had believed he’d lied, otherwise I wouldn’t have put so much effort into trying to find the Wi-Fi box in the first place.

There is no Wi-Fi box; this connection is wired, and old fashioned, and probably slow as hell. All the way out here, there’s no wonder it works only on occasion.

But that doesn’t explain my phone.

The bed depresses beside me as Dov comes and sits back down.

“It’s good news, though, isn’t it?” he asks. “I thought you’d be pleased about the connection.”

I let out a deep breath and drag myself back to sitting. Dov’s expression is worried, and though he’s hidden this from me, I don’t want to make him feel bad.

“I guess it means things aren’t as dire as we first thought. If food does run out, or something really bad happens, we can contact someone for help.”

“Blake would never allow it.”

My eyebrows fly up my forehead in disbelief. “He’d see us die first?”

“I hope not. But it would be an absolute last resort, and besides, when the weather is bad, no helicopter would dare try to land here. Also, when the weather is bad, the internet connection doesn’t work anyway.”

A part of me wants to go straight to Blake and demand why he never told me that it’s possible to get an internet connection occasionally, but I’m also aware that our window for the connection might close again and then I won’t know when I’ll be able to search again.

I need to be brave. Knowledge is power.

“Will you help me, Dov? I want to search for something, but I’m not so good with spelling things out.”

“Whatever you need.”

“I want to know if people are looking for the man you killed.”

Dov grows very still, and I wonder if I’ve said the wrong thing.

“It’s better that we know, Dov. So we can be prepared. Your father thinks hiding out on this mountain is enough, but it’s not. Tobias had friends, and family. He could easily have mentioned to someone where he was going, or even just where I’ve gone, and the police will put two and two together and come looking.”

My stomach churns. A part of me doesn’t want to know, while the other part is aware that as soon as the pass opens again, this could become a very real problem.