Lena — Thursday, November 19, 2026, 1:30–3:25 p.m.
Owen called while she was on the road. Ray had asked for a lawyer. Questioning had stopped. The pages, recording and last useful particulars were going to the people working on Elise's case, and the request for counsel had gone through the institution's arrangements.
“Did he say which branch?” Lena asked.
“No.”
She could hear a door shut at his end. He wasn't in the room with Ray now.
“All right,” she said.
“We'll keep checking what we've got.”
“I know.”
There was nothing more to ask him that he hadn't put in the message. He would send the note. She thanked him and drove on. A pickup in front of her was carrying a stack of plastic chairs, one of them turned sideways to fit. It took her several miles to pass it. She watched the chair straps move in the wind and tried not to rehearse the call she would have to make to Vivienne.
At the field assembly someone directed her around a vehicle being unloaded. Nadia and her escort were under a small shelter beside the track. Nadia had borrowed a waterproof jacket and held its sleeves over her hands. She looked at Lena's car, waited for her to get out and then looked away as though they had not arranged to meet.
The officer gave Lena the current position while a field lead spoke to the people returning from the upper ground. Nadia's view had helped fix which bend she meant. From there the relevant boundary divided beyond what the first images had shown. The continuing close work had found a possible passage through one gap and further disturbance consistent with someone moving painfully, not enough to call an identification. The crew was following it into ground not yet inspected closely, alongside work from the other approach.
The field lead pointed across the map with the back of a gloved hand. Lena could see the strip they were concentrating on now, a run of folded bank and broken wall a few hundred yards long. The teams working there were reporting back as the comparison narrowed it.
“How can we help?” she asked.
He looked at Nadia. The escort had told him she was willing to walk as far as the safer approach and answer from the view. He could take them that way when the next person went up. They were to stay together, and if she wanted to stop, they would stop. Nadia said she wanted to go.
As they went past the cabin, Nadia stopped looking at the outer door and turned to follow the officer. Lena heard her shoes start again. The escort kept pace beside her, saying something about the slippery patch near the track. Nadia answered; they had been together long enough that she didn't need every instruction repeated.
At the rise Lena had visited yesterday, the farm was visible beyond the hollow. She recognized the break they had compared. The officer took them along this side, toward the nearer bend Nadia had identified today. She followed, her notebook in the bag.
Nadia stopped at a gap and turned to look back.
“Here,” she said. “That's what I was trying to say.”
The field officer asked her to show what she meant. She indicated the relation between the bank and the cabin below, the higher line visible from one position and lost a few steps farther on. He compared it with what the team already had. It agreed with the branch now being inspected. He passed the confirmation, then waited while she finished looking. Nobody announced a breakthrough for her to accept.
“It isn't very far,” she said.
Lena didn't know whether she meant from here to the cabin or from being kept inside to standing above it. She could have asked. Nadia had bent to pick a burr from the borrowed jacket and was having trouble pulling it free without catching her fingers on it. The escort took it when she held it out.
They moved along the accessible side and waited where they would not be in the returning team's way. Voices carried and disappeared. Someone was calling June's name farther across, followed by a pause long enough for everyone near Lena to stop speaking. Then a radio sounded, and work continued. Nadia looked in the direction of the voice each time it came.
“Does her aunt know?” she asked.
“Yes. She's been in contact. There's someone with her.”
“What's she called?”
“Beth.”
Nadia repeated it softly. “She said aunt. I didn't ask her.”
She had both hands pushed into the jacket pockets now. She asked if Beth was coming to the place where they waited. Lena said she was being kept informed and arrangements would be made if there was news.
The escort asked whether Nadia needed a rest. She said she was resting; they were standing still. Then she apologized for the sharpness and moved to a dry part of the bank. The officer sat beside her without suggesting a conversation.
Lena remained standing. She could feel the room she had left as a physical arrangement: Ray's hand at the branch, Owen's pen beside it, the chair she no longer occupied. It was easy to imagine that a few more minutes would have been enough. It had been easy before she left too. She had chosen without knowing whether it would be minutes or hours. Now the question had changed from what she could get to what other people would do with what she had left incomplete.
Nadia asked whether they were still speaking to Ray. Lena said the case interview had ended. She didn't say why. Nadia looked up as if there might be a further part to the answer, then returned to watching the higher ground.
“He doesn't know I'm here?”
“We haven't given him your plans.”
Nadia nodded. She pushed her sleeve back far enough to look at the mark on her wrist, then pulled it down. Lena looked away. Nadia kept her hand inside the jacket.
A searcher came down to speak to the lead. There was a low fold beyond the next broken boundary, and the people working from the other side had reached a place where they could compare what each team could see. They were going farther into the banked ground. The possible passage continued in places, then became indistinct. It was not being followed as though a single mark had solved the route.
Nadia stood. The escort asked whether she wanted to return to the assembly or go on as far as they could safely take her. Nadia looked at Lena, then away.
“A little farther,” she said.
They went with the next person taking equipment up. The path narrowed and the escort moved ahead to show Nadia where to place her foot. Lena followed far enough behind to let them use the same clear bit of ground. She could hear her own coat rubbing against the bag she carried, an irritatingly domestic sound among the voices above them. Someone laughed once, softly, then answered a question she couldn't hear.
Near the next bend the lead stopped them. Two people were moving beyond, their shoulders visible at different heights through the bare growth. Lena saw a low change in the bank before she understood there was space beneath part of it, a rough recess with a little cover at one end. It was not a building she would have recognized on the drive in. From where she stood she could not see into the darker part.
One of the searchers called. Nadia leaned forward. The escort put a hand out, not to hold her back but to show where they were stopping while the people in front checked the approach.
“Can I?” Nadia asked.
“Call her?”
She nodded. The officer said she could.
“June.”
The first call was hardly louder than a person speaking across a room. Nadia tried again, a full voice this time.
Lena heard something but couldn't name it, a short sound under the last part of the name. The nearer searcher raised a hand. Everyone stopped. Nadia had drawn breath to call once more and held it.
“June?” the searcher said. “Can you hear us?”
There was a response. Thin, scraped, but a voice. One of the people ahead lowered himself to see farther in. He said someone was there and asked for the medical team. The time came over the radio a moment afterward. Two forty-five. Lena looked at her watch, then wished she hadn't; she wanted to look at the place the voice had come from, wanted not to have missed the instant because she had been fixing it to a number.
“She's there?” Nadia said.
The escort was speaking to her, keeping her in the usable space while the people ahead made room. Nadia did not seem to hear. She took one step and stopped because there was nowhere she could go without blocking them.
“June. It's me.”
The searcher asked June another question. Lena couldn't hear the answer clearly. The woman was partly sheltered by the bank and the low cover. A coat lay around her, dark with wet at the edge. One leg was drawn closer than the other. The low bank concealed her from farther out. From here Lena could make out the coat before she could distinguish the shape beneath it.
They sent the message to the waiting medical personnel and the assembly. Beth would be told there was live contact. Lena heard the instruction go through and watched someone repeat it back. She had brought a name to a woman at a table last night. Now someone could tell that woman there was a voice to answer.
Nadia had begun to cry without making a sound. She was still trying to see over the escort's shoulder. Lena moved so she wasn't standing between her and the opening. The medical personnel came through with what they needed, and all three women moved out of their way.
June spoke again. This time Lena heard the question.
“Where is he?”
“He's in custody,” the officer nearest her said. “He isn't here.”
June turned her head. The movement was small and slow. Her eyes went past the people helping her and stopped on Nadia.
Nadia raised one hand. It was a terrible, ordinary greeting, the beginning of a wave that had nowhere to finish.
“I came back,” she said.
Lena heard it and knew Nadia had heard it too. The words had been waiting through the drive and the slope and all the calls. Now there was a woman able to receive them, and Nadia could not take them back before they reached her.
June looked away.
The person attending her asked her name, checked what she could answer and kept speaking in a low clear voice. June tried to say something about the foot. She was cold and exhausted, her words difficult to make out. Nobody asked her for an account of the days in the cabin. Her immediate condition mattered more than an answer the recorder could use.
Nadia lowered her hand. “Can I do anything?”
The escort asked her to hold a place clear while equipment was brought through. She did it at once. Lena stood with her, keeping back from the people working. Nadia's eyes moved each time a shoulder or bag interrupted the view. She did not call June's name again.
There was no rapid transformation when trained care reached her. June remained weak, the coat still around her until they could replace its use without leaving her exposed. People assessed her, sheltered her and prepared the movement carefully. Lena heard one ask about pain and another repeat what June had managed to answer. June closed her eyes, opened them when asked and looked for the person whose voice she could follow.
“Beth,” she said.
“Your aunt?”
She nodded.
The officer told her Beth knew and was waiting, that they would help them make contact. June tried to move her hand from beneath the coat and stopped. He repeated the name so she could be sure he'd heard it.
They were preparing to carry her out when Nadia asked if she could come nearer. The officer checked with the person attending June, who asked June herself. Lena saw her eyes find Nadia again.
“Not now,” June said.
The words were clear enough. The officer told Nadia they needed the space. Nadia nodded, once and then again. She stepped farther back before anyone had to ask her.
Lena went with her a few yards. The escort stayed close enough for Nadia to hear when she asked whether she wanted to wait there or go back down.
Nadia looked toward the people preparing June. They had gathered close; she could no longer see her face. Someone was explaining the next movement to her. June answered, too softly for the words to reach them.
“I want to go,” Nadia said.
The officer nodded. She checked that the lower approach was ready, then offered to take her. Nadia put her hands in the borrowed jacket pockets and brought them out again.
“Could you?” she asked Lena.
“Walk down?”
“Yes.”
The officer could do it. She knew the places where the way narrowed, had kept pace beside Nadia on the way up. Lena looked past her at the person bending to tell June what they were going to do. The next part would bring her into the open. She had heard the voice from the recess and wanted to see the woman safely out of it, wanted the people who found her to be able to look at one another when she was lifted clear.
“I'll come,” she said.
The escort told them where to wait lower down. She would stay in contact and meet them with the vehicle arrangements. They were not to stop in the carry route. Nadia said she understood. She had started moving before the officer finished, then waited while Lena caught up.
The first part was the narrowest. Lena went ahead as the officer showed her, keeping to the approach they had used to come up. Behind her Nadia's steps made a different sound, one foot coming down harder. She stopped at the place where there was room to turn.
“All right?”
Nadia nodded. Her face was wet. She was looking at the ground, not trying to see what was happening higher up. Lena waited while she chose where to put her foot. They could hear a direction being passed behind them, then somebody answering. Nadia glanced over her shoulder but did not turn around.
They went on. Lena's bag slid against her hip and she moved it in front of her. The path gave them room to walk together for a few yards, then took it away. At the wider patch she waited for Nadia to come level. The woman's breath was loud from the effort of keeping it quiet.
“I didn't know where else to stand,” Nadia said.
“We've got a place down here.”
“I know.”
Lena had answered a different question. Nadia kept walking. The borrowed jacket had bunched at her neck; she pulled it away without opening the front. She was hot now, or cold, or both. Lena could feel her own damp collar and wanted to get her hands into water, wash the day off as if it were something on the skin.
At the next turn the recess disappeared behind the bank. She couldn't have watched June from here if she stopped. She let Nadia come past and they walked with the same part of the ground beside them, side by side. A person carrying equipment stood aside to let them through. Nadia thanked him. He said no problem and went on up.
“He doesn't know,” she said after he had gone.
Lena looked at her.
“Who I am.”
“He might.”
Nadia rubbed the side of her face with her sleeve. “I keep thinking everybody does.”
They reached the place the escort had given them, beyond the route the carry would use. There was a vehicle shelter there and a place to sit. Nadia chose the end nearest the track, then moved farther in when she saw people coming. Lena sat beside her, leaving space between them for the bag.
For a while neither spoke. Lena could hear the work higher up but could no longer put a particular voice to it. She took the phone out to check for Owen's note. It was there. Counsel requested, questioning stopped, recorded material forwarded. Beneath it the older-case investigator had acknowledged receiving the detail and drawing. She read that message twice. He was already testing what they had. There was no place yet.
Nadia asked whether she could have some water. Lena took a bottle from the things set out for the waiting crew, checked with the person beside them and brought it back. Nadia opened it herself, drank and held it against the side of her face.
“It's warm,” she said.
“It was in the shelter.”
“I don't mind.”
She drank again. Lena remembered the cold cup she'd left at Marlene's. She couldn't remember if she had thanked her for it. Marlene would be out of the hair appointment by now. There would have been another person to tell, or to avoid telling, the ordinary question about whether she wanted it cut the same way.
Nadia began trying to undo the front of the jacket. The fastening caught. She drew it down too hard and stopped with a short angry breath, then tried again more slowly.
“It's not mine.”
“They know whose it is.”
“I don't want to break it.”
She freed it herself. The noise of it opening seemed very loud beneath the shelter. She pushed the hood down and sat with her head back against the support, eyes shut. When a voice sounded from the track she opened them at once.
It was the escort. She had the contact time and the message about Beth, who had been told June was alive and was being helped to meet her. The medical team were managing the movement; they would have the way clear. She asked Nadia where she wanted to go when they could leave.
“Could I go to the hospital?”
The officer said they could ask what June wanted and what care allowed. She should not arrive expecting to be let in.
Nadia put the bottle down. She took it up again before it could fall from the uneven surface beside her.
“I'll go to Alma's. For Tessa.”
“That's arranged. I'll take you.”
“I need to call.”
Lena moved her bag so Nadia could get at hers. The woman searched through it, found the phone and looked at the screen for a long time. She asked whether Tessa would be out of school now, as if Lena had some other time available to compare with hers.
“She should be.”
Nadia called Alma. She said June had been found alive. She did not say everything was all right. While she listened she picked at a small frayed place inside the jacket cuff. Lena could hear the voice at the other end but not the words. Nadia asked for Tessa, waited, then said hello in a voice so changed that Lena looked away.
“I'm coming back,” she said. “No, I'm coming to get you.”
She listened again. A sound came from the track, someone asking for room beside a vehicle. Lena remained in her seat. From here she couldn't see the carry, and Nadia had put the phone to her other ear to hear better. There was a question about food. Nadia said yes, she could do that. She asked to speak to Alma again.
The officer went to check their vehicle. Lena held the opened jacket while Nadia shifted her bag beneath it; the thing was too long to do it without sitting on a sleeve. When she gave it back Nadia put it around her shoulders rather than fasten it. She looked less like a person dressed to go somewhere than someone waiting in a room that wasn't hers.
“She wants me home,” she said.
Lena nodded. Nadia had ended the call but kept looking at the screen. A message came while she held it. She read it and, for the first time since they left the bank, let out her breath without trying to keep it quiet.
“Alma says she's eaten the last good yogurt.”
“Tessa?”
“It was mine.”
Lena smiled. Nadia looked at her, then at the screen again. She didn't smile back. She put the phone away and stood when the escort came for her.
Lena walked with them to the vehicle. There were people moving at the other side of the assembly, a door shutting, somebody taking instructions from the care team. She did not go over. Nadia had one foot inside the vehicle and was trying to get the jacket out from under her before sitting. The officer waited, asked whether she wanted the heat up. Nadia said yes.
“Thanks for coming down,” she said to Lena.
Then she was inside, looking toward the front while the officer shut the door. Lena stayed where she was until there was room for them to pull out.