She laughed, hugging him. “I think you said the same thing back when I first moved out. I’ll be fine, it’s just a road trip. I’ll send you guys’ pictures, and I’ll let you know if I decide to change my itinerary.”

  She’d mapped out her route over the last two weeks with the help of a couple of friends, who knew she was going on a road trip but didn’t know the truth about how she was funding it. She was planning to circle the entire United States before coming back to Michigan. It had been tempting to just take off without a plan, but common sense told her it would be safer for her friends and family to have at least a rough idea of where she’d be in case she dropped off the face of the world unexpectedly.

  After a few more assurances that yes, she, a thirty-year-old woman who had lived on her own for nearly a decade, would be fine on her first trip out of state alone, she handed her mom the keys to her apartment, which was paid up until the end of the month. She backed toward her RV, waving. She knew that if she didn’t get going now, she’d end up getting sucked into another round of goodbyes, and she was itching to hit the road.

  Behind the wheel, she took a moment to look the still-unfamiliar dashboard over. Everything was digital, from the fuel gauge to the speedometer. It made her feel old; her own car still had analogue dials, and this RV was the first vehicle she’d driven with a backup camera. And the backup camera wasn’t the only one. This thing had cameras all over the exterior, which was good since she was still getting used to driving what was essentially a mobile apartment.

  “Well, here we go.” She pushed the button to start the RV, and the diesel engine rumbled to life. Before putting it into drive, she glanced over at Cicero, who was in a cage strapped securely to the passenger seat. She wasn’t truly alone, not with him. He was looking out the window, already keen to get going; he loved car rides, and she suspected it was because the speed and the sight of the landscape racing past reminded him of flying.

  After typing her first destination into the built-in GPS, she looked out the window and waved goodbye to her parents one last time, then slowly pulled away from the curb, heading north.

  For a woman born and raised in Michigan, the embarrassing truth was she had only been to the Upper Peninsula once, and she had been in fifth grade at the time. The only thing she really remembered from that trip was passing over the Mackinac Bridge. Hours after she left her parents’ house, the greatest landmark in Michigan loomed in front of her. She paid her toll, turned down the radio, and eased the RV forward, glad that it wasn’t a windy day. She’d heard of trucks being blown over in gales as they tried to cross the bridge.

  There was a lot of traffic, but it still didn’t take long to reach the bridge proper. The strange metal road made her tires hum, and she kept her speed slow as she stole glances across the expanse of water. It was easy to forget how big the Great Lakes were, but viewing Lake Michigan on one side and Lake Huron on the other, she was struck once again by their sheer immensity. She felt a surge of love for her state, but it didn’t lessen her excitement over seeing the rest of the country in the slightest. Cicero let out a two-tone whistle, and she wondered if he was admiring the view too.

  The UP had a different feel from the rest of the state, something that was noticeable from the moment they began descending off the bridge. Maybe she would feel differently if she lived up here, but it had been drilled into her all her life that people went up north to vacation. Something about crossing the bridge made her feel like her trip was just beginning, even though she’d already been driving for hours. With hours left until she reached Marquette, the small college city on Lake Superior’s shore, she rolled the windows partway down and turned the radio back up, bobbing along to the music with her parrot.

  By the time she started seeing signs for Marquette, it was well into the evening, and she was hungry. She’d stopped for fast food once, but she didn’t want to get into the habit of doing that. The whole point of this trip was to explore, to try new things, and she wouldn’t get the whole experience if she grabbed fast food burgers every time her stomach growled.

  As she drove, she kept her eyes peeled for local restaurants. The sight of a slightly peeling sign promising the best pasties in the state seemed promising, and she took the next turn. She was still a mile or two outside of Marquette and was driving through forest dotted with the occasional house or roadside business. The restaurant wasn’t too difficult to find, thanks to a handful of faded signs pointing the way. Called Beth’s Diner, it didn’t look like much. It was small, the paint as faded as the signs, with a few cars parked in the gravel lot. There was a slightly run-down house behind it and a stack of firewood for sale next to the door.

  She hit her blinker and pulled into the lot, parking the RV along the grass median between the lot and the road, where she hoped it wouldn’t be in anyone’s way. Leaving the air-conditioning running for Cicero, she grabbed her purse, opened the driver’s door, and stretched her legs out for the first time in hours.

  “That’s part one of the trip, done,” she said, wiggling her toes in her sandals and making a mental note to stop to stretch more. As she inhaled the fresh, pine-scented air and listened to the drone of summer insects, she wondered if she could really do this. She was still in the same state, and she already felt so far from home.

  Then she glanced back into the RV through the open driver’s door and spotted Cicero, who was preening himself happily in the last of the day’s sunlight and remembered that she had a king-size bed waiting for her tonight, along with her laptop, her movies, and all her favorite books. She was driving her home. It would take some getting used to, but she was sure it wouldn’t be long until her RV was as much of a comfort zone as her apartment had been.

  “I’ll be right back, buddy,” she told Cicero. “We’ll eat dinner before driving the rest of the way to the campground. This is an adventure, isn’t it?”

  The bird ignored her in favor of straightening his bright red tail feathers. She smiled, shut the driver’s door, and turned toward the diner. It was time to try the local cuisine.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “Can I get one of your original pasties and a chocolate milkshake?” Tulia asked. The interior of the diner was dated, but cozy, and the small menu offered a variety of pasties and ice cream desserts. Something else on the menu caught her eye. “Oh, and one of your breakfast pasties, please? Do you have hot sauce packets?”

  It sounded better than the cereal she had in her RV, and she could heat it up in the microwave in the morning. She’d never had a pasty before, but from the description, it would be hard not to like them. The originals were a pastry crust filled with ground beef, onion, potatoes, carrots, and rutabaga. The breakfast pasties had scrambled eggs, cheese, potatoes, and bacon. Big enough to be an entire meal and able to be held while eaten, she could hardly get her hands on one. They were one of the many things she associated firmly with “Up North,” and in her mind, the ultimate sign that she was really, finally, on the road trip of a lifetime.

  The young woman behind the counter, who looked like she was in her mid-twenties, nodded and rang up the order. “Do you want one of those to go?”

  “Both of them, actually.” She was going to eat in her RV with Cicero. She wouldn’t every time she stopped at a restaurant, but this whole trip was still new to him, and she wanted him to feel as comfortable as possible.

  “I can get your original pasty and your milkshake out right away, but the breakfast one will be about ten or fifteen minutes. Is that okay?”

  “That’s fine, I’ll just pop back in and get it in a few minutes.”

  The other woman beamed. “Great! It’s worth the wait; I know there’s probably about a hundred places that claim they have the best pasties in the state, but we really do.”

  Laughing and thanking the young woman, Tulia paid for her meal. Taking her milkshake and the bag containing her original pasty, she left the diner to rejoin Cicero. He whistled in greeting when she climbed into the RV. Easing past his cage where it was buckled into the passenger seat, she set her dinner on the small table her RV had come with and took Cicero’s portable stand out of the tiny broom closet next to the RV’s fridge. It was a perch screwed into a tripod, with a removable metal dish on one end.

  She returned to the front to take Cicero out of his cage. He stepped up onto her fingers, his scaley feet cool on her skin. She put him on his perch before taking his plastic bin of food out of one of the latching cupboards and placing a small scoop into his bowl. After washing her hands with a shot of hand sanitizer she kept around for just that purpose, she sat down at the table and unwrapped her pasty. It was golden brown and smelled delicious. She broke off a bit of the crust to drop into Cicero’s bowl, then picked up the plastic fork and knife the diner had provided with her order and dug in.

  The pasty was every bit as good as she had hoped, and she didn’t even manage to finish the whole thing. After sucking the last of the chocolate milkshake through the straw, she rewrapped the food and put it in the fridge, then tossed the bag and the rest of the trash in the garbage. With her stomach full, the sun starting to go down, and the pleasant feeling of being out from behind the driver’s wheel after a long day, she was beat. Fighting back a yawn, she staggered the few steps to the RV’s couch and sat down, bringing up the campground’s information on her phone. She’d reserved an RV spot for the night, and knew the campground was somewhere just outside of Marquette, so it shouldn’t be too far away. Tomorrow, she could take her car into town and do some sightseeing.

  With a jolt, she remembered the breakfast pasty she had ordered. If it was the same size as the original pasty had been, she had a feeling pasties would be all she ate tomorrow—which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Leaving her phone on the couch cushion, Cicero on his perch, and her purse on the dashboard—she had already paid, after all—she slipped out of the RV and made her way across the parking lot to the diner’s entrance. Something rattled the dumpster around the corner of the building, and she quickened her step. It was probably just a raccoon, but it was a good reminder that even though she was still in Michigan, this area was wilder than what she was used to. Seeing a black bear was a real possibility up here. All of a sudden, she was very glad she would be sleeping in her RV and not in a flimsy tent.

  Letting herself into the restaurant, she went up to the counter, where the same woman looked like she was clocking out. There was a full garbage bag on the ground next to her, and she had taken her apron off. Still, she had a smile waiting for Tulia and gestured to the paper bag on the counter.

  “I was wondering if you’d forgotten. I added some hot sauce packets, so you should be all set.”

  “Thanks,” Tulia said, grabbing the bag. She was all set to turn around and leave, but hesitated. This was the beginning of what was going to be a long trip. She was planning to be gone for months, and she didn’t want to go that entire time without having a real, face-to-face conversation with another human being. Chatting on the phone or over a video call to her friends and her parents just wouldn’t be the same. She was far from shy, but she’d never been the sort of person to go and strike up easy friendships with strangers either. Maybe now was the time to start?

  She might as well go all-in on this new leaf she was turning over. She had more freedom than most people did to decide who she wanted to be now, and she didn’t want to waste this fresh start to her life.

  “My name is Tulia,” she said, just a bit awkwardly. “I’m from Midland. I’ve never been up here before. Well, not since I was a kid. Have you always lived in the UP?”

  “Born and raised,” the woman said with a laugh. She clicked a button on the computer, and it shut off. “My grandparents live in the Lower Peninsula, though, so I’ve been down there a lot. My name’s Angela, by the way. Where all are you planning to visit while you’re up here?”

  “I’m not really sure,” Tulia admitted. She followed Angela as the other woman grabbed the garbage bag and headed for the door. “I’m staying at a campground tonight, then I thought I’d drive around Marquette and maybe go to the beach tomorrow.”

  “If you have the time, you should definitely go to Pictured Rocks and Lake of the Clouds. They’re both worth seeing, and there are good campsites near each of them. Oh, thanks.”

  Tulia held the door for her, then stepped out behind her. Angela set the garbage bag down and took out a ring of keys to lock the diner’s door. “I’m not on a tight schedule or anything, so I’ll look them up. Thanks for the suggestions.”

  “No problem.” Angela hefted the garbage bag again and led the way around the corner toward the dumpster. “You should probably make reservations if you want to camp near a popular site, though. Summer’s pretty busy up here. Of course, if you feel up to it, you can always camp at a state forest for—”

  She broke off midsentence, and Tulia followed her gaze to a dark puddle of liquid beside the dumpster. It looked almost black in the waning light.

  “Something must have leaked out of the trash,” Angela said uncertainly. “Can you get the lid? It’s a pain to do when I’ve got a garbage bag in my other hand.”

  “Sure.”

  Tulia hefted one of the large lids up and glanced inside. A pair of blank eyes stared up at her, and she let the lid fall shut with a bang that disturbed a cloud of flies as she took a step back, barely missing the puddle of liquid with her shoe. It wasn’t black; she could see that now. It was red. Blood red. She felt sick, and she swallowed rapidly to keep from vomiting.

  “Hey, that almost fell on my arm. What happened?” Angela reached for the dumpster’s lid.

  “No, don’t,” she said, but it was too late. Angela opened the lid and looked inside, then stumbled back, screaming.

  Tulia felt frozen, revulsion and horror mixing with a morbid curiosity. Some part of her was certain that she had somehow misunderstood her first glance into the dumpster. There couldn’t be a man’s body in there, his T-shirt stained with blood and one knee of his jeans ripped. It simply didn’t fit with what she understood of the world. Stuff like this didn’t happen. Not to her, at least. Not outside of movies and TV shows.

  But she remembered his eyes, pale blue, bloodshot, and horribly blank. A fly had been crawling on one, before she disturbed it.

  Suddenly certain she was going to puke, she staggered back around the corner of the building, but the sound of a diesel engine grumbling to life was enough to distract her from her nausea. She looked up just in time to see her RV pulling away.

  Without her in it.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “Wait, come back!”

  She ran after the RV even though she knew it was pointless. It turned onto the road, the engine roaring as whoever was driving it put the gas pedal to the floor. As it began to pull away, Tulia slowed to a jog, then to a slow walk, still staring after it in disbelief. Everything was in there. Her phone, her purse … Cicero.

  Fear for her feathered friend struck her like a knife in her gut, and she clapped her hands to her mouth, torn between screaming and crying. Why had she left her keys in the RV? Why hadn’t she locked it behind her when she went back to get her breakfast pasty—which she had dropped somewhere between the dumpster and here.

  The thought of what she and Angela had found in the dumpster brought her back to earth, but only slightly. Her worry for Cicero overwhelmed even the horror of seeing a dead body. He wasn’t even in his cage! He might be a larger size for a bird, but compared to a human, he was so small and delicate. Would whoever had stolen her RV—and him along with it—be kind to him? Would they be gentle? Would they—

  A wolf whistle made her jerk her head up. She looked around, searching for the source of the familiar sound. A high-pitched whistle, like a tea kettle, followed it, and finally, near the top of a tall tree, she spotted Cicero’s grey form, his bright red tail standing out like a flag.

  Relief washed through her, though it was tempered by the sight of just how high he was. Whoever had stolen the RV must have tossed him out, not wanting to deal with bird-napping on top of grand theft auto. Either that, or he had flown out in a panic when a stranger opened the door. Regardless of how he had gotten out, she was just glad he was safe.

  “Cicero! Come here, buddy!” She held out her arm and, when he ignored her, she whistled for good measure.

  He let out a whistle in response but didn’t look like he was planning on coming down from the tree any time soon. He could fly, and she’d trained him to fly to her for a treat indoors, but he’d never flown outside before, and he’d certainly never descended so far from so high up. She craned her neck, staring at him as she tried to work out what to do. The fire department might be willing to help, but chances were, their tall ladder and big truck would scare him. The last thing she wanted was for him to take off and disappear into the forest.

  “Hey! Hey, um … Julia, right?”

  She turned, leaving Cicero to his own devices in the tree for a moment as the reminder of the other disaster she was in the middle of came hurrying across the parking lot in the form of Angela with her phone pressed to her ear.

  “Tulia,” Tulia said, pronouncing it carefully. “Did you call the police?”

  Angela nodded. “They’re sending someone out here. I told them someone stole your RV too. Did you see what they looked like? Did you have anyone else in the RV with you? They’re going to put an APB out.”

  Tulia realized, somewhat belatedly, that whoever had stolen her RV was probably the same person who had put the body in the dumpster. It might be a coincidence, but the chances that they were the same person was high.

  Swallowing heavily, she shook her head. “I didn’t see them, and it’s just me.”

  Angela related her words to the dispatcher, and Tulia waited while the person on the other line talked for a little while longer. Finally, Angela put the phone in her pocket.

 

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