The press camped outside her home in Whitehorse were bored by the time Rebecca left for Vancouver. Most of the news outlets had dispatched their people to the Solid Gold Sasquatch Lodge for a media-only preview of Tucky Thompson’s latest venture, the Sasquatch Circus. As their numbers dropped off, so had the enthusiasm of those who remained.

When Raylene Florio arrived to take Rebecca to the airport, two or three shouted questions, but as a group they could only muster the most pathetic of scrums. One car followed as they drove to Raylene’s house and disappeared inside where Nicole was waiting. Minutes later the three darted through the back door and into the alley where Nicole’s car was parked. Rebecca scrunched herself up in the back seat as best she could, hoping to avoid detection. It was movie clip, a TV getaway.

At the airport, it was tourists with autograph requests, digital video and camera phones, text message tips to the cable news stations. Rebecca Richman was on the move.

A handful of reporters met Rebecca’s flight when she landed in Vancouver. They followed and/or’s truck, caravan style, to Yoshi Oba’s Art Motel. Rebecca gave no comment and the reporters were not permitted inside. Still, the story about the half-Sasquatch girl who fled was filed in time to make the late-night news.
Paula Winter, however, was not one of those reporters. She was snacking on an apple, waiting impatiently for Tucky Thompson’s Sasquatch Circus press tour to begin when her cell phone rang. It was a journalist in New York. Could she could spare a moment to do a quick phone interview? It would be recorded and broadcast with the item they were airing that night about the half-Sasquatch girl who fled. What was the mood in Whitehorse? Was Rebecca driven out? What were her friends and family feeling? Did the paper have any high-res photographs they could use?

“I’ll have to call you back,” Paula said, and snapped her phone shut. She pushed through the swarm of reporters until she found Jeremy. “She’s gone.”

“Who’s gone?”

“Rebecca. She’s gone.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know.” Paula refused to humiliate herself by asking the New York reporter for any details. “How could this happen? What do we do? Fuck. I’m totally fucked.” Paula’s eyes stung and welled.

Jeremy sighed. As much as he relished the thought of Paula’s professional disgrace, he had to put the paper and the story first. “Calm down. Think about it. Who would know where she went? Her parents?”

“They won’t talk, no way.”

“Dave Thompson?”

Paula shook her head. “Nuh-uh.”

A smile spread across Jeremy’s face. “Look, she’s a teenage girl. Who do teenage girls talk to?”

“This isn’t a fucking guessing game!” Paula hissed. She blinked out two big angry tears.

“Do you want me to help you or not?”

Paula nodded.

“Alright then. Let’s go.”

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