The Only One Left

by Pamela Beason

  Sam still wasn’t sure how she’d developed such a soft spot for the tough juvenile delinquent she’d met on a trail crew two years ago. “Maya has done everything for herself. It’s not like I adopted her. She glommed onto me like a remora.”

  Just as Sam had feared, Maya Velasquez had been booted out of her foster home in Tacoma only days after she turned eighteen. She’d insisted on living in a tent in Sam’s back yard for a few weeks, until Kim Quintana took pity on both of them and gave the girl the summer job as peer counselor with Wilderness Quest.

  The edge of Troy’s pale eyebrow lifted. “I have no clue what a remora is.”

  “It’s a fish,” she told him. “Remoras suction-cup themselves to bigger fish for a free ride.”

  Setting down his glass, Troy reached across the table to place his hand on top of hers. His fingers were cool and damp. “My point, Sam, is that Maya accomplished a lot with your guidance, and that’s exactly what these six kids need.”

  Pulling her hand from beneath his, she fingered the beer-stained coaster on the table in front of her.

  “It’s only for twenty-one days,” he continued. “The parents signed their kids up long ago; they’re counting on us. It’s the last expedition of this year, and there’s no way I can find someone to fill the job now. I’ll pay you three times the usual salary.”

  The last was a hard offer to turn down. Had Kim told her husband that Sam’s last writing contract had fallen through, leaving her unemployed? Awkward emotions of guilt and shame wrestled with each other in Sam’s head.

  “You know that Wilderness Quest was Kim’s dream,” Troy pressed. “She wanted this to be her legacy, helping troubled kids find the right path.”

  Oh, yeesh. Of course Sam knew; mother and daughter had often sung the praises of the wilderness therapy program Kim had created.

  Cupping both hands around his beer glass, he stared into the amber liquid. “I didn’t even kiss Kim goodbye that morning. And I hadn’t seen Kyla for weeks; when she wasn’t out in the mountains with the Quest kids, she was with Chris.” His voice wavered, and he paused to swallow before adding, “Kim left a chicken in the fridge to thaw for dinner.”

  Sam struggled to bring into focus her final moments with her friends.

  Kim, her face damp with perspiration after their climb from Iceberg Lake to Herman Saddle. She’d swept her arm across the panorama of Mount Shuksan to the east and Bagley Lake far below them, saying, “This is what cures the kids: nature.”

  Kyla, laughing with Sam after they simultaneously turned the wrong way during a dance lesson at the Kickin’ A Saloon.

  At least her last memories of her friends were happy ones.

  Troy’s tired eyes glistened. “I can’t let Wilderness Quest fail. Kim and Kyla...” His Adam’s apple bobbed down and back up. “They’d be so happy to know you’re taking Kyla’s place. That you’re helping us go on.”

  No fair playing the murdered friends card.

  How could she say no?

  * * * * *

  “Summer?” Chase’s voice shattered the memory, abruptly dropping her back into the present. He always called her by her given name, insisting that Summer perfectly matched her fair coloring and outdoorsy inclinations. “We really need to go, or I’m going to miss my flight.”

  Sam gazed at Pinnacle Lake one last time. Shouldering her pack, she murmured softly to the atmosphere, “Kim. Kyla. I miss you guys so much.”

  Putting a hand on her shoulder, Chase squeezed gently.

  “We always said that if we died out in the wild, we’d die doing what we loved,” she told him. “But we were talking about being mauled by bears or falling off cliffs or getting swept over a waterfall. We never imagined being slaughtered by a madman.”

  “No one does, querida.” He tilted his head toward the trail.

  They started down the steep path, the soles of their boots obliterating dozens of other prints from hikers who had trudged up and down this trail over the summer.

  The authorities had recovered bullets from the bodies, but no casings from the scene. She’d learned enough about guns from Chase to understand that without bullet casings or the rifle or revolver that fired them, the slugs recovered from her friends’ bodies were useless except to explain the cause of death and narrow down the types of weapons used. One 30-06 rifle, one revolver. Or perhaps even two revolvers.

  Was the killer a man? A woman? One killer or two? So many unanswered questions. Detritus collected at the scene might contain traces of DNA and maybe even fingerprints, but those were useless without a specific individual to match.

  She followed Chase’s lean figure down the mountainside. Had the killer hiked this same winding trail? Were they trampling vital evidence? The hundreds of bits of rubbish ground into each mile of trail would drive any crime scene investigator crazy. She routinely picked up stray items every time she hiked, a small good deed to keep wild areas pristine. On her way up the trail, she’d bagged a button, two candy bar wrappers, a torn nylon strap with a rusty buckle, and a small packet of tissues that had slipped unnoticed out of a hiker’s pocket. She knew other hikers who collected garbage along the routes they traveled. Evidence could easily have been carried away by environmental do-gooders.

  Hell, for that matter, half the debris in her trash bag might have been transported here by investigators. Dozens of officials had tramped up and down this trail since that day, photographing the scene, carrying the bodies, or just coming to gawk like humans did anytime something exciting happened.

  Why didn’t perpetrators ever conveniently isolate their clues from the background mess?

  “Too bad the real world is nothing like CSI on television,” Chase said over his shoulder, reading her mind again.

  She needed to change the subject. “I so wish you lived here, Chase.”

  “I put down the Seattle office as my OP. But it’s a long shot.”

  Sam understood that meant that Agent Starchaser Perez had requested a transfer from his Salt Lake City FBI office to his “office of preference” in Seattle, but the Bureau seemed to run like the army; agents had little say in where they were assigned. Today, after a three-day visit, her lover was rushing off in typical spook fashion to an FBI explosives training course in a location he refused to disclose to her.

  “I’m trying,” he added.

  Was there was an unspoken “Are you?” after that sentence? She still felt guilty about turning down Chase’s proposal to move in with him in Salt Lake City. Did he truly understand her reasons, or was he only pretending to be patient because he hadn’t yet found a replacement girlfriend?

  There was no time to sort it out now. Chase had a plane to catch and she had to get to this blasted job. Just thinking about the assignment knotted the muscles between her shoulder blades. Twenty-one days, she reminded herself. She couldn’t save her friends, but she could help save their dream. Three weeks, and she would be done with this commitment to the ghosts of Kyla and Kim.

  She paused to pick up a plastic bottle top and a gum wrapper from the side of the trail.

  “Summer?” Chase prompted, glancing back over his shoulder. “I know we came in separate cars, but I want to make sure you get back safely to yours.”

  “I’m right behind you.” Sam stuffed the trash sack into her pack and focused on hustling down the mountainside, keeping a wary eye on the thick forest around them, watching for the glint of a rifle barrel or some obvious sign of evil lurking along the trail.

  “Think you can find your way out of here?” he asked as they neared the parking lot.

  “I got here, didn’t I? My trusty GPS lady helped.”

  He ran a knuckle over the dark whiskers already starting to shadow his jaw line. “The GPS unit you haven’t updated in a decade?”

  “Forest roads haven’t changed much in ten years either, Chase.”

  “Touché.” He practically galloped to his rental car, but she grabbed him before he slid into the driver’s seat and wrapped her arms
around him, pressing her ear against his heart and squeezing hard. For a change, he was the first to pull away. “I’ll see you again in a few weeks.”

  “You never know,” she murmured. Every goodbye could be the last.

  “We’ll talk tonight.” His kiss was too quick.

  They both slid into their cars, and Chase waited until she’d started up her Civic before he peeled out of the lot in a cloud of dust.

  Sam shut off her car engine. Walking back to the memorial, she plucked out the Mylar balloon and stabbed it through the heart with a car key before stuffing the deflated remains into her back seat and heading for Bellingham.

  2

  When Sam arrived at the Wilderness Quest office, she found Troy in the administrator’s office. The name Troy Johnson had replaced Kimberly Quintana on the door plaque.

  “It’s best not to remind clients of our tragedy,” Troy explained. “We were lucky to keep the Wilderness Quest connection out of the news.” He grimaced. “Probably helps that Kim never took my last name.”

  Kim had always maintained that Quintana was a much more interesting name than Johnson, but Sam was not going to share that comment with her friend’s husband.

  Troy noticed Sam staring at the empty spot where Kim’s computer had rested. “The police took her laptop. They took mine from home, too. And my cell phone. They already had Kim’s and Kyla’s.”

  She didn’t know what to say.

  His expression grim, he fingered his beard. “Kim had a hefty life insurance policy, with me as beneficiary. I had one, too, but they’ll figure I took that out just to make the situation look less suspicious.”

  Sam groaned. “Oh, Troy.”

  “The spouse is always a suspect. I should know.” Troy Johnson was a retired deputy prosecuting attorney from the Whatcom County court system.

  The kids in her expedition “crew,” as Wilderness Quest liked to call each group of client kids, had arrived in town yesterday, along with their parents. All of them had met with the company’s counselors, who reiterated the goals of wilderness therapy—healing old wounds, strengthening family relationships, setting realistic expectations for the future, breaking bad habits. A three-week expedition into the backcountry was a chance for teens to escape the distractions of a perpetually connected world and learn to rely on themselves and find joy in the present. The kids were examined individually by a physician and a psychologist while the parents met with Troy for a frank discussion of their issues and expectations.

  Today the kids would be counseled; relieved of personal clothing, jewelry, electronics, drugs, and weapons; and issued uniforms for the outing.

  While the staff readied the kids and equipment for the field, Troy installed Sam in an empty counselor’s office to watch recorded videos of his interviews with the parents.

  The staff had taken photos of the kids as they’d first arrived yesterday, and Sam held them in her hands now to match up kids and parents.

  The first video segment was labeled Olivia Bari, Toledo, Ohio, 16. In her intake photo, the girl wore a green striped blouse tucked into close-fitting jeans. With her olive skin, long raven hair wrapped in a green headscarf, thick eyeliner, and dangling filigree earrings, the girl resembled a stereotypical gypsy. But Olivia had far more lines engraved on her forehead than any sixteen-year-old should.

  Setting the photo aside on the desk, Sam started the video on the computer screen. The camera offered a fish-eye view over Troy’s shoulder from the corner of his office. Like their daughter, the Baris’ builds were on the small end of average, and they both had bronze skin and dark eyes. The father’s hair was graying; the mother’s was covered by a paisley scarf.

  “Frequent truancy.” Troy read aloud from Olivia’s file, which lay open on the desk between him and the parents.

  Mr. Bari nodded. “She says she goes, but then the school calls and tells us she doesn’t.”

  “She lies,” Mrs. Bari affirmed, her gaze fixed downward.

  “She is disrespectful,” the father added. His accent—Middle Eastern?—was barely noticeable, but his choice of words were too formal for a native-born American.

  “I understand.” Troy folded his hands on top of his desk. “Olivia tried to commit suicide by taking pills?”

  “It was an accident,” the mother assured him, looking up to meet his eyes. “The pills were Tylenol. She had a headache and didn’t know how many to take.”

  Sam leaned away from the screen. Yikes. The first kid in her crew was a suicide risk? How many pills had Olivia taken—ten, fifty? She shook her head, already feeling out of her element.

  The conversation continued about Olivia’s health: good, no allergies, no drug addictions, no smoking, no drinking.

  “There will be boys on this trip?” Mrs. Bari looked worried at the prospect.

  “Yes,” Troy confirmed. “But you have no need for concern. Our field guide and our two peer counselors will keep Olivia safe at all times.” He paused, waiting until both parents nodded. “Now, can you tell me what you hope to gain from enrolling Olivia in Wilderness Quest?”

  “We want her to be happy,” Mr. Bari said. “We want her to go to school.”

  Pursing her lips, Sam blew out a long breath. It sounded so simple.

  Next up: Gabriel Schmidt, Boise, Idaho, 18. The photo revealed Gabriel to be a large boy who reminded her uncomfortably of the white flour dumplings she had eaten with stew last night. He wore an extra-large T-shirt and the saggy knee-length shorts that corpulent males everywhere seemed to favor.

  The interview video showed that, like Gabriel, both Mom and Dad Schmidt had pasty complexions and were significantly overweight. To Sam’s surprise, their issues were all about their son’s use of his computer.

  “Gabriel won’t come out of his room. He stays up all night playing games.”

  “He lives in an Internet world.”

  Troy consulted the boy’s file. “Gabriel turned eighteen on August third?”

  Both Schmidts nodded.

  “You realize that means that our staff, acting on your behalf, cannot compel Gabriel to do anything?” Troy asked.

  The point seemed irrelevant to Sam. She’d had a day of coaching by the counselors, but she was pretty sure she couldn’t compel a teenager, especially one as large as Gabriel, to do anything he didn’t want to.

  Mr. Schmidt squirmed in his chair. His wife spoke for both of them. “He understands that this is our condition for him continuing to live at home.”

  At least Gabriel had received his high school diploma a few months ago; that put him ahead of the other kids. And there was no mention of drugs or alcohol.

  “He’s got to come out of his bedroom,” Gabriel’s father reiterated. “If he’s not going to go to college, he needs to get a job.”

  Sam rubbed her forehead. Why didn’t the Schmidt family just take away the computer or game console Gabriel used to feed his Internet addiction? Mom and Dad appeared to be in their late fifties or early sixties, with graying hair. Maybe Gabriel had been a late-life baby. Maybe they were just tired.

  If the Schmidts looked worn, Justin Orlov’s parents appeared downright elderly. Which was soon explained by their answers to Troy’s questions: they were Justin’s maternal grandparents. They’d legally adopted Justin at age nine, and changed Justin’s last name to theirs. Justin’s father had killed their daughter in a drunken domestic violence incident. The father was now eight years into a twenty-five-year prison sentence.

  Sam chewed on her thumbnail. Another family coping with murder. In his photo, Justin glowered at the camera, his fists clenched at his sides. He was a tall, muscle-bound boy with a blond buzz cut the Marines would appreciate. A dragon tattoo crawled up the left side of his neck, the beast’s snarling head and one clawed foot emerging from the neck of his black T-shirt. Justin was a seventeen-year-old who could pass for twenty-three. Repeatedly suspended from school for bullying. On probation for vandalism and assault.

  The Orlovs lived in Los Angel
es. They were terrified their grandson was going to end up a professional gangbanger.

  With his family history, the kid had probably learned his threatening behavior from the cradle. She made a mental note to keep Justin away from anything that could be a weapon. Sam licked her lips, trying to imagine how she would handle this boy. A stun gun might be a good addition to the standard field guide equipment.

  Taylor Durand, Sacramento, California, 16. The teen was a tall angular girl. Her straight blond hair, artistically streaked with strands of burnished copper and platinum, dangled past her shoulders. Her bright red lipstick matched the off-the-shoulder blouse tucked into her skinny jeans. Her face was a matte beige mask that spoke of a layer of heavy foundation.

  Sam started the video. Like his daughter, Taylor’s father was tall and blond and casually handsome. The mother was of average appearance, with an expensive angled haircut and sophisticated makeup. The problems with Taylor?

  “She doesn’t think she needs to complete high school,” the father said. “All she cares about is becoming a fashion model. And we’ve found drugs in Taylor’s room, too.”

  “Mainly diet pills,” the mother added.

  Mainly? Sam leaned back in her chair. Would Taylor be in some sort of quaking, hallucinating withdrawal during this expedition? Sam reminded herself of the promotional video she’d watched on the company website. Kids with drug issues came into the program only after going through rehab. Taylor might be jonesing for a fix during the expedition, but she wouldn’t be actively detoxing.

  Nick Lewis, Everett, Washington, 15. Sam’s youngest draftee, and the one closest to home. Nick’s photo showed a slight dark-haired boy wearing a green plaid shirt that was at least two sizes too big, the sleeves turned up into French cuffs, double-buttoned in place around his skinny wrists. As a petite woman who lived in perpetually rolled-up sleeves, Sam knew that trick well. Nick held his hands clasped in front of his stomach as if they were cuffed together. One of the two buttons on his right sleeve was missing; a red thread dangled in its place.