Aroostine drew near the porch and flicked her eyes to the other rocking chair. The other person wasn’t sitting in it, but in front of it—in a wheelchair. Another woman. Native. Glossy hair plaited and hanging over one shoulder. She was older than Aroostine but younger than Carole. She didn’t know this woman. But she looked like hell. Her unlined face was sallow, blue-black half-circles ringed her red-rimmed eyes. Her lips were chapped and peeling. And when her eyes met Aroostine’s, they crackled with anguish—and something else. Anger.
A shock of recognition tore through her. This stranger, whoever she was, looked exactly how she felt.
“Carole.”
She squared her shoulders and braced for the well-worn words of condolence that were about to come from Carole’s mouth.
Instead, she said, “We need your help.”
Not ‘I’m so sorry,’ or ‘The good always die young,’ or even ‘He’s in a better place.’
“Pardon?”
“I said, I need your help. Actually, Janice does.” Carole nodded toward the other woman, who kept her eyes pinned on Aroostine.
She fumbled for an answer as she mounted the steps to the porch. “I’m afraid you’ve come a long way for nothing. I’m taking personal leave. I’m not working.”
“I heard.” Carole appraised her dispassionately. “You look terrible.”
“Joe died.”
“I heard that, too.”
“Then what are you doing here?”
“Joe’s no longer among the living, but you are. It’s time to live. We need you.”
“I can’t help you. I told you, I’m out on leave—I’m not even sure I’m going back.”
“What will you to do for the rest of your days, then?”
Aroostine shrugged. According to the insurance agent, the settlement money from the trucking company would mean she wouldn’t need to answer to that question for a long while, maybe not ever.
“I’m sorry Joe’s gone. He was a good man. I’m glad to have known him. But this—what you’re doing, sleepwalking through life—is wrong.”
“Wrong?”
“That’s right. You can help us. So you should.”
Aroostine glanced at the other woman, this Janice. She sat immobile and unblinking, staring hard at her. “Do you and your friend want to come in?”
“Why don’t we stay out here for a bit? The fresh air’ll do you good. We can take a walk or sit here on your porch.”
She thought for a long moment, wondering if she had the nerve to tell Carole Orr to get lost. A weight settled on her shoulders. The answer was no, she didn’t.
“Let’s walk, then.”
She helped Carole guide Janice’s wheelchair down the cement steps wondering how she’d managed to get up onto the porch in the first place. After they settled the chair on the path, she led her unwanted guests around to the back of the house, to the trail that followed the creek. She and Carole walked in silence. Janice bumped over the uneven ground, also in silence.
When they reached the clearing with the two big, smooth boulders that jutted out over the water, Aroostine lowered herself to the one on the right. Carole settled on the other. Janice parked right next to it and engaged her hand brake.
“Peaceful,” Carole remarked.
“Joe used to call these rocks our luxury waterfront property.” She tucked her knees up close to her chest and wrapped her arms around her knees.
“Have you talked to him?”
Carole’s voice was so low Aroostine almost didn’t hear the question.
“To Joe?”
“Yes.”
She glanced at Janice, who was staring mutely at the shimmering water. Then she shook her head no.
She spoke to her dead grandfather regularly. And to her spirit animal. But not Joe—her husband had been White. He didn’t share her traditions. Just as his rituals—the prayers and the shovels full of dirt over the box in the earth—held no meaning for her.
Carole went on, “He’s connected to you; the same way you’re connected to the earth, and the sky, and the water. If you look for his spirit, I think you’ll find it.”
Aroostine made a small sound that could have meant anything. “Why are you here?”
“There’s a missing woman. Barely more than a girl,” Carole explained.
“Dahlia.” Janice’s voice broke on the name.
Aroostine searched her memory, trying to match the name with the Chinook people she’d met during her visit to Oregon. She came up empty. “I don’t think I met her.”
“You wouldn’t have. She’s Lakota. Out of South Dakota.”
Aroostine flashed her a puzzled look.
“She worked for me last year—for my restorative justice program. She’s a smart girl—sorry, young woman. Level-headed. Passionate. Wanted to save the world. She reminds me of a younger version of you.”
Aroostine managed a sad smile. “Funny. She sounds like a younger you to me.”
“She’s my daughter,” Janice said, turning away from the creek to face Aroostine. “And she wouldn’t run off. Something happened to her. I know it.”
Carole dug into her colorful woven shoulder bag and pulled out a manila folder. She gripped it two-handed. “Nobody knows how many Native women and girls are missing right now. The tribal police, the local police, even your Department of Justice are slow to respond. Or they throw up their hands and say, sorry, we can’t find her. Eventually, if a family’s very lucky, a body will turn up. Could take years. Without hard numbers, I’ve heard estimates as high as a thousand.”
“A thousand missing women?”
“Could be more. Who really knows? The numbers are underreported. You know we’re considered less-than. A single mother, a drug addict, a wild girl. We’re not worth as much as a blonde-haired, blue-eyed angel from a good family. We’re dirt.”
Aroostine bristled.
Carole rested the folder in her lap and held up a hand to ward off the protest. “Don’t bother defending the system. Do you think over a thousand white girls would go missing without so much as a peep? There’d be Congressional inquiries, task forces, hour-long television specials. People would be rioting in the streets.”
“Surely the Office of Tribal Affairs—”
“Oh, they’re working on it—as only your federal government can. They piloted an electronic database for filing the reports. No doubt so the investigators can avoid a trip out to Indian Country. But, of course, only a fraction of tribes actually have the terminals they need to transmit the reports—and the tribes have to pay for the terminals and the access. Nobody can afford that. Not unless they’ve got a casino or an active drilling operation pulling in money.”
She nodded. It was a common theme—bureaucratic incompetence and insensitivity compounded problems on the reservations rather than solving them. Her position as Office of Tribal Affairs liaison was an attempt to put a Band-Aid on the gaping wound.
“Do you want me to reach out to Grace and Sid? I will, of course—but, to be honest, you have way more pull with Justice and with Tribal Affairs than I do.”
“No, you’re right. I have plenty of experience navigating the system. I don’t need someone to guide me through the maze of federal dysfunction. And right now, Dahlia Truewind’s case doesn’t involve the Bureau of Indian Affairs or Main Justice.”
“Then … I don’t understand. Why are you here?” Aroostine searched her mind through her fog of fatigue and grief but couldn’t come up with a single thing she could do to help Dahlia’s mother.
Carole pierced her with a long, cool look. “We need a tracker.”
Aroostine reread the slim file on Dahlia Truewind. Again. She slapped the folder shut and dropped it on the table.
She glanced into the kitchen. Carole and Janice were putting together a meal she knew she wouldn’t be able to choke down. Janice preheated the oven to reheat one of the casseroles she’d dug out from the mountain of foil-covered dishes stacked tight in the freezer. Carole chopped veg
etables she’d gathered from the neglected garden for a salad. They both looked reasonable enough, but they were deluded.
She was in no position to hunt down Dahlia. Her ability to track a deer through the woods qualified her in no way to find a missing person.
Not to mention, there was an excellent chance Dahlia didn’t want to be found. She was nineteen years old. Still a teenager, true. But, as far as the State of South Dakota was concerned, an adult. A young adult, who, by all accounts, had a strained relationship with her single mother. She’d broken up with her long-time boyfriend, moved off the reservation, and enrolled in college in Sioux Falls—six hours and several hundred miles away.
But, up until a week ago, she’d called her mother, dutifully, every Sunday. After the first missed call, Janice had texted her. No response. By Tuesday, after a series of unanswered telephone calls and unreturned texts, she’d called the college. An administrator told her Dahlia had withdrawn from classes after the second week of the semester—more than a month earlier. She’d moved out of campus housing and had left no forwarding address.
She’d been lying to her mother during their weekly chats, prattling on about classes that she wasn’t taking, parties she’d gone to with roommates that didn’t exist. Aroostine suspected the lying had gotten to be too much for her, and she’d decided to make a clean break with her past.
But Janice, unable or unwilling to accept that Dahlia wanted nothing to do with her, had convinced herself that something had happened to her. The fact that she’d also managed to convince Carole was somewhat surprising. The judge had one of the sharpest legal minds Aroostine had encountered. But, then, deep down, she was a softie.
The specifics didn’t matter, Aroostine reminded herself, because she wasn’t going to go looking for Dahlia. She wasn’t a private investigator. She was a widow. A raw and empty widow. For all Carole’s wisdom and insight, the judge had gotten it wrong this time—Aroostine couldn’t help. Hot tears welled behind her eyes.
The timer dinged. The casserole was ready. She pushed the folder aside and went to the kitchen to fill three water glasses.
“Sorry, I don’t have anything else to drink.” She placed one of the glasses by Carole’s plate.
Janice took hers in her hand. “Water’s great. Thanks.”
Carole filled their plates with Belinda Roland’s chicken and ziti bake. Janice dug in immediately. But Carole toyed with her fork for a moment then dropped it on her plate with a faint ding.
She put her forearms on the table and leaned toward Aroostine. “Listen ….”
Even though Aroostine had left her appetite on the other side of Joe’s death, she shoveled a forkful of salad into her mouth. She’d eat as much as she needed to avoid discussing Carole’s wild plan.
“Mmm?”
“Dahlia needs you.”
“Mmm hmm,” she mumbled noncommittally around the salad greens.
Carole narrowed her eyes. They ate in silence for a few moments.
Then she abandoned her fork again. “Where was Joe going when the accident happened?”
Aroostine took a long drink of water before answering. “To help a friend nail down some loose floorboards.”
“That sounds like Joe.”
Anger flared in Aroostine’s belly. “You didn’t really know him that well.”
“Maybe not. I knew him well enough to know he helped people in need,” Carole countered in a mild tone.
Aroostine breathed in through her nose, out through her nose, repeated it, then answered, “There’s a difference between lending someone a hand with a home improvement project and taking off on a cross-country hunt for a missing woman.”
“It’s just a matter of degree.”
“A matter of degree?”
“Right.”
“She could be anywhere. She could be in Canada—or Mexico.”
“Could be. She could be in Norway. But she’s probably somewhere in South Dakota. That’s her last known location. And it’s a vast, sparsely populated state. Easy to get lost there.”
Aroostine cleared her throat. She glanced sidelong at Janice, who was staring down at her plate.
“What if she has a good reason to be lost? Maybe she just wants a fresh start.”
“She might. Don’t you think her mother deserves to know that?”
“She’s an adult.”
Janice snapped her head up. “Look, if you find her and she doesn’t want you to tell me where she is, don’t. Just let me know she’s alive—and not hurt or being held somewhere against her will. Please.” Her chin wobbled, but her voice was strong.
Aroostine stabbed at a carrot round.
“And what if she’s not alive—or well? What if she’s been murdered? Or went for a hike, broke both ankles, and died of dehydration? What if she’s addicted to drugs, living in an alley?”
“Her mother deserves to know that, too. Knowing is always better. Always.” Carole answered right way, sure of herself. Janice said nothing.
They lapsed back into silence. The only sound was the faint clink of forks against china.
“What about you, Janice? Are you sure you want to know, no matter what?” Aroostine pressed.
The woman sipped her water. She placed the glass back on the table with a steady hand then fixed her eyes on Aroostine’s. “I do.”
“I’m not saying I’m going to do this. But if I did, you’d have to be really sure you want to know.”
“I want to know.” Janice shot out the words as if they were made of steel. Then she raised her hands to cradle her face. “My mother disappeared when I was fourteen. We never found her. I’ll live the rest of my life not knowing what happened to her. I can’t live not knowing what happened to my girl. I can’t.”
Aroostine reached across the table and covered the woman’s hand with her own. Carole caught her eye and gave her a knowing look.
Aroostine stared back at her and thought as hard as she could, hoping Carole would read the words in her eyes: I can sit with this woman in the depth of her pain because I’m living in a pit of pain of my own. That doesn’t mean I’m going on a cross-country search for her daughter.
Carole’s eyes didn’t waver. Aroostine was sure their message was, Wanna bet?
But Carole was wrong about this. She was wrong about her.
4
Wednesday morning
Offices of Bedrock Force, LLP
“Markham’s looking for you.” Carissa kept her eyes glued on the spreadsheet she was populating.
Dahlia had been about to drop herself into her desk chair. She froze as if she were doing a squat—the kind she did in barre class, where the teacher chirped “Stick your bottom out like you’re sitting on a tiny chair.”
But lithe, breathy fitness instructors didn’t turn Dahlia’s blood to ice water. They didn’t make her heart race and her palms sweat.
“Sorry?” she croaked, hoping she’d misheard her.
Carissa flicked her eyes away from her monitor for a fraction of a second but kept her fingers flying over her keyboard. Something—pity or, more likely, glee—flashed in her eyes. “Markham wants you in her office.”
Dahlia forced herself to straighten to standing.
“Oh. Okay,” she managed. She didn’t quite pull off casual, but at least she didn’t give away the fact that she was pretty sure she was going to puke. Or pass out. Or both.
She moved toward Ms. Markham’s office. Her legs were stiff. Her heartbeat was a trapped bird. And her mind was a cyclone of worry. She rapped on the door.
“Come in.”
She pushed the door open but hovered at the threshold. “You wanted to see me?”
Ms. Markham looked up at her. “Close the door. Take a seat.”
She did as she was told. Now, instead of spiraling out of control her brain seemed frozen.
Ms. Markham leaned forward. Her face gave away nothing. She stared at Dahlia for a long moment then shook her head.
“Truewind, we have a p
roblem.”
“A … problem?” Her voice came out like a croak.
“You stayed late every night last week. The ID card reader’s registering approximately ten-hour days for you.”
Dahlia blinked. “Um …”
“I’ve talked to Swanson. He says he hasn’t authorized any overtime. And I certainly haven’t.”
She paused, waiting for a response.
But Dahlia didn’t know what to say. Was this some sort of trap?
“No, ma’am,” she finally said. That was true—nobody had authorized her to work overtime.
“I don’t need to remind you that we’re a government contractor, do I? Billing fraud against the government is a federal crime, Truewind.”
“Billing fraud?”
Ms. Markham’s nostrils flared. “Yes, Dahlia. Billing fraud. Which client did you intend to bill for the unauthorized hours?”
Dahlia’s mental processes were occupied with forcing herself not to look at the sat-comm unit and trying to guess how much Ms. Markham knew. It took her an extra beat to realize that she had been called in to be scolded for putting in for overtime without prior approval. When she realized what was going on, she nearly laughed aloud.
“Wait, no. I’m not submitting those hours, ma’am. You can check my time sheets. I’m putting down eight hours a day, max.” She was dizzy with relief.
But Ms. Markham wasn’t finished. “Good. But the fact remains, you’re a non-exempt employee, not salaried. You’re paid for the hours you work. No volunteering. I want you to clear out at five-thirty along with everyone else, unless you’re told otherwise. Are we clear?”
Crap. If she left the building at the end of the day and returned later, the card reader would register it. Crap, crap, and double crap. She had to get her hands on the rest of those files. She had to.
As if they had a mind of their own, her eyes drifted to the sat-comm box.
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