“The guy today was a bit wooden, but Lucy was all right, wasn’t she?”
Hera’s smile tightened. “Sure, I suppose.” She twirled a navy strand of hair around her finger until the tip turned purple, and I wondered if she was one of those people who found silence awkward or one of those who reveled in it. She didn’t say anything else, answering my question.
As the day progressed into evening, the light becoming golden and the dusky chill finally coaxing everyone out of the water, neither of us moved. A voice in the back of my head kept reminding me that I should try to speak to other guests too, but the more dominant part of me was too busy enjoying having a conversation with another teenager. Hera didn’t ask personal questions or pry into my reasons for coming to Canada, and in return, I didn’t dig further into her own backstory. It was all small talk, yet she had a way of making it feel like we were discussing the origins of the stars.
“Are we the last people left?” I glanced at my phone, surprised by how fast time had flown. “Last time I checked it was only four o’clock.”
“Emily and Jess left about an hour ago,” Hera said, yawning. “Urgh, sorry. I don’t know why I’m so tired.”
I stifled a yawn too, then laughed. “You’re contagious. I suppose I better let you go and find dinner; I know I’m starving.”
“Yeah.”
Both of us stayed seated.
“You can always come out with me, if you want?” she asked, hesitantly. “I was thinking of just going to the local McDonald’s or something, since I’m so freaking broke at the moment.”
Yet you paid nearly a thousand dollars for this road trip . . . ?
“I’ve got to get back to the hotel and finalize things for tomorrow,” I lied, without really knowing why. “Perhaps another time.”
“Right, right.” Hera stood up, shrugging on an olive-green fleece that was several sizes too big. She had her arms wrapped around her torso, eyes fixated on the reflection of the setting sun in the glassy surface of the lake. Then she pivoted back to me. “Look, Lewis, I want to apologize. I don’t know what Perle and Robbie have been saying, or what kind of impression I gave yesterday, but I get that you have boundaries or whatever that you have to adhere to, and I don’t want to get you in trouble and—”
“Slow down,” I interrupted, startled. “You haven’t done anything you need to apologize for.” Except maybe make this moment ten thousand percent more awkward.
Her cheeks were tinged pink. “I just . . . shoot.” She laughed nervously. “I’m sorry, I don’t even know what I’m saying anymore.”
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe McDonald’s is the answer.”
“But you said . . . ?”
I shrugged. “I can make time.”
“You’re sure?”
“Mm.” I stood up too, stretching out my arms and zipping up my jacket. “This nine p.m. bedtime routine is getting to be quite sad.”
And so we traded the whispering ponderosas and lakeside sunset for the plastic red, gray, and yellow of the nearest fast food restaurant we could find, both ordered fish burgers, and slid into a booth by the window. The sticky remnants of spilled cola made the tabletop untouchable, so we ended up creating a makeshift tablecloth with our napkins.
“This is blasphemy,” Hera mused. “Coming to Williams Lake to experience the old west and ending up here.”
“Utter sacrilege,” I agreed. “What’s wrong with our generation?”
She grinned widely, showing a gap between her two front teeth. “Nothing.”
Like at the lake, for a good while, we sat in silence. A radio, tinny and poor quality, blasted pop music several years out of date from speakers above our heads. Picking up the free Wi-Fi, my phone buzzed again and again in my pocket, but whenever I checked, it was nothing important.
“It was a social screwup, by the way,” Hera blurted. “Why I came on this trip so last-minute. Stupid, really. My best friend thought I did something with her boyfriend, which was a complete lie, but she made a fuss about it and . . . well, why try to reconcile when you can create a year’s worth of drama instead? So I signed up to get away from it all.”
Huh. Perle would be disappointed. The more dramatic part of me was a bit disappointed too, if I was being honest.
“It’s a shame this only buys you five days,” I said, unable to think of anything else. “But I’m sure it will blow over.”
She gave a slight nod, unconvinced. The vacant look was back in her eyes.
It was dark when I returned to the hotel, but Hera elected to stay at the restaurant for a while longer. She didn’t say why, and I didn’t ask.
Getting ready for bed, I went through my messages with more focus. Oddly enough, there was a text from tech-phobic Chrissy:
There’s a big storm heading your way. I hope you see snow. Be careful.
ACCORDING TO THE WEATHER NETWORK ON THE hotel’s TV, there was a storm cell moving inland from the Pacific that would hit the interior within the next few days. It was supposed to be heading south to the United States, but had switched paths at the last minute, promising torrential rain, gale-force winds, and widespread power blackouts. Or, at least, there was a sixty percent chance of that happening. There was still a strong possibility it would dissipate or change course again.
Today’s journey was only an hour and a half, heading directly northward across the plateau to the town of Quesnel. Everybody had settled into the rhythm of things now, so luggage was packed quickly and we rolled out of Williams Lake exactly on schedule. Seizing my chance before the first round of questions were asked, I went to stand next to Sergio.
“Have you heard about this storm?”
“Of course I have.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, smearing peanut butter all over his wristwatch. “Why? Scared of a little rain, Crake?”
“We’re heading farther and farther into nowhere,” I pointed out. “Tomorrow we’re abandoning the highway altogether when we go to Barkerville, and if we get stuck in the mountains, there isn’t anyone out there to save us.”
“You have no faith,” Sergio scoffed. “I’ve been doing this for longer than you’ve been alive.”
“If we need to stay in Quesnel a few extra days, I—”
“What did I tell you, kid? Stop being such a misery. You’ll panic the guests.” He glanced at Grace Schatz in his rearview mirror. “And that isn’t the sort of storm I’ll be able to help you with.”
Resigned, I resumed the usual schedule. A happy, cheerful lowdown of what the day would look like, equally happy and cheerful replies to all questions, then a circulation of the coach. Another poem from William Pritchard. Another Bond reference from Jess and an apology from Emily. Nothing from Hera. Harassment from Doug that nearly caused me to lose my patience. A casual inquiry from Perle regarding my “talk” with Hera, and an onslaught of rather deep jokes from Robbie to make up for his wife’s oddities.
Returning to my seat was like falling into bed after a tiring day. There wasn’t much to look at—just the vast, steely skies and undulating hills. It was peaceful, though.
Well, except for the whine of sirens.
There shouldn’t have been anything strange about that. However, when I did a quick survey, I noticed we were the only vehicle on this expanse of roadway. When I went to the back of the bus, I realized with alarm that no fewer than three police cars were trailing us with their lights flashing.
“What’s going—” Grace began.
“Hang on,” I said with a smile that came out more as a grimace. “It’s probably just a misunderstanding.”
I waited for Sergio to stop. He didn’t. If anything, I felt we were picking up speed.
“Mr. Macari?” I probed, holding up a hand to silence another outburst from Grace. When he didn’t respond, I stepped closer and hissed, “Sergio! What are you playing at?”
He wiped his mouth again and ignored me. The speedometer rose. We hadn’t been speeding before, but now we certainly were.
The sirens kept wailing. The police kept on our tail, one of them gesturing in a universal movement for “pull over.”
“Sergio, listen to them!” I snapped, tempted to reach out and grab the wheel myself. “If you’re trying to get me into trouble, this is a really screwed up way of doing it. Pull over!”
He tapped the wheel with his thumb, whistling along to an imaginary song.
“Sergio!”
His eyes flicked to the rearview mirror again. Then, finally, he looked at me.
“What? Oh, sorry. Right. Pulling over.”
I stared at him in disbelief. Shaking my head, I turned to the guests.
“Sorry about that, everyone. I won’t be two minutes. Like I said, there must be a mistake or mix-up.”
“I thought I hid the body better,” Robbie said, quite loudly, to Perle. “Usually it takes them weeks to find it.”
She didn’t look amused.
A policeman had already gotten out of a cruiser, a severe man with bleached-blond hair and a moustache that resembled the bristles of an overused toothbrush. His partner remained behind, talking into an intercom, and one of the other cruisers circled around to park in front of our bus, completely cutting us off. I reached for my practiced collectedness.
“What seems to be—?”
“Officer Price,” he interrupted, cold and sharp as a razor. “Are you in charge of this tour?”
“Yes. I mean, I’m their guide.”
His partner strode up beside him. This man was bigger, bulkier, and bald. He didn’t introduce himself, instead glaring straight past me at the parked bus.
“We’re going to need to see some identification, sir.”
With a stab of fear I wondered where I’d left my work visa and my passport. Aside from my Golden Tours badge, what other formal ID did I have?
“I’ll have to—”
Officer Price ignored me again, walking around to the tail of the coach. “Your driver took a while to stop for us, sir. Any reason why?”
My smile grew strained. “I believe he was waiting for a safe space to pull over.”
Price frowned at the deserted expanse of highway behind us, the lines of his brow deepening. “Right. I’m going to need to check the inside of your vehicle.”
What was this, some kind of randomized drug bust? Sorry, officer, the blazing hippie bus is already in Quesnel. We’re the sweet little grannies and granddads.
There was no room in his tone for negotiation or refusal. So, swallowing, I nodded.
An audible gasp rippled through the bus when the officers—armed, to make things worse—climbed on board with me at their heels. With some satisfaction, I noted the surprise on both of their faces when they took in the demographics of the tourists.
Price bent to speak to Sergio. I may have been imagining it, but I could’ve sworn he faked a thick Italian accent when replying. Price gave up and turned to me again.
“Were these people with you the entire time? Nobody joined late?”
“No.”
“Is everyone accounted for?”
“Of course.” Automatically, I scanned the seats anyway. Then I did a double take.
Hera was gone.
Price paced up and down the aisle, ignoring the gaping of the guests. He didn’t seem satisfied. Passing by his partner, I heard him mutter, “It’s a dud, Jonesy. I told them it was a stretch.”
The other officer scowled at me until I broke eye contact. Then he nodded. “We’re wasting our time.”
Perturbed, I followed them outside again. Price scribbled in a notebook, then mumbled a quick succession of orders into his intercom. The two backup cruisers started up and drove off again.
“My apologies, sir. We had intel that a person of interest was on your coach, but . . . ” He snapped his notebook shut. “She is considerably younger than most of your guests. We would have known her if we’d seen her. Good day.”
“Wait,” I said before I could stop myself. “What’s her name? What has she done?”
Price’s jaw twitched. “Do you have any possible information?”
I hesitated, then shook my head.
“In which case, with all due respect, it is none of your business, sir.”
I watched them speed away with a strange feeling twisting in the pit of my stomach. Exhaling through my teeth, I returned to the bus.
Hera was in her seat again. Both earbuds were in, and she was examining a broken nail with far too much intensity than was natural.
“‘Social screwup,’” I quoted, seething. “Call me stupid, but I’m pretty sure ‘social screwups’ usually don’t end with three police cruisers tracking you down hundreds of kilometers from home.”
She pulled out the earbuds, blinking innocently. “Sorry, what was that?”
“You heard me. That was a lie last night, wasn’t it?” I noticed most of the bus gawping at me. “Sergio, get us out of here. Now, please.”
Taking the cue, he started up the engine and everyone pretended to resume their own conversations.
“You’re overreacting.” She rolled her eyes. “They never said they were here for me.”
“You hid from them,” I countered.
“No. I needed to go to the bathroom.”
“How convenient.”
She glared at me. I glared back.
“You have no evidence suggesting they were after me,” she snapped, darkening. “Are you going to start unravelling my alias too, Lewis? Report everything you find out back to Perle Deslumane so she can analyze it? Do a background check?”
“I’m on probation. If this tour turns into a disaster, then I’m the one who gets axed for it. If there’s anything illegal involved, then I could get kicked back to Australia.” I took a deep, steadying breath. “I could’ve told them you were hiding. You owe me the truth, Hera.”
Her hands were shaking. “I am telling the truth.”
I leaned away from her, frustrated. I was dealing with a different girl than yesterday, and weirdly enough, it was sending stabs of hurt through my gut. “I wish I could believe you.”
“You can trust me.”
I opened my mouth, but was cut off by a strange static sound emanating from her phone. Almost like . . .
“Hey!” she yelped, trying to snatch it back from me.
I bit back a curse. “You’re tuned into the police radio frequency? Seriously?”
“It’s . . . interesting,” she said lamely.
“Whatever you’ve done, just . . . ” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Please, just don’t let it interfere with the tour.”
I tossed the phone at her and left to sit beside someone, anyone else.
It was during a stop at roadside services that I decided to confront Sergio. Everyone else was either waiting on the coach or browsing the gas station convenience store, and he was standing by himself filling up at the pump. We were in the epitome of the middle of nowhere, surrounded by dark logging forests that sprawled for kilometers in all directions.
“What’s going on?” I asked bluntly.
“I’m getting gas so we don’t break down.”
“I’m not an idiot,” I said, stung by his sarcasm. “You deliberately didn’t stop for the cops. Were you giving Hera time to hide? Is that it?”
“The girl? I’ve never even spoken to her before. The altitude must be getting to your head.” He replaced the pump and faced me, black hair greasier than usual. “Now, I spoke to a colleague about that storm you brought up, and you may actually have a point. Things could get rough. My proposition is that we switch the Quesnel and Barkerville days, so we won’t be quite so isolated if and when it hits.”
I was so caught up in the recent police incident that it took my brain a minute to change tracks. “Go to Barkerville today? But all the plans . . . ”
Sergio waved his hand. “Forget the plans. You know your stuff, Crake, you don’t need another guide. Anyway, it’s that or risk getting cut off altogether.”
It was the
compliment that made me truly suspicious. “The hotels will need to be phoned. And Swierenga—is he all right with us switching the itinerary?”
“Sure, sure. So long as we bring everyone back happy, he won’t care what we do.” Sergio thumped my back and moved to the coach doors. “It’s only another hour’s drive.”
The air was hot and muggy, and in the west, a patch of cloud was darkening the otherwise clear sky. It wasn’t yet threatening enough to be of real worry . . . so why Sergio’s change in tune?
NOBODY OBJECTED TO THE CHANGE IN PLANS, except for the usual complainers. I expected the bed–and–breakfast bookings to be more of a challenge, considering we took up almost all available beds the town had to offer, but to my surprise, a slew of last-minute cancellations worked in our favor. In fact, on any other day, I’d have found much to enjoy about the town. It was maintained entirely for tourists, with nothing modern about it whatsoever. Entry was ticketed, cars were kept outside town boundaries, the roads were nothing more than compacted dirt, and all the “locals” were outfitted in costumes dragged straight out of the 1860s. More than Lillooet or Williams Lake, Barkerville really gave the impression of entering another time, to the extent that I felt like a time traveler when handling my phone.
No, it would’ve been great fun, had the earlier incident not given me a very, very bad feeling.
I considered trying to contact Swierenga. The thing was, I didn’t want to rat out Hera. But this was the test period of my job, and I understood how quickly things could go south if I lied to the police again. If I got my visa revoked . . . well, paying for the flight home would be the least of my worries.
Really, though, how bad can it be? You’re overacting. She probably didn’t pay a parking ticket, or shoplifted a pack of gum or something.
But Sergio was involved somehow; he had to be.
You’ve been spending too much time with the Deslumanes. This is real life, not some TV crime special.
Ignorance would have to be the key. If I didn’t know anything, I couldn’t be implicated. I couldn’t spend time alone with Hera again; I couldn’t keep searching for answers. Strangely enough, this only made me feel worse.
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