by Lia Riley
After Dad split and moved back to Brightwater to start his own business, Quinn saw him for Christmas when he came and escorted her on their yearly trip to Disneyland and over summers during the hedonistic Julys she spent in Brightwater.
“How is your daddy doing?” Wanda didn’t add “the poor thing” to the end of her sentence but it hung there unspoken like an invisible haze of sympathy.
Quinn automatically clasped the thin silver chain around her neck, the one with the bee charm she hadn’t taken off since her thirteenth birthday. When you are in your early twenties, mortality should seem like a concept to be saved for the far distant future. And so it had been until her father got sick. First came the little signs. They’d be having their usual Sunday night phone catch up and everything would be going along merrily. Well, at least normal. Dad wasn’t a talker, more the strong silent type.
No big surprise why Mom went blue-collar. He had those old-fashioned Western movie star looks, all craggy features and a stare that swung to the horizon. He spoke easily enough about the weather, the Giants, how the 49ers were doing, and that was about it.
But these short, predictable, and fine, sometimes forced conversations began to turn into slow rambles where he’d introduce topics that didn’t quite make sense. A story about a missing dog without a resolution. Or forgetting his pet name for her, Bizzy, a play on busy bee because she was always up to something.
A few sober hospital trips confirmed a diagnosis that Quinn couldn’t help him with, no matter how much she wanted to. Early-onset Alzheimer’s, which affects people under sixty-five, was rare but not unheard of.
As life fell apart in SoCal, she knew what she had to do. Move to Brightwater and be closer to Dad. His condition rapidly deteriorated to where he wasn’t able to live on his own anymore but Quinn visited his assisted living facility every morning for breakfast and every night after work.
“Dad’s good—he’s on a new medication,” she blurted after realizing Wanda still waited for an answer. The medication wasn’t doing much to slow the rapidly advancing symptoms, but one could hope.
When faced with an incurable situation it was either hope or fall apart. And falling apart wasn’t an option when you were an only child, your mom was on lucky husband number seven, and your dad had been a perpetual bachelor.
There was no one else to count on. So she sold his house and hoped the selling price would be enough to keep him at Mountain View Village.
“I’m bringing over Caddyshack tonight. He loves Bill Murray.” Funny how the brain worked. Dad often woke not knowing where he was, but could quote lines verbatim from random eighties movies. Not funny, actually. Terrifying. And with her own predictive test for early-onset familial Alzheimer’s disease set for Friday, the last few months of agonizing doubt would be laid to rest. The genetic genie would be let out of the bottle to predict her future, good or bad.
“He was a good guy, your dad.” Wanda heaved a heavy sigh while reorganizing the pens on the counter. “Did you know that he used to come around and clean out my gutters every October after my Raymond passed away?”
Wanda wasn’t the only one who sang Dad’s praises. Kind. Quiet but earnest. Always ready to lend a helping hand and needing little in the way of thanks. He was one of the good ones.
Crap, now even she was thinking of Dad in the past tense.
Not was, is.
Why do bad things always happen to the good ones? It wasn’t fair.
Tears prickled and she blinked, willing them into submission.
“Tell him I said hello,” Wanda said kindly, turning away to give Quinn the privacy to wipe her eyes.
Quinn bit back the reply that Wanda could always visit him herself but that wasn’t fair. A lot of people couldn’t bear to see Dad at the facility, as if personal tragedy was contagious. Instead they offered her sympathetic smiles and kind words. Everyone meant well, could do nothing, and she tried to bear it.
At least if her turn came, no one would have to carry the load.
Her cell played the tune “Defying Gravity” from the musical Wicked. “Excuse me,” she said to Wanda, passing over W. Kane’s package. “Can you please pop this box in the mail? I should take the call.”
Her phone didn’t ring much these days. Old friends fell away after she was fired. Guess they weren’t such good pals after she lost her professional connections and VIP passes. Good riddance. They’d have never stuck around if the test confirmed that she . . . if she . . .
Just wait and see what will happen.
She answered the phone with a forceful “Hello?”
“Quinn? Is that you? Thank goodness you picked up.” The frazzled female voice sounded vaguely familiar. “This is Denise over at Mountain View Village.”
Quinn’s blood chilled. The facility Dad was at.
“What’s happened?”
“Your father. He’s gone missing.”
“Excuse me?”
“Well, as you know, he’s taken to wandering of late and today we had him off the unit for a routine physical. Another resident fell in the waiting room, diverting the nurse’s attention. We have reason to believe that he left the facility during the ensuing chaos.”
Quinn’s hand flew to her mouth as her stomach dropped. “What?”
“I’m so sorry.” Denise spoke fast. “Nothing like this has ever happened here before. Your father is so young and all, the new front desk girl didn’t suspect a thing when he walked on by.”
“Have you called the police yet?”
“I’m just about to but wanted you to be notified first.”
“Never mind. Let me handle this. I’m right across the street from the sheriff’s office now.” She’d manage the disaster personally. “Please arrange a search party, the weather is bad and getting worse by the minute.” Her voice held a shrill, almost hysterical note. Who cared? Dad was lost, possibly hurt.
“I know. I know.” Denise sounded on the verge of tears herself. Not reassuring. Quinn needed to believe that her father would be found. That nothing bad would happen to him.
Wanda leaned across the counter, her broad face puckered with concern. “Is everything okay?”
“No,” Quinn snapped, for once admitting the truth as she tore to the door. “Not by a long shot.”
She pushed outside and gasped. The temperature had dropped at least ten degrees in the last few minutes and the gale-force gusts pushed her back against the building. A tear froze to her cheek.
Dad was outside wandering alone in these conditions? What would happen to him?
Chapter Three
WILDER WALKED AGAINST the wind, head down, jaw clenched. The new rhythm defined each impatient step. Cane. Foot. Foot. Cane. Foot. Foot. Cane. Foot. Foot.
The doctor said that if he persisted with his regime of ambulatory and endurance exercises eventually he could say sayonara to the cane, but adjusting to a prosthetic took time. “The good news is that the amputation occurred below the knee, saving you a great deal of mobility.” The doctor had grinned as if he’d dished up a plate of good news, like losing your leg in a freak parachute accident, having your career go up in flames, and returning to the town you had long fled was cause for fucking optimism.
“Hey, at least you’re alive,” Archer had muttered midway through the silent flight from Montana.
Wilder hadn’t replied—couldn’t find the right words. The only people capable of looking on the bright side were those who still saw the light.
These days, Archer had it pretty damn good. He ran Hidden Rock Ranch, lived in the big house with his pretty fiancée, Edie, and together they took care of Grandma Kane who struggled with mobility issues after breaking her hip mid-summer. In his own, more understated way, his other brother, Sawyer, appeared just as content. He served as Brightwater’s sheriff and settled into a comfortable life in his hand-buil
t cabin with his old flame, Annie Carson, helping to raise her young son. Family life suited him and it was only a matter of time before either of the two guys tied the knot.
Wilder didn’t begrudge his brothers a single ounce of their hard-won happiness. How could he when he single-handedly destroyed their childhood? Wilder swiped the snow from his face. Almost home.
Home.
He couldn’t restrain a snort. Returning to Brightwater had come with one non-negotiable condition: His brothers must let him live alone. They agreed with a caveat of their own, saying if that was the case, he needed to stick with physical therapy, get out and about. Figure out a plan. A new career.
Easy for them to say with their loves and lives.
All Wilder had was a cane and ghosts.
A deer stumbled up the ravine wall, sending down a small cascade of snow and soil. It was going to be a hard winter. All the old-timer signs pointed to it; squirrels were busy, leaves fell late, halos kept appearing around the moon. He could pick up some cracked corn from Higsby Hardware to help supplement the deers’ diet, but it might not make a difference. The wind keened, seemed to carry his mother’s voice, her oft-repeated refrain, “No act of kindness, however small, is ever wasted.”
His next step was a stumble.
Forget about the deer. Focus on not face-planting.
He purchased a small cabin near Castle Falls for a song. Even with property prices booming in the Brightwater Valley, the fastest growing real-estate market west of the Rockies, Castle Falls was steeped in long-time fear and superstition. Stories went around about the gulch, whispers suggested that the place was haunted. Cursed. People kept their distance.
It was a perfect place to become a hermit.
“Why, this old place does have a certain charm, what with these cobblestone walls and, look, the floorboards are genuine redwood planks.” Edie Banks, Archer’s fiancée, had announced during his move-in day. “They don’t build houses with this type of craftsmanship anymore.”
Archer had managed to hold his tongue for once and Wilder knew why. Edie might look at the cabin through rose-colored glasses, but this faded hovel held all the cheer of a mausoleum, and that’s exactly what it would be—a tomb for Wilder to bury away any future hope or ambitions. He’d kidded himself into thinking Montana would be a fresh start.
Brightwater was his penance.
The wind picked up in ferocity, tossing him forward. The stick, cane, or whatever, broke through a puddle. Thin frost sheened the surface, ice that hadn’t been there an hour ago. Sawyer had given him the simple hand-carved oak walking stick as a welcome-home gift, replacing the one better suited for a man three times his age. “A cane for a Kane,” he’d said, his mouth quirking even as his eyes stayed serious.
All the Kanes shared the same bright green eyes, but Sawyer’s gaze searched out your soul. A useful skill in law enforcement.
Too bad Wilder didn’t have one.
He peered through the snow. Someone hunched in front of the mailbox at the end of his driveway. Maybe his latest book order had come in.
No. He wiped his eyes clear. This wasn’t Fred, the local postman. The guy was middle-aged, dressed in a pair of grey and green camo pants and a tucked-in plaid shirt, the same kind a lumberjack might wear. Red and black, thick wool, but in this weather the guy must be freezing his ass off.
What reason in hell did he have for poking around in his mailbox?
“Can I help you?” Even with the wind, his words carried. Wilder knew how to project his voice, had years of practice yelling out commands over the noise of the jump plane or a fire’s roar. A skill he wouldn’t need anymore.
Can’t be a smoke jumper without a leg.
The stranger didn’t hear him though. Or ignored him. Wilder tried to pick up his pace but shit, he couldn’t move quick.
“Hey!” Wilder shouted as he approached. “Hey, you there.”
Nothing.
A chill shot down Wilder’s spine that had nothing to do with the windchill or snow. Something wasn’t right.
He settled a hand on the man’s wide shoulder and the guy half-turned. Black hair hung over his forehead and he had a trimmed mustache. The guy was big. Not as big as Wilder but also vaguely familiar. He knew the face but couldn’t place the name. He’d been out of Brightwater for over a decade but could still recognize a local.
The gaze was what got him, staring into space, eyes slightly unfocused, even as his cheeks were bone white and slack lips almost bloodless. His pants were streaked with moss and his tennis shoes were mud-caked. Wilder turned and picked out a few faint footprints leading to the hill across the street. Castle Falls was below the main part of town. Where’d he come from? The silent stranger wasn’t out on a random pleasure stroll. The bluffs were steep, riddled with small cliffs and dense prickly blackberry thickets.
The man mumbled a few words, tapping his fingers against his chest in an erratic pattern. There was something wrong with him, cognitively speaking.
“Come on then,” Wilder said gruffly. He didn’t want company but he’d be damned if he’d leave a confused man alone on a night like this.
SAWYER KANE, BRIGHTWATER’S sheriff, hung up the phone and stood, hooking a hand over the back of his neck. “Well, that’s the shortest unsolved mystery in Brightwater’s history.”
Quinn’s shoulders slumped in relief. She’d only been in the sheriff’s office a few minutes but panic had clawed her insides to shreds. “Someone found him?”
A troubled look passed over Sawyer’s ruggedly handsome features, gone so fast Quinn wasn’t sure it had ever been there at all. “My brother of all people. Your dad was cold and confused, but he’ll be okay.”
“Archer found him up by Hidden Rock Ranch? But that’s miles away.”
“No.” Sawyer took off his hat and tossed it on the edge of his desk. “My other brother, Wilder. He’s recently back in town, been living in Montana for years.”
“Must be great having more family close,” Quinn said, distractedly. “If I could just get his address, I’ll get out of your hair and—”
“You sit tight,” Sawyer said, grabbing his jacket. “I can collect him just fine.”
“No, no.” She jumped to her feet. “It’s no trouble, I’m anxious to see him.”
There was that mystifying look again. “My brother isn’t great with strangers.”
“Oh.” Quinn didn’t know how to process that information, but there wasn’t time to ponder. “I won’t stay long. In and out. I’ll grab Dad and hit the road, keep ahead of the blizzard. I need to figure out what happened at his facility. This situation can’t be repeated.”
Sawyer hesitated and she froze, feeling scrutinized—but why? Whatever the reason, the sheriff gave an almost imperceptible nod, coming to some private decision. “You know what? You’re right. You should go. My brother is gruff but he’s a good guy deep down.”
“I’m sure he’s wonderful.”
Sawyer cocked a brow and jotted something on a notepad, tearing it off to hand to her. “Here’s his address. It’s not far.”
She swallowed a gasp. “Castle Falls Lane?”
Wilder Kane. The great and mysterious W. Kane.
A lick of heat shot up her spine. Too bad she hadn’t solved the mystery under better circumstances, but still. At last she’d made a definitive crack in the case of W. Kane and his eclectic book selections, so many titles that were her own personal favorites.
She left the sheriff’s office and strode to her parking spot behind A Novel Experience. Her stomach muscles gave an aching twinge as the silver Tacoma pickup came into view. This had been her dad’s truck, his baby. She remembered sitting in his front yard during warm Brightwater summer days, sinking her fingers into the lush grass, tilting her face to meet the sun’s kiss as cool air blew down from the mountai
ns while he waxed and washed it in the driveway.
These days, he didn’t even remember that he owned a truck.
She started the engine and it sprang to life despite the temperatures. After this storm passed, she’d take Dad for a drive along the country back roads. Let him listen to all his classic rock favorites without a single eye roll. Heck, she’d even sing along.
Right after she raised holy hell with his facility. How could Mountain View have been so careless as to allow him to escape and wander? Yes, he was around twenty or thirty years younger than the average resident but still.
Thank God, Wilder Kane found him.
At the town outskirts she turned left and then hooked a hard right past the crooked road sign that said “Castle Falls Lane.” She had never come down this way. Once she’d asked Dad about it because she wanted to see a waterfall so close to town, but Dad shook his head with a vague, “Not today, honey.”
Or any day, it turned out. No one ever went to Castle Falls and eventually she sort of forgot about the place. There were so many other things to do while visiting Dad: four-wheeling, going for long day hikes in the John Muir Wilderness, or trout fishing. Activities that would never occur to Mom to do in five squillion billion years.
Things Quinn loved.
The truck radio started playing “White Christmas” and she hummed over the potholes. She loved musicals and adored Christmas. The holidays would be bittersweet this year but no shame in clinging to the simple comforts of the season.
“401 . . .” She peered at what appeared to be a rusted trailer. “403” was a burned out foundation surrounded by thorns. “Cheese and rice,” she mumbled. Brightwater was such a cute, charming old Western town. Castle Falls Lane was like a dark and dirty secret.
405. There was a black mailbox and a long winding driveway enclosed in a dark tunnel of pines. Ominous. She swallowed but her throat remained thick.
“Stop being silly.” There was nothing creepy here. Just the textbook definition of a dark and stormy night, the clichéd backdrop triggering her subconscious.