Alone in the Wild

by Kelley Armstrong

  “No, he had the sense to turn that away from me. But, like I said, world’s worst cat burglar. He might have found new clothes and tied a scarf around his face, but he still wore the boots he had the council ship up.”

  That was one concession the council made, likely to counter Phil’s sense that he’d been exiled here. What? No, that’d be illegal. You’re being held there as an emergency measure to fill an essential position, for which you will be well compensated. I know it was unexpected, so just tell us what you need from your condo.

  Phil’s winter wear was what you’d expect from a Toronto exec whose subzero excursions were limited to the half-kilometer walk between his condo and the subway station. Phil has never confirmed his actual city of origin, but I’d lay serious money on Toronto. He has that New York Lite vibe. His boots are definitely not the bulky, rubber-soled footwear that keeps us warm and upright out here.

  “What the hell is he up to?” Dalton mutters. He looks at Anders. “You okay watching the baby for an hour or so?”

  “If I get a spiked coffee and one of those cookies.”

  “One coffee,” I say. “And don’t go inviting all your friends over for a party as soon as we leave.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  Dalton pounds on Phil’s door. He has to do it twice before Phil pulls it open, robe tied over his bare chest and sweatpants, feet equally bare, one hand holding his glasses as he blinks at us, as if bleary-eyed with sleep.

  “Eric? Casey?” He lifts his wrist to check the time, and blinks again, as if struggling to process the fact that he’s not wearing his watch.

  Phil may be a shitty cat burglar, but his acting skills aren’t half bad, if a little community theater.

  “Why were you at Casey’s old place tonight?” Dalton asks.

  “What? When? I haven’t been out since dinner.”

  “No?”

  Phil finds the expression he wants, somewhere between annoyance and condescension. “No, Sheriff. I don’t socialize in the evenings.”

  “Just the afternoons,” I murmur, and his cheeks color at that. He opens his mouth, but I cut him off with, “So you haven’t been out in the last few hours?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  Dalton steps forward, and Phil backs up with a snarky, “Please come in. Two A.M. is a perfectly fine time for a visit.”

  “It’s not even midnight,” Dalton says.

  I ease by them and lift one of Phil’s boots from the mat. It’s still caked with snow.

  “You thought you could put that one past a fucking detective?” Dalton says, pointing at the boot.

  “I meant that I hadn’t been out and walking around. Not that I hadn’t stepped beyond my door. One of the shutters was banging. I couldn’t see anything, though I’d like Kenny to check in the morning. I’m sure I heard a clatter.”

  “On the rooftop maybe?” I say. “Santa making a practice run?”

  I get a cool look for that. Then his lips purse. “Are you saying someone was at the house where you’re keeping Maryanne? Perhaps that’s what I heard—someone went to the wrong perimeter house searching for her.”

  I’m about to call his bluff. Then I reconsider and nod. “Someone who spotted her when I brought her in. They got curious and snuck in for a closer look.”

  “Perhaps, but I wouldn’t be so quick to write off a potential threat as mere curiosity.”

  “Threat?”

  “She’s a hostile. She makes people nervous. Remember how they tried to lynch Oliver Brady. If they know you have a hostile here, they might decide to do something about that.”

  “Most residents don’t even know what hostiles are,” Dalton says. “Hell, they see Tyrone Cypher and think that’s what I mean. And Ty’s in town tonight, so if they decide to form another mob, they’ll just go after him. Which is fine. He can look after himself. Give his rusty occupational skills a workout.”

  “Tyrone Cypher has no legal authority here.”

  “I don’t mean his skills as a former sheriff. I mean from when he was a hit man.”

  Phil looks at Dalton. “I realize I’m still relatively new, but I believe we may dispense with the hazing jokes. Whatever Rockton’s issues, the council would not put a killer on the police force.”

  “Uh…” I say. “I know you’ve read my file.”

  “You’re an exception.” He pauses. “Like Deputy Anders.”

  “Given the track record of Rockton law enforcement, I suspect ‘killing someone in cold blood’ is actually a prerequisite. Except for Eric. Eric’s special.”

  “In so many ways,” Phil murmurs under his breath. “My point—”

  “Your point was that you think Maryanne is in danger,” Dalton says. “And it’s interesting that you jump to that rather than the more mundane explanation of a bored resident. Also interesting considering you’re the person who was trying to break into her house. Ever been diagnosed with multiple personalities?”

  “Don’t give him any ideas,” I say.

  “I wasn’t. Dissociative identity disorder is exceptionally rare and experts disagree on whether it exists at all.” Dalton catches my look. “We had a resident who said she had it. So I did my research. She was wrong. Had a helluva time convincing her of that, though.”

  “Cultists, psychopaths, multiple personalities, hit men … Is there anyone you haven’t had here? Oh, wait. No zombies. At least not yet, right?”

  “Actually…”

  I arch my brows.

  Dalton says, “Well, he wasn’t really a zombie. But he hated it here. Wanted to go home before his two years were up. He was looking for a loophole, and he knew we can’t handle residents with serious mental illnesses. Seems he’d seen a TV special raising money for…” His eyes roll up, accessing his files. “Collard’s syndrome? Cotard’s delusion? Something like that. Anyway, it’s a real illness where people think they’re dead and rotting. He faked that. I convinced him he was wrong, which was much easier than convincing the multiple-personality lady.”

  “Do I dare ask what you did?”

  He shrugs. “We can’t have rotting residents. That’s unsanitary. So I dug a hole, cuffed him, and tossed him in.”

  “Whereupon he had a miraculous recovery.”

  “I’m a man of many talents. Especially when it comes to sniffing out bullshit.” He turns to Phil. “You don’t have dissociative identity disorder. And you’re not a zombie. But you were spotted trying to break into Casey’s old place tonight.”

  “No, I was not. If someone was, then I would suggest you reconsider Maryanne’s stay in Rockton.”

  I eye him. “Would you?”

  “Yes. Personally, I have no problem with it, and neither does the council. But, if she’s in danger, then I would suggest you give her supplies and turn her out.”

  “In the middle of the night?”

  He hesitates.

  “How about first thing in the morning?” I say. “Before dawn.”

  Phil nods. “That should be acceptable.”

  “Really?” Dalton says. “’Cause if you’re worried about a resident attacking her, that would happen at night.”

  I hold up a hand against Phil’s protest. “You’re not half bad at this game, Phil. However, the next time you decide to play dress-up, I’d suggest changing your boots. They’re very recognizable. Let’s go sit down and chat, shall we?”

  When he doesn’t answer, Dalton and I pull off our outerwear and proceed into the living room.

  Phil lowers himself to the sofa. “I don’t see the point of this. Someone spotted a resident attempting to break into your old house, and that resident mistakenly identified my boots.”

  I sigh. “I just took off my stuff. Please don’t make me go outside and find the fresh trail you made through the forest to my old house.”

  He goes still.

  “It’s winter,” Dalton says. “You walked through snow and made a trail that we don’t need Storm to follow. Now, if you need us to prove this, I’ll go
out myself while Casey warms up, but if I find that trail, you’ve just undone every iota of goodwill you might have built since you got here. Trust is—”

  “Fine,” Phil says. “It was me. I was curious about Maryanne, and I will admit I went about it the wrong way.”

  “Yeah, no,” Dalton says. “You weren’t sneaking in the back door to watch her while she sleeps.”

  “You weren’t actually trying to break in at all,” I say. “You knew that door would be locked. You stepped out from behind a tree right when Will passed by. You waited for him, so he’d see you try breaking in. You wanted us to think Maryanne was in danger. You want us to get her out of here before dawn. Why?”

  I think I know the answer, but I’m still smarting from my mistake with the hostiles, and so I will hold back here.

  “I … I just feel it’s unsafe,” Phil says. “Volatile elements and all that. It seems unwise. I wanted to alert you to the possibility of trouble.”

  Dalton leans back on the sofa. “Well, then, next time, just come and tell us. We’re the local law. We’ll decide whether there’s a credible threat. I say there isn’t, so Maryanne stays. In fact, I’m going to encourage her to stick around an extra day and night. Casey and I have a baby’s family to locate, and Maryanne really should get more medical treatment—”

  “No,” Phil says. “I’m sorry, but we are not a rehabilitation facility. We can provide emergency aid, and of course we aren’t going to send her into the wilderness without supplies, but she must go by dawn.”

  “Why don’t we ask the council about that?” Dalton says. “Dawn is midmorning. We’ll call them at nine and relay your concerns—”

  “No, you can’t…”

  When Phil trails off, Dalton leans forward. “Can’t what? Can’t tell them that you spoke to us about this? You’ve dug yourself into a hole here, and you’re still grasping at roots, trying to yank yourself out. But you’re grabbing the ones that are going to snap and send you falling back into that hole with a busted leg. Slow down and think.”

  Phil does. Then his lips form an unspoken curse.

  “Yeah,” Dalton says. “You just advised us to get Maryanne out, and even if we do that, there’s nothing to stop us from innocently mentioning it when we talk to the council next. Telling them that you insisted.”

  “The council didn’t say they were fine with having Maryanne here, did they?” I say, finally working up the courage to voice the suspicions Dalton is obviously suggesting. “They’re the threat, not random residents.”

  Phil’s mouth opens. Then he thinks better of whatever he’d been about to say and withdraws.

  I push on. “You dressed up and pretended to try breaking into Maryanne’s place in hopes we’d worry and shuffle her out before … before what?”

  He still doesn’t speak. He’s not denying it either, though.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Dalton says. “Would charades help? You act out the situation, and we can guess what the problem is?”

  Phil glowers … and says nothing.

  “He wants us to guess,” I say. “By now, Phil, you’ve realized that there are a lot of little moments during your stay here when you make a decision that sets your feet on a certain path. Like those old Choose Your Own Adventure books. Constant choices, and for some there’s no turning back. This is one of those forks. If the council told you to do something about Maryanne, and you did, that would be your quicksand fate. There’s no convincing us later that you were still on our side. Instead, you warned us. That’s another of those paths, because if the council finds out, you’ve walked into more quicksand. Now you’re into the smaller choices. They’re subtler. They’re you choosing where you’re going to stand on that line between the two sides. If you decide to stop here, I understand.”

  Dalton grumbles under his breath.

  I shoot him a look. “The main thing is that we’ve been warned. Of course we want more. But I understand the position you’re in and the dangers of telling us more. I also hope that you understand, Phil, that by not telling us more, you leave us to imagine the worst. I do believe some elements of the council are working toward our common goal. But some of them are very clearly not.”

  He’s quiet for another few moments. Then he says, “What if I don’t necessarily agree? If I believe the council is indeed acting in Rockton’s best interests, but that they overestimate the danger and…”

  He trails off, and we wait. When he speaks again, his tone is slow, measured. “Being in Rockton, my vantage point has changed, yet I still try to balance the needs of the individuals with the needs of the whole. Ultimately, any choice must favor the whole—keeping Rockton safe and self-sufficient. However, living here, I think you two sometimes fail to see the larger picture.”

  “That if the town loses money, we shut down?” Dalton says. “Fuck no, we don’t see that at all. That shit grows on trees, doesn’t it?”

  “Rockton isn’t a nonprofit,” I say. “No one expects that. We do think it should be a not-for-profit, though.”

  “This isn’t the time for that discussion,” Phil says. “My original point wasn’t financial. By big picture, I mean security as well. We make choices to protect the whole. You both do, and the council does, and some of them are choices you’d rather not make. The difference is…”

  Phil searches for something and then blurts, “Zombies.”

  I lift my brows.

  He continues. “Let’s say one person in your city becomes a zombie. There’s a chance of treating her, but an even greater chance that she’ll infect others and it’ll spread. The obvious solution is to kill her. But what if this zombie is Casey? That will affect your decision. Likewise, living here, you can never be completely unbiased. Imagine you have a resident who is at high risk of going south and telling the world about Rockton. Imagine she’s also a friend. If you fear the council might take drastic measures to stop her, will you inform them? What if you don’t and she tells her story to the world, and Rockton ceases to exist? She lives and others don’t because there’s no Rockton to escape to?”

  “Fine,” Dalton says. “You’re saying we might not be the best judge of threats because we live among the residents as individuals. Not arguing. But Maryanne isn’t going to lose her mind, revert to being a hostile, and start murdering residents.”

  “Does the council know that? I am trusting your judgment, but I also see their point of view. They asked—” He takes a deep breath. “They ordered me to bring her to Dawson City. After you two left pursuing the baby’s parents, I was to sedate her and enlist the help of residents who have a working relationship with the council.”

  “So the council planned to take Maryanne,” I say. “And then what?”

  “Get her appropriate medical and psychological treatment. I believe them when they say that. However, it’s still removing her against her will. Also, I know you’ve taken an interest in the hostiles, Casey, and having lived here, I fully support any research that might eventually lead to the end of that particular threat. However, if I challenge the council, they’ll recall me, fire me, and replace me.”

  “But you want to be recalled,” I say.

  “If I stay a year, I earn a quarter million on top of my salary. If I defy them, I might as well tell future employers that I spent the last eight years in Tibet with monks. That’s lovely for personal growth, but on Bay Street, no one cares about your self-actualization.”

  He looks at us. “I’m never going to see the beauty of the north and fall in love. However, I am committed to Rockton for my own reasons. I can be an ally, but I need your protection in return.”

  “In other words, this meeting never happened,” I say. “We get Maryanne out before dawn, so you can say we left with her before you could.”

  He shakes his head. “What you do with Maryanne is your own concern. However, come morning, you must report to me that she’s left of her own accord, and you have no idea where she went. You cannot track her because you have a lead on t
he baby’s parents, which is your priority.” He pauses. “I trust that Tyrone Cypher’s presence here means you have a lead?”

  “We do.”

  “Then follow it.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  We veer past the place we gave Cypher for the night, in case we can talk to him now and save a step in the morning. But there are signs he’s not alone. I stick a note under the door warning we’ll return at six.

  Back home, I update Anders while Dalton changes and feeds Abby. We set the alarm for five, which gives us four hours of sleep. Abby allows us almost that much, rising at four thirty, and I’ll forgive her for that.

  After breakfast, I take Abby so I can talk to Cypher while Dalton takes Storm to the storerooms, where he’ll pack supplies for Maryanne.

  When I rap on Cypher’s door, it takes a while for it to open, and then Jen’s there with her foot on the note.

  “It’s five in the fucking morning,” she says.

  “Five forty-five. And that note you’re standing on says we’ll be by at six, so I can come back in fifteen minutes if it makes a difference.”

  She lets out a string of profanity. I wait it out.

  She glances at the bedroom. “You taking him?”

  “Undetermined. However, I do need to give you this little one.” I gesture at Abby, tucked under my jacket. “But, like I said, I can give you fifteen minutes.”

  She eyes that direction again, and I hear Cypher rising with a bleary, “Jennifer?” Then a few profanities of his own, in obvious disappointment at finding himself alone.

  “Make it twenty,” she says.

  I leave just as Dalton passes with Storm. I tell him I’ll swing by my old house and wake Maryanne.

  Once she’s up, I tell her there’s some concern over the council’s interest in her, and we’re not overly worried, but it seems wise to head out before dawn. She decides on another shower as I make breakfast, and I ask if there’s anything in particular she’d like us to pack, after I run through the list of what we have.

  “I do have one request that you probably can’t fill,” she says. “I know you said there are books at the cave, and I see you’re grabbing some more for me but … I don’t suppose there are any reading glasses. I had laser surgery before I came to Rockton.”