by Jen Blood
We were in an alley off to the side of everything, cool brick at my back. Juarez advanced on me, pressing me against the wall.
“I’m no closer to finding your father than I was when I first arrived in Black Falls,” he said. “And I don’t believe he has anything to do with this latest victim.” He pushed my hair back off my forehead, his body trapping mine, his eyes dark and unfathomable.
“But you won’t tell me who that victim was,” I persisted. “Will Rainier? Sarah Saucier?” I watched his face closely, but saw no sign that I was on the right track.
“Erin.” There was a definite edge to his voice.
“I know. Go with Diggs.”
“Please.” He kissed me slowly and very, very sweetly, his hand on my cheek. His body was warm against mine and I could feel my own responding despite the circumstances. After what was rapidly becoming an indecent display for passersby, he pulled back and looked at me seriously. “I’ll talk to you as soon as I can. The police will meet you in Montreal, but I don’t think you’ll have any trouble between here and there. Just stay on main roads, no detours. Call me on my cell or at this number if you have any problems.” He handed me a piece of paper with a couple of numbers written on it. “If you can’t reach me, you can speak with anyone at that second number. Just tell them who you are, and give them the code beside it when they ask about your emergency.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yes, Dad.”
He rolled his eyes right back at me. “As soon as I can tell you something, I will. For now, just stick with Diggs. Go back to Montreal. Be safe. And when this is over…” He kissed me again.
“When this is over, what?” I asked.
“When this is over, we’re taking a weekend,” he said. “Somewhere nice. And quiet. No dead bodies, no long-buried secrets.” He kissed me one more time. “Just you and me.”
“And Einstein,” I added.
“Right,” he agreed. He didn’t look as enthusiastic about that as I would have hoped. “You, me, the dog, and a romantic weekend away.”
I stood on my tiptoes and gave him one last peck on the lips. “I think that could be arranged.”
Chapter Twelve
As soon as we were back in Diggs’ Jeep with Juarez safely on his way, Diggs turned to me with waggling eyebrows and a devilish grin.
“So, ready to tear it up on Uncle Sam’s dime in lovely Montreal this evening?”
Clearly, he’d lost his mind. “Are you kidding—what kind of reporter are you? We’re going back to Black Falls.”
“Oh no we’re not,” Diggs said immediately. “J-Fed was very clear on that one—it’s Montreal or bust for you, young lady.” He put the Jeep in gear and headed out.
“You heard Jack: they’ve already got the guy. This is overkill. I just want to get back to Black Falls, pick up Einstein, and figure out what the hell’s going on.”
“And we can do that,” he agreed. “Tomorrow.”
“Dammit, Diggs.” Fury built like a storm cloud in my chest, quickly obliterating any good humor I might have had about the situation. “I’m going back to Black Falls—you can’t just abscond with me and dump me in Montreal.”
“It’s my Jeep, I can do whatever I damn well please.”
“Fine, then.” I waited until he’d stopped at a streetlight and hopped out of the car. I leaned in before he took off. “I’ll just rent a car. No problem. I’ll see you back in Black Falls tomorrow.”
I tossed my bag over my shoulder and headed off in the opposite direction. I’d already googled the nearest rental place on my phone and was working out the logistics of actually getting to it when I heard tires squeal and Diggs pulled up beside me.
“Get in the fucking car,” he said. He didn’t look amused.
“I’m not going to Montreal,” I said again. “You do whatever you want, but unless you’re planning on tying me up and gagging me, there’s no way I’m going anywhere but Black Falls tonight. Just go on without me, it’s no big deal.”
“No big…” He shook his head. He looked like he was about to blow a gasket. “Did you not hear what Juarez said? Have you been listening to me at all since we started on this thing?”
“I’ve heard both of you. And I appreciate the concern, don’t get me wrong,” I said evenly. “But I’m a grown woman. If I want to take chances, that’s my right. It’s my life, Diggs.”
A horn honked behind him. Diggs glanced back over his shoulder, then at me. His hands were clenched so tight around the wheel I expected his knuckles to pop clear through the skin.
“You don’t have to worry about it,” I said. “I told you—I’ll just rent a car.”
He sped ahead a few feet, found a place to pull over, and slammed the Jeep into park. I wasn’t sure about the wisdom of the whole tying-up-and-gagging comment; based on the look on his face, he was seriously considering it. I walked over to the passenger’s side door, but made no move to get in.
“You don’t have to get so pissed off about this,” I said. I was starting to get a little pissed off myself. “I can take care of myself. I’m not some helpless little fool who needs to be protected all the time.”
“Then stop acting like one!” Diggs shouted. People were staring at us. “I called Juarez the other day because I thought maybe he’d have better luck convincing you you’re not invincible, but you’re still picking fights with rednecks in bars and ghost hunting in the middle of the night. He’s right—the only way to keep you safe is to take you out of the equation completely.”
“I never asked anyone to keep me safe.”
“Right, I forgot. We should just let you go get yourself killed, then.”
“You should just let me do what I do, and stop freaking out about it. Now, if you don’t mind, I need to call a cab so I can get a car before it’s too late.”
I turned my back on him and started dialing. Ten seconds later, Diggs was in front of me with his eyes blazing.
“You’re driving me nuts—you know that, right?” he asked.
“I’m not all that crazy about you right now, either,” I said. “What happened to the man who’d do anything to get a story? Since when do you listen to the freaking Feds when they tell you to take a hike?”
He threw his hands in the air and walked away. He was talking to himself; more people were staring. I wished he’d just go already—I was more than happy to take off on my own. Hell, by that time I was looking forward to it. Instead, he came back around and took me by the arm.
“Get in the car.”
“Excuse me?”
“If you’re going to Black Falls, you’re not going alone. Get in.”
I looked at him suspiciously. “This isn’t a trick, right? You don’t have a bottle of chloroform and some shackles in that magic bag of yours?”
“Please.” He was quieter now. A little desperate. Very tired. “Just get in the Jeep.”
I got in the Jeep.
Just as we were heading out of Quebec City bound for Maine, I called Rosie for the third time that day to check on Einstein, and let her know we were on our way back. She told me for the third time that day that everything was fine, and we planned to rendezvous at her place as soon as Diggs and I hit town—even though that likely wouldn’t be before midnight. Rosie assured me she’d still be there with bells on, just waiting for Diggs to show his pretty face.
The sun was already low on the horizon by the time we were out of Quebec City for good, and well and truly on our way back to Maine. Diggs wasn’t speaking to me. I didn’t blame him, necessarily, but it didn’t make the trip any more pleasant. He was going through some kind of U2 retrospective phase; he’d programmed their entire playlist for the trek, from Boy all the way to No Line on the Horizon, including their live albums and a couple of bootlegs, which meant we basically had enough, music to carry us through all of New England and the better part of the eastern seaboard.
We were deep in Bono’s early ’80s bouffant days before Diggs finally spoke again. He nodded toward the bac
kseat. “Grab my bag, would you? I got something for you.”
“What is it?”
“Just grab it, Solomon. Jesus.”
I did as I was told, hauling the backpack into the front seat with me. “What am I looking for?”
“A manila folder—it should be in the front pocket.”
It wasn’t in the front pocket, or the second front pocket. “What, exactly, do you need all this shit for?” I asked. I dumped the contents onto my lap. “Survival knife, tape recorder, extra tape recorder, waterproof pens, waterproof matches, waterproof camera, waterproof bandages… Was there a flood warning I missed?”
“You can never be over-prepared—especially when I’m traveling with you. Check the back pocket, then.”
I did. “Eureka.” I opened the folder and started thumbing through about a dozen black-and-white, very dated photos of crowds in bars. “What am I looking for?”
He leaned toward me slightly, going back and forth between watching the road and checking the folder. I would have been alarmed with anyone else, but I’d been driving with Diggs since I was fifteen. Almost eighteen years, and we had yet to crash and burn. Going through the stack again, he stopped me at the third photo.
“Take a look at that one, would you? It was for a story they were doing on underage Americans coming across the border to get wasted. You might need the magnifying glass.”
Which he, of course, had. I took a good long look. It wasn’t until I reached the lower left corner that I realized why the photo was significant. I looked at the date stamp at the bottom: Sept. 26, 1970. The day before Jeff and Erin Lincoln’s boat was found on Eagle Lake.
“Where is this?” I asked.
“A bar in Quebec City,” he said.
I studied the blurred faces in the photo. There was no doubt—I’d been looking at old pictures of the same two boys ad nauseam for the past week. Hank Gendreau and Will Rainier, this time with another boy whose face was blocked from the camera. All three had beers in their hands, Will and Hank each grinning broadly.
“So, Hank and Will’s alibi holds up then,” I said, making no effort to hide my disappointment. “They really were in Quebec City.”
“Take a closer look,” he said.
I did, while he sped along at a racer’s clip and the sun set on the horizon. He had to give me another couple of clues before I finally figured out what he was talking about.
Around Hank Gendreau’s waist, plain as day once I actually looked for it, was a belt. Wide and leather, with a gaudy buckle whose insignia I couldn’t quite make out. I didn’t need to, though; I’d seen that belt before.
It was the same one found around Erin Lincoln’s neck just outside Eagle Lake two weeks later.
◊◊◊◊◊
“This blows their whole story to pieces,” I said. We’d gone nearly one hundred miles over the course of an hour and a half. The tension had lightened between us since our fight, but I knew we’d hardly reached a resolution. Juarez had called twice since we left; I hadn’t taken either call. In the meantime, I was still focused on Hank Gendreau and his snazzy incriminating belt.
“This is it. Hank Gendreau did it,” I said. “Will Rainier must have helped. I bet they worked together all those years.”
“Maybe,” Diggs said. He didn’t sound convinced.
“What? You don’t think so?”
“All the reasons Hank’s given for why we should believe he’s innocent actually do make sense—why would he ask for DNA testing? Why would he consent to psych test after psych test? Why would he get in touch with you?”
Rather than biting his head off, I took a few seconds to think about his questions. “Okay, so maybe he didn’t do it. Maybe it really was Rainier.”
“But then why would Hank blame your dad? Why go to all the trouble of getting you involved, unless he genuinely believed your father was to blame for killing Ashley?”
I’d been wondering the same thing, though I was loathe to admit it. Diggs turned off the highway onto Route 289. We were making good time, thanks to surprisingly light traffic for a Sunday night in August and what I suspected was Diggs’ conviction that the sooner he could get us back to Black Falls, the sooner he could just wash his hands of me entirely.
We’d been neck and neck with a family in a station wagon for close to an hour, two wild-eyed boys making faces every time we got close. Other than that, it was just a black pickup we’d been playing leap frog with for hours, the windows tinted and one headlight broken out.
The Edge was just kicking into the first strains of his solo in “One Tree Hill” and we were still a good two hours from Black Falls the third time Juarez called. Diggs glanced at me. “You could at least let the guy know you’re okay.”
I shook my head. “I will, I just want to make sure we’re close enough to Black Falls that he can’t have me arrested and held in some Quebec prison indefinitely. You think he knows by now that we didn’t go back to Montreal?”
“Probably.”
I felt a twinge of guilt when I thought of how intent Juarez had been about keeping me safe. “He’ll be all right. Once we get there, I can talk to him.”
“Right,” he agreed. “Bat your eyelashes and tell him whatever it is he wants to hear, then turn around and do whatever you damned well please all over again. It’ll be great.”
“If I’d told him I wasn’t going to Montreal, he would have…I don’t know, handcuffed me or something. This way, he doesn’t have to be culpable for whatever might happen, and I get to follow the story,” I said. “Everybody wins.”
“Yeah. Until you get one of us killed.”
I let that one slide. “Let’s just drop it, talk about something else. How’s Andie these days?”
He glared at me. I smirked at him. The moon shone overhead and the world flew by as Bono sang about that age-old conundrum, living with or without. The Jeep hurtled onward.
We hit the border crossing into Maine at just past ten that night. The guards were nice enough to me, but they seemed to view Diggs as an imminent threat to national security and all we Americans hold dear. After he was frisked and searched and his backpack thoroughly ransacked, they proceeded to do the same with the Jeep. They seemed genuinely disappointed when they didn’t find anything more suspicious than Diggs’ survival gear and a couple of specialty teas I’d picked up for Maya in Montreal.
It was eleven by the time we were cleared and on our way, with another forty-five minutes or so before we’d get back into Black Falls. We were deep into Rattle and Hum by then, but at least the tension had dissipated.
“I can drive the rest of the way if you want,” I offered. “I do have a license, you know.”
Diggs shook his head. “We’re almost there—I’m good. Besides, when have I ever let you drive this baby unless I was literally too incapacitated to see straight? You just lie back and rest that pretty head. You’ll need your wits about you when you have to face the Fed this time.”
“He’ll be fine.” I leaned back in the seat and yawned. “Don’t forget we have to stop for Einstein before we go back to the motel.”
“Got it.”
I was just drifting off when Diggs swore under his breath and the Jeep shimmied on the road. I opened my eyes.
“Problem?”
“Just the idiot behind us,” he said.
The family in the station wagon was long gone. I’d seen the pickup with the busted headlight waved through the border crossing well before us, but suddenly a vehicle very much like it was behind us again. He had his high beams on, riding our bumper despite the fact that there wasn’t another soul on the road in any direction. A dull edge of fear cut through that bulletproof fantasy Diggs had been bitching about for so long now.
“Is that the same guy we’ve been traveling with since Quebec?” I asked.
Judging by the tension in Diggs’ jaw, he’d noticed, too. “Call Juarez.”
I didn’t argue. The truck behind us had eased off a little by the time Juarez pic
ked up, but he was still traveling too close, his headlights blinding in the rearview mirror.
“Where the hell are you?” Juarez asked as soon as he picked up the phone.
“On our way back,” I said. The connection between us was bad, and the truck on our ass was picking up speed again. I cut to the chase. “We’re about half an hour outside Black Falls,” I said. “There’s a truck—”
“Solomon!” Diggs yelled. He put his arm in front of me to keep me from hitting the dash as the jackass behind us suddenly stomped on the gas. Metal hit metal with a bone-jarring crunch and we shot forward, swerving dangerously close to the curb.
“Erin? Tell me where you are.” Jack’s voice faded in and out, but there was no mistaking his urgency.
I looked at Diggs. “Where are we?”
“Smugglers Road,” he shouted. Both hands were tight on the steering wheel. The truck had backed off again, giving us some space. Playing with us.
“Smugglers Road,” I said to Juarez. I had to repeat it twice, then lost the connection before I was sure he’d heard me.
Just after the call got dropped, the pickup shot out ahead of us again. It roared past and then continued on the wrong side of the road with its red taillights blazing in the darkness until, eventually, it faded into the horizon.
“What the fuck was that?” Diggs asked. “Call Juarez again.”
I checked my phone. “There’s no reception out here. I’ll have to wait. Where the hell is Smugglers Road?”
“It’s a short cut,” he said reluctantly. “Rosie told me about it yesterday; I just added it to the map then.”
“How far do we have to go before we get back to civilization?”
“Just another ten miles or so and we’re back on the road that’ll bring us into Black Falls.”
I dug the map out of the glove compartment. When the turnoff was in sight, Diggs started to slow down. He was getting ready to make the turn when I realized we were headed straight for a truck parked in the middle of the road, its headlights off. I screamed just as the truck’s high beams came on and it barreled toward us, engine roaring. Diggs had no alternative but to swerve and either stop entirely or continue along Smugglers Road. I clung to the edge of my seat as he chose to swerve, narrowly missing the truck, and adjusted his course. We continued along Smugglers Road, the roar of the pickup close on our tailpipe as it followed behind.