A shot rang out and splinters flew from the trestle hanging over the back yard. A third officer swept his rifle crosswise, trying to draw a bead on the blur of a figure. He didn’t see the kick nor the heel that punched his thigh so hard it almost snapped the femur.
At the initial implosion of the front door, Amy thought it was the wolves. They had tracked them both down and laid siege to the house to destroy them after all. It wasn’t until she saw Lara catapult through the air to plant a devastating kick to a man in black armor that she realized it wasn’t the wolves at all. Assault cops, armed to the teeth. Lara stood over the downed officer, as if exultant, and when Amy saw a fourth agent level his rifle for a shot, she tackled Lara to the ground. The shot cracked over their heads, exploding a clay pot on the shelf above. Again she felt herself hauled forward and propelled away by strong hands, her feet barely skimming the ground.
They ran headlong into the darkness, Amy trying to keep up as Lara tugged her hand, pulling down an alley and hopping the fence into another yard. North, east, then south. Amy lost all sense of direction and let Lara drag her onwards at a sprinter’s pace.
They came to a hard stop and Lara pulled her down behind a slat fence. Heart slamming, Amy gulped the air down. “Jesus. The cops found you all the way down here?”
“No.” Lara looked back the way they came. “Immigration.”
Amy watched Lara’s nostrils flare, as if testing the wind for scent of more invaders. “Immigration? Why are they after you?”
“Amy, we need to run.” Lara clasped the girl by the chin. “Hold my hand and just sprint. Can you do that?”
Amy jerked her chin away. “What about the Cherokee? Can we get to it?”
“I don’t know. Hang on tight and keep up.”
They were off, Amy tugged along by Lara’s hand down a breezeway to an alley. Down one street and into another dark alleyway, Amy panting hard to keep up with a woman twice her age. Police sirens wailed two blocks over and they hunkered down into a dark recess behind a garage.
They headed east, putting distance between them and the police. When the houses gave way to an industrial span, Lara slipped through a fence into an empty lot near the rail yards. Cutting around to the back of a building of corrugated steel, she stopped before a row of metal crates. Fitting a key into the padlock of one, she pulled open the door. Amy winced as the hinges squealed back on dry hinges. “What is this?”
“Plan B.” Lara slipped into the recess. A low grinding sound echoed from within and then pale blue light lit up the crate’s interior. “Get in,” she said. “Close the door behind you.”
Amy stepped in as Lara worked a hand-cranked lantern, charging its battery. She looked over what appeared to be a storage shed. Clothes and coats hung from pegs, boxes lined up on the floor. Lara tugged a backpack from a peg and held it out to her. “Take this. Start packing clothes.”
The clothes had been hung and covered with plastic to protect them from dust. Amy tossed them into the bag. “Are you gonna tell me why immigration raided your place?”
“Remember the petty moron I mentioned at work? He must have called the cops, told them an illegal lived there.”
“Great. So now the police are looking for you.” Amy froze as a thought occurred to her. “What about Marisol? Won’t the police look for you there?”
“No. There’s no connection between Lara Quesada and Marisol. Not on paper anyway.” Lara slid a metal toolbox out from under a pile of clothes and flipped the lid open. She lifted out a wallet and fanned her thumb over the bills folded within. “We need to find a payphone, call Marisol and tell her what’s going on.”
Amy watched Lara dig through the tool box. “Why did you put all this stuff here?”
“In case I ever had to bug out again,” Lara lifted out a handgun sheathed in a holster and handed it up to Amy. “I knew it would catch up with me sooner or later. Pack this.”
Amy stuffed the gun into the backpack, along with a box of cartridges. “My stuff is still at your place.”
“Anything important in it?”
“My gun. The rest is just clothes and stuff.”
“What gun?”
“The Glock.” She watched Lara unzip a duffel bag. The long barrel of a shotgun was visible under a folded sweater. “So what now?”
“We leave.”
“And go where?”
Lara dug out a long handled flashlight and tested the batteries. “Back to Portland for now. Get you home.”
“God,” Amy groaned. “Another bus ride.”
“If it’s safe, we’ll go back for the truck.”
“Won’t they take it?”
“It’s not registered in my name. It’s still got the phantom tags on it, the ones you’re dad had.” Lara zipped up the duffel and slung it over her shoulder. “Let’s get out of here.”
They waited for three hours, cooling their heels in a darkened alleyway and watching the house. The Cherokee remained undisturbed, parked three houses north on the street. The last prowl car on the scene finally started up and rumbled away. They waited another ten minutes before venturing out into the open to slip inside the Cherokee and roll away from the house that Lara knew she would never see again. Amy wanted to run inside and grab her backpack but Lara said no.
Three hours later they passed through Farmington and barreled further down the 550 and crossed the state line into Colorado.
They swapped out at a gas station near Monticello, Amy climbing behind the wheel while Lara stretched out in the backseat to sleep. Five hour shifts driving and sleeping, a non-stop express all the way to Oregon. They barely spoke, both numbed by the marathon drive. Thirty miles outside of Boise, Amy lay in the backseat with her heels on the arm rest. Too exhausted to sleep, she stared up at the dome light. “Do you ever think about that night?”
Lara tilted her ear in the girl’s direction. “What night?”
“The night Dad died.”
“I try not to.” Lara checked the rearview mirror but with the girl lying flat there was nothing to see but the highway peeling away behind them. “Do you think about it?”
“All the time.”
“What about it?”
Amy arched her back, crimping out the stiffness in her muscles. “I go over it again and again. Playing out the chain of events.”
“Why?”
Amy shrugged. “I can’t help thinking it could have gone differently. Or I could have done something differently. So that it didn’t have to end that way. You know?”
“Don’t do that,” Lara said. “Nothing could have been done differently, Amy. Don’t make yourself crazy over it.”
“I can’t help it.” Lying in the backseat of her father’s Cherokee didn’t help. How many times had she stretched out like this in the past, napping while she and her dad took a road trip? Vehicles were like smells, they triggered memories.
Lara tilted the rearview mirror to get a glimpse but all she could see were the girl’s knees. “Did your dad ever talk to you about hitting an Ahab? Or finding a white whale?”
“A what?”
“An Ahab is every homicide cop’s worst nightmare. The one case you can’t crack and the one you can’t let go of. It becomes an obsession. Kills careers, marriages, families.”
Amy closed her eyes. “You think that’s what I’m doing? Making an Ahab out of that night?”
“You’re on your way. Listen to me, Amy. There was nothing to be done differently. And you can’t change the past no matter how much you overthink it. Accept it and push the guilt off your shoulders. Or it will drag you down with it.”
“Who said anything about guilt?” Amy huffed.
“You did.”
The odometer clicked over another mile. Wind whistled through a crack in the window.
Amy turned onto her side. “Do you remember the dog?”
“The husky?”
“Yeah,” Amy said. “I miss him too.”
14
DUSK WAS SETTLING w
hen the road met the Columbia River and by the time they hit the city proper, night had fallen over Portland. Lara had hoped she would be too numb from driving to feel any wistful longing for her old home but the sight of streetlights haloed in a light rainfall bit hard and bit deep. At times like these, she was grateful her tear ducts no longer worked.
Amy leaned forward in the passenger bucket. “You okay? We can swap out if you want to take a break.”
“I just need to get out of this truck,” Lara said, surprised that the girl had picked up on her mood. She swung off the Banfield Expressway and onto Halsey. “I’ll drop you home, then find somewhere to park and crash in the back.”
“What? No.” Amy said. “We’ll crash at Dad’s house tonight.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Don’t argue with me, Lara. Hang a left.”
~
The garage door was too mangled to roll up all the way but it opened enough for them to squeeze the Cherokee inside and roll it back down. Seeing John Gallagher’s old truck parked in the driveway might startle the neighbors and bring them round knocking.
Lara climbed out and winced. Even with the stink of exhaust tainting the garage, the smells of the house were flooding back through her preternaturally acute nose, tripping memories like little bombs in her gut. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.
“Come on,” Amy said, sensing Lara’s reluctance. She opened the side door. “The power’s still on but we should keep the lights off for now.”
The scents in the place loomed strong as Lara stepped inside, Gallagher’s most of all. She stood in the hallway for a moment, letting it all wash over her while Amy dragged one of the backpacks into the kitchen. It was as if the house was haunted, ghosts everywhere. She wouldn’t get much sleep in this house tonight. Still, it was better than curling up in the backseat of the truck.
Amy opened the refrigerator even though she knew its shelves held nothing but a crumpled box of baking soda. “Are you hungry? I can run down to the Kwiki-Mart on the corner. We can picnic on beef jerky or something.”
“I’m fine.” Lara folded her arms over her head to stretch out her spine. “Must be hard for you to be here.”
“Yeah. I don’t want to give the place up. Which is silly because I don’t think I could ever live in this house again.”
“It’s home.”
“It’s not just that.” Amy lingered in the light of the open refrigerator. “It feels wrong to let it go. Like I’d be betraying Dad or something.”
“Your dad wasn’t sentimental. He wouldn’t want you to hang on to it for those reasons. He’d want you to make the most of it. Sell it, save the money for your future.”
Amy let the fridge door swing shut. “Right. The future.”
Lara suddenly realized that she had yet to ask the most basic, banal question asked of anyone under twenty. “How’s school?”
“A complete washout. I’ll be lucky if I pass.”
“I’m sorry. You’ve had a terrible year.”
“Yeah, well. Who hasn’t?” Amy tilted a glass under the tap and filled it up. “I’m gonna get some sleep. We’ll sort the rest in the morning. You can crash in Dad’s room or take the couch.”
The thought of sleeping in Gallagher’s bed was out of the question. Too many ghosts. “The couch is fine.”
Lara stared up at the living room ceiling, listening to the tiny sounds of the old house. Her watch was splayed on the coffee table but she refused to check the time again. She thought of Gallagher and of her old job. How, after working so hard to make the homicide detail, she had been forced to partner up with Gallagher. And that first awful case, the dismembered woman on the river bank, devoured alive. First case, only case. Her entire world had turned into a nightmare after that.
She reminisced about the city and how much she missed it. About the friends that she never had a chance to say goodbye to, friends who thought she was dead. And there were the friends she had been forced to lie to, to betray, the last time she had set foot in Portland. All of it was painful to the touch and bitter on the tongue. Had it been worth it, all this sacrifice and hurt?
When the monstrous wolf charged at her that first time, she wondered if it would have been better if she hadn’t fought back and let the creature kill her. Could it possibly worse than enduring all of this? Had it been worth Gallagher’s life?
She finally gave in and checked the time on her watch. Annoyed, she forced her eyes closed, sick to death of her own looping rhetoric.
~
The map was stretched out over the kitchen table and smoothed flat. Hovering over it with a pencil, Lara drew a circle in an empty swath of green. “The ghost town where we encountered the wolves is around here.”
Amy leaned in for a closer look and yawned. Both hands wrapped around a mug of coffee. “How long have you been up?”
“A couple hours.” Lara took up her own mug but the java had gone cold.
“That couch isn’t very comfortable. Did it kill your back?”
“It’s fine. I just don’t sleep much anymore.”
Lara stepped away to dump the dregs of her coffee down the sink. Amy studied the map, squinting at two other dots marked in pencil. “These other two marks you made here. Are these the animal attacks?”
“Best as I could pinpoint them.”
Amy traced a finger over the coordinates. There wasn’t a lot of detail to the map. Swaths of green punctuated by lakes and rivers. A few roads spiderwebbed through empty realms of green space. “That’s a big patch of nothing. How hard will it be to find this thing?”
“I should be able to track it down once I’m there.”
“You can do that?”
Lara nodded. “As long as it’s still around. If it’s moved on, then it’s a different story.”
Amy measured the distance on the map; her thumb in Oregon, her index finger in Canada. “Another killer drive. How long did it take us last time?”
“About nine hours.” Lara leaned her hip against the counter and folded her arms. “You don’t have to worry about it. I’m going on alone from here.”
Amy squared the woman with a cold look. “Don’t even start with that.”
“Your dad almost took my head off for dragging you into danger last time. And he was right to. I won’t do that again.”
“You’re not going alone, Lara. That’s all there is to it. We took on what, six of them last time? This is just one wolf. Lost and confused without a pack.”
Lara rubbed a thumb against her lip, thinking it through. “I don’t think you’re in any shape to do this, Amy. You told me yourself you’re barely coping.”
“You can’t tell me you’re in any better shape to confront this. We watch each other’s back, end of story.” Amy took another hit from her mug and pushed away from the table. “Let’s hustle. There’s gear here we can pack. I need to go home to get more clothes. Then the hard part.”
“Hard part?” Lara asked.
“Telling Cheryl that I’m taking off again.”
~
Apoplectic was one of Amy’s favorite words. She liked the way it popped in its pronunciation but there were few opportunities to use it in everyday conversation. It pretty much summed up Cheryl’s reaction upon hearing that her daughter had not only suddenly returned from her mystery trip to New Mexico but was now leaving again for the hinterlands of Canada. Amy had considered lying to her mom about where she was going but she didn’t have the strength to formulate some elaborate smokescreen. At this point, did it really matter?
Lara had parked on the street and Amy ran into the house with an empty duffel bag. Minor mercies, no one was home so she scurried to her room to pack clothes for herself and more for Lara. Her skin itched for a hot shower and change of clothes before hitting the road again but there was no time. Zipping the bag closed, she heard the front door open, footsteps on the main floor. The rents were home.
As expected, Cheryl forbade her to lea
ve, going so far as to block Amy’s path to the front door. Norm tried to referee, pleading with Amy to be reasonable. All Amy could do was shrug and say that she had to go. And no, for the final time, she couldn’t tell them why. Pushed beyond her patience, Cheryl had thrown up her hands in capitulation and declared she didn’t care anymore.
Norman stepped in as Cheryl stomped away. “Why do you have to torment her like this? What could be so important?”
During most fights with mom, Norman was the rational one, trying to understand Amy’s side of the issue to mitigate the severity of the fallout. Not this time. There was real anger in his tone. She wanted to just walk away but remembered where she was going and for what purpose. There was a very real possibility that she may never come back and this would be a terrible way to leave things. Dropping the bag from her shoulder, she crossed the floor to where her mother stood with her back turned. She kissed her cheek. “I’ll be back as soon as I can, okay? Then everything will be okay. Love you.”
She felt her mother bristle so Amy turned around and scooped up the bag on her way out. Waving a curt goodbye to Norm, she went out the door.
Cheryl remained stone for a full minute before spinning around and marching out the door. Amy was gone but she caught sight of a dusty blue Jeep Cherokee pulling away from the curb. The sight of the old vehicle confused her but she shrugged it off as coincidence. Still, she thought stepping back into the house, what were the chances that Amy’s friend drove the same make and model that her late ex-husband did?
~
Traveling east on the 84, Lara mused about leaving Portland after so short a stay. Was there no place for her, nowhere to plant stakes and hunker down for the long haul? The easy lull of self-pity was cloying so she shook it off and turned to Amy in the passenger seat. “How bad was it?”
Bad Wolf Chronicles, Books 1-3 Page 63