The Girl in the Moss

by Loreth Anne White

  “Are you certain about how high the water rose?”

  “No. I’ll have to check. If memory serves me, it’s not making total sense that Jasmine’s body would have been deposited on this knoll of land if the waters didn’t rise quite this high. Unless of course there was some sort of surge or the measurements were an estimate and not an accurate reflection of what happened. I’m thinking it would have been a meteorologist’s best guess based on extrapolation of historical data.”

  “Which would mean what, exactly?” Claire said.

  Angie worried her scarred lip with her teeth. “The flooding explanation seems the most logical hypothesis for how she ended up here—” A rustle sounded in the bushes. Angie fell silent.

  Before Angie or Claire could even turn to look, a thwock sounded as something hit the tree trunk behind Angie. She spun around. An arrow with yellow-and-white fletching quivered from impact into bark.

  She heard another sound and felt a hot whizz past her ear. She dived to the ground. “Down, Claire, get down!”

  Another arrow thucked into the tree behind her as Claire flung herself flat into the loam. They lay on the ground, breathing hard. Nothing more happened.

  Slowly, Claire lifted her head. Mud streaked the side of her face. “Hey! Assholes!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. “There are people here!” She rolled onto her back, yanked her air horn from her belt, and let loose an earsplitting sound. As the sound died and Angie’s ears rang, Claire yelled, “You could have killed us, you motherfuckers!”

  A human whistle sounded from deep in the trees—three quick blasts followed by one long. An ATV engine roared to life. The sound of the engine disappeared into the forest until all they could hear was the distant boom of the falls and their own heavy breathing. Claire turned to Angie, her complexion sheet white.

  “Quad,” she said shakily. “Fucking hunter on a quad.”

  She scrambled to her feet, held out a hand to Angie. “I’m so sorry, Angie. Christ, I’m sorry. I should’ve given you a blaze-orange vest. We both should have been wearing one. The season is supposed to be over in this area, but there are always some assholes not ready to call it quits yet.”

  Angie thought of Budge’s buck hanging in his shed. He clearly hadn’t thought it was over, unless he’d bagged that in some area where the season remained open.

  Adrenaline slamming through her body, Angie took Claire’s hand and came to her feet. She dusted off, retrieved the Garmin GPS she’d dropped, and went up to the tree with the arrow sticking out of the bark. She examined the yellow-and-white fletching.

  Claire came up behind her.

  “Both Budge and Axel have arrows like this,” Angie said.

  “So does half of Port Ferris. And they own quads, too.”

  “Did you hear that whistle?” Angie said. “Sounded like someone calling for a dog. How many hunt with dogs?”

  “A lot,” Claire said, voice thick. She wiped her brow. “And there could have been more than one hunter. They could’ve been whistling to one another, some signal.” She glanced at Angie. “It’s probably just a close call, someone mistaking us for game. Especially in this light and with no orange vests.”

  Or not.

  Angie blew out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.

  CHAPTER 37

  By the time Angie and Claire finally pulled into the Predator Lodge driveway with the boat in tow, it was almost 4:00 p.m. Angie immediately caught sight of Garrison Tollet’s red Ford pickup parked under the carport.

  Garrison stood beside it, watching them arrive, a lug wrench clenched in his fist.

  “Uh-oh,” Claire said. “Dad looks like he’s on the warpath. I wonder why?”

  They exited the truck and ducked through the tiny pelleting snowflakes, making for the cover of the carport where Garrison stood.

  “What do you want here?” he demanded of Angie the instant she stepped under the cover. His boots were planted squarely, his weight on the balls of his feet. He looked ready to scrap or strike with that wrench.

  “Garrison,” Angie said calmly, yet instinctively keeping a four-foot cop distance from Garrison, her hands free and ready in front of her body in the event she’d need to defend herself. This man had been so warm and welcoming on their recent trip, it was like another person had taken over his body. “It’s good to see you again. I came up to talk to you about the river trip twenty-four years ago.”

  “Got nothing to say. You can leave. Now.”

  “Dad!” Claire stepped between them. “She just wants—”

  “The rear left tire of your rental was flat,” he snapped, interrupting his daughter. “I put on the spare. Now go. Before the snow gets too heavy and locks you in here.”

  Angie’s gaze darted to the Subaru parked outside the carport. The scrapes and dents were glaringly evident, but Garrison had made no comment about that damage.

  “Dad—”

  “Shut up, Claire. Get inside. This is not your business.”

  Claire’s jaw dropped. Her eyes flashed with anger. She turned to Angie, the heat of emotion burning red into her face. “I’m sorry about him. I—”

  “Get inside, Claire,” her father growled. “I’ll speak to you later.”

  “It’s okay, Claire,” Angie said quickly. “Thank you. For everything.”

  Garrison showed agitation, shifting his weight foot to foot as he waited for his daughter to enter the lodge and shut the door behind her.

  As soon as the door closed, he pointed his wrench to the logging road. “You’ve got enough light to get back down to the highway before we get socked in. Your bags are in the rental.”

  “It was you, wasn’t it?” Angie said, holding her ground. “In the red Ford truck. You know who tried to run me off the road.”

  “It was hunters. Brake line failure. That’s all.”

  “Really? What were their names?”

  “It’s time to leave, Ms. Pallorino.” He took a step toward her. Her shoulders stiffened.

  “What are you all hiding, Garrison? What’s the big secret? Was Jasmine Gulati pushed to her death? Do you know who killed her? Is that what this about? Who are you all protecting? Was it you who pushed her?”

  “Don’t make this difficult. I don’t want to have to call the police.”

  She flicked a glance at the lodge, then lowered her voice. “You slept with Jasmine that night, Garrison. The women in the motel room next door knew it. The guys in the pub knew it. You screwed your client. On the very first night. I think even your wife suspected.”

  He faltered, blinked. His gaze ticked up to the lodge windows. Angie thought she saw a blind move.

  “I have footage of you huddling in that pub booth with Jasmine Gulati. I have footage of Shelley, your wife, entering the pub. I have screenshots of Shelley looking directly at you sitting cozy and intimate with Jasmine Gulati. I’ve also got footage of Jessie Tollet and Tack McWhirther trying to step in and save Shelley from the indignity of seeing you with Jasmine, unsuccessfully. Because Shelley did observe you two cuddling in that booth. Would you like to see the screenshots I took from that footage, Garrison? They’re in a folder in my rental.”

  Blood drained from his face. The paleness of his complexion made his black hair seem darker, his ice-green eyes more stark.

  “Or maybe Shelley wants to see the images. Did she perhaps confront you when you returned to the lodge? Did your wife ask if you’d fucked Jasmine Gulati in the motel that night?”

  His body language changed. It was as if some of the fight had leaked out of his muscles. Angie had gained the edge. She took it and moved a step closer to him, getting in his face.

  “Here’s what I know. Tack McWhirther was your wife’s guardian, her protector. He cared fiercely about Shelley, and he did not approve of you being with Jasmine that night. I think he blamed the beautiful and provocative Jasmine more than he blamed poor, seduced you for not being able to keep your dick in your pants. Tack’s also a fine hand with a banj
o, I hear. So he and the Tollet twins—BoJo—and maybe Wallace Carmanagh, too, conjured up scenes of Deliverance, terrorizing the women along the river for the duration of their trip. Primarily to teach the wickedly evil Jasmine a lesson about the dangers of mocking the rednecks in these woods. Am I right?” She paused, watching his face.

  “One of that Deliverance group wore a red hat and a black-and-red-plaid jacket, and the others matched the description the women gave me. I also know Wallace did time for violently assaulting a woman in his past. I know about Porter Bates, too.” Her gaze bore into his green eyes. “I know the lengths some of these guys—including you—will go to protect one of their own. Like you protected Axel Tollet.”

  Her final words seemed to deflate him fully. He took a step back and sat heavily on a willow bench near the lodge door. He dropped his face into his big work-hardened hands and rubbed his skin.

  She stepped closer. “Why did you do it, Garrison? Why did you sleep with Jasmine?”

  “I was young.”

  “Forty-two?”

  “She . . . she was beautiful. She came on to me. She offered it all to me. I . . .” He looked up, his eyes raw. “Shelley and I were having a rough time with the marriage. We’d just taken over the lodge from my dad, and we were trying to expand the guiding and tourism side of the business. But we were short on cash. We’d also been trying for kids for a long, long time. Shelley had suffered two miscarriages, and she’d collapsed into herself. She’d become distant. She no longer enjoyed physical intimacy. It was just a goddamn fling with Jasmine, something I needed to get out of my system. That woman just handed it to me on a plate, attracted, lured me. Trapped me.” He sniffed and wiped his nose.

  “She gave me a chance to see if I could still be a man, for Godssakes. I knew I’d screwed up the moment I did it. I knew what was going on with the guys and the banjo on the ridge—I kinda wanted her to pay, too . . . all of those women. I didn’t like them. Intellectual, holier-than-thou, rude, feminist liberals from the city. They figured they had the answers to the world and that us rural folk were put on this earth expressly to be used by them. But we also needed them. We needed the documentary to go well. It would’ve brought huge positive exposure to the region and to our lodge. More business. You can’t buy advertising like that. I thought, what harm could it do if Wallace and Tack and BoJo want to play some stupid head game with them? Jessie and I were in the boats with the women. We knew they would come to no harm.”

  “Did you really know that?”

  Angie let that hang while she filed away his admission that all four men had been stalking the river trip. The women had reported seeing only three at any one time. But with four in play, one could easily have pushed Jasmine into the water that fateful evening.

  Wind rushed like the sound of an ocean through pines around the lodge. Flakes shimmied into the carport, turning thicker. A sense of time ticking by fast tightened in Angie’s chest.

  “Can you be so certain she wasn’t pushed? By one of those guys?” she said, less strident in her approach now.

  He looked away, avoiding her eyes. “They didn’t do it. They wouldn’t.”

  “Did you or anyone actually see her slip and fall into the river?”

  He shook his head.

  “What about Porter Bates?”

  “What about him?”

  “Those guys wanted to teach him a lesson all those years ago, too. Didn’t they? They delivered to Porter Bates the ultimate justice. Death. Are you so certain they didn’t do the same to Jasmine? To save Shelley? To save your marriage?” She paused. “To teach Jasmine a lesson?”

  “Jeezus, no, they were just spooking her. She offended them. She attacked them in the pub. I simply made a mistake. I don’t know anything about what happened to Porter Bates, okay?”

  Angie weighed him, wondering how much he really did know.

  “Angie,” he said quietly, using her first name now, “please, listen to me. Please just let sleeping dogs lie. What good can it do to rake all this up now? What good can it do for Shelley? What good can it do my daughter to know that I was unfaithful to her mother, that I slept with a client? Jasmine Gulati slipped and fell, that’s all. Please to God, just leave it where it lies.”

  “And if she didn’t slip?”

  His eyes gleamed with emotion. His nose reddened. His voice dropped in tone and turned husky. “It would break my family, Angie. Do you need to break up my family in order to make Jasmine Gulati’s old grandmother happy?”

  “It’s not about happiness, Garrison. It’s about the truth. It’s about the law, just retribution.”

  “Is it? Really? Even if everyone has already paid?”

  “What happened to her journal?”

  He blinked and looked confused. “What?”

  “Jasmine kept a diary. Every evening on the trip she wrote in it, claiming it was some titillating exposé. What happened to that journal? Did you take it from her things after she went over the falls?”

  “No, I did not. I . . . it must have gone to her family, with her other things.”

  “But it didn’t.”

  “I don’t know what happened to it. I didn’t know it had gone missing.”

  “I’ve been told Jasmine teased you and Jessie with the fact her journal contained salacious material. Were you worried at any point it might contain details of her sex with you that night?”

  “Of course I worried. But no one said anything after she disappeared. It all died down.”

  Conveniently.

  The lodge door swung open wide with a crash. Both Angie and Garrison jerked round in surprise. Shelley exited the door bearing a tray with two steaming mugs. She set the tray down on a small table beside the bent willow bench. She clicked on the outside light. Angie realized how gloomy it was getting already. That clock in her chest ticked faster. She had to get off this mountain before nightfall. She didn’t feel safe out here. She should try to check in with Holgersen again.

  “Shelley?” Garrison said, looking worried. “Is everything okay?”

  Her gaze darted between her husband and Angie, her pale, thin hands fidgeting. “I . . . I thought you guys might be cold out here.” Hurriedly she picked up a mug and offered it to Angie. “Hot chocolate,” she said.

  Angie accepted it gratefully. She was frozen and hadn’t eaten since breakfast. But the look on Shelley’s face gave her pause.

  Shelley said, “Uh, Garrison, why . . . why don’t you take yours inside? I’d like a word with Angie,” she said. “Alone.”

  He didn’t move.

  “Please, Garrison.”

  He shot a look at Angie, his features tightening, his eyes pleading with Angie to keep her mouth shut. “If you need me, Shelley,” he said, his gaze still fixed on Angie, “I’ll be right inside.”

  Shelley waited for her husband to leave, her lips set in a tight line. As soon as the door clicked shut behind Garrison, Shelley opened her sweater and removed a purple book.

  “Take it. Just take it, and get the hell out of our lives, okay?”

  Angie’s jaw dropped. She stared at the book, then looked up into Shelley’s eyes.

  “Is that what I think it is, Shelley?”

  “It’s Jasmine Gulati’s journal. I took it, and now I’m giving it back so you can pack up, go home, and leave us alone.”

  CHAPTER 38

  Her attention riveted on Shelley’s feverish eyes, Angie reached slowly forward and took the book from the woman.

  “How did you get it?” Angie said.

  “They brought Jasmine’s belongings up from the campsite to the lodge the morning after she went over the falls. Her stuff was put with the rest of her gear in one of our rooms. Everyone was out searching. I . . . saw the purple book from the doorway lying on top of her things. It looked like the journal I’d heard the women mention one evening when I took some supplies to their campsite. I went into the room, closed the door, and opened the journal. Just to take a quick look. I’d seen her with Garris
on in the Hook and Gaffe that first night, and I . . . I needed to see if she’d written anything about being with my husband. Garrison had denied it, but I . . . I still had this feeling.” She pressed her fine-boned hand against her stomach. “Right here.”

  “Had she written anything?”

  Shelley’s eyes turned hard, and her mouth thinned. She grabbed the edges of her big sweater and wrapped them tightly across her thin frame. Her complexion was almost translucent in this light, and it made her freckles stand out harshly. Flecks of snow danced in under the carport and settled upon her wool sleeves.

  “Everything—she wrote it all, every tiny detail.” She swallowed hard, rocked in her Ugg boots. “It made me sick to my stomach. She was evil. Everyone knew she was evil—they all said so.”

  Angie opened the journal. Inscribed on the first page were the words:

  A gift for my love and my lover of story. Tell it, my girl. In your own hand . . . with all my heart, Doug.

  Angie’s eyes flared up, her heart hammering. “What else is in here?”

  “Read it. You’ll see.”

  Doug?

  Dr. Douglas J. Hart—her mentor and professor, Rachel’s husband—was Jasmine’s lover? It suddenly all started slotting into place. The secrecy about the ring. The clandestine lover. Terminating the pregnancy. Revealing Doug as her lover would have killed Doug’s university career, annihilated his shot at being appointed dean of the faculty. It would have destroyed his marriage to Rachel.

  “So you knew?” Angie said. “All these years? That your husband had slept with Jasmine? Why . . . why didn’t you speak to him?”