“These fellows,” the shopkeeper said, leaning forward as his eyebrows knit together. “They wouldn’t happen to have the last name Wade, would they?”
No reply.
“Wades like to talk.” The shopkeeper’s tone reminded me that Mac had said that most people in Hunter’s Point didn’t care much for his kind. “And they like to drink.”
We waited for Bella’s mom to reply, but she didn’t.
“Talking and drinking doesn’t preclude the possibility that they could be telling the truth.” Free never had trouble inserting herself into conversations. She rocked back on her heels slightly, her eyes eagle-sharp. “Has anyone else gone missing?”
I thought back to what Gabriel had said, his face moonlit and his tone impossible to decode. Around here, people go missing all the time.
Our trip to town was supposed to be a distraction, but all I could think, looking between the shopkeeper and Bella’s mom, was that what Saskia and I had done, the evidence we’d found—it wasn’t enough.
I needed to move. I couldn’t bring myself to walk past Bella’s mother, so instead of leaving the store, I stalked toward the back wall. Pull it together, Kira. This wasn’t my tragedy. I wasn’t Bella. The shell of a woman in the doorway wasn’t my mother.
For all I knew, my mother hadn’t looked for me at all.
I focused on the sound of my own breathing. I fixed my eyes on a point in front of me—and immediately wished that I hadn’t. Sitting on the shelf, there was a large metal trap, the kind that didn’t concern itself with being humane.
Meat smell. Food. Girl crouches, hunched on all fours. I shook, but couldn’t fight it—and suddenly, I didn’t want to. Girl knows which berries to eat now, which berries not to, but this…this…
Meat smells good.
She creeps closer, her eyes stinging, her hands aching to reach out, to bury themselves in the meat.
Eat it.
Eat it before someone can take it away.
A rustling sound stops her. She freezes, her head whipping around. Wolf. She remembers the word. But words don’t matter. Nothing matters but the creature stalking toward her meat.
She darts forward, and the animal’s hackles rise. It snaps its jaws, and Girl falls, scrambles backward.
Watches the wolf turn its attention from her to the meat.
Watches the wolf step forward.
Thunk. The sound is sudden, bone-crunching. The wolf snarls and fights and bleeds, but it can’t escape. The monster has it.
The monster almost had Girl.
The first thing I heard when I came back to myself was the sound of the shop door opening. I smelled fresh air and dirt.
Meat. The memory lingered longer than it should have, vivid enough that my nostrils flared.
“Mr. Ferris.” It took me a moment to place the voice behind me as its owner greeted the shopkeeper and then continued, “Mrs. Anthony, I thought I might find you here.”
I turned. There was nothing particularly aggressive in the sheriff’s posture.
I still shifted to put my back to the wall.
“Please don’t tell me to go back to the hotel, Sheriff.” Bella’s mother’s voice was muted. “I can’t just sit around waiting for updates. You can’t expect me to.”
The sheriff placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. “The FBI is sending a team to join the investigation. The rangers are calling in reinforcements. I assure you, ma’am, we are doing everything we possibly—”
“I’d like access to all your missing persons reports for the past five years.” Mrs. Anthony was quiet but forceful. “I appreciate what you and your men are doing, but for my own peace of mind, Sheriff, I need to see those reports.”
There is no peace, I found myself thinking as I wound my way back toward the two of them—and toward Free and Jude. The human mind is not a peaceful place.
“You need to go back to your husband, Angela. Keep your phones charged. The feds will want to talk to you both.”
Something about the sheriff’s too-gentle tone hit me like a rusted knife to the gut. I knew what it was like to be handled with kid gloves, to be treated like a victim instead of a person.
“How many are there?” It took me a few seconds to realize that I was the one who’d asked the question. I forced myself to elaborate, each word hard-won. “How many people have gone missing from Hunter’s Point?”
The shopkeeper must have seen something in the sheriff’s face—or in Mrs. Anthony’s or mine—because he intervened before the sheriff could answer. “I get people in here asking about missing loved ones from time to time,” he said, taking control of the situation. “But that doesn’t mean those people are really missing. If a person wants to start over, if they want to disappear—a national park isn’t a bad place to do it.”
The sheriff let the lot of us chew on that for several seconds. “Some people don’t want to be found,” he said evenly. “Others set off without a real idea of where they’re going. A person who enters the park from Hunter’s Point might not be planning to come back the same way. My office takes reports, but we’re not responsible for every Tom, Dick, or Harry who passes through.”
“And Bella?” Jude took the words straight from my pounding, bloody heart. “Are you responsible for her?”
Mrs. Anthony drew in a ragged breath.
“Does your grandfather know you’re here?” the sheriff asked Jude pointedly. “Or, for that matter, your mother?”
Silver trotted over to Jude and plopped down at his feet, as if to declare that there was an adult keeping tabs on the three of us, thank you very much. I half expected the sheriff to reach for her, the way he’d tried to grab Saskia.
“Sheriff Rawlins is right.” Mrs. Anthony straightened her spine and focused on the three of us. “I appreciate the moral support, but this isn’t something I want kids mixed up in. Given the circumstances, I doubt your family would feel any different.”
Our family was out there looking for her daughter right now.
“Would this be an appropriate time to mention the Freedom of Information Act?” Free adopted her most wide-eyed, innocent expression. “Because I’m pretty sure that as a law enforcement agency, the local sheriff’s office can only withhold government records in accordance with a small number of exceptions that don’t seem to apply to Mrs. Anthony’s request.”
If any of the adults in this room had known Free, they would have realized that telling her to stay out of something was as good as sending her an engraved invitation to dive right in.
“Is she right?” Mrs. Anthony turned back to the sheriff. “Do you have a legal obligation to give me those reports?”
“Not if disclosure would endanger the lives of civilians or interfere with enforcement proceedings.”
“Which would only be the case,” Free interjected sweetly, “if the files were part of an ongoing investigation. But since you can hardly be held responsible for every Tom, Dick, or Harry who passes through…”
A sixth sense warned me against pushing the sheriff further.
“Darn kids these days,” Jude declared, diverting the man’s attention from Free before I could. “With their internet access and detail-oriented interest in the criminal justice system!”
Take one step toward them, I told the sheriff silently, keyed in to his every move. Just one step, and I’ll—
Jude bumped my hip with his own. I got a handle on myself, then bumped back.
“You’re welcome to file a request for those records with my office,” the sheriff told Bella’s mother. When she excused herself to do just that, the sheriff zeroed in on Jude, Free, and me.
Just one step, Sheriff.
Fortunately, for his sake, he decided not to take his frustrations out on my friends. “Kira,” he said pleasantly, “could I have a word?”
Jude cleared his throat to get my attention. When that didn’t work, he bumped me again. I bumped back. If the sheriff had chosen to go after Free or Jude, I might have lost it.
But he hadn’t, and I didn’t need Jude to spell out what my gut was already screaming: The sheriff had targeted me for a reason, like a predator picking off the weakest member of the herd.
Girl is not weak. I didn’t push the thought away. I let the human part of my brain recede, until I could hear the part that was other loud and clear. Girl doesn’t need protection.
Girl survives.
“Stay,” I told Silver, knowing that my fellow Miscreants would realize I wasn’t just talking to the dog.
I let the sheriff lead me away from the group and ended up with my back to the wall. Maybe I should have felt cornered—maybe he was hoping I would—but there was a comfort in knowing that I couldn’t be attacked from behind.
Cady always said, if someone wanted to show you who they were—let them.
“Your adoptive mother is an incredible woman.” The sheriff put emphasis on the word adoptive, but unfortunately for him, whatever point he was trying to make was lost on me. My instincts were more focused on the way he stood, the distribution of weight between his feet.
“Given what you did for Bella today, it appears that you and Cady have that much in common.” He shifted his weight forward, toward me, into my space. “But if Gabriel Cortez is the one who put you and your friends up to that little stunt with Bella’s mother just now, then you and Cady also have something else in common, and that’s incredibly bad judgment in the opposite sex.”
The ridiculousness of the sheriff’s statement allowed me to tamp down on the desire to invade his space. Gabriel hadn’t put me up to anything, and my judgment about the opposite sex wasn’t good or bad. It was nonexistent.
In the wild, some animals puff themselves up to seem bigger, I thought. It was a defense mechanism, an attempt to fake strength. The sheriff was posturing.
I didn’t particularly care why.
“You don’t know me,” I said. I had a tendency to fall on the wrong side of the line between looking at someone and staring them down. At the moment, I didn’t fight it. “You don’t get to talk about my judgment—or Cady’s.”
Despite his best efforts not to, the sheriff looked away first.
“Do you know how Gabriel Cortez came to work for your grandfather?” The question was aimed at a spot just over my left shoulder. “Bales Bennett trains animals—for law enforcement, personal security, general obedience. But for the past few years, his pet project has been a pilot program that uses juvenile delinquents to train service animals.”
Service animals, as in Seeing Eye dogs, I thought, remembering the litter of rough-and-tumble golden retriever puppies. And juvenile delinquents, I continued silently, as in Gabriel.
“Why don’t you ask Bales where he met Gabriel?” The sheriff took a generous step back and smiled in a way that made me wish he’d taken two. “Better yet, ask Bales why he trusts a kid who went to juvie for kidnapping and assault.”
Some words got a visceral reaction out of me. Hunt. Threat. Hunger. Blood. But kidnapping and assault were different. They didn’t hit me the way they might have hit Jude or Free. I didn’t recoil.
I thought.
I remembered Gabriel helping me find Saskia, the wounds I’d left in his arm, and the expression on his face when he’d shrugged them off.
When the sheriff made his exit, Jude and Free descended on me, but Silver was the one who gave me a piece of her mind: a high-pitched whine in the back of her throat, followed by a five-point check: hand, hand, knee, knee, stomach. She wasn’t quite as gentle as she could have been.
“Somebody’s in trouble,” Free said tartly.
I’d allowed the sheriff to take me aside. I’d put myself in a vulnerable position, then chosen to let some fraction of my animal instincts out. Free probably wasn’t any happier about that than Silver was.
“The sheriff said that Gabriel has a juvie record.” I stuck to the bare-bones facts—and kept the words kidnapping and assault to myself.
“So he has a record.” Free shrugged. “If I wasn’t a blond-haired, light-eyed looker, so would I.”
The shopkeeper came out from behind the counter. “I’ve known Bradley Rawlins since he was a kid. His bark is worse than his bite. He’s a good sheriff, cares about the community, even coaches soccer at the local high school.”
“I’m sensing a but coming here,” Jude said hopefully.
The old man frowned at him, then sighed. “But when a Rawlins gets something in his teeth, he doesn’t let go.” He ran the back of his fingers over the underside of his chin. “As near as I can remember, the sheriff went to school with your mother. Cady had a bad habit of leaving broken hearts in her wake.”
Free tossed her long blond ponytail over one shoulder. “It doesn’t count as breaking someone’s heart if they never had a piece of yours.”
I could feel Girl stalking in the shadows of my mind. She hadn’t forgotten about the knives or the guns in the cases. She hadn’t forgotten the trap. I’d officially reached my limit on chitchat.
Ash, I reminded myself. We’d come here to ask about Ash.
“John Ashby,” I said, knowing that I’d reached my capacity for human interaction but pushing forward for Jude’s sake. “Did Cady break his heart?”
It wasn’t subtle, but it was the best I could do. I couldn’t make eye contact, couldn’t keep my teeth from gritting so hard that I could hear it in my ears.
Jude nudged me toward the door. “We’ll take it from here.”
He didn’t have to tell me twice.
The rush of cool air that hit my face when I flew out the door calmed me. Maybe the sheriff had gotten under my skin, or maybe the events of the day were catching up with me. Either way, I fell back on habit and began counting down from one hundred.
By seventy, I’d quelled the desire to run.
By fifty, I’d managed to turn my mind to Free and Jude and the questions they were probably still asking inside.
One for all, and all for trouble. No matter how many lines Free added to the Miscreants’ Creed, the last one was always the same.
Thirty. I could breathe. Twenty. The sound of the door opening behind me told me that I wasn’t alone.
“Would now be a good time to share some excellent news?” Jude appeared beside me.
Nineteen. Eighteen. A breeze lifted my hair away from my face as I finished the countdown. I stared up at the mountain’s peak. I could feel it, like a magnet or a black hole or a siren’s song calling me home.
In. Out. In. Out. I breathed, and Jude timed his breaths to mine. “I sense that now would be a good time to share some excellent news!”
“You got the information you wanted?” I asked.
“No.” Jude grinned. “The old man was remarkably silent on the topic of whether or not Mom and Ash were involved. However, he did share that John Ashby left town with Mom and Mac way back when.”
“The difference is that Ash didn’t come back,” Free added.
“That’s not the good news,” Jude clarified archly. “The good news is that when the topic cycled back around to Bella Anthony, and our dear Phoebe Eloise happened to mention that it was a shame that the sheriff might eventually realize that the Freedom of Information Act only applies if you have enough specifics to zero in on the files you’re requesting…”
Free swiped at Jude for using her full name, but matched his grin. “The old gossip couldn’t help volunteering the information that someone else in town had already made some very specific FOIA requests.”
“His great-niece!” Jude was practically vibrating. “She works at the local library. I gathered that she wants to be an investigative journalist and is generally considered the black sheep of the Ferris family.”
“She requested copies of the missing persons reports?” I furrowed my brow. “Why?”
“To investigate!” Jude replied. “Journalistically.”
If we hadn’t run into Bella’s mother, I might have been able to leave it at that.
“This was supposed to be a distracti
on,” I pointed out.
“And what,” Free replied wickedly, “could be more distracting than the library?”
* * *
The Hunter’s Point library had, at one point in time, been a saloon. Old-fashioned doors still marked the entrance, and the checkout counter looked like it had once been a bar. The wood floors were scratched up enough that I deeply suspected Silver wasn’t the first dog to pass through the swinging doors.
I scanned the area: only one woman working. She was at least six feet tall, broad through the shoulders and thin through the waist. Her blue eyes matched the pointed plastic rims of her glasses almost exactly. She smiled and handed a picture book to a little girl with dark-haired pigtails. When we approached the desk, she tapped on the edge of her glasses and made a show of studying the three of us.
“Nonfiction,” she proclaimed, pointing her index finger at me before turning it on Free. “Something with explosions.” She paused and considered Jude. “And…”
“Happy endings,” he told her.
She nodded. “I can see it.”
“Clearly, you are a woman of true discernment,” Jude declared. “And hopefully one who might be willing to share any and all police reports she’s obtained from the local sheriff’s office?”
There was a single beat of silence.
“Who have you been talking to?” the librarian asked. Maybe her journalistic ambitions weren’t well-known.
“Who haven’t we been talking to?” Jude replied jubilantly.
From there, the conversation went exactly as one might have predicted. She wanted to know why teenagers were asking her for police reports. Jude mentioned that we’d been part of the search for Bella—though he may have conveniently left the past-tense aside.
The high-pitched sound of a child laughing, followed by the even-higher-pitched sound of one shrieking bloody murder, had the librarian whipping her head toward a colorful rug—and its many ankle-biting occupants.
“Story time,” the librarian muttered, like it was a curse word. Belatedly, she realized we were still standing there and remembered why. “Right. The reports. If you think they’ll help in the search for the missing girl, I suppose I can pull together some notes for you, once I avert the storypocalypse over there.”
The Lovely and the Lost Page 9