A Dark Lure

by Loreth Anne White

  Her father met her gaze in silence. Then he reached over. “Here, why don’t you hold this rod. Watch the bobber out there. If it dips suddenly underwater, lift the rod tip up, and tug the line gently like this.” His voice was dark and low, his eyes narrow.

  Tori swallowed. “I don’t want to fish.”

  “Go on. Hold the rod.”

  “No.”

  Silence. Their gazes warred.

  “I don’t understand fishing, anyway.” She wrapped her arms tightly over her stomach.

  “What do you mean?” Olivia said as she reeled in her line.

  “You just throw them back into the water, so why bother catching them in the first place? I don’t see the point. I’d far rather kill them. And I don’t see why we needed to come on this stupid trip.”

  An iridescent bug landed on her knee. It had a thin, stick-straight body marked by bands of black and blue—a deep, luminescent blue that didn’t seem natural. Its wings were a translucent gossamer, its eyes big round balls at the tip of its head. Its little body pulsated, and its wings quivered.

  “Wow, look at that,” her father said. “A damselfly this late in the season—that’s unusual.”

  Some exchanges are as subtle as the touch of an iridescent damselfly alighting on the back of your hand. Some are seismic, rocking your world and fissuring into your very foundations and setting you on a new path . . .

  Tori reached for the bug and squished it dead. She flicked the gunk off her fingers into the water.

  She felt shock radiate from her father.

  “Goddammit, Tori. What is wrong with you?”

  Olivia watched them both. “Your father was right,” she said calmly as she cast again, settling her fly like a live insect on the surface of the dark water. “It’s really unusual to see a damselfly this late in the year.” Wind gusted and the water spiraled in patterns across the lake. The sun was sinking toward the far ridge, streaking the sky with violent pinks and oranges. “They’re usually all gone before the first frosts. This one must be special—I’m surprised the cold nights didn’t kill it and that it lived long enough to visit you like that.”

  Tori swallowed.

  It started, as all dialogues do, when a path crosses that of another . . .

  She began to shake inside. It was as if her mother were here, whispering the words of her book into her mind.

  “A damselfly nymph can live deep underwater for two years,” Olivia said. “A whole lifetime for a nymph. Then when it’s ready, it will swim to a plant and crawl up the vegetation into the air. Its skin then breaks, and it unfolds delicate little wings. That’s a vulnerable moment for the damsel. It must pump body fluids into its abdomen and wings, which causes both to lengthen into the form you saw on your knee. And once the wings are dry it takes flight and starts a whole second life cycle outside the water. It’s like getting a second chance where everything is new again.” She smiled. “Or that’s what I like to think—that there can be stages in life where you become a whole different creature. Where there are new possibilities.”

  Olivia gently tugged her line, making her lure swim like a bug over the surface. She seemed to be considering something deeply as she watched her fly. Then she said, “When I was a little girl, when I got really down about something and felt like there was no hope, my mother would take me aside and say, ‘Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly.’” She flicked the tip of her rod, looping her line and setting the lure out even farther, at the very edges of the dark water in the forest shadows.

  “Damselflies and dragonflies are like the butterfly—symbols of new beginnings. Some people even feel they’re spiritual totems.” Olivia glanced down at Tori. Her eyes were the same green as the water, and Tori thought about her scars again. She wondered if Olivia had gotten a second chance when she hadn’t managed to kill herself. Something shifted slightly in her.

  “Adult damselflies are not really a big food source for the trout,” Olivia said. “But the fish predate heavily on them while they’re in the nymph stage. But those little nymphs”—she met Tori’s eyes again—“they’re just as predacious themselves. They lie in wait for other aquatic bugs to get in range, then grab them with jaws designed especially for chomping. That circle of life thing—” She stopped, and her gaze flicked to the water as her rod tip bent slightly.

  “That’s why I like to fish,” she said, her attention still on the rod tip. “It teaches you to watch and understand the insect life and cycles of the lakes and rivers and seasons. When you try to mimic nature by designing a fly, it gives you a respect. And yes, you kill and eat the fish you catch. But you only take what you need. The rest you learn from and put back.” She paused as her rod tip dipped slightly again. She raised the tip, but again, it must have just been a nibble.

  “I can teach you to tie a damsel if you like?”

  Tori looked away. She felt her father watching her. She felt sick. She could imagine the damsel pumping up its little body. Wanting a second chance at life. A strange sort of thick emotion bubbled inside her.

  Olivia’s rod tip suddenly bent over hard.

  “Oh, got a bite!” She lifted the tip high, keeping the line taut. “Here,” she said, thrusting the rod into Tori’s hand.

  Tori took it in shock.

  “Stand up,” Olivia said as she grabbed the tiller. She started the engine and moved them slowly into calmer water.

  Tori got to her feet, wobbling as the boat rocked a little.

  “Keep the tip of the rod up. Keep your feet planted wide apart and flex your knees. You’ll balance easier.”

  Anxiety whipped through Tori as the line started to zing.

  “It’s running. Diving down deep. Let it go, but keep that tip up, keep some tension on the line.”

  The coils of line on the boat floor started rapidly feeding back into the rod eyes and out into the water. Her mouth went dry. She was shaking.

  Suddenly there was no tension on the line.

  “Bring in some line! Pull it in with your hand. The fish has changed direction and is swimming back to the boat. It’ll spook when it sees us and run again. Be ready.”

  Tori swallowed, frantically pulling in line. Her skin felt hot.

  Suddenly the fish leaped out of the water, all sparkling silver, twisting its body in the air and flipping its tail, spraying droplets. Tori gasped. The fish slapped down on the water, and the line started to zing again—everything she’d pulled in spooling back out into the water. Her eyes started to burn with the adrenaline now thumping through her body.

  “Let it run, Tori, let it run!” her dad barked.

  “I’m doing it, Dad!”

  “Good job, Tori,” Olivia said. “As soon as you feel it going slack, pull it in again, keep the tension on.”

  She nodded, eyes riveted to the water. She felt the line go slack and rapidly drew a handful of line in.

  “If you hold the line with your fingers of your right hand, keeping it taut, you can reel in the slack.”

  She did. Her arms were shaking with excitement. Suddenly she saw the silvery fish in the green water. Her heart kicked. The fish saw the boat and tried to dive again. Tori let it go. When her line went slack, she reeled again, until once more she glimpsed the silvery creature.

  “It’s getting tired,” Olivia said. “I think you can start bringing it in.”

  Tori reeled. The fish flopped feebly toward the boat, pulled by the hook in its mouth.

  Olivia reached for the net as Tori brought the trout up alongside the hull.

  “Don’t forget to keep that rod tip up.” Olivia crouched down and gently scooped the net under the fish. “Reel in some more . . . that’s it.”

  Tori got onto her knees and carefully leaned over the side of the boat while still keeping the rod tip high and the line taut.

  The fish
looked up at her with a terrified eye. Its pink mouth was gasping. Her chest tightened. Her heart was beating so fast she thought it might bust out of her ribs.

  Her first fish on a fly.

  It was truly beautiful. So shiny and silvery with a rainbow blush down its side. Tori could see the tiny lure in its glistening mouth, the hook through the delicate cheek. And as she looked into that fish’s eye, something happened inside Tori. She felt a connection.

  “Here,” Olivia said, reaching her hand into the net and cupping it under the fish’s belly. “Hold it like this.”

  Her father took the rod from her, and Tori reached into the cold water with her bare hands. Tentatively she grasped hold of the trout.

  It was firm, and slippery, and it smelled briny-fresh. In its pink mouth were teensy little razor-sharp teeth.

  “It’s above size,” Olivia said. “Would you like to keep it?”

  “Keep it?”

  “For dinner,” said Olivia. “Or breakfast, or lunch. Nothing like fresh Broken Bar trout. They have really pinky-orange flesh, almost like a salmon. The color comes from all the micro shrimp they eat in this lake.”

  Olivia took a Leatherman tool out of her fishing vest pocket as she spoke. She brought it down to the fish. “We’ll just give it a sharp bonk on the back of the head with this, and it’ll die quickly.”

  Tori stared in mild shock. It was the first time she’d ever thought about killing her food, really. It was the first time she’d experienced this thrill, this having connected with a secret creature from down deep. This poor creature who’d been foxed by an imitation insect. Very quietly she said, “Can we put this one back?”

  “Sure we can.” Olivia returned her Leatherman to her vest pocket. “You remove the hook like this.” She opened the mouth and carefully extracted the hook. “When I tie these lures I press down the barbs so it makes them easy to remove, and there’s less damage to the fish.”

  She got something else out of her pocket. It looked like a big eyedropper. She squeezed the rubber bulb at the end and stuck the tube part of it into the fish’s throat, releasing the bulb while Tori continued to hold the trout just under water.

  Olivia squeezed the contents of the dropper into the palm of her hand. Water filled her cupped palm. It was full of little black things.

  “Chironomids.”

  Tori peered at them. Some were still alive, squiggling.

  “Now we know what the fish are feeding on right now, so we know which lures to use.” She emptied her hand. “You ready to let her go?”

  Tori nodded.

  “Hold her like this, move her gently so she can get water going through her gills.”

  Gently the sergeant removed the Predator from the fish’s glistening mouth. He crouched down and cradled the fish in the cups of his hands . . . with a sudden powerful flick of its tail, it flashed out of his hands and ran upriver into the green current . . .

  And just like that, her own fish flicked its tail, and she saw the silver burrowing deep into the green.

  Tori felt tears in her eyes. It made her embarrassed. She didn’t want to look up.

  “It’s getting dark,” her father said gently. “Perhaps we should head back in.”

  Olivia packed in the rods and started the engine again. She steered them across the lake into the choppy waters. On the opposite shore, in the distance, glowed the warm lights of the lodge.

  It wasn’t really dark yet, just that the sun had gone behind the ridge and leached the color out of the landscape.

  Silence descended on the occupants of the small boat as they puttered back to the shoreline in the dusk. Tori glanced over her shoulder to where the campsite was located on the west end. There were dots of flickering orange campfires among the dark trees. She could smell wood smoke. The Cariboo night chill was descending. Tori looked up at the sky.

  The first star.

  Her father was looking too.

  They both knew what Mom would have said.

  Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight—make a wish, guys!

  I wish on that star that you could come back, Mom.

  But Tori knew now that some wishes were impossible. They could never come true. No matter how hard you wished them.

  Her mother was gone.

  There would never be a second chance for that.

  Cole came out of the bathroom and entered the kitchenette rubbing his wet hair with a towel. He hooked the towel around his neck, poured himself a mug of coffee, and took his mug to the small table in front of a window that overlooked the lake.

  Dusk had settled and wind was whipping up small whitecaps, but the water on the far side of the lake in the shadows was still. An angler in a float tube moved slowly back toward the campsite. A small boat was returning across the lake. In it were three people. It looked like Olivia and Burton with that kid. Her guided outing.

  Cole paused, thinking of her words back at the barn. She’d read him like a book. A smile tempted his mouth. She had indeed read him—in his book. Yet while she probed his secrets, she kept her own guarded tight.

  He seated himself at the table and powered up his laptop. Her mystery had him hooked, and it struck him—Olivia had reawakened his interest in something outside of finding the next bar or mindless lay. His muse was starting to whisper.

  His monitor came to life, but his battery was almost out of juice. He didn’t have much time before he’d have to head up to the house to charge it again.

  He typed in the ranch’s wireless code and opened up a search engine. He entered the words: Birkenhead murder.

  He reached for his mug and took a sip as the results populated his screen.

  While he’d conducted a cursory search on Olivia West from O’Hare Airport, he was now approaching things from a different angle. Something about that murder on the news had freaked her, and he intended to find out more.

  He clicked through the links, reading. But there wasn’t much more than he’d already seen on TV or read in that Province article and op-ed piece. It appeared the police had still not identified the victim, a woman in her fifties. Again there were references to the signature killings from Watt Lake over a decade ago.

  Cole took another sip, and this time he entered into the search engine the words Watt Lake murders.

  A long list of links came up, most of them to archived news stories. And there were plenty.

  He scanned the stories one by one as he sipped his coffee. Over a period of eight years, seven women had gone missing. The first four were sex trade workers, vulnerable women who’d vanished along a highway to the north. It was only in retrospect that a pattern had been identified. The women all disappeared around Thanksgiving, just before a big snowfall. The fifth had been a young married mother whose car had broken down on a remote road north of Watt Lake. Her car had been found abandoned. At the time it had been presumed that she’d tried to walk for help and had gotten lost and perished in the snowstorm that had blown in. The sixth woman was an angler who’d gotten separated from her fishing party. The seventh was a forestry worker who’d disappeared in the woods. And then there was the last victim. The one who’d survived. Sarah Jane Baker, 25, married to Ethan Baker, owner of the local sporting goods store.

  Baker had gone missing the afternoon before Thanksgiving on the cusp of a severe early winter storm. Search teams and dogs had yielded nothing. The searches had been hampered by heavy snow and low cloud.

  At the time no one truly suspected foul play. The wilderness around Watt Lake was vast and endless. People easily vanished, and did often enough—hunters, mushroom pickers, fishermen, hikers, climbers, snowmobilers. The weather, wild animals, violent rivers, treacherous terrain all presented hazards. No one connected her disappearance with the seven other missing women.

  The following spring, on a misty morning, a truck driver came across a wild-hai
red, mad-eyed young woman stumbling through snow along the remote Ki’ina logging road. She was pregnant and wrapped only in a rancid bearskin and burlap sack. She wore hiking boots and no socks. She carried a rifle, was severely hypothermic, badly cut, bruised, frostbitten, and babbling nonsense. She had a frayed rope secured tightly around her neck. Sarah Baker. Miraculously, she’d survived.

  Cole swallowed, slowly setting down his mug.

  As Baker recovered in hospital, the horrors of her abduction were slowly revealed. She’d been held prisoner in a shack somewhere in remote wilderness. There had been other women there before her. She’d seen a flayed body of a redhead on a meat hook. Her abductor had carved it up and put meat in his freezer.

  The female forestry worker who’d disappeared the preceding fall had been a redhead.

  Media swarmed Watt Lake. The story quickly went national, and then global. Homicide investigators came up from E Division in Surrey, taking over the case from the local RCMP unit. Political pressure came to bear on the federal police force.

  Five months later—after Sarah Baker had given birth to her child, after a lengthy manhunt—a joint RCMP and tribal police emergency response team finally took down Sebastian George and brought him in.

  At least, “Sebastian” was what he said his name was. He was, in effect, a man with no formal ID. His birth had never been registered, and he’d never been entered into any official system. In the eyes of the bureaucracy, he quite simply did not exist.

  Forensics identification teams descended on his land, where gradually the scope of the depravation was revealed. The remains of the seven missing women were all found on his property. Two other bodies were found buried farther away. Those of a male and female in their late sixties—his parents, who, it appeared, had lived in squalor in an abode in the woods near the main buildings of the property.

  It was pieced together that Sebastian George was the son of a drifter who’d moved up from California in the sixties and decided to go off-grid when she met and took up with Peter George, an aboriginal hunter and trapper born in Bear Claw. They’d built a completely self-sufficient homestead in the remote Bear Claw Valley on First Nations land, and lived off the forest and rivers. They’d given birth to Sebastian, raised the boy entirely off-grid.