by Meg Muldoon
I grinned and Daniel’s eyes sparkled as he laughed at my joke.
It was a nice distraction – even if it only lasted for a few seconds.
Daniel’s cell buzzed against my hip through his jean pocket. He rummaged around, pulling out the phone.
The smile on his face dropped faster than a late autumn snowstorm in the mountains as he gazed at the caller ID.
He swallowed hard. Then brought the phone up to his ear.
“Sheriff Brightman,” he said in a low voice.
All I could make out was that it was a woman on the other side of the line. But I wasn’t able to hear anything she said.
“Thank you for calling,” Daniel said. “It’s much appreciated.”
I felt my heart skip a few beats.
Judging by the solemn expression on Daniel’s face, whatever this had to do with was very serious.
He lowered the phone, placing it on the table behind him.
I searched his eyes. I didn’t even have to ask who it had been about.
“It’s Angie,” he said.
My gut suddenly felt as though it had been drop-kicked out the attic window.
“Is she…?” I stuttered in a trembling voice.
Chapter 40
The elevator doors seemed to open with all the speed of frozen honey.
When they did finally part, we stepped out and hurriedly walked down the beige hall, weaving our way between patients, family members, doctors, and nurses.
When we got to Angie’s room, I was out of breath.
Ms. Bauer shot up out of her chair when she saw us in the doorjamb. She looked haggard and frazzled, and like she’d been crying.
But they hadn’t been tears of sorrow.
She looked relieved.
Angie’s mom reached for Daniel’s hands as if he was an old friend.
“They brought her out of the coma, Sheriff. Thank the Lord!” she said, her voice booming down the hallway behind us. “Thank the lord, she’s awake!”
Chapter 41
Her face was red and swollen, and one cheek was badly scratched. Bandages circled her neck. Her eyes were listless and seemed to be seeing things we couldn’t as she stared off into space. Her red hair hung in raggedy, dry strands around her face. Tubes were attached to her arms, going up into various machines and bags. Meanwhile the monotonous beeping of the life alert machine droned on in the background like a soundtrack to a nightmare.
Angie looked horrible.
And as I stood there, looking at her, I was having a hard time not losing it. Seeing her like this made me want to break down and cry.
“Angie?” Daniel said in a soft voice.
She didn’t respond.
He moved the plastic hospital chair closer to the bed and took a seat.
“We know that you must be feeling really bad,” Daniel said, delicately patting her hand. “And I know everything must be really confusing right now.”
She rolled her eyes in his direction. The small effort seemed as though it caused her great pain.
“But if there’s anything you can tell us about what happened out there,” Daniel continued. “I mean anything at all – then it would really help us if you could—”
She shook her head suddenly. In such a severe way that it caused my breath to catch in my throat.
Angie moved her lips, as if she was trying to say something, but the words weren’t coming. She looked confused suddenly, not understanding why she couldn’t speak.
Daniel swallowed hard.
“Where were you last? When you and Wes got separated?”
Once again, that confused look spread across her face. She stared past us at the wall, looking frustrated.
“Was it Big Eddy Lake?”
She looked at Daniel. Then, she gave him one slow nod.
“Were you guys at Mercy Face?The rock formation out there?”
Something flickered in her eyes when he said the name.
“Did… did you get caught in a rock fall?” Daniel asked. “Is that what happened?”
She looked away suddenly. He started asking the question again, thinking she may not have understood it. But then, she nodded.
“Angie,” he said, leaning in closer to her and lowering his voice. “What happened to Wes? Do you know?”
Angie didn’t answer the question.
At least, not with words.
Her eyes drifted out the window of the small hospital room. Then she closed them, and two fat tears began streaming down her puffy cheeks.
I glanced over, looking at Angie’s mom, who was seated in the corner. She was crying, too.
I guess some of the anger she’d felt toward her son-in-law had dissipated some.
Daniel fell silent for a long while. But then, after some time had passed, he asked the question that was on all of our minds.
He cleared his throat.
“Is he dead, Angie?” he asked.
He said it in a gentle, compassionate tone.
But in the end, it didn’t matter how he said it.
The impact was the same.
Angie brought her hands up to her face and started sobbing violently.
Daniel went as pale as the first snowfall of the year.
Chapter 42
I woke up to a strange, repetitive thudding sound coming from upstairs, along with the faint chords of a guitar floating down through the house.
I opened my eyes, seeing the armrest of the sofa at my feet. I sat up, craned my neck, and squinted at the clock on the oven.
It was close to three in the morning.
I pushed the blankets off of me. Blankets that I hadn’t had when I was lying here many hours earlier, watching TV, waiting for Daniel to come home. I noticed too that the television had been turned off. I must have fallen asleep just after the 11 o’clock news, which had rerun the same information about the Search & Rescue efforts that it had on its 5:30 p.m. newscast. But now they were saying that though the Sheriff’s Office hadn’t officially updated the TV news anchors about the current situation, most experts told them that the chances of finding Wes Dulany alive at this stage were slim.
I stood up from the sofa, my knees cracking as I stretched. I shuffled over to the kitchen and flicked on the light switch, illuminating the room.
I noticed that the dogs weren’t anywhere to be found.
I headed upstairs. Light spilled from beneath the attic door. The now-familiar voice of Tom Bullock grew louder as I walked down the hall.
“And she waited for him out on that porch of hers, and day and night he rode. But the lady never understood, that a man’s tied to his code. She waited with little Jimmy on that porch, all day and night, but Christmas heard the calling of his own fight…”
I quietly opened the door and peeked inside.
The pooches were curled up at the far end, snoozing. Huckleberry saw me, and started wagging his nub slightly. Daniel was standing by the record player, studying something in his hands.
“When did you get home?”
He looked up, meeting my eyes, putting whatever he was looking at down on the side table.
“An hour ago,” he said.
He looked tired and sad, but glad to see me. He held a tennis ball in his other hand, and I realized that was the source of the dull thudding I’d been hearing up here. He’d been bouncing it against the wall.
I stepped into the attic, still warm from the heat of the day. A cool breeze was blowing through the window, and that, combined with the dim light and the folksy music playing from the record player, gave the room a hazy, nostalgic feel. It felt like I had stumbled into some moment out of the past.
I went over, wrapping my arms around him. I hugged him hard – he looked like he needed one pretty bad. He held me back, and I knew that I’d been right.
“How’re you doing with everything?” I asked, resting my head on his chest.
He let out a sigh.
“I just keep thinking – you know how Wes invited me to come
along on their trip? Well, maybe I should have gone, Cin. If I’d gone, then maybe none of this would have—”
“Don’t play that game,” I whispered, clutching him harder. “It’s no good, Daniel. And it wouldn’t have changed how things played out.”
I looked up into his eyes.
“There was nothing you could have done to prevent this.”
“I know I never told you this,” he said, gazing back at me. “But Wes… he’s always reminded me a lot of Jared.”
I bit my lower lip.
Though I’d never met Daniel’s older brother, since he’d been killed in a convenience store robbery years ago, I’d had the feeling that he and Wes might have been similar. Daniel had always said how outgoing and funny his brother was – two qualities that Wes had in spades.
And though Wes wasn’t his brother, in a way, his disappearance and possible death must have dredged up plenty of unresolved emotions and pain.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry this is happening.”
Daniel drew in a deep breath.
“We’re going to suspend the search,” he said.
“What?” I said, searching his eyes, my heart skipping a few beats. “But why—?”
“There’s a bad weather front rolling in, and it’s going to make it difficult to find anybody out there for a couple of days. And I don’t think it’s smart to put so many of the volunteers at risk. Especially if what Angie said is…”
He trailed off. Pain flooded his eyes.
It must have been a very hard call to make. But I knew that the safety of the Search & Rescue volunteers had to come first in a situation like this.
“It just seems so surreal, you know?” he said. “Like one moment, Wes was here. The next, he’s beyond where anybody can reach him. Just… gone.”
“Do you really… do you really think he’d dead, Daniel?”
He paused for a long while before answering.
“If he was alive out there, it seems like we should have found something by now,” he finally said.
A dark bank of depression fell over both of us as Tom Bullock continued to sing softly in the background.
I studied Daniel’s troubled face.
The prospect of his friend’s death was hard to cope with. But I knew that the thing haunting him – and the thing that would continue to haunt him – were the loose ends. The fact that Wes Dulany had as good as vanished into thin air – seemingly for no reason. That was the worst part of it: the unanswered question that lingered like a bad smell.
That was the hardest part to take.
“Daniel?”
“Yeah?”
“Why don’t we go out there?” I said. “Tomorrow. Why can’t we take one last look?”
He shook his head.
“No, I don’t think that would be a good idea, Cin.”
“But you said you don’t have to be back in court until next week. And since the pie shop’s window is busted, we’re not going to reopen for a few days, anyway.”
“I know, Cin. But the weather isn’t something to play around with up there. There’s a reason we’re calling off the search for the time being.”
“And he said, ‘Look West, my love. Look West. And you’ll see me on the horizon…’” Tom Bullock’s voice broke through the pause in the conversation.
“Look,” I said. “I know things are bleak. But the way I see it, there’s a small chance, right? And aside from that, Daniel, I know you. I know that this is going to haunt you for the rest of your life unless you do absolutely everything in your power to find Wes.”
He rubbed his face.
“Even if you only end up bringing home his body, Daniel. I think it’s what you have to do. For Wes. And for Angie, too.”
He looked down at the floor, hanging his head low. Thinking it through.
A moment later, he finally looked back up at me.
“Maybe you’re right, Cin,” he said.
“I know I am.”
“I still don’t think it’s a good idea for you to come, though.”
But his tone wasn’t quite as firm as it had been, and I knew that if I didn’t back down, I’d be able to convince him.
“Maybe,” I said. “But it won’t be like you’ll be dragging dead weight. I’m a decent hiker. And even though it’s been a while since I’ve been up there, I know this area. I know those woods. I can help.”
“And Christmas said ‘Love is at the core, love is the core. Love is the bend in the river where the red boulders glisten. Love is a grove of cottonwoods, strong in the wind. Love is at the core of all of it and more.’”
Daniel’s eyes grew wide suddenly and he let out a strange noise.
I furrowed my brow.
“Did you hear that?” he said, nodding to the record player. “What he just said?”
I shook my head.
I hadn’t been paying attention.
“Tom Bullock just sang Love is at the core, love is the core. Love is the bend in the river where the red boulders glisten. Love is a grove of cottonwoods, strong in the wind...”
I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up as I realized that I recognized the words.
I’d read them before.
“That’s in Christmas Flynn’s letter,” Daniel said, his eyes even wider now. “The one we found in Wes’s safe.”
He went over to the side table and grabbed the faded letter – which I now realized was what he’d been looking at when I’d first come up here.
“Dearest Lillian,” Daniel said, reading from the letter. “I know you told me never to write again. I know you told me that you never wanted to hear my name again or know my very existence. But I had to write. I had to tell you the things I’ve discovered in the past few months of this hardscrabble life.
“I am here in the cottonwood grove, by the bend in the river – the place I used to talk to you so much about. Red obsidian shines around me. It’s nearly as beautiful as the way your hair glistens on a clear summer day, Lillian.”
Daniel shook his head in disbelief.
The words – especially the part about the red obsidian – were alarmingly similar to what Tom Bullock had just sang.
“Was that letter ever published anywhere?” I asked. “Maybe in one of those history books or something?”
Daniel shook his head.
“I doubt it. The Christmas Flynn letters were never found. Historians say that Lillian hid them or burned them. She didn’t want her husband knowing about Christmas Flynn and their affair.”
I rubbed the side of my face.
I knew the pieces were there, but I still wasn’t quite able to put them together.
“That means that Tom Bullock’s seen this letter, Cin,” Daniel said. “He’s had to.”
“But… but what does that mean?” I said. “How does this tie in?”
Daniel gazed back down at the aged paper.
“I don’t know for sure yet,” he said in a faraway tone. “But it’s… something. It has to be.”
I wracked my brain, trying to come up with some scenario that made sense.
Exactly how had Wes come across that letter in the first place?
Why had it been stashed away in a safe like that?
Had he gotten it somehow from Tom Bullock?
Did Wes know Tom Bullock?
I suddenly thought back to what Deb Dulany had mentioned. That recently, Wes had had some sort of breakthrough in his research – something major that had him all worked up.
Was this it? Finding this letter?
If so, what did it mean?
And did any of this have a single thing to do with Wes going missing?
“Will you read the rest of the letter out loud?” I asked.
Daniel nodded, peering at it in the soft light of the attic.
“I wish that I could have shown you my home, Lillian. My family never had money, but we had a different kind of wealth – the only kind that matters.
“I wish you could
know this place.
“I’ve seen much of the country. Much of the world. Much of the ugliness that is human nature. I’ve seen men turn their backs on their brothers for a piece of bread. I’ve seen children starving in fields of abundance. People who have lost everything, with nothing to live for. A whole army of destitute running to the sea, looking for better where better is just a lie.
“Mankind is ugly and greedy and a wretched thing.
“But Lillian, I know now that there’s only one thing worth all the dying, all the bleeding. Only one thing worth all the burning, the running, the thieving. One thing and one thing alone.”
Goosebumps suddenly broke out on my arms as I recognized that part of the letter too – Tom Bullock had said a version of that quote to me up at the pass. I’d forgotten his words until this moment, hearing the letter read out loud.
“Love, pure love, is the only thing that brings the evil of the world to its knees. Love is the only thing in this mean old world that’s worth anything.
“Love.True love. Brotherly love. Love for all wretched mankind. Universal love. Any and all love. Love, and only love alone, will save this bitter world. .
“My love for you will transcend even death, Lillian. They’ll never be able to diminish it or sully it or kill it. Because it lives in a place they can never touch.
“I give you everything I have and more. Love is the core. Love is the core. Love is the light in the darkness.
“Look West for me, Lillian. You and the boy. Look West, and you’ll see me one day on the horizon.
“Yours forever in this life and the next,
“Leonard.”
I felt a round of chills reverberate through my body.
Though I had read the letter when we first found it, something about hearing the words out loud like this touched something deep inside of me.
“Daniel,” I said, after a long silence. “I’m going out there with you tomorrow. Whether you like it or not—”
“Good. What time should we get started?”
I smiled.
Chapter 43