Silence on Cold River

by Casey Dunn

  “I’m sorry, Daddy,” she’d said real soft, jade eyes downcast. “I just wanted to look like Mom.”

  “Me, too, Hazy. I’m sorry, too.” He pressed the side of his face against her dripping head. “I’m no good at this stuff.”

  “You’re not bad at it, either.”

  Eddie had told her he was going to get dinner and came back with a new box of hair dye, which the store clerk had recommended for Hazel’s hair type. Hazel broke down in tears, shaking and snotty. So Eddie read the directions, pulled on the thin, clear gloves, and dyed her hair himself.

  Eddie slammed his open hand on the dashboard. He shifted his gaze to the nine-millimeter sitting on his passenger seat. There were two rounds in the clip. One to fire into the air to draw the attention of anyone nearby, the second to lodge into his brain by way of his mouth. That angle of trajectory left zero chance of survival and, if he leaned toward his window, wouldn’t spatter a mess on the last chance Hazel had to be found.

  When she never came out of the woods that day, Eddie had gone in. He’d called her name. Waited. Listened. Only crows answered. A storm had snuck in over the ridgeline. Within minutes, the sky had opened up, and the rain came down nearly too hard to see through. Eddie had struggled up hill after hill, cursing his weight and work boots and trick knee, especially when all three hit head-on and took him to his hands in a torrent of water streaming down the narrow path.

  By the time the first officers arrived, Hazel had been gone an hour and forty-seven minutes too long. The night sky was black as ink, and the lights from the patrol cars bounced off the shining walls of rain-soaked evergreens.

  Runaway.

  He’d heard it that first night and most days after that, usually in conjunction with the words “loner kid,” “dead mother,” and “goth.” In the jury of public opinion, the case was closed in the first forty-eight hours. The official search ended two months later, and the disappearance of Hazel Rae Stevens moved into the cold case files by the end of winter.

  Now, one year after she vanished, Eddie was determined to force his daughter’s name and face back into the spotlight. There was one last way he could make them pay attention. One way he’d make them remember Hazel.

  Under his nine-millimeter sat Hazel’s journal and a stack of evidence Eddie had tried to give to the station months ago, with little response. Three other people had disappeared in these parts in the past ten years. There were no similarities between them, and none of them had ever been found. No bodies. No farewell notes. No scrap remnant. Just gone.

  The detective assigned to take his questions and keep him updated had accepted the information like a teenage girl receiving a tacky sweater from a distant relative, complete with a pat on his shoulder, and handed it right back to him.

  “She’s not in those woods,” the detective had said.

  But she was. Eddie knew it. He also knew he wasn’t a smart man. Not the kind of smart it would take to make investigators listen. And he was a transplant here, moved from Texas after his wife passed. Last year, a handful of people had baked casseroles and hung flyers and searched the forest on foot and horseback, but their commitment to Hazel evaporated in a slow, invisible way. They hadn’t known her as a baby, sweet and shy. Or as an eight-year-old who could play three instruments. They knew her only as a sullen-seeming teenage girl with too much eyeliner and not enough interest in high school football or the boys who played on the team. They’d failed her. He’d failed her. There was only one way he would gain enough attention to bring her home. All he had to do was pull the trigger.

  He touched the barrel of his gun with his index finger. Regret whispered through him. After two weeks with no sign of Hazel, detectives had started preparing him to find a body, coaching him on what a relief it would be to lay her to rest, to know where she was. He wanted to agree with them. He did agree. Ending his life was his last effort to find Hazel in two ways: to reignite interest in her case, and, if there was another side, some kind of place people go when they die, to maybe find her there. Everyone else was sure she was dead. He knew he’d been a fool to think anything different. So why didn’t he feel it? Shouldn’t a parent feel it when their child is gone, some kind of instinctive recognition? He wasn’t sure either way. Aside from not knowing where she was, that unknown bothered him the most.

  He pulled off his gloves and rubbed his face. What if this was a mistake? What if it had the opposite effect? He glanced at Hazel’s journal, then at the clock.

  “I’ll sit here with you for an hour, like I should’ve a year ago. And if you need me to stay alive, you give me a sign,” he whispered. He pulled her journal into his lap and opened the cover.

  AMA Chapter 4 | 4:22 PM, December 1, 2006 | Tarson, Georgia

  AMA TOOK THE FIRST SERIES of rising switchbacks too fast. By the time she reached the peak, she was out of breath and her calves were on fire. She stopped and planted her hands on her lower back, stretching out the cramps that laced up her sides.

  She hadn’t heard a car door close, and the trail had split twice already. Even if the guy in the van was some nutjob sociopathic serial killer, he wouldn’t find her. Plus, from what she had seen, he didn’t look like he was in the best shape. She could probably outrun him.

  “You’re being ridiculous,” she muttered. Still, she couldn’t shake the tingly sensation of warning. She reached into her jacket pocket for her phone. She had a single bar of signal. “Thank you,” she said on an exhale, and dialed her assistant’s phone number.

  “Ama? Where are you? The phone is ringing off the hook, and two reporters have come by for comments on the Hershaw case.”

  “I’m on a run up in the mountains. I need to clear my head,” she said, steadying her breathing.

  “What? Why did you—?”

  “Stop talking, Lindsey. I need you to run a plate for me and call in a location if there’s any kind of outstanding infraction.”

  “Sure, of course.”

  Ama recited the van’s plate sequence and described the location of the parking lot.

  “You’re in Tarson? Is someone there with you?” Lindsey asked. “I don’t know if you should be running in meth country by yourself, especially if you’re feeling the need to call in a plate. I know you’re a monster in the courtroom, but this isn’t your jungle, Ama. You need to be careful.”

  “This is me being careful,” she countered. “I will call you when I’m done. I should be off the trail by five fifteen, but the cell service up here is crap. If you don’t hear back from me by five thirty, call me.”

  “Okay. But, Ama—”

  Ama hung up her phone and stowed it in her zip pocket. Talking to Lindsey had calmed her down. Nervous people always had the opposite effect on her. Whether that was what made her a good attorney or was just a by-product of soothing guilty, agitated people she wasn’t sure. Right now, she was just glad it was one of her strengths.

  She flexed her feet one at a time on a tree root, excising the tension from her legs, and popped on the headphones she’d been too wary to use before, in case the music blocked out the sounds of an approaching stranger. She stopped herself from checking over her shoulder, then set off at an easy pace down the back side of the first hill.

  She leaned forward into the next climbing set of switchbacks, which were steeper than the first. She felt lighter when she reached the top, the weight of pushing uphill lifted once the ground leveled briefly under her driving feet. She turned downhill again and allowed her stride to lengthen as she began the descent. The trees blurred into a palette of gray and brown. She increased her speed, thrilling at the nearly out-of-control feeling of racing down a mountain. Her arms pumped at her sides. Her pulse and the bass from her music pounded in her ears.

  Ahead, the trail took a hairpin turn and leveled for about twenty yards before turning down again. She eased off her pace to save her wind for her favorite part of the trail, which was coming up quickly. The second half of the descent was steeper and cut the mountains
ide in switchbacks all the way to the valley floor, where Cold River, narrow and infamously deep, carved a boundary between two foothills, and marked the place where she would turn around and retrace her path back to the parking lot.

  The ground dipped, and she took off, racing herself, her shadows, and the thoughts in her head until they were mostly well behind her. Only the foreman’s voice from this morning kept up. She dug in, driving herself to her highest gear. Instead of quieting, his voice grew louder.

  We find the defendant guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty.

  She gritted her teeth and pushed off the ground to leap across the tight bend. Upon landing, her left toe caught under an exposed root, but she was going too fast to control the fall. Her ankle twisted and popped. Her foot slid loose from her shoe, and she landed hard on her shoulder, then rolled down the hill until she crashed to a stop against the base of a tree.

  Pain shot up her left leg and radiated across her back. She spit out dirt and debris between gasps of air. Once the world around her stopped spinning, she pulled her knees into her chest, groaning. Her ankle was fire-hot to the touch. She pulled her sock the rest of the way off. She could wiggle her toes, but the idea of bearing any weight on her foot sent shivers through her.

  She sat upright and patted her head, searching for her sunglasses, but they must’ve flown off. Tortoiseshell frames in a blanket of leaves. They were as good as gone. Her earphones were looped around her neck like a scarf. She dug into her jacket pocket to retrieve her phone, which came out in two pieces. She squeezed the pieces in her fist and collapsed back onto the blanket of leaves and dirt.

  “Really?” she asked the sky. She raised her arm above her face and looked at her watch. She’d been running about thirty minutes, which amounted to about two and a half miles with the elevation changes. She returned her focus to her ankle. Now that the sudden agony of trauma had subsided, she was able to move her foot back and forth about an inch. Hopefully, that meant nothing was broken. The area around the joint was already swelling, and the top of her foot was turning red.

  Rustling leaves drew her ear. She grabbed hold of the base of a tree and worked herself to standing. A hiker was coming straight up the hill through the trees. He had a wooden walking cane in one hand and a large pack on his back, a rolled-up tent strapped to the top. His jeans were fitted but slouchy with wear. His black hair was short and tussled. Even in all the trees, his jawline was the hardest thing out there.

  Ama blinked and licked her lips. If she wasn’t crippled and didn’t have a hundred leaves and twigs in her hair, this encounter might have gone a very different way.

  “Hey!” she called out, waving. The man looked up, startled. He scanned the view in front of him a second before finding her. He picked up his pace, stowed the cane between his back and his pack, and marched the remainder of the incline.

  “Is everything okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Mostly. I’m glad you came along,” she answered. She smiled, too big. Was she glad? She was alone in the woods with a strange man, and God knew what he had in that giant pack. He stopped before crossing the trail, perhaps sensing her hesitation.

  “What happened to your shoe?” he asked.

  Ama pointed up the hill. “I tripped on a root up the trail. The root kept my shoe.”

  He smiled. “Can you walk?”

  “I can hobble, as long as there’s a tree within an arm’s reach.”

  “Here.” He withdrew his walking cane. “This should work better than hanging on to trees.”

  “Thanks.” The wood was warm and worn. She ran her fingers down the grain, expecting it to be smooth, but straight lines were cut into it. She rotated the cane to get a better look. Piano keys had been carved down the length of the cane. They were perfectly even. She caught herself pressing down on one, as if to test it for sound.

  “This is incredible. Did you do this?” she asked.

  He nodded. “After many failed attempts. Music has been a big part of my life. Carving wood didn’t come so naturally.”

  “Well, you’re obviously good at it now,” she said, marveling at it. “Is it to scale?”

  “That’s what I tell myself.”

  Ama leaned into the cane. She could press the ball of her injured foot to the ground so long as she didn’t let her heel come down. “This is helping. Thanks.”

  “Do you need water or anything?” He angled his shoulder to slide off his pack. Nervousness bloomed inside Ama. At least it wasn’t the guy in the beater van, she thought to herself. Although statistically, this handsome fellow was more likely to hurt her, so long as he was over thirty-five, but she would bet he was a bit younger. The skin on his face was lineless, despite having obviously logged countless hours outside.

  “This is going to sound crazy,” he started, breaking through Ama’s train of thought, “but have we met before? You look really familiar.”

  “I doubt it. I’m not from around here.”

  He grinned, sheepish, and ran his fingers through his hair. “Name’s Jonathon.”

  “Ama.”

  “Ama? I haven’t heard of many Amas.” He cocked his head to the side. “Family name?”

  “It’s a long story,” she said, irritation rekindling in the furnace of her rib cage. “The short version is that my dad was an Alabama fan, but my mother wouldn’t let him name me Bama, so they agreed on Ama.”

  “Ama from Bama. It’s cute,” he offered.

  “Not if you’re me,” she responded. “And I’m not from Alabama.”

  “Well, your secret is safe with me.” He raised his fingers in some kind of salute. “Have you called for help, Ama?”

  She nearly answered with the truth. She pressed her lips together, reconsidering in an instant. “I called a friend. He’s on the way now. I’m supposed to meet him at the south trailhead,” she lied.

  Jonathon stared up the hill. “If you stay on the path, that’s going to be over a mile to the south entrance. I know a more direct route. The first part will be tough”—he paused, motioning to her foot—“because it’s almost straight down. Then it won’t be so bad, and it’ll be half the distance.”

  Ama glanced at her watch. If she stuck to the path and hobbled, it could take her two hours to get there, and she wasn’t sure she had two hours of daylight left. While a direct route would cut down the distance, Ama was nervous enough at the thought of staying on the path with a complete stranger, much less wandering blindly through the woods. He seemed nice, but she’d met enough criminals to know they typically shared a charming personality.

  “Actually, I’m feeling a lot better. You need to get where you’re going before dark, and I can make it.” She forced her left foot mostly flat against the ground, grinning to cover up the pain shooting up her ankle. “Not to be weird. The situation is just…”

  “Weird,” he finished for her. “I get it.”

  “Here.” She tried to hand him the walking cane, but he took a step back, shaking his head.

  “You need it. I can make another.”

  “I can’t take this.” She gripped the end and extended it out to him. “It’s special to you. How many miles has this thing seen?”

  “It’s seen a lot.” He smiled and gingerly took hold of the opposite end. “Well, take care, Ama. And make sure we don’t meet like this again,” he said with an easy laugh.

  “I’ll do my best. Enjoy your hike.” She slid her feet forward a step, forcing herself into movement.

  “I will,” he called at her back. She waved over her shoulder, continuing for a solid minute before glancing behind her. He was gone. She was already exhausted, and she’d only made it thirty or forty yards. How the hell was she going to make it all the way back?

  “Hey, Ama.” Jonathon’s voice came from close behind her. She pivoted on her good foot and grabbed a tree to keep from going down.

  “God, you scared me,” she said, glaring.

  “Didn’t mean to. I just thought you’d make it farther with both shoe
s,” he said, producing the shoe she’d lost at the beginning of her fall. The top of the pepper spray was still attached to her laces, but the rest of the bottle was gone.

  “Sorry. It’s been a rough day,” she said.

  “We’ve all had those.” He tilted his head to the side. “And we have met before. I remember now. It was at a martini bar in Atlanta a couple years back. It was fall. They had trees on the patio with the most yellow leaves I’d ever seen. I asked the waiter what they were. He said they were ginkgo trees. Do you remember them? Do you… remember me?”

  Ama forced herself to swallow. How many hotel bars had she been in? How many times had she ended up in a room that wasn’t hers for an hour or two?

  She cleared her throat. “I’m sorry. I don’t.”

  “It was a couple years ago. There was a piano player. He wasn’t very good. You went up and talked to him.”

  Ama startled, stricken with recognition. “He butchered ‘Stairway to Heaven.’ ” She laughed and shook her head. “Did you buy me a drink?”

  “No.” The expression on his face changed like clouds passing over a once-clear sky, blotting out the sun. “I was the piano player. You said you’d give me all the cash in your wallet if I’d take a twenty-minute intermission so you could finish your drink in peace. You said it looked like I was out past my bedtime. Your business card was mixed into the bills. That’s where I remember your name from. Do you remember me now?”

  “Oh, my God. I’m so sorry. I’d had a lot to drink. It was a bad night…” The memory came rushing back. The entire firm had gone out to dinner at Olive after the conclusion of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers conference, and she’d found out she’d been passed over for partner. She’d drank her way to the bottom of a row of dirty martinis to dull the frustration. When that hadn’t worked, she took it out on the mediocre piano player.