HIDING PLACE by Meghan Holloway

by Meghan Holloway

  Evening was descending over Raven’s Gap when I drove into town, and the library was already closed for the day. I knew the computer on my desk at the police department did not have a memory card port. I drove to the diner.

  Maggie was taking someone’s order when Frank and I walked in, and when she shot a smile my direction, I pointed toward her office. She nodded, and I retreated down the hallway. Louie was curled up on the couch in her office. He yapped a greeting to Frank, who ran over to the smaller dog and leapt onto the couch beside him.

  I moved to Maggie’s desk and powered up her computer. I purchased the iMac for her last year for Christmas after seeing the state of the desktop she used to keep her records. I slipped the memory card from my pocket as I logged in and inserted the card into the port at the side.

  It took several long moments to load. When it finally did, I clicked on the folder that showed up on the desktop. All of the files were jpegs, and I started at the top and worked my way down.

  I was engrossed in studying the photos and did not hear the door open until Maggie slid a plate across the desk to me. I sat back in my chair and watched as she placed two bowls of scrambled eggs with ham on the floor for the dogs.

  “Did Winona ever mention anything to you in the months before she disappeared?”

  Maggie straightened from leaning against the desk and her gaze swung to mine. Her brow wrinkled. “How do you mean?”

  “Did she ever say anything that made you think she was uneasy about something?” I asked. “That she didn’t feel safe or that she felt threatened by someone?”

  “No, she never said anything like that. But…” Her gaze took on a faraway look, and I leaned forward. “I remember thinking she seemed worried about something. She never told me, and I never asked. At the time…” She sent me an apologetic glance. “I thought it was just something going on between the two of you.”

  I rubbed the back of my head and scrolled through more of the images on the screen.

  “Have you found something?” Maggie asked, leaning over the desk to peer at the computer.

  “I don’t know,” I told her truthfully.

  There were hundreds of photographs on the memory card. The cameras must operate via motion sensor, because each still had captured an animal’s movement across the camera’s field of vision—porcupine, coyotes, foxes, a bobcat, moose, elk, and several grizzlies. Aside from the last photos of Frank and me, the stills contained only animals.

  Chuck, one of Maggie’s cooks, called for her, and when she left, I pulled up a map in the web browser. I typed in the coordinates of the first camera trap again and expanded the viewfinder after the pin dropped.

  Grant Larson’s land ran directly adjacent to Yellowstone along the corner of the park, curving down and around the northwestern border, crossing US Highway 191, and hugging the park’s border almost all the way south to West Yellowstone. I pulled the scrap of paper from my pocket where I had scrawled all of Winona’s coordinates. I plugged each one into the map, and the pressure in my chest tightened.

  Each coordinate lay within the wild, hotly contested borderlands between Yellowstone National Park and Larson’s land.

  eight

  GRANT

  “The boy talked,” John Smith said as he approached the corral.

  The wild horse bolted away from me and put the width of the pen between us. Iago had let me approach him to within five feet before John startled him. I gave the horse a moment to relax before I moved toward him again. “You’re positive?”

  He held up a file. “See for yourself.”

  Iago’s head bobbed up and down at John’s swift movement. “Whoa, boy. Whoa,” I murmured. He blew out a breath and lowered his head to investigate the hay I scattered in the pen.

  I moved to where John stood and accepted the file from him, flipping open the folder. “Shit,” I breathed. The pictures were grainy, but there was no mistaking Hector Lewis and his dog in the grayscale images.

  I hated the man as soon as I saw the ring on Winona’s finger.

  That day on the state road, watching her stroke the neck of a horse that barely tolerated my own touch, I offered her a job on the spot.

  “Name your price,” I told her. “I’ll pay you whatever you want if you’ll come work for me.”

  She agreed, and when I saw the excitement in her eyes, I hoped some of it was for me as well, not just for the opportunity to help train my horses.

  I banked on that hope a month later when I invited her to the house after a long, grueling day for dinner. I couched it as an invitation to all of the hands, but when the men met my gaze and nodded, I knew they understood their appearance would not be welcome.

  She missed the undertone of the exchange with the other men, but she understood when she walked in, saw the candlelight, and heard the low strains of jazz music. Her face had tightened with apprehension.

  “I hope this isn’t what it looks like,” she said, and I knew from the cautious tone of her voice I would not be able to win her. “Grant, I am willing to be your friend and your employee, but no more than that.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  She laughed, and the sweet sound slipped right between my ribs. “Well, first of all, I’m married.”

  “Happily?”

  Her laughter cut off abruptly at my question, and she looked away. She stared at the carefully prepared table for a long moment. I memorized the strong, proud lines of her profile.

  I thought her hesitation might mean capitulation, but when she met my gaze, I could see the resolve in her eyes.

  “I love my husband,” she said, voice firm.

  I studied the grainy images of that husband now. He had no idea how close I had come to destroying him. The only thing that kept me from doing so all those years ago was the knowledge that Winona was proud and stubborn, and she would never turn to me knowing how I felt about her.

  “I suppose it’s too much to hope that he was just out for a hike and stumbled across the site,” I said.

  John grunted. “Those photos are from two different camera traps, miles apart. After the first one, he knew what he was looking for. He found the next almost immediately after he walked into range. Nothing random about it. We think he found a third one as well, but he busted the lock and took the memory card.”

  I stared at the photos, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw Iago slowly approaching me. “How did he know where to find the cameras?”

  “I don’t know. I grilled Jones and Rogers about what the kid could have overheard. Both could only remember talking about the menu for our upcoming guests.”

  Iago stopped a few feet away and stretched his neck toward me. I felt the velvet texture of his nose brush my arm, but I remained still and did not turn toward him. My voice was low when I finally spoke. “When you take care of this, I want it done quietly. Neatly.” I looked up and met his gaze. “Make it look like accidents.”

  This could not leak. I had taken measures to ensure it did not leak fifteen years ago, and I would do so again.

  nine

  HECTOR

  I could have waited on the porch of his cabin, but I jimmied the lock on his front door and took a seat in his recliner for the sheer pleasure of fucking with him.

  Jack Decker was the main culprit for the repeated ransacking and vandalism of my Airstream after Winona and Emma disappeared. After seven years, the man eventually developed hobbies that did not involve desecrating my home on a regular basis.

  I crossed to Jack’s refrigerator, grabbed a beer, and returned to his recliner. I made myself comfortable while I waited for him.

  His reaction when he opened his front door an hour later was exactly what I expected. He froze, and he flinched in fear before a cold mask of anger settled over his face.

  “The fuck are you doing in my home?” he said, voice sharp as a blade.

  I tipped the bottle back and drained the last of my beer before respondin
g. “I want to know if Grant Larson was doing something fifteen years ago that made Winona suspicious.”

  He took a quick step back as if I had physically shoved him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  I kicked the footrest down on his recliner but stayed seated. “I think you do. She helped get you that job at Larson’s ranch when you got out of the Army. If something had happened, she would have told you about it.” I met his gaze. “I want to know what it was.”

  He stayed in the doorway. His smile was completely devoid of humor. “Always trying to pin the blame on someone else. One day you’ll run out of men to accuse. Maybe then you’ll admit to what you did to my sister and Emma.”

  It was nothing he had not said to me countless times before. His voice was as hard as ever, but I thought I saw something in his eyes I never noticed before. I thought it looked a lot like guilt.

  I stood and moved into the kitchen as if I owned the place. I opened his cabinet doors until I found where he collected his bottles for recycling and tossed the empty beer bottle into the box before turning to him. “If you’ve been hiding something for fifteen years that would have helped me find Winona and Emma, I’ll see you six feet under, you little shit.”

  Fury swept across his face. “Get out of my house.”

  I kept my stride unhurried as I crossed to the doorway and paused when I reached him. We stood toe to toe for a tense moment before he backed out of the threshold to allow me to pass. “You know where to find me when you decide to tell me the truth.”

  I tore the Airstream apart when I returned home. I searched every nook, overturned the cushions and the mattress and boxspring, explored each cranny. I found it when I pulled one of the drawers in the kitchenette completely free of its track. A key was taped to the back of the drawer.

  I tore the tape free and studied the key. It was shaped and cut for a safe deposit box.

  She did not have a safe deposit box at the bank in town. Our finances had been picked over with a fine-toothed comb in the aftermath of her disappearance, first to see if she was still spending from our accounts and then to see if I had made any suspicious withdrawals or deposits around the time she went missing. We did not have a safe deposit box, and the investigation would have uncovered if she opened a box in town without my knowing.

  A good portion of the town, including the bank manager, had come forward with information they thought would be helpful to the investigation. Most of Raven’s Gap was eager to share their stories of witnessing my apathy and Winona’s unhappiness.

  I turned the key over in my hands. There were no markings to indicate which bank it was from or what the safe deposit box number might be. I moved through the Airstream to the small shelf beside my bed and placed the key beside the memory card from the camera trap and the flash drive.

  I picked up the framed photograph and studied the faces staring back at me. My wife’s American Indian heritage was evident in the structure of her facial features, her skin tone, and the lustrous fall of dark hair around her shoulders. She stared directly into the camera with that slight smile on her lips that so easily spread into a quicksilver grin that made her eyes light up like a beacon. Laugh lines fanned out around her eyes, and I could tell that when the photo was snapped, she had been moments away from laughing.

  Emma was two years old in the picture. She was perched on Winona’s hip with her head resting against her mother’s shoulder. She had Winona’s dark hair, though Emma’s was fine and curly. Her skin was lighter, and her eyes were mine. She grinned at the camera, one hand stretched out toward whoever was on the other side of the lens.

  I thought it was Betty or Ed, Winona’s parents. As much as I committed this image to memory, I had to acknowledge the light, affectionate expressions on my girls’ faces were not for me.

  Hector, if something happens to me, use this.

  “What did you find?” I whispered. Frank lifted his head at the sound of my voice.

  I needed air. I strode outside and leaned my head back, studying the dense sprawl of stars as I sucked in deep breaths. “What did you find, Winona?” I asked again, voice directed at the sky.

  The sensation of being watched brought my head down, and I forced myself not to react when I found the white wolf standing a mere ten feet away from me.

  Unlike a dog, her tail did not start wagging when I looked at her. She stood still and watchful, the keen predator gaze fixed on me unwaveringly. I was careful not to stare into her eyes.

  “Do you have answers for me?” I asked quietly. “My wife was Lakota, but she told me of a Diné legend. Skin-walkers. A human disguising themselves as an animal.”

  The white wolf’s head tilted, and it was such a dog-like behavior that I almost stretched my hand out toward her.

  “Is that what you are? The Diné believe skin-walkers are evil witches, though. Perverting the good of the medicine people. They see them as malevolent forces. I don’t think that’s you.”

  She neither confirmed nor denied it.

  I studied her. She was gorgeous. Powerfully and leanly built, at the top of the food chain, but elegant and majestic to behold. “Did my wife send you to me?” I whispered, finally voicing the idea that plagued me when the white wolf kept returning.

  It was a trick of the moonlight, but I thought the wolf smiled at me before she turned, loped across the meadow, and disappeared into the forest.

  My sleep was restless, filled with half memory and half nightmare of hearing my girls cry out for me in the dark forest and not being able to find them.

  I woke suddenly, disoriented, and it took me a moment to realize what prodded me from sleep. Frank stood over me whining. And then I smelled it.

  Acrid and sharp, the smoke stung the back of my throat when I inhaled. I rolled out of bed, yanked a pair of jeans on, and stuffed my feet into my boots without bothering to scrounge for socks. The safe deposit box key, memory card, and flash drive went into one pocket, and I pulled the photograph of Winona and Emma from the frame and slipped it into another pocket. I tucked the CZ into the waistband of my jeans.

  Frank was nervous, the whites of his eyes gleaming in the flickering light of the fire. The flames licked the window over my bed. The fire was outside, for now, but it would soon eat through the metal and be within.

  “Let’s go.” I strode to the door and twisted the handle. It turned under hand, but the door did not open. I threw my shoulder against the door, but it was jammed.

  I moved to a window and shoved it open. I bent to wrap an arm around Frank’s chest to lift him. The bullet punched through the side of the Airstream just above my head. I ducked, swearing.

  Frank barked, high pitched and frantic, and I pushed him flat to the floor. He was panting hard.

  I moved across the narrow expanse of the trailer to open a window on the back side of the Airstream. As soon as I shoved the window open, gunfire erupted again. I dropped into a crouch, realization as bitter as the growing haze of smoke. This was not an accident. This was an execution.

  And fuck if I was going to sit on my goddamn laurels and wait for my dog and me to roast.

  I kept my head down and crawled back into the bedroom. My rifle was in the narrow closet. I grabbed the Henry, a bag of full bore .45-70 ammo, and the two extra magazines for the CZ.

  Heat seared my skin, and I struggled to keep my horror at bay as fire ate through the exterior wall of the Airstream over my bed. Frank was trembling and whining when I reached him.

  The rifle was still loaded from our trek into the Yellowstone borderlands. I snatched a cushion from the dining nook and pulled the pistol from the waistband of my jeans. Bullets punched through the cushion as soon as I lifted it into view. Five bullets, five angles. At least five shooters spread out around the front of the Airstream.

  I rolled to my knees and swept a line of bullets from left to right across the night. Shouts pierced the dark, and while they were scrambling for cover, I snatched
up the Henry.

  What the fuckers of Raven’s Gap did not realize was that I had been preparing for someone to take vengeance for fifteen years. The Airstream sat in a meadow, and though the treeline was thirty yards away, the stickers gleamed in the light of the blaze. I thumbed the hammer down, aimed at one of the green glints of reflection, and pulled the trigger.

  The explosion rent the night, a bright flair of light followed by a massive, concussive blow of sound. Dirt and debris rained down, thumping on the roof of the Airstream. I cycled the lever to eject the spent shell and chamber the next round, aimed at the next reflection, and pulled the trigger. A choking cough sent my shot wide. I clenched my teeth against the noose of smoke, and my next shot found its mark. The dynamite exploded, sending trees lurching up from the ground, and rattling the trailer like an earthquake. I heard screams and running. I cycled the lever and put a round in the next.

  To the casual observer, I looked like a bird enthusiast with birdhouses attached to the trees around the meadow. But those birdhouses were secure, weatherproof, and packed with five pounds of dynamite.

  It was a war zone outside as I picked off the next homemade bomb, but it was hell inside. Frank was crouched on the floor pressed against my legs, and the flames howled as the fire ate its way through the bedroom. The heat was blistering my skin, and thick black smoke was clustered in the ceiling of the Airstream.

  I was out of ammo in the rifle. I grabbed another round from the bag, handloaded it, and fired at the fourth birdhouse. While debris was still falling from the sky, I grabbed the CZ from where I had dropped it to the floor, tucked it into my waistband, and tossed the rifle and bag of ammo out the back window.

  I picked up Frank and ran, turning and leaping into the window, busting it all the way out of the frame as I hit it with my shoulder. I twisted as we fell and took the full brunt of the impact with the ground. The shock of it jolted through me and stole my breath. I pushed Frank off my chest and rolled to my knees. The poodle hunched beside me in fear.