“Nathan thought it was bullshit, but I wasn’t so sure. I didn’t even know if I had my own baby. And even if I did, I’d made a deal. Meanwhile, this cop is saying there’s nowhere to run. They’d tracked Fina’s cell phone that far, and now they knew what we were driving. I remember looking at the phone, then dropping it like it was on fire. Suddenly Trae jumps out of the car. His dad is a criminal defense attorney, and Trae thinks that makes him some kind of badass by proxy. He goes off about due process and wrongful arrest and how his father will sue them all. This whole time, Nathan and I are in the back seat. He’s holding the baby and telling me not to worry, but it just sounds like Fina after Alyssa died. That’s when the security guard pulls a gun. I think I start screaming. Nathan drags me out of the car, yells for me to run. Like, I can hardly walk and he wants me to run? But then the gun goes off and everything just … I don’t know. It’s like the world turned white and exploded.”
Her chin drops.
“I fell down, and when I looked up, there was fire everywhere. And noise. So much noise. A fucking horse ran by. I looked for Nathan and the baby but couldn’t find them. I saw Trae’s car torn to hell and a big pickup on fire in the road. Bodies. I think that’s when I realized there’d been a crash, though it didn’t really make sense to me. Then I saw headlights up the hill. I thought it would be more cops, or even Lydia, so I ran. I don’t even know how, I hurt so bad. I guess I was scared. I remember praying Nathan and the baby got away.” She looks at me. “But he didn’t, did he?”
Aunt Elodie would take Shelby’s hand without hesitation. It’s harder for me, but somehow I manage to sit up, to reach out and rest the lightest touch on her trembling fingers. At first, she stiffens, but then her fingers thread into mine, her grip tight. She pulls me toward her, and I let it happen. With my left hand, I reach up and guide her head onto my shoulder. My finger doesn’t hurt at all.
“You’re going to be okay,” I hear myself saying as she sobs against me. “I promise you’re going to be okay.” I wish I could be sure it was true.
FIFTY
The Way Back
I hold Shelby until she stops shaking, and then a little longer. When she pulls away, her tears have left streaks in the grime on her cheeks. She stands and goes to the door. The old hinges creak.
“I haven’t seen a helicopter in a while.”
“They’ll be back. On foot too, I think.” Duniway will have resources he couldn’t use before. The dash cam will make sure of that. “We can’t stay here much longer.”
A part of me wishes she still had Fina’s phone, though I know if they tracked it to the crossroad, they’d have tracked it here as well. It would be dead after a week without power, anyway. Our best hope is still Aunt Elodie. If we can make it to her, Shelby’s prospects are much better than my own. All she wanted was to go home. As for what I want, well—Duniway in a cell with a damp cheese sandwich may be too much to ask.
Crestview should be west of Uncle Rémy’s cabin. The question is how far. The way my ankle feels, I can’t afford to wander around lost. At least I have no doubts about Shelby. She got here from the crossroad, a tough hike even for someone who hadn’t just given birth.
Right now, though, her pensive gaze suggests her thoughts are even farther away than that. Perhaps she’s thinking about her father, about what drove her away. Suddenly I want to tell her what happened to Pride, but don’t know how. I perform removals, help with services, clean the prep room.
I don’t speak with the bereaved.
But don’t I have to learn? Aunt Elodie can’t truly say I was born to the work until I can look survivors in the eye and talk to them about the one they’ve lost.
Her eyes meet mine, and it’s as if she senses my dilemma. “Just tell me.”
“Your father came. He was looking for you.” I let out a shaky breath. “I’m sorry—”
“They killed him, didn’t they? The guard and that cop.”
“I’m so sorry.”
She stares at her hands for a long time. Everyone close to her is dead. Her father and mother. The boyfriend she wasn’t sure she wanted. Outside, the wind rushes up the hill. In the distance a helicopter’s rotors thump. Finally, she looks up at me. No tears on her face. Something else.
“What do you need me to do?”
Resolve.
She’s spent a week wandering these ridges and dells, mostly in the dark. “That town, Crestview—can you get us there without being seen?”
“I haven’t gone that far, but I know where the trails are.” She frowns. “How’s your ankle?”
Last night, I confused Shelby with the spirit of Molly Claire Maguire. The association is more apt than I knew. Within a day of giving birth, Shelby showed herself to have the mettle of any pioneer mother in the days of the Oregon Trail. Compared to what she’s been through, she’s asking if I’m up for a stroll.
I smile grimly. “It’ll have to do.”
Using a paring knife from the jar of cooking utensils, she cuts two strips from one of the blankets. With the first, Shelby binds the first two fingers of my left hand together. Then she wraps my ankle. “It’s not great, but it’s the best I can do without tape.”
“You’ve done this before?”
A ghost smile graces her lips. “Years of soccer.”
Next, she cuts long vertical slits in my boot at the ankle. That gives me enough slack to pull the boot on. When I stand, the support feels adequate.
Before we can head out, we have to wait for a helicopter to fly out of sight down the valley. At first, we make decent progress. There are no trails near the cabin, but the light is good and the forest floor open. Soon the valley drops out of sight behind us.
The going gets tougher once we cross the crest and descend toward the juncture of two streams, one flowing out of the forest from our left and the larger from straight ahead. “The big one goes past the asylum,” she says.
When the sun falls behind Lost Brother, the uncertain light makes progress more difficult. The soft ground is difficult on my ankle, and I need frequent breaks. Shelby is patient, and I don’t complain. She holds my arm when the way gets steep, a sure-handed guide. As we near the stream junction, she slows and gestures for me to be quiet. We listen for a long time. The only sound is water flowing over rocks.
Eventually, we continue down to a dirt road and over a one-lane bridge. A Forest Service sign there reads, “Little Cherry Shallows.” I wonder if this is where Quince would have put his boat in to search for my body.
The thought sends a jitter through me. I pick up my pace. We follow the road a short distance to a trail crossing, then turn left into the trees. After a couple hundred feet, we come to a wooden footbridge back across the river.
“I never went all the way to the trailhead, but I think this is the best way from here. Easiest on your ankle, anyway. If there are any night hikers, we should see their lights before they get close.”
I’m more worried about the Barlow County Sheriff’s Department. But the evening is quiet, with only the murmur of the two streams mingling away in the trees.
The trail winds and climbs, a manageable grade—easier than the descent from the ridge. When my foot drags, Shelby is right there to make sure I don’t fall. After a grueling half hour, we reach a break in the trees. A ravine climbs away from the trail, barren and rocky with steep sides. She points midway up the far wall. With a shudder I recognize the ponderosa tilting over the gully where she saved me. From here, we can’t see Xavier Meyer’s remains. I think about the eagle fighting the vultures over Nathan Harper and hope the goddamn coyotes scatter Meyer’s bones.
“Let’s go.”
There are no night hikers and no search teams. It’s full dark when we reach a T in the trail. A sign indicates the trailhead is right, one mile.
“This is as far as I ever came,” she whispers. “Seemed too civilized up ahead.”
“We’ll be careful.” The path is steeper now, straining my ankle as we climb through
switchbacks. I grit my teeth and power forward, anxious to reach the end. We cross the same familiar lava flow twice as the trail zigzags uphill. A short time later, we smell smoke.
Shelby balks, but I know where we are, and I urge her on. The teen moms, visible only by the glowing tips of their cigarettes, ignore us. Even so, Shelby doesn’t relax until we’re far up the trail.
“Who were they?” she asks when the scent of smoke fades.
“Girls from a boarding school up at the top of the hill.”
“They go to school in summer?”
“It’s a long story.” One Lydia Koenig should have told her when they met in Portland.
I’m nearly spent when we reach the top of the trail. The Forest Service lot is empty, but there are a few cars parked at the school. We hide in the trees when a car pulls out and drives toward the village. Once its taillights disappear around the curve, we head up the narrow street, then into the woods behind the Long Grass Bed and Breakfast. I never did find out if that’s where Pride was staying.
Ahead, lights shine through the trees. Now I become the guide, first through an open field, then past a few of the rickety ghost town structures, and finally into the staff parking lot of Crestview Assisted Living.
The exterior doors will be locked this time of night, but I know the code for the loading dock. Once inside, the staff elevator will take us to Uncle Rémy’s floor. Shelby and I look like victims of the zombie apocalypse, but the bigger problem is the Barlow County grapevine. By now, everyone must know what happened to Jeremy. I just have to hope I can talk my way past anyone we meet.
“Is that what I think it is?” Shelby says as we slip between a couple of parked cars and angle toward the dock.
A long black vehicle is backed up to the loading dock where I’ve parked the Stiff more times than I can remember. Bouton’s hearse. Someone has died, an event only too common at Crestview Assisted Living. With the Stiff wrecked and me gone, Aunt Elodie would have to use the hearse to transport the remains. I run my hands over my face. Given everything she has to deal with, I’m surprised she didn’t have Swarthmore handle it. Perhaps it was someone she knew, or—
“Oh, no.”
“What is it?”
Ignoring the pain in my ankle, I rush past the hearse and up the steps. But before I can punch the code into the keypad, the door swings open. Aunt Elodie is there, with Barb just behind.
For an interminable moment, we all stand under the harsh glare of the loading dock lights. “Thank god you’re okay—” Barb begins as Aunt Elodie rushes to me.
“He’s left us, Melisende.” The heartbreak in her eyes is devastating. “I’m so sorry. Your uncle is gone.”
Gone? My head swims, and I stagger against the doorframe. Barb reaches out for me. Murmuring consolations, she helps me inside and up the dim hallway. Part of me looks for Shelby, but all I can see is my last memory of Uncle Rémy as he gazed out the window at Shatter Hill, his sunken gaze bleak.
Outside a dark office, we find a couple of chairs, and I slump down. Aunt Elodie takes the seat beside me. I grip her forearm. My heart feels like it’s going to burst from my chest.
“What happened?”
She takes time to gather her thoughts. “He’d been looking out the window, and when he noticed me watching him, he said, ‘The stars sure are beautiful tonight.’ I thought it strange, because the sun hadn’t yet set. Then his eyes closed, and he just”—the words catch in her throat—“stopped breathing.”
“They couldn’t help him? Couldn’t bring him back?”
“Oh, honey. He didn’t want that.”
I sag against the seat back. Of course he didn’t. Rémy would want to pass with as little fuss as possible. And he’d want to leave an easy job for Carrie Dell, not hand her a body cracked and bruised by the extreme measures necessary to give him a few more miserable minutes or hours.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here.” The skin of Elodie’s arms feels like paper. “I should have been with you. With him.”
“Don’t you fret, darling. He knew you loved him.”
“Did he—?” My voice breaks. “Did he hear what they’re saying about me?”
“Of course not, not that he’d believe it any more than we do.” She steals a glance at Barb, standing nearby in the shadows. “Soon enough, we’ll need to attend to him, but there’s no rush. He’s fine in his room. Right now, I think you better tell us what’s happened.” She strokes the bound fingers of my left hand, then her concerned gaze returns to my face. “You look like you’ve been through hell.”
Understatement of the year, yet I haven’t been through a fraction of what Shelby has. I turn to call her over.
The hallway behind us is empty.
“Where’s the girl?”
Barb and Aunt Elodie exchange looks, confused.
“She was with me in the parking lot.”
I struggle to my feet and lurch down the hall. The door swings wide as I throw all my weight against the crash bar. Outside, a white pickup makes a sharp, squealing turn out of the parking lot and disappears into the night.
FIFTY-ONE
All I Have
Barb slips up beside me, her breath like a shadow. “What is it, sweetie? What’s happened?”
“They’ve taken her.”
“Who?”
“Shelby.” Her eyebrows form twinned question marks. “The baby’s mother.”
In Barlow County, you can count the people close to me on one hand—with fingers left over. All they had to do was park one set of eyes at Crestview Assisted Living and another in the driveway of one of the empty vacation rentals near Barb’s cottage. But while I may have been the target, Shelby is the one they’ve been looking for. I brought her right to them.
“You found her?” Barb says, her voice soft with wonder.
“She found me.” Like an avenging spirit. But there’s no time to explain. Feeling exposed, I nudge Barb back inside and let the door close. Aunt Elodie joins us in a huddle under the glow of the emergency exit sign. I can barely walk, and I’m down one hand. I’d fall down if Barb wasn’t propping me up. It would be one thing if I still had the gun, but it’s at the bottom of that canyon with the remains of Xavier Meyer. My clothes are filthy and torn, my exposed skin bruised and raw with scratches half-scabbed over. I stink of sweat and dirt. My head is ready to split open. Hell, my whole body is a bruise.
It’s all I have.
“Tell me what’s been happening.”
Barb’s jaw sets. “They say you killed Jeremy. They’ve been searching for you all day.” She peers at Aunt Elodie, who looks frail and worried. “For your body, really. They said you wrecked the van and then, injured and likely disoriented, fell into the Palmer River.”
“But they don’t think I’m dead anymore.”
“I don’t know about that, but according to a story at the Ledger, tomorrow they’re going to expand the search beyond the river. Jefferson County is sending help. Until then, they’ve set up roadblocks at Trout Rot Bridge, Antiko, Route 55 east of Samuelton, and on Wayette at the county line.”
I’d laugh if the situation wasn’t so fucked. Melisende Dulac, Public Enemy Number One. I wonder what Cricket and Stedman would say. “We’re not surprised.” Or perhaps only, “Melisende who?”
“Where’s Quince?”
They glance at each other. “No idea. We haven’t seen him.”
Quince must have reported the direction I fled to Duniway, even if he didn’t follow Meyer and me into the forest. That today’s search focused on the river must mean Duniway was able to direct official attention away from the asylum and surrounding forest. He can’t risk me being brought in alive. If I end up in custody and start talking, no matter now implausible my tale, there’s a danger someone might listen. But there’s probably only so much even the chief deputy can do to contain the search. With the scope expanding tomorrow, especially to include outside agencies, he must be scrambling to find me first. He’d know the places I’d be
likely to make an appearance. He’d just need a plausible excuse to keep his deputies from manning the stakeouts.
I can imagine him saying, “We need everyone on the roadblocks until Jefferson County gets here.” Then sending the white pickup to wait for me.
The only question is, who was driving?
This time of night the facility is locked, but Duniway would know I have access to the loading dock door. If he has the manpower, he’ll have someone out front too—but he’s down three, including the two who died at the crossroad. I hope he’s shitting himself wondering what happened to Meyer. In the meantime, I have to assume he knows I’m here.
I’m a problem, but one easily solved. Killed while resisting arrest. Shelby is the one who knows who was at the crossroad, who fired the bullet pulled from Nathan Harper’s body. Xavier Meyer may be dead, along with those creeps from Portland, but Shelby can still identify Lydia Koenig and Omar Duniway, along with everyone else at the asylum.
That means just one thing. They’re going to kill her, if they haven’t already.
I shake my head. I can’t let myself think like that. Not until I’m sure.
But what can I do, and who can I trust? Pax Berber, maybe, but he can’t protect me from what might happen after they put me in a jail cell. The only law enforcement for miles is the Barlow County Sheriff’s Department. We might call the FBI, but they’d never get here in time. Shelby will already be dead. One more body for the retort.
And why would the FBI believe me anyway? I’m a cop killer.
Aunt Elodie puts her hand on my arm. “Melisende, we can’t help if you don’t tell us what you need.”
I look at Barb. “Somewhere around here is a vending room. Can you get me a water—no, a soda? I need sugar and caffeine. And food. I haven’t eaten since the Whistle Pig.” Whenever that was. While she’s gone, I let Aunt Elodie lead me back to the chairs for a moment’s rest. Just a moment, though. When Barb returns, I inhale the package of oatmeal cookies and two cans of Mountain Dew she brings me. My stomach clenches at the sudden onslaught of fructose and fizz. I ignore it and stand.
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