Lone Jack Trail

by Owen Laukkanen

  Burke held her like she was something precious and breakable, like he was afraid she’d fall apart if he handled her rough. He helped her out of her chair and guided her to the bathroom, and she could sense in how he looked at her that he was scared for her, scared she was hurt somewhere he couldn’t see.

  And maybe she was, but it didn’t feel like it now. Not with Burke beside her and Lucy out of trouble.

  She waited while he ran the water for a shower, and as the water ran and the bathroom filled up with steam, he helped her pull the sweater over her head, and then he knelt down in front of her and slipped the button free on the front of her jeans, worked them slowly down her legs to the floor. He was trying to be gentle, she could tell. He was trying to be good.

  But she’d missed him so much.

  She leaned down and tugged him up to meet her lips, kissed him and could tell how he was holding back, still.

  “I’m not made of glass, Burke,” she told him, reaching for his belt. “You’re not going to break me.”

  She kissed him again, hungrier, felt his body respond.

  He said, “You’re hurt.”

  “Scratches,” she told him. “I need something different than first aid right now.”

  Maybe she ought to have been embarrassed, but she wasn’t, and Burke didn’t seem to mind. He unhooked her bra and slipped it off of her shoulders as she unbuckled his pants and slid her hand inside, and he was hard already and kissing her back, both of them breathing heavy, hands all over each other.

  They’d been apart for so long, but they were together now. Burke had been waiting at the bottom of the mountain for her, and maybe it was coincidence or just dumb luck, or maybe it was something else, some kind of cosmic sign that they were in this together, the two of them, until the very end.

  Jess didn’t know yet, but she did know that she loved Burke, and she missed him, and she wanted him now.

  She peeled off her underwear and kicked it to the corner of Hank Moss’s little bathroom. Then she slid back the shower curtain and stepped under the spray, hot and breathtaking and relentless. She looked out from under the water at Burke, to where he stood watching her. He wasn’t looking at her like he was afraid he would hurt her now.

  “What are you waiting for, Burke?” she asked him. “Or are you going to make me do this alone?”

  * * *

  Afterward, when they’d showered long enough for the hot water to run out and made up for those many nights they’d been apart from each other, Rengo—still blushing—delivered fresh clothes for them both from Jess’s room around front. They gathered again in Hank’s living room. Lucy sat curled up on the couch with Jess and Burke on either side of her, Hank in an easy chair, and Rengo by the window while Burke filled in his side of the story. Why he’d come to the Amy Usen the night Tyner Gillies was shot. What he’d discovered about Brock Boyd and a boy named Levi Cody, known as Broomstick.

  “I won’t ask you for help,” he told her, daring to meet her eyes over the top of Lucy’s broad back. “Not unless you believe in it. And not until you’re ready, those cuts and bruises healed up.”

  She didn’t hesitate. “I’ll go tomorrow,” she said. “No sense waiting any longer.”

  He searched her eyes as though he was looking for some telltale sign she believed him. “It’s a lot to ask.”

  “I’ve been asked to do worse,” she replied. “Ordered, in fact. But what the hell are you going to do, Burke, while I’m running down this lead?”

  Burke broke her gaze. He exhaled and shifted his weight and looked down at the floor. Chuckled a little. “I’m going to do what I’m supposed to,” he said. “What the whole county’s looking at me to do.”

  He shrugged. Grinned at her.

  “I’m going to go see the sheriff.”

  FIFTY

  They didn’t stop searching until nightfall, but Dax Pruitt knew they’d lost Jess Winslow long before dark. Pruitt drove his Yamaha and Fetridge a four-wheeler ATV with enough of a flatbed platform on the back that he could have carried Jess up to where they wanted to carry her, if they’d found her again.

  The narrow track up the mountain was steep and muddy, half washed out by the rain and overgrown by alder trees, whose branches clawed and tugged at Pruitt’s jacket as he rode his dirt bike up the grade. The forest was pitch-black and quiet save the sound of his engine and that of Logger Fetridge’s motor behind him, lapping at him, urging him higher and higher through the forest.

  Pruitt had been careless. He’d known as he left Winslow in the back of the Silverado that he ought to have tied her up better. Found more rope somewhere and bound her legs too, anchored her well and good to the tie-down holes in the bed of his truck. He’d known by the time he was halfway to where Fetridge waited that he’d fucked up, that there was a fair chance Jess wouldn’t be waiting for him when he came back down with Fetridge and the four-wheeler to ferry her up to the mine.

  He’d been distracted. Preoccupied. Hell, he’d been in a kind of daze, thinking about the dog and how he’d had to shoot it, wishing like hell it hadn’t come down to that. He’d been picturing the dog bleeding out somewhere, been feeling right guilty and miserable about the whole situation, and he hadn’t done his job like he should.

  He’d given Winslow an out, and she’d taken it and disappeared. If they were lucky, she was dead somewhere, broke her neck in a fall and died quick, or fractured a leg and was settling in for a long, slow starvation.

  Either way, it didn’t solve the issue. Fetridge didn’t get to have his revenge, take out his anger on Winslow for killing his sister’s son, which was the whole point of hauling her up the mountain in the first place. Fetridge wasn’t happy.

  And that’s not even considering if Jess Winslow made it down off the mountain alive.

  When they reconvened at the top of the mountain, they agreed that the cause was lost.

  The place where they wound up was where Logger Fetridge had intended to punish Jess Winslow: the abandoned shaft to a forgotten mine, the old Lone Jack claim, sunk deep in the side of the mountain in search of copper, manganese, gold. The mine was little more than a hole in the hillside now, held open by rotten lumber crossbeams, the remains of a narrow-gauge railroad disappearing into the gloom. Surrounding the shaft were piles of tailings and rusted, tangled cable, uneven stacks of moss-covered board wood, what Pruitt supposed had once been the camp. The forest had reclaimed most of the ground the miners had taken, and it wouldn’t be long before it overran what was left.

  Pruitt had never been told how Logger Fetridge had come to discover the place, but he did know his friend sometimes cooked a couple hundred feet down the main shaft, where a ventilation chimney had been cut through the mountain for the miners. And he knew Fetridge came up here for other purposes too, and that Jess Winslow would not have been the first problem Fetridge had solved high atop the mountain, away from curious eyes and anyone who might think to tell about what he’d done.

  Pruitt was half deaf from a day’s worth of high-octane riding. The night sky above them was clear and carpeted with stars, but it was too dark to see the expression on Fetridge’s face. Even so, he could see plain and sure that his friend was unhappy. The men lit cigarettes and stood in front of the open shaft of the mine.

  There was still time to run, if Pruitt wanted it. He could ride back down the trail, pack a couple of bags hasty, drive out through Clallam Bay, and be well on his way anywhere else in the country by morning. He had a brother in North Dakota, fracking shale, swore it was good money and steady work. Kept bugging Pruitt to come out and give it a try. He could do it, if he wanted. Still plenty of time, dawn at least and then some.

  Jess Winslow would raise all kinds of hell if she did happen to walk down off the mountain. She’d tell the sheriff how it was Pruitt who’d tried to kidnap her, and the sheriff would come looking, and he’d probably look for Fetridge too, and somebody was bound to make the connection between Fetridge and Pruitt and Jordan and Bealing, and Char
lene fucking Todd and Bad Boyd. Pruitt could see how, sooner or later, the whole house of cards would come tumbling down.

  But he could see, also, that Fetridge didn’t care anymore. His nephew was dead, and that meant that someone had to be punished. That code was more important than Fetridge’s life or freedom.

  And Pruitt wasn’t a runner either. Not when it meant abandoning the people who’d stood by him when he needed them. Pruitt owed Logger Fetridge his life, and he still walked with a limp that proved it, and he would walk with that limp for the rest of his life, no matter how far he ran away from Deception Cove. He would carry that reminder of what Logger Fetridge had done for him, and what he’d failed to do in return.

  Dax Pruitt couldn’t stomach the thought of it.

  Fetridge lit another cigarette, and in the flare of the lighter, Pruitt could see the determination etched into his friend’s face.

  “Best we entrench up here for a couple of days,” he told Pruitt. “See if that Winslow makes it down off the mountain. See what happens next.”

  He passed the lighter to Pruitt, who lit his own cigarette, and they smoked and said nothing and stared up at the stars. Pruitt wondered about Jess Winslow and just wished he’d been good enough to do what Fetridge had asked.

  And he wondered if he would ever make it down off this mountain, and he expected that the odds didn’t favor him.

  FIFTY-ONE

  The little sheriff’s detachment in Deception Cove felt deserted when Mason walked in the next morning, empty save for the rookie Paul Monk, who sat at the reception desk by the front door and whose eyes went as wide as sand dollars when he saw Mason come in.

  “You’d better handcuff me, Monk,” Mason told the rookie after a couple of seconds of awkward silence. “I think the sheriff would be choked if you didn’t.”

  Still gaping, Monk stood and rounded the desk. Removed the handcuffs from his duty belt and locked them on Mason’s wrists, his body skewed back as far away from Mason as he was able, as though he imagined the ex-con was playing a trick on him, that this was just a precursor to some strange and unforeseen ambush.

  “Good,” Mason told him when his wrists were secure. “You’re doing fine. Now go ahead and give Sheriff Hart a call.”

  Monk looked back at the phone on his desk, then at Mason. Didn’t seem inclined to move.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Mason told him. “Go ahead and call.”

  So Monk made the call. Leaned over his desk and pulled the phone across and punched in the numbers for the Neah Bay detachment.

  “Uh, Sheriff?” he said, the receiver to his ear. “It’s Monk here in Deception. I, uh, have Burke—Mason Burke—at the detachment.”

  Monk listened.

  “Uh, yes, sir. In custody. Well, he just walked in.”

  He listened some more.

  “Yes, sir,” he said. “Okay. We’ll see you shortly.”

  Monk ended the call. He looked around the detachment like it was the first time he was seeing the place.

  Mason watched him.

  “Think you ought to put me in a cell?” he asked.

  Monk stiffened and reached for the key ring on his belt. Turned to Mason, a stricken look on his face.

  “Relax, Monk,” Mason reassured him, leading the way toward the back of the detachment. “You’re doing fine.”

  A short while later, Mason heard the front door open and Hart walk in. Heard the sheriff ask Monk, “Where is he?” and Monk tell him, “Back in the holding cell,” and Mason sat on his little bench and waited, and after a moment the sheriff appeared. He took in the sight of Mason behind bars, and then he glanced toward Monk at the front desk.

  “The kid did fine, Sheriff,” Mason told him. “He’ll make a solid cop someday.”

  Hart squinted in Monk’s direction. “Still pretty green,” he said.

  “Hell,” Mason said. “We were all green once.”

  Slowly, Hart turned back to look at Mason. Frowned and worked his jaw. “You’re turning yourself in,” he said.

  Mason nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  “You’re ready to confess to the murder of Brock Boyd,” Hart said. “And Charlene Todd.”

  “No, sir,” Mason replied.

  The lines on Hart’s forehead grew deeper. “You’re not ready to confess.”

  “I’m still not ready to lie to you, Sheriff,” Mason told him. “I know you consider me a suspect in both murders, and I’m here as a show of good faith.”

  This was the part of the plan where he’d nearly lost Jess, back in Hank Moss’s living room. She’d been worried, at first, and then she’d been mad. “This whole county’s hungry for you,” she’d warned him. “You walk into that detachment, you won’t ever come out again, not a free man.”

  “Sure I will,” he’d told her, and tried to sound confident. “I didn’t kill anybody, and you’re going to prove it.”

  She hadn’t talked to him much the rest of the night. Mason could tell there was at least a part of Jess that still wondered if he had killed Brock Boyd. He suspected that, partially, was why she didn’t want him to turn himself in.

  Hart stroked his chin and stared in at Mason through the bars. “You’re here as a show of good faith,” he said.

  “Yes, sir,” Mason replied. “Faith in your powers of investigation and, if need be, in the county’s court system. And in whatever higher power’s carried me this far. I didn’t kill Brock Boyd or Charlene Todd, but I’m willing to wait here while you all work out who did.”

  Hart didn’t answer for a beat. Just watched him, incredulous. Then he scratched his head, and paced a bit. “Where’s Jess?” he asked finally.

  Mason looked Hart in the eye. “Jess is out of town, Sheriff,” he said. “Working vacation.”

  * * *

  Jana Marsh had done well for herself.

  It hadn’t taken much sleuthing for Jess to find the house. Jana was on Facebook, and her husband, Ronnie, was too. They were living in Victoria, British Columbia, in a tidy suburb east of downtown, a couple of blocks to the beach. The peaks of the Olympic range visible over the strait.

  Rengo had driven Jess into Port Angeles early that morning, in time for the first ferry crossing of the day. Burke seemed confident that Sheriff Hart would call off the search for the kid once he’d seen Burke was locked up and heard Burke’s version of events, but Jess still watched the passenger-side mirror more than she watched the road, an hour’s drive east with the sun coming up ahead of them, what looked to be a beautiful day in its infancy.

  Jess hoped it was a good omen.

  The ferry terminal sat square in downtown Port Angeles, and the waiting ferry was smaller than Jess remembered, gray with black and red trim, already loading cars through a massive doorway in its stern. Jess double-checked she had her passport as Rengo pulled over in the drop-off lane, and then she swapped a look with Rengo that seemed to convey enough for the both of them. Neither spoke as she pushed the door open and stepped from the car, turning back only to tell Lucy goodbye and scratch behind her ears, promise she’d try to be home by nightfall.

  Then she was walking away and into the little terminal and buying her ticket, wondering what the hell she was doing and hoping Burke and Rengo were right about Jana Marsh. Knowing that whatever she was able to accomplish in the Great White North could make the difference between Burke dying in prison or ever breathing free air again in his life.

  No pressure.

  Jess spent the ferry ride—an hour and a half—gazing out the window, the ocean an impossible blue and not even the barest trace of a cloud in the sky.

  It was still midmorning by the time Jess cleared Canadian customs, walked out of the terminal into downtown Victoria, and hailed a taxi for the neighboring community of Oak Bay. She’d never been to Victoria before, but she’d seen Jana’s Facebook posts, and she knew to expect wealth. The streets were wide and tree-lined, with generous-sized lots and large houses, almost mansions but without the pretense that word would sug
gest. The community was quiet; kids played in yards and parks; cars drove slowly. It seemed to Jess like a lovely place to be, if you could somehow find the money to afford the cost of entry.

  Jess had learned that Ronnie Marsh worked in some kind of technical industry. Computers—the specifics didn’t make much sense to Jess, and she supposed they didn’t matter. What mattered was that he would be at an office today and not at his home. The kids—two boys, beaming and blond, from what she’d seen on Facebook—would be at school.

  The home in question was tucked into an odd-shaped lot at the end of a cul-de-sac, isolated from the neighbors by tall trees and a hedgerow and a wrought-iron gate. Jess unlatched the gate, pushed it open. Found herself in a front garden: a fishpond, a hidden waterfall burbling, a curved path of raw stone leading up to the front door.

  The house was another one of those Pacific Northwest fantasies that seemed to have missed Makah County, Brock Boyd’s estate notwithstanding. It was low and boxy, expanses of glass and steel and wood, not so much a part of the landscape as it was built on top of it. Maybe there was a symmetry between this house and Boyd’s. Or maybe Jess and Burke and the rest of Makah County had simply been caught up in some rich people’s deadly game.

  She climbed to the front door and rang the doorbell and waited. After a minute or two, she heard the lock disengage, and the door swung open. And Jana Marsh stood behind it, smiling out at Jess vaguely, as though she recognized Jess but just couldn’t quite place her.

  “Jana Marsh,” Jess said. “I’m Jess Winslow. Makah County sheriff’s deputy. Can I come in?”

  FIFTY-TWO

  Jana Marsh was beautiful, in a way that spoke to wealth of both money and time. She wore a cream-colored sweater that looked as soft as a cloud, form-fitting jeans that might well have cost as much as Jess’s entire wardrobe. Her makeup and hair were flawless, though she was home alone in the middle of the day. She ought to have radiated serenity, the same calming vibe of her garden, with its babbling waterfall and artful seclusion.