“You have something. I can hear it in your voice.” It might have been wishful thinking, but I didn’t think so.
“Someone called in yesterday about a van; a woman near Weyford. Someone else called about the same van, we think, close to the same location, near the cemetery out there, about thirty minutes later. I checked it out, but there was no van.”
“What did you find?”
“There were some good tire tracks in the mud across the old two-lane highway from the farmhouse that might match the ones by where … where you escaped. We’re testing everything and talking to everyone. Do you know a Geneva Spooner?”
“I don’t think so. Doesn’t sound familiar. Why?”
“She’s one of the people who called in. She lives in the farmhouse, an old widow by herself. The other person who called claimed to work at the cemetery, but no one got his name. I’m not concerned about them, I just wondered if you knew her.”
“I don’t know anyone named Geneva.”
“Okay…”
“What?”
“Well, I told your mother about the sightings.”
“You did what?”
“Yeah, I told her. She’s so … so.”
“Such a pain in the ass?”
“That’s not what I was going to say.”
“She’s obsessive, Detective Majors. My father used to be her only obsession. Now, she has two. I have no doubt that she will hunt down Levi Brooks.” I paused. It wasn’t the worst thing that could happen, but I didn’t want her to get hurt or pay too high a price for her vengeance.
I’m going to find your daddy, young lady, you don’t ever need to doubt that. I’ll find out what happened to him. I won’t give up until I do.
Is that why I have to live with Grandpa?
We are both living with him, Bethie. He’s just watching over us for a while. Just for a while.
“Beth?” Detective Majors said.
“I’m here. I wouldn’t tell her anything else if I were you, not even in passing. She’ll get in the way. I’d like Levi Brooks gone from this world, but she’ll kill him, Detective, and I don’t want her paying for a murder rap. I’m alive, and I’m going to get better.”
“All right. Too late to do anything about what I’ve already told her, but I’ll keep anything else to myself.”
“Did she do something in Weyford?”
“I think she went to talk to Geneva Spooner, but I can’t be sure yet. I’ll find out.”
“If she did talk to Geneva, she might have scared that poor woman to death. I don’t know. People can go either way with Mom, but she usually ultimately ends up making friends—for the purposes of using them for information though. It’s just her way.”
“I’ll talk to Geneva again. I’ll make sure she’s okay.”
“Good idea.” I sighed. “All right, so we’re talking Weyford?”
“Yes.”
“Not far from Milton?”
“Not too far.”
“That’s … worrisome.”
“Not really. No need to think he’s figured out you’re from there. He’s a Missouri guy, we think. He’s bound to be near Milton sometimes.”
I wasn’t so sure. “Right.”
When I first became published another one of my mother’s suggestions had been to create a fake biography. That was more about my dad than my anonymity. She wasn’t going to ever give up hunting for him. If he’d run away on his own, she didn’t want him contacting me because he’d read on some website a paragraph or two that mentioned where I’d been born and grown up. Elizabeth Fairchild was “a Missouri girl” all her life, but that was about as specific as my biographies ever got.
I didn’t have pain like earlier, but I suddenly felt heavy-headed. My eyes closed reflexively, and my mind focused in on a memory. It was of a passing road sign. WELCOME TO ILLINOIS, LAND OF LINCOLN.
But I’d jumped out of the van outside St. Louis. I’d been found in Missouri, not on the Illinois side.
“Beth?”
“He took me to Illinois,” I said. “At some point he took me there. I remember the road sign now, but I can’t see anything else, just a ‘Welcome to Illinois’ sign.”
“Are you sure?” she asked. “I mean, you might have seen that sign at some other time too.”
Detective Majors had asked me many times to name the places Levi had taken me. Many police officers had. One of their specific questions had been if Levi taken me over the state line. They hadn’t hidden their hope that he had. Crossing state lines would give them more things to put him away for. I thought he’d done more than enough to be put away for good, but I understood why they wanted to pile on as much as they could.
“I am sure,” I said. I was pretty sure.
“Can you give me any more? Can you describe anything else you’re remembering, the kinds of trees, the weather, other traffic? What about something on the dashboard? Can you see anything?”
My eyes were still closed. “No … no, wait, there was a hole in the top right corner of the sign. Not a bullet hole, something bigger, but it was round, definitely round. Detective Majors, it was a ‘Welcome to Illinois’ sign with a hole through the top right corner. Find that sign and you’ll find where we were.” I shook my head. “I can’t see any more than that. I don’t know where we had been before or where we went afterwards, but I’m pretty sure we crossed over into Illinois.”
“Okay. All right.”
Like a switch had been flipped, the memory was over. I immediately wondered if it had been real, but I didn’t say that out loud. I didn’t want to waste Detective Majors’s time, but I had to believe my brain wasn’t so far off its rails that it would make up something as vivid as what I’d just envisioned.
I cleared my throat. “How long before you know about the tire tracks?”
“Today.”
When I’d jumped out of the van, it was speculated that Levi had slammed on the brakes and swerved over to the side of the road. He’d left tracks in the gravel and summer dry dirt there. Or another vehicle had left those tracks. The police were hoping the tracks came from Levi’s van, but unless I could remember those moments clearly—had a swerve like that occurred?—no one would know for sure.
My patchy memory had managed to dredge up the facts that Levi’s van was brown and either said Chevy, Chevrolet, or had a Chevrolet emblem somewhere on it.
I closed my eyes and heard Detective Majors call my name yet again. Something else was there, on the edge of the memory.
I said, “I remembered that he wore a black and red lumberjack coat. Do you know the kind I’m talking about?”
“I think so.”
“For some reason, I’m remembering it clearly right now. None of that helps much, I know.”
“Hey, Beth, like I told you, everything helps. And we never know what might lead to a big break.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I wish you’d come home. You need medical attention, and Dr. Genero is the best doctor for you. Rethink your plan.”
“I’m fine. I’ll take it easy. I feel good.”
“Sure.” She paused. “You can trust the police chief. I believe he’s a good man. I checked.”
“All right,” I said, but the urge to end the call was stronger, the tingle on the back of my neck, prickled again. “I’ll call you tomorrow. It might be from a different number.”
“All right. I’ll answer all calls just to make sure I don’t miss you. Take care of yourself.”
I made a noise that could be mistaken for agreement. And then I flipped the phone closed. I needed to destroy it, but not before I could record the message somewhere else.
I stood from the chair and went to peer out the window. There was no one in sight. Just trees and the library and more vehicles parked outside it. Dark clouds were moving in quickly and the sun was suddenly hidden. I shook off the feeling of being watched. At least I tried to shake it off.
I turned back to the desk and started opening drawers and lo
oking through stacks.
“Come on, Bobby Reardon, don’t fail me now. Any good reporter would have a recorder.”
If I were to find one, I expected it to be one that used cassette tapes, either full sized or small. I could have recorded the message on my laptop if I had it.
My search was finally rewarded. I found a small digital recorder in the bottom of a file drawer that was otherwise filled with notes about kayaking. I pressed play.
Bobby, I assumed, came alive digitally.
“Testing, testing.” His voice was deep and phlegmy, but strong.
I made a mental note to research him more closely at some point. For now, I stopped the playback and set up the phone and the recorder and managed to get the message saved. The second after I confirmed that my efforts were successful, I put the phone on the floor and stomped it to pieces.
I probably overdid it, but it felt good. When I was done, little bits of the phone were all over the place. I’d started to clean up my mess when an unfamiliar boom shook my world.
Nine
I’d probably heard rain on a tin roof before, but I didn’t remember when. I know I’d never heard thunder like the rumble that shook the Petition’s walls. It seemed so close, and the booming beats were like almost everything else in the forty-ninth state, big. Once I pinpointed that I was hearing thunder as well as rain, I opened the door and watched. The real storm was in the distance out over the woods. I could see the demarcation, the sunny trees in one part, the dark, foreboding ones in another, the line in between moving closer to the shack. Things were going to get bigger and louder.
I didn’t want to be under the old roof during a heavy storm. I took a few long seconds to calculate if the bike and I could beat the rain back to the Benedict House. I sensed I took too long to consider my options.
In a flurry of movement, I put the hat back on, gathered the bike, and headed outside. I locked the door and set out. It didn’t take long for me to not only regret my decision but to regret many of my decisions. One of them being the fact that I wasn’t wearing any sort of “gear” yet. I’d need some soon, if I didn’t die of hypothermia first.
The rain was heavy and cold, the air turning more frigid as each second passed. I wore only my jeans, shirt, and flimsy jacket, but under normal circumstances (riding my bike in a St. Louis storm), I would have been fine. Back there in Missouri, I would ride on designated bike paths or on the sides of roads, and even if the air was cold I would have known I could make the few miles trip and make it home and get warm quickly.
In Alaska, there was no real road under my wheels, nothing paved, just a foliage littered path that became quickly muddy. The cold wasn’t like the cold I was used to either, something gradual that nudged at you with the temperature change. As I trudged my bike over the muddy ground, the cold hit me ferociously, and packed a debilitating punch of wind with it.
Before the full brunt of the storm even made it to me, the rain began to fall unreasonably hard. Between the wind and the water rolling down my face and into my mouth and nose, I kept losing my breath. I was losing everything—my balance, my energy, my warmth, my sense of direction.
I stopped and tried to get my bearings. I knew which direction I was supposed to have gone; how had I gotten lost? Was I lost? For a long few moments, I felt so helpless that I understood how people just gave up. But then I snapped out of it. Levi Brooks hadn’t gotten the best of me, this storm wouldn’t either. I pedaled forward again, through the mud and now blinding rain. I lost where I was but figured that if I fell into the ocean I’d know to turn around and go back the other direction.
The sludge I pedaled through seemed to grow deeper. I was sure it was worse than pedaling through sand, though I was cognizant enough to wish for a beach instead of where I was. I pedaled so hard that my foot slipped, and in a combination of clumsy moves, I ended up on my side, on the ground, the bike landing hard on the inside of one of my legs. It hurt but other things seemed more important. I felt myself sinking into the mud, and I wondered if it was quicksand and if the bike would disappear with my body. Strangely, I didn’t panic, and was still aware enough to realize I hadn’t hit my head and that was the good thing amid all the bad things that were happening.
Then, as abruptly as it had hit, the storm was gone, the darker clouds moving away. A ray of sunshine shone on me and I was grateful for even that small patch of warmth. I was shivering hard, but the sun would bring me back quickly. I wasn’t sinking any deeper, so at least it wasn’t quicksand. I was stuck, the mud keeping a good grip on my side, but there was a chance I could wedge myself out.
I pushed away the bike and with side leverage I’d never used before, unstuck myself with a slurping noise. Once I’d done that, I got up easily.
I looked around. I’d gone the right direction. I was on the path Gril had brought me down, but I was only about twenty yards away from the Petition’s building; a building that was still standing, sure and solid. I sensed it mocking me.
The library was out of my line of sight now, but even if I’d gone that direction, twenty yards wouldn’t have gotten me there. I had traveled a very short distance.
I gathered the bike—it wasn’t damaged, just as muddy as I was. It would be easier to walk through the rest of the mud than pedal. I sent the building one last look and shook my head.
“I’m an idiot,” I muttered. It agreed.
I pushed forward.
A couple of long miles later, I was still muddy and drenched but warmer as I came upon Benedict’s downtown. Clouds had come back but for the moment they were less threatening. The two intersecting roads were spotted with parked trucks, cars, and an old station wagon with a scratched wood panel down the side. All of the vehicles glimmered as the sun shone on the leftover rain spots.
I recognized one of the trucks as the one that had brought me into town the day before. I hoped Donner wasn’t inside the Benedict House. I didn’t want him to see me like this. I was irritated at myself for caring. I told myself not to care.
It didn’t matter anyway. Donner wasn’t inside the Benedict House. He’d been inside the Mercantile and walked out just as I was approaching.
In auto mode, he first sent me a quick smile, did a double take, and then stopped in his tracks as he tucked the bag he was carrying under his arm.
“What the hell happened to you?” His tone was critical, his smile gone.
“Got caught in the rain.”
“In those clothes? On a bike?”
“Evidently.” I pushed the bike forward and wished he’d just go away.
“Ah, I see. You have a death wish. You’ve come to Alaska to kill yourself.”
I sent him a look and then continued toward the Benedict House.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him hesitate before he put the bag into the back of his truck.
“Look,” he said. “Go dry off and I’ll take you shopping. It seems your host doesn’t care about your safety. I’m happy to show you what you need.”
I kept pushing forward.
“And you will need stuff,” he added.
He was correct. I would need stuff.
“I’ll be right back out,” I said over my shoulder.
“I’ll be right here.”
I left the bike by the front door and went inside.
“Oh, sorry,” I said as I came upon Willa, looking at a piece of paper.
She turned to look at me, her eyes red-rimmed and puffy. She sent me some indifference before she turned to face the paper again. She put her hand over a full key ring sitting on the counter, gathered it in a fist, and put it in her pocket. Did she think I was going to take her keys? What did she have keys for anyway?
I hesitated too long.
“Can I help you?” she asked, her tone not helpful at all.
“No, thanks. Sorry to interrupt.”
She folded the paper and looked at me. “Who are you?”
I shook my head. “Just heading to my room.” I started walking
again.
I thought she might try to stop me, say something else, but she didn’t. As I made my way to my room, however, I noted that she was looking at a tri-folded piece of paper. A letter.
Parolee letter? I wondered, but I didn’t say anything. Oddly, her attitude didn’t bother me as much as all the other weird things had bothered me today. She reminded me of some of Milton’s small-time criminals. I knew that attitude. Tough girl. But not really. I wasn’t here to help her though, and I wasn’t going to let her, or any of my housemates, get under my skin. Other than Viola, of course.
Inside my room, I took off the cap and rubbed a towel through my hair before I put the drenched cap back on. I had nothing other than the extra underwear I’d brought. I’d have to go shopping as I was. I pulled some cash from the money belt still around my waist and placed it into my damp pocket. I dug into the secret pocket on my backpack and found another burner phone. I didn’t turn it on, but slipped it into my other damp pocket. No one was in the lobby as I left again.
Donner was leaning against his truck, his arms crossed in front of himself, his attention toward the three horses that were galloping down the street. Just galloping, seemingly for fun.
“They’re beautiful,” I said.
“They are,” Donner said.
For a moment, I glimpsed his soft spot. He might love Benedict, Alaska, but he really, really loved animals. After the horses were out of sight, he looked at me. Again, his expression turned into something that told me he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. I was a mess, but I didn’t want to dwell on it.
“Just the Mercantile, right?” I asked.
“Yeah. That’s all we’ve got for what you’ll need.”
“I can just go by myself,” I said, sensing way too much scrutiny.
“No, I’ll come with you this time. Randy can help, but he might forget something. I’ll make sure you have the right stuff. Did you honestly come to Alaska with only that?”
I nodded once.
He shook his head. “All right. Let’s go.”
As we made our way, it was as if we stepped back in time, back to when horses ruled the roads, not just as wild creatures but as modes of transportation too, and women wore only skirts. The merchandise inside was modernized, even if the ways it was displayed were from a bygone time. The shop smelled of the plain wood it had been recently built with, outdoorsy and clean. Shelves lined the walls; chunky tables and barrels packed with so many things took up the rest of the space.
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