by Rachel Caine
The longer we can stay off the grid and off anyone's radar, the better.
The map we buy doesn't have Markerville on it, and I end up asking an old man sitting in a rocking chair outside the store, which is as rural as it gets. He squints his eyes at me--faded gold coins that used to be a dark brown, I think--and shakes his head. "Nobody got no business in Markerville," he tells me. "Place been gone for years. Even the post office closed up shop back in the sixties. Nothing there but falling-down shacks."
It doesn't sound promising, but I get directions anyway. It's a fair drive, at least a few hours, and it's already getting dark by the time we hit the outskirts of Nashville.
"You want to keep driving, sleep in the car, or get a room?" I try to make sure there's nothing in the question to suggest that it's a come-on, because God knows, this isn't the time even if there's some possibility of it. "Two rooms, I mean."
Gwen's the practical one. "One room, two beds will do," she says. "Someplace cheap. No point in getting to Markerville tired and having to wait for sunup, right?"
"Right," I say. "Cheap. Got it."
A half hour later, I spot a place called the French Inn, a drive-in motel that saw its best days back in the fifties, at the latest. It's a plain U-shaped brick affair, slightly raised up a hillside, and it has all the curb appeal of a mortuary. There are two cars parked in the small lot, and a total of about twenty rooms, all first floor.
I give her raised eyebrows. "Norman Bates called, he wants his shower curtain back."
Gwen laughs, and it sounds real. Warm. "Looks delightful."
"Bedbug Central it is," I say, then turn the wheel. We bump into the parking lot, which is just as rough as the paint job on the room doors, and park in one of the many free spaces. "Wait here. If there's a camera, I don't want you on it." Gwen's more recognizable than I am, and with any luck, Absalom hasn't got their asses in gear scouring for pictures of my face yet. I add a Florida Marlins cap I found in the last convenience store, pull it low, and head inside. Before I close the door, I give her a straight look. "Doors locked."
"Always."
She's also armed, and a great shot, and I'm not particularly worried about leaving her out here alone. Gwen Proctor won't go anywhere. Not quietly. And if some random predator decides to take her down, he's got a surprise in store.
The motel office is as unenthusiastic as you'd expect, and I wonder about the slack-faced man behind the counter; he has the dead-fish eyes of someone who's seen it all and covered most of it up. I take the greasy plastic-tabbed key and hand over cash, and I'm back out the door in two minutes.
We leave the car where it's parked, since it's near a floodlight, and take everything of any value out. We have the third room, and when I unlock the door and swing it open, there's a familiar smell of bleach and despair that radiates out. Soul-crushing. At least when I flick on the light there aren't any visible cockroaches scuttling for cover, and everything seems clean enough, though I wouldn't care to run a black light over the surfaces.
Less than reassuring are the furnishings, which look like the world's worst garage sale, and the water stains on the sagging ceiling. There are, as requested, two beds, and I motion Gwen to take the one nearest the bathroom for no better reason than it's farther from the door. I watch as she lifts the drab bedspread, which drapes all the way to the carpet, and bends over to look underneath. She grabs a flashlight from her pack and checks it again.
"What exactly are you looking for?" I ask her.
"Creepy dudes," she says. "Dead bodies. Stashes of methamphetamines. Who knows?"
Checking suddenly sounds like a damn good idea, so I borrow the flashlight. While I'm down there peering at a mummified condom and at least three beer bottles, and regretting life choices, I use the cover to ask, "Night or morning shift in the bathroom? Because I'm guessing this place only has enough hot water for one coffeemaker and a two-minute shower every few hours."
"I'll take night," Gwen says. "You need in there first?"
I straighten up and shake my head, and Gwen avoids looking at me directly. She grabs her bag and takes it with her into the bathroom, and I hear the door shut and lock.
I can either sit here and listen to her undressing, or I can do something useful.
I choose to go get us some food.
When I come back, Gwen's done with her shower, the room's desperate smell has been replaced with a warm, fruity scent, and she's fully dressed again except for shoes. I approve. Sleeping vulnerable here isn't a plan I'd recommend. I hand over a bag with a burger and fries, along with a canned soda, and we sit on opposite beds silently refueling for a while.
"I should have asked," she says. "Was that your FBI friend on the phone? Mike?"
I nod without replying. The hamburgers are a crime against beef patties, but I choke down the last bites anyway. I need the fuel.
"And why exactly is an FBI agent helping us out . . . ?"
"Because sometimes I do him favors. And he owes me at least three right at this moment. Besides, he's low on bodies to follow up leads, and he thinks I'm probably more reliable than the state troopers."
"Only probably?"
I shrug. "Mike's not a guy who trusts anyone completely. He wasn't really detailed about his tip, so what you saw is what he gave me. Arden Miller, Markerville. He didn't have an address, and said we wouldn't need one. If it really is a ghost town, that's probably true."
"And how does Arden relate to Melvin?"
"Lustig heads up a task force that investigates dangerous Internet groups. Absalom's on his radar, and apparently, Arden has something to do with them."
"So are we dealing with a hermit? A survivalist? What?"
"Not a clue," I say. "But we will be really damn careful."
"Yeah, about that. Before we head straight for the town, let's take time to do some research on Arden Miller and see if we can put together a decent game plan for this place. We can hit the local library in the morning. I'll take the Internet searches, you take the book searches . . . ?"
"It's a plan," I say. We've finished the burgers by then, both of us wolfing them down at a speed that meant we were actively trying to avoid tasting them. I take the wrappers to the trash, and while I'm up, I take a good look at the door. There's a flimsy chain lock that's clearly been ripped out several times, and neither the door nor the frame looks sturdy enough to resist a stiff breeze, much less a solid kick.
"How's the bathroom?" I ask her. "Security-wise?"
"There's a window, but it's small and barred, and no fire release."
"Let's not start any fires." I drag over a chair upholstered in baby-shit brown and wedge it under the door handle. It might not help much, but it's better than nothing.
"What time in the morning do you want to get up?" Gwen asks me. Her voice sounds a little tight. Nerves. It's a normal enough question, but it feels like something you ask a spouse, or a lover, and we both feel the implication hanging in the air. I walk to my bed, take the clip-on holster from the back of my jeans, and put it on the bedside table. Gwen's shoulder holster is already hooked over the bedpost, like a particularly edgy piece of bondage gear.
Yeah, maybe don't go that way, I tell myself. I lean over and start unlacing my boots.
"Seven's early enough," I tell her. "Or whatever time the werewolves attack."
"I think we're more in zombie territory," she says. She's sitting cross-legged on top of the covers, but she gets up, folds back the sheets, checks for bugs, and then crawls in. "Okay, well, good night." Sounds awkward. Feels the same.
My second boot hits the floor. I move them under the nightstand, in easy grabbing distance if I need them, and lean back against the pillows. The mattress is lumpy and tired. It matches my mood. "Good night, Gwen." It sounds ridiculous.
We're both silent for a long few seconds. The laughter starts deep in my guts, as ridiculous and infectious as shaken champagne, and when I can't help it anymore, I let it out.
Gwen laughs, too. It fe
els good, cleansing, and in the aftermath, even the drab room seems brighter. "Sorry," I finally manage. "It just seems so polite. Fuck, we're adults, aren't we? Why is this so . . ."
"Good question," she says, rolling over on her side to look at me. It silences the last of my laughter. "Why is it?"
"You know why," I tell her.
"Just once, I'd like to hear you say it."
"Because there are dead people standing between us," I say, and instantly, all that brightness is gone, and the truth is so frightening that it feels like a ghost, sending my skin into shivers and goose bumps. "My sister, for a start."
She doesn't flinch from it. "And all those women I should have been able to help. Even Melvin's half brother--he committed suicide, did you know that? Between the small-town shunning and the Internet basement heroes, he couldn't take it anymore." She swallows, and I wish I hadn't started this now. "The last post he put up on his social media said that it was my fault, that if I'd been a good enough wife, Melvin wouldn't have--"
"That's bullshit," I interrupt. I sound angry, and I don't mean to. "It was never your fault. Blaming you was just petty." I let a second go by. Then another, because I'm standing on the precipice of admitting something I never intended to. I take the plunge. "I tracked Melvin's brother. Just like I tracked you. I knew where he lived. I knew where all of you lived."
Gwen freezes, and I can see that she hesitates. She doesn't really want to ask, but as always, she doesn't turn away, either. "Did you send him hate mail, Sam?"
I'm staring at the irregular, rusty water stain on the ceiling. It looks like Australia. My hesitation lasts too long before I work up the courage to say, "Yeah, I did. I sent some to you, too. Seemed easy, at the time. Felt like justice. But all it was doing was destroying you in slow motion, one envelope at a time. And I'm sorry for that, God, Gwen, I'm sorry."
My voice sounds painfully raw on that last, and I know she can hear that. And know that it's as genuine as the laughter that started this.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Gwen stand up. She sits on the edge of my bed and takes my hand. In a Hollywood movie, the music would come up, we'd kiss, and all of a sudden passion would explode and there'd be some soft-porn montage, all gold-lit skin and awkward angles.
But this is real, and it hurts, and instead of that, I just tell her, half in a whisper, about the hate I used to feel. It's like lancing an infected wound. I tell her about how I obsessed about exacting bloody justice. It isn't romantic. It's appalling. But as with the laughter, when it's done, there's a strangely clean feeling in the air.
She squeezes my hand at the end and says, "You were hating him all that time. Not me. At least now we've both set our targets right."
There's a rare grace in what she's just done. It's forgiveness, and pity, and understanding, and without even thinking about it, I move her hand to my mouth and gently kiss her fingers. I could sketch every inch of her from memory. The shape of her hand is burned on mine in tactile perfection.
I let her go. I don't say anything. I can't.
Gwen waits for a few seconds, and when I don't move, she goes back to her bed. I hear the covers rustle. Dark takes over when she switches off the light.
I sleep badly, and my dreams are haunted by a figure jumping from the roof of a six-story building in downtown Topeka. I'd read the newspaper articles about the suicide. Melvin's brother had gone to work, dressed in a brand-new suit. He'd walked up to the roof and removed his tie and shoes. He'd left them in a neat arrangement with his watch, wallet, and a letter apologizing to his boss for the mess before stepping off the roof on a cloudless June day, two years ago.
But when I see the face of the man in my dreams as he falls, it's not Melvin's brother.
It's me.
4
GWEN
After a full day at the public library ransacking their shelves and the Internet--and paying robber-baron rates for printouts--we have a folder that's remarkable for its thinness, but it's all the info we've found on both Markerville and Arden Miller. There are fourteen Arden Millers that we've located, but only two in Tennessee, and one of them is in a nursing home--not likely to be the one we're looking for. The Arden Miller that's left is a tall redhead, thirty-three years old, who for someone that age has a strange absence of social media. We've found a few photos tagged with her in them, but not many, and in none of them is she plainly visible. In the best one, she's wearing a floppy sun hat and giant sunglasses and is partly turned from the camera, holding the hat against a breeze.
I have no idea why we're looking for her, or why in God's name she'd be living out in the middle of nowhere in a town deserted for forty years.
Or, for that matter, why Mike Lustig wants us to look for her, except that there is some connection to my ex-husband's case.
We spend the night again at Motel Hell, and I thank God that we've eased the tension between us; it feels cleaner now. Simpler. And when I sleep, for the first time in a long time, I feel safe. That's quite an achievement, since the French Inn feels like it's been the silent witness to hundreds of crimes over the years.
The next day, the drive out to Markerville takes us into remote areas of wilderness, where it would be easy to believe you're the only one left on earth, except for the ever-present contrails of planes passing far overhead as they glide the atmosphere. The route takes a series of progressively narrower and more forbidding turnoffs, heading up into hills that are rough and unforgiving for hikers and SUVs alike.
I've been doing rough calculations on mileage, and I warn Sam when we're close; we pull over and park the truck off a little dirt track, behind trees. It's well concealed from the road, and we take a hiker's route up toward where Markerville once stood. According to the records, it had never actually thrived; when the railroad had stopped coming, the few businesses that had opened there failed, and most residents moved on or died clinging to their broken-down houses. The last casualties were the post office/general store and the antiques store, which had apparently been left abandoned with the doors open and a TAKE WHAT YOU WANT sign on the window. We'd found a clipping mourning the town in the self-satisfied way that city dwellers have about the woes of rural folk, and then . . . nothing.
We don't expect to find much, and when we ease through the trees into midafternoon sun to look down at the little valley where the town had been, it looks like a movie set. The four-building main street still stands, probably because it's built of brick, but most of the other wooden buildings are some flavor of leaning, weathered, collapsing, or wreckage. Disaster in slow motion. We hunker down and observe for a while, but nothing moves except birds and, twice, a lean and slinking cat. A door hanging on one hinge creaks shrilly in the wind.
"If she's here," I say, "she's got to be in the brick structures. Right?"
"Right," Sam agrees, then stands up. "Let's make an agreement right now: we don't shoot unless we get shot at. Okay?"
"Can we make exceptions for knives? Clubs?"
"Sure. But nonfatal wounds. We need to question Arden, not haul her dead."
It puts us at a serious disadvantage, but he knows that.
As we go down the hill, I catch sight of glass glinting behind some leaning boards, and I pull Sam to a stop to point. It's a car. It's not some relic left behind from the glory days, either; this looks to be a fuel-efficient midsize no more than five years old. I'm lucky to spot it. Someone's gone to some effort to keep it concealed. From the glimpses I can make out, it doesn't seem neglected. More like it was parked there recently.
I alert Sam, and we ease around to take a look. The hood is cool when I cautiously lay a hand on it. I'm careful of tripping any alarm sensors . . . and then I think about that. I exchange a look with Sam, and we are once again perfectly in sync.
"Do it," he says.
I yank hard on the door handle--locked--and the quiet is ripped apart by a wailing, honking banshee that rattles painfully in my ears. Sam and I fall back to the shadows and wait; it isn't a long
delay before a slender red-haired woman runs from the open doorway of one of the brick buildings, tosses aside boards, and glares at the car. The alternating hazard and headlights turn her face white, then gold, and she fumbles keys from her coat pocket and turns off the alarm.
In the silence, I say, "Arden Miller?"
She nearly falls down, she backpedals so fast, but Sam's moved to block her retreat, and she bounces off him and into the car, practically climbing up the hood. I see the fear chasing over her face. "Leave me alone!" she shouts, then pushes off to rush at me, hoping to break past.
I calmly pull my gun and level it at her, and she stops in a spray of twigs and leaves and pebbles. Her hands shoot up like they're on strings.
"Don't kill me," she says, bursting into wrenching, terrified tears. "Oh God, don't kill me, please, I can pay you, I can give you money, I'll do anything--"
"Relax," I tell her. There's a command in my tone, which I realize is counterproductive. I ease it down. "Miss Miller, nobody's going to hurt you. Deep breaths. Relax. My name's Gwen. That's Sam. Okay? Relax."
The third repetition seems to get through, finally, and she gulps a breath and nods. She doesn't match her photo much. The hair is still red, but it's in a short, sassy bob, and she has on thick glasses that magnify her blue eyes. She's a conventionally pretty woman, but there's something about her . . .
It takes me a moment to spot it. Arden Miller didn't start life as biologically female, but her transition is very nearly perfect. She moves correctly, carrying her weight in the right places. If she's had plastic surgery done, it's flawless. She looks more feminine than I do, and acts it, too.
"Did they send you?" she asks, transferring her tear-filmed stare from me, to Sam, and back to me. "I don't have them! I swear I don't, please don't hurt me, I'll tell you!"
"Don't have what?" Sam asks, and she flinches. I give him a little hand motion to back off, and he does. I holster my weapon.
"Tell you what, Arden, let's just sit down. Is there somewhere you'll feel more comfortable?"
She sniffles, dabs at her eyes with the care of someone who knows not to smear her mascara, and says, "Inside. I mean, it's not much. I come here to work."