City of the Lost (31 page)

With wilderness as far as the eye can see, it should be like the view from the plane, but it isn’t. That was a spectacular painting. This is real. I know this forest now. I know what’s out there—the awe-inspiring and the terrifying.

Dalton parks, and I’m out of the car almost before it stops. There are a few lookout spots up here at the top, and I try all of them, even fighting through the bushes and brambles when I see another I want to check out. Dalton walks to the highest point and watches me from a bench there.

When I’m finally done exploring, I hop up and stand on the back of the bench to get an even better look.

“Okay,” I say. “Time to get to work, right?”

“No work.”

“Hmm?”

“There’s no work here. Just this.” He waves at the lookout. “Thought you might like to see it.”

I grin so wide I can feel the stretch of it.

Here, in the middle of this wilderness, I am something I’ve never been in my life. Free. Free not only of the guilt and the fear over Blaine, but free of expectations, too. I’ve lived my life in the shadow of expectations, and the certainty I will fail, as I did with my parents. Now those are lifted, and I’m happy. Unabashedly happy.

I look down, and Dalton’s staring at me. I flash another grin for him, and he looks away quickly, his hands shoved into his jacket pockets.

“This is okay, then?” he says.

“No, it’s awful. This is my bored face. Can’t you tell?”

I’m teasing, but he drops his gaze and mumbles something I don’t quite catch. I hop down and walk to a campfire ring.

“You want one of those?” he asks.

I look over.

“Bonfire,” he says. “I brought stuff if you do. Wood, tequila, bag of marshmallows.”

My grin returns. I’m sure I look like an idiot by now, but I can’t help it. “Yes. Please and thank you.”

He pushes to his feet. “Like I said, we needed a break. I come up here most nights when I have to fly to Dawson. I’ve even fallen asleep on that bench. Unless it’s a weekend, you don’t usually get anyone else up here this time of year.”

Which is kind of unbelievable. It is truly a once-in-a-lifetime view. But like Dalton said when I first arrived, there’s plenty of scenery here for those who want to see it. This is their normal.
My
normal now.

“So you come up and have a bonfire?” I say.

“By myself?” He snorts and shakes his head.

“Ah, that’s the real reason you invited me. Someone to roast marshmallows with.”

Again, I’m teasing, but again he looks away and mumbles something.

I watch him build the fire. Soon we’re settled in beside the flames, enjoying tequila in plastic cups and marshmallows on sticks. Darkness falls, and I barely notice. We’re too busy talking. I remember the studies I mentioned, on lethal violence with chimpanzees, that subject I’ve been keeping in my back pocket for a moment just like this, when I have his attention and want to keep it.

It’s not exactly light and cheerful conversation, but it works for us, and by the time we finish, I’m stretched out on my back, staring up at the stars. Impossibly endless stars.

“I really wish I had my phone right now,” I say.

“Huh?”

“I have an app that identifies the constellations. You just point it, and it knows what section of the sky you’re looking at and tells you what you’re seeing. It’s very cool.”

He shakes his head. “Which one are you looking for?”

I smile over at him. “All of them.”

He squints up into the sky. “First you need to find the North Star. You see it up there?”

I point.

“That’s a planet,” he says.

I try again.

“That’d be the space station.” He directs me until I have the North Star and then he says, “Polaris doesn’t move—it’s a fixed point, so you can use it to find your way. It’s not the brightest star, despite what people think. The easiest way to find it is to locate the Big Dipper—Ursa Major, or the Great Bear—and then track it to the Little Dipper—Ursa Minor, or the Little Bear…”

I may have fallen asleep on that overlook, buzzing from tequila and sugar and blissfully at peace, staring into the sky and listening as Dalton pointed out every constellation we could see. He may have carried me to the car. I may have not woken until morning. Of course, all I remember is his voice, that baritone rumble, talking about Orion, and then it was morning. The rest I’ll have to infer. He doesn’t mention it the next day.

We’re back in Rockton before noon. The day passes smoothly as the clock mends itself. The service for Abbygail comes in the evening. That’s difficult, and when I see Diana walking alone, I go and sit with her on my front porch, the only two who didn’t know Abbygail leaving the others to their grief. While we don’t say much, it’s more comfortable than it’s been since that night at the bar. When she leaves, I consider giving her the hair dye, but I’m afraid she’ll take it as a peace offering and, for once, I admit to myself that I’m not the one who needs to make amends, and so I resist the urge to try.

Come morning, the Rockton clock is ticking again. I see the same neighbours on my way into work. I get my mid-morning coffee, with Dalton joining me, sitting quietly as Devon gives me all the local news and I munch a rare chocolate chip cookie. Apparently,
someone
brought chips from Dawson City, having recalled an offhand comment that they were my favourite. I’m not the only one who pays attention. Back at the station, Kenny drops by to check the wood and hangs out for a while, giving me tips that aren’t exactly earth-shattering.

Yes, the town is back to itself, and we’re back to work. I’m looking for a connection between the victims, while understanding that there may not be one. By day three, I’m entirely focused on Abbygail. She is where it started. The first one lured into the forest. The youngest and, as I see now from that memorial, the most popular. The girl everyone cared about. Or almost everyone. That’s an easy place to start looking. Who had trouble with her? It’s a short list. At the top of it is Pierre Lang, the pedophile who got into it with her shortly before she disappeared.

I question Lang more thoroughly now. I haven’t spoken to him since Mick told me he suspected Lang of being Abbygail’s secret admirer. I hadn’t been ignoring the lead—I’d been gathering more information so I could hit Lang hard. So far, I’ve managed to find two people who confirmed Abbygail received the gift of raspberries from an admirer, but no one can tie that back to Lang. Beth vaguely remembers something about berries, but she says it’s not unusual for locals to leave little gifts at her door, in thanks for treatment, so they could have been for her.

So I have nothing on Lang, but I need to take another run at him, because he’s my best suspect, and I don’t foresee getting more leverage soon. The problem is that Lang avoided serious charges for years. He knows I’m fishing, and I don’t manage to do anything except scare and intimidate him. Which is a start, at least.

I leave Lang’s and pick up an admirer of my own. It’s Jen. She follows me for three houses before yelling a racial epithet, because that’s just the kind of girl she is. Apparently, this particular insult is supposed to get my attention, and when it doesn’t, she jogs up alongside me and says, “I was talking to you.”

“Oh?” I look at everyone else on the street. “Right. You were. How can I help you today, Jen?”

“It’s how I can help you,
detective
.” Jen says it the way street thugs say
cop
.

“Okay,” I say, as if I don’t notice her tone. “Do you want to go back to the station and talk?”

“Considering what my tip is? Not a chance.” She steps too close for comfort, but I stand my ground. “I heard you talking to Pierre.”

She means she heard Lang yelling at me. My side of the conversation was a little more discreet.

“You want to find Abbygail’s secret admirer?” she says. “He’s sitting in your cop shop.” When I hesitate, she says, “Um, your boss?” She backs up and eyes me. “Unless the rumours are true and Dalton’s
more
than your boss, in which case this tip sure as hell won’t go anywhere.”

I resist the urge to deny the rumours—she wouldn’t listen. “If you have reason to believe Sheriff Dalton was interested in Abbygail—”

“I have more than ‘reason to believe.’ After Abbygail’s birthday party, Petra and I saw them getting hot and heavy behind the community hall.” My shock must show, because she sneers. “Sweet on the sheriff, are you, detective? How predictable. All you so-called
educated
women—you, the doctor—think you’re so smart and yet you all fall for that hick. And who did he have his eye on? The teen hooker who thought he shit solid gold. That’s what men want. Not a woman they can talk to. A dumb little girl who’ll worship the ground they walk on.”

“You say Petra—”

“Yes, your new pal Petra saw it. Go talk to her, since you obviously won’t believe me.”

“Can you tell me exactly what you saw?” I ask as calmly as I can.

“After the party broke up, Dalton and Abbygail were k-i-s-s-i-n-g behind the community hall. Which apparently was more his idea than hers, because after we walked away, I heard arguing. Abbygail was pissed off and the good sheriff was in full-on defence mode. If she’d been in trouble, I would have interfered, no matter what you might think of me. The situation was under control, though. She was giving him a dressing-down, and he’d backed off, so I left them to it.”

Petra works part-time in the general store. It’s exactly what it sounds like—the place to buy pretty much everything you need. “Need” being the operative word. This isn’t the place for luxury items. At least half the store is second-hand goods. Everything in Rockton is valuable for as long as it can be recycled. I find Petra sorting a stack of clothing into what can go immediately on the shelves and what Diana needs to repair first. When she sees my expression, she sticks on the “Back in Five” sign and ushers me into the backroom.

“I need to ask you something,” I say as she shuts the door.

“I can see that. What’s up?”

“It’s about Dalton and Abbygail.”

She goes still, and I know it’s true. I suspected it was—Jen wouldn’t dare invoke Petra’s name in a lie. But I did hope that maybe Jen presumed I’d never actually investigate, and she just wanted to stir up shit. Now I see the truth in Petra’s face. And it hurts. On so many levels, it hurts.

“Jen told me,” I say.

Petra lowers herself onto a crate.

“Abbygail’s party,” I say. “Behind the community hall. Jen says you two saw them kissing.”

She squeezes her eyes shut for a moment. “I’m sorry. I’d decided it wasn’t worth mentioning. But after her death … I was trying to figure out how to tell you.”

“Not worth mentioning? That the local sheriff was seen making out with a girl who went missing a few days later?”

“Making out? No, it was a kiss behind the community hall. Probably a drunken one. Between a young sheriff and a girl who was deeply infatuated with him. A momentary lapse in judgment for Eric.”

“Did you hear the argument?”

“What argument?”

I tell her and she says, “I didn’t hear anything. Yes, I left the party with Jen that evening. We aren’t good buddies, but I understand there’s more to her than the stone-cold bitch you see. She has issues. Lots of them. That doesn’t mean she
isn’t
a bitch. Or an addict. Or a part-time prostitute. It also means she lies.”

“You think she’s lying about the fight?”

“Maybe not outright, but I’d strongly consider the possibility that her hatred of Eric colours her interpretation. Think about it. If Abbygail had a crush on Eric, is she really going to tell him off for kissing her? Isn’t it more likely that Eric realized it was a mistake, backed off, and she got angry? Embarrassed?”

“Just because she had a crush doesn’t necessarily mean she’d welcome an advance.”

I want her to argue my point. She only goes quiet and then says, “I guess so,” and I’m left with this stark truth: something happened between Abbygail and Dalton, and he hid it, and now she’s dead.

After I talk to Petra, I run home, if not physically, then mentally. I pretend I don’t hear the hellos or see the waves and the smiles, and I get my ass home as fast as I can without actually breaking into a run. I stumble inside, close the door, and collapse against it.

Dalton and Abbygail.

I want to say that Petra is right, that the fight was because they kissed, and he backed off. But even that doesn’t fit my image of him. Kissing Abbygail—drunk or not—steps over a line. He was her mentor, her big brother, the guy determined to set her on the right track and keep her there. To kiss her was a violation of that trust.

I want better from him. There, it’s out. The sad truth. That Abbygail isn’t the only girl with a crush. Perhaps this is why I identify with Abbygail—because I’m not a grown woman seeing a man and saying, “I want that.” It’s my inner teen who looks at Dalton with just a touch of that starry-eyed gaze. Like Abbygail, I missed that stage in my teen years. If I liked a guy, I let him know. If he wasn’t interested, I moved on without a backward glance. I was as efficient in my love life as I was in everything else.

I’ve polished over Dalton’s rough edges, put him on a pedestal, and said, “This is a good man.” A man with a strong and true inner compass. A man who would not kiss a damaged, infatuated, twenty-one-year-old girl. And if he got drunk and did, he’d admit it to his new detective because it played into her investigation, and if he’d done nothing wrong, then there was no reason
not
to admit it.

Once night comes, I cycle through nightmares of Dalton and Abbygail. He kisses her, and that kiss is more than she wants, so she pushes him away. He asks her to meet him in the forest—he has something to show her, an apology for his bad behaviour. She goes. He kisses her again. She fights him off. Things get out of control and Abbygail dies. Then the accidental killing of Abbygail unleashes something in him, a twisted perversion of his need to protect his town. He’ll cover up Abbygail’s death by killing those he suspects of being smuggled in.

The next nightmare scene is right out of a movie—the female detective who is so enamoured of her new boss that she never realizes he’s the killer, even when the audience is shouting at her and groaning at her stupidity. Dalton lures me into the forest, and I run along after him like an eager puppy. Run to my doom. Deservedly so.