Exposed (34 page)

“Son, what business do you have out here?”

Ivan prickled at the way he called him “son,” but he placed his hands on the steering wheel. “I’m just headed out, actually.” He realized it was true as he said it. He needed to get out. Get as far away as possible from the stares and underlying foulness of Independence Falls.

“Next time it’ll be a ticket for loitering,” Officer Barton said, like he was being generous. Like other men in town didn’t sleep off hangovers before going home. “This is a good town. We don’t need this kind of behavior.” 

The cop tapped his baton against the metal door, a hollow banging sound that drilled into Ivan’s ears.

Ivan waited until he’d stepped back, Barton’s small eyes still boring into the side of his head, then he turned the key in the ignition. The old truck roared to life, and it took everything in Ivan not to jam his foot down and scream away.

He drove and drove. Yet June followed. Was there anywhere in the godforsaken valley where June’s memory wouldn’t follow?

Ivan cranked the steering wheel suddenly and jerked the truck onto one of the gravel roads that climbed away from town and into the mountains. They all dead-ended at abandoned sites: old Fort Austen, a miner’s ghost town high in the mountains, long-forgotten shacks. After minutes of bumping down the forest track, Ivan veered off to the side of the road and cut the engine. He climbed out of the truck and slammed the door behind him. It echoed, the only sound for miles.

He always kept a few basic supplies in the bed of his truck. Ivan grabbed his rucksack that held his flint, a bedroll, and some jerky and slung it onto his shoulders. He stood still and just listened. Pine trees and aspens rustled in the breeze, and if he strained he could just hear the rush of the river lower in the valley. Unseen in the branches above him, a woodpecker assaulted a tree. 

But what Ivan didn’t sense was June. For one blessed moment, his mind was free of her.

Overhead, the craggy, wind-swept peak of Desolation glared down at him. Ivan glared back and started walking.

The overgrown road petered to a rugged trail, strewn with loose rocks and half-rotten trees barring his way. In a few spots, he lost the path completely and had to scramble up and over giant boulders to find his way. And still Ivan pushed on. 

He stopped beside a stream for a rest some time in the middle of the day, but he awoke to thoughts of June. It was a stream just like this one that they’d hiked beside. Frigid water just like this in which she’d pulled him close and opened herself to him. Ivan splashed water onto his face to shock the memory from his mind. 

But she was still there, he knew. Waiting.

So Ivan kept climbing. Higher and higher up Desolation, down a path he’d never explored. He picked his way over a scree field, past the rusted out hull of a plane crash. One wing, the paint chipping away, stuck out from the gray rock field like a flag of surrender. 

Ivan pressed on, dipping back into thick pines that plunged him into shadow. The trees grew tall and straight all the way up to a sheer rock face on the side of the mountain. The trail split in two before him, one leg of it wider and well-trod.

But before him was a door. A door in the very side of the mountain. Ivan frowned and glanced around. He was alone, yet goosebumps rippled down his arms and the hair at the back of his neck stood on end. On light feet, Ivan walked right up to it. 

It was a cold iron, and tall—nearly a foot taller than he was. Unlike the plane crash back in the rock field, there was nothing rusty about it. Ivan grasped the handle and pulled, but the door didn’t budge. Not even an inch. Ivan gave up and followed the wider path for a ways, but soon realized he’d lost the desire to explore. 

Ivan turned around—there was no other choice. It was already late-afternoon, and he didn’t have enough jerky to last another day. Hell, he’d hiked nearly the whole damn day in a dress shirt and slacks with fine jewelry in his pocket. He picked his way carefully back down the trail until the failing sunlight glinted off the metal of his truck waiting for him on the road below.

The sun burned hot and orange against Ivan’s face as he followed the path around one last curve before reaching the truck. The path here skirted the mountain, exposed and barren so he could look out over the entire valley. 

Looking down now, Ivan could see all of Independence Falls spread out before him. Just one tiny little town that could give him so much grief. Just one tiny woman who could rip his heart to tatters.

Ivan closed his eyes and breathed deeply, tried to blow June out of his lungs, out of his mind. But she was stubborn. He ran hands down his shirt and patted at his pants pockets. The velvet pouch still holding his grandmother’s necklace—the necklace meant for June—bulged in his pocket. He pulled it out, let the gold pool in his palm like liquid sunlight.

Ivan hooked one finger around the delicate gold chain and lifted the necklace so it dangled over the cliff’s edge. The last rays of sunlight poured into the deep green emerald and refracted a million rainbows. Less than twenty-four hours ago, he’d imagined slipping it around June’s graceful neck. But now. All that was gone, she’d made that plain enough.

The sun caught at the facets of the emerald, made the heart of the stone seem almost like an old bruise.

Bruised like June’s cheek last night.

Last night: When everything had gone so awfully wrong. He stared at the glowing emerald, let his eyes blur. Last night: When June had winced at his touch.

She had been in pain, that was obvious now. The bruise on her cheek … what was it from? Ivan had known something was wrong from the second he picked her up, but he hadn’t pressed her, hadn’t cared enough to help. And at the dance, the way her eyes kept darting, like she was afraid.

And then he remembered. She’d said no. At the time, Ivan thought she was talking to him, but her eyes were behind him. And she was begging. Pleading. She needed him, and he’d left her on her own.

Ivan shoved the necklace into his pocket and raced back down the path toward his truck. June needed him. 

Oh God. What if he was too late?

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Ivan

Ivan’s heart skittered. His lungs shuddered, failing to pull in enough oxygen. Ivan gripped the steering wheel as jolts of electricity jagged through him. He had to do something—drive faster, search harder. Find June.

The truck’s tires squealed in protest as he jerked the vehicle around the corner onto June’s road. He slammed the truck into the driveway and yanked up the brake. Her father’s glossy coupe wasn’t in its normal spot, just a stain of oil on the pavement. Ivan nearly sprinted to the front door and jammed his finger against the bell.

He shifted back and forth on his feet, his body telling him to move. To do something, anything, to find her.

There was a soft
tap, tap, tap
of someone walking over the entryway floor, then the door slowly, slowly opened.

It was Annette. Her face registered confusion then suspicion, her penciled eyebrows sharp at the edges. 

“Yes?” Her voice was clipped, and she kept the door half closed against him.

“Is June here?” Ivan practically shouted it.

Annette let her eyelids fall heavy, her coral-colored lips pursed. Ivan fought back the urge to push the door open and shake the woman’s shoulders.

“She’s out,” Annette finally said. But her eyes were narrowed and she opened her mouth for a second, like she wanted to ask more. “Is there ….” Then she apparently thought better of it and shook her head. “No, of course there’s nothing between you two. You’re a gardener, for goodness sake.” She smiled when she said it, like that made her slight any better.

“I appreciate the work you did in the garden, as I’m sure June does. It’s certainly better than I expected. But.” Annette gripped the door and stood half behind it, throwing her face in shadows. Her teeth shown like pearls in the low light, except for a smudge of coral across one front tooth. “Perhaps you’re seeing things that aren’t there. My daughter knows enough not to squander her prospects.”

Then Annette shut the door in Ivan’s face. Through the window, Ivan could see her wander back down to the living room where boxes waited to be opened. Ivan wanted to scream through the window, make Annette face reality that her daughter didn’t care one bit about her stupid party or stupid prospects.

But instead, he stalked back to his truck and thundered away. His mind felt scattered, unable to latch onto any good idea of where June could be. 

He checked in the diner, her father’s general store. But night was falling fast, and most places were closed for the day. He even pounded on the door to the bank, but that too was shut tight. 

Someone had to have seen June. Someone must have known something. Running out of ideas, Ivan yanked open the red door to the bar and strode in. It was hazy with smoke, and some mournful tune warbled from the jukebox.

“Ivan?” Teddy cocked his head. Without another word, he poured Ivan a beer and pushed it across the bar top. “On the house.”

Ivan ignored the beer. “Have you seen June? Her mother said she was out and—”

“You’re the second one in here asking,” Teddy said. “I’d have thought … after the dance ….”

“Who else was here?”

Teddy looked around. “Clay came in earlier. Said he’d heard she’d been asking around for him, but now he can’t find her anywhere.”

Ivan’s stomach dropped.

Too late
. He was too late. Ivan held on tight to the edge of the bar.

“Hey,” Teddy said. But his voice sounded far away, like it was coming through water. “Hey, pal. It’ll be okay.”

But it wouldn’t. He’d failed her. Ivan lurched away from the bar and staggered for the door. Outside, he leaned against the wood siding and tried to slow his heart.

He was out of ideas. Out of options. There was only one place left he could think of, and it seemed like such a slim hope. 

He’d just pushed himself upright when a hand at his arm stopped him. It was Danny Egan. “Not saying I know anything,” Danny began.

“You know where June is?”

Danny stopped, took a breath. “No idea where your bird went. But if she’s looking for something, I’d tell her to check with Cora. Cora will know just where it’s hidden.”

Everything Danny had said just made Ivan frown harder. “What do you—”

The man had already disappeared back into the bar.

This was madness. What could June have hidden? And how was Cora possibly connected? Ivan pushed the questions to the back of his mind and focused. 

The mine. It was the last place he’d check, and the last place June would go. But it was something, something to keep moving. Holding onto the ragged end of a chance, Ivan jumped back into his truck and took off toward the mine.

Ivan drove as close to the mine as he could, then jogged the rest of the way on foot. The world was graying with night by the time he ducked under the chain link fence around the abandoned property, but his field of wildflowers still bloomed in a rainbow of colors. Ivan strode through the field and slipped between the loose boards and into the mine.

He’d never been in there alone, and his senses pricked up. The building was nearly dark inside, the corners lost to a midnight black that he was certain never really left. He’d left his flashlight in the truck, and for a moment Ivan half-wished he had Frank’s flashlight power.

Somewhere along the far side were the tunnels, and above him the half-rotten loft keened in the wind that whistled through the knots and holes in the roof. Ivan’s steps echoed and scared loose a flurry of birds that flapped around him. 

Then it fell silent. And he heard it. Heard someone moaning, muttering words that were lost to the cavernous space. Ivan’s heart flipped in his chest and adrenaline jolted him. He raced across the floor, tripping against the ratty couch, wooden boxes. He kicked one edge of a fire barrel and sent an awful booming echoing through the chamber, but still he ran. 

“June!” He shouted her name, called for her.

But she didn’t respond.

Ivan skidded to a stop and listened again. There it was, June quietly crying out, telling someone no.

Her voice was behind him now. Ivan fought every instinct in his body and walked slowly, silently. Following the sound of June pleading with her silent attacker.

In the corner of the building, tucked up under the loft, a bit of darkness took shape. Denser black huddled in the corner, rocked back and forth. June. 

Ivan raced to her and collapsed to his knees in front of her body. She was alone, but she clutched at her temples and shook her head back and forth like a wild, scared animal. Her chest was pressed into her knees and her head was buried so she formed a tight ball, and she flinched when Ivan tried to touch her.

“No,” she moaned. “No. Leave me alone.”

“June,” Ivan pleaded, his voice cracking. “June, look at me. It’s me. It’s Ivan.”

June shook her head harder. She jammed fingers against her temples, like she was pounding away the thoughts.

“I won’t,” she whispered. Her voice was a thick whimper, and as Ivan’s eyes adjusted to the dim light, he could see how wet her cheeks were from tears. “No, Butch. I won’t do it.”

It hit him, harder than the punch to his own stomach that night in the mine. Butch was behind all of this, behind the bruises and the fear and the words she’d said to him. 

Ivan wrapped his arms around June, lost for what else to do. He was all too aware of what it was like to have Butch invade his mind. He couldn’t resist the brute for even a moment; he could barely comprehend how June was fighting. By the look of it, it was taking a heavy toll.

He had no idea how to save June from whatever hell she was in, so he did the only thing that made sense. He held her close, and she pressed her face into his chest and sobbed. But she was still gone, still far, far away in a world where Butch was doing something awful to her. She kept repeating herself, pleading with her unseen foe.