Finding West

Finding West
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, locations and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, and events is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2013 by June Gray. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from either the author or the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote a brief passage in a review. 

First Edition. Cover design by June Gra
y.

Economica font by
Vicente Lamónaca
.

To my mother, Daisy.

I love you more than words can say.

1

KAT

“My
bum leg say it’s gonna storm. Snow. And a lot of it.” The old woman picked up a chipped ceramic mug and brought it to her lips while her husband looked out at the darkening sky through the diner window.

“
You may be right,” he said, nodding his head of white hair. “I’ve been stopped up for three days.”

I
watched the couple from where I sat a few tables down, wondering how long it took for two people to become so comfortable with each other that the mention of their bowels was no longer even a point of embarrassment but a typical topic over dinner. It wasn’t likely I’d ever have that kind of intimacy with anyone and it was just as well. I really didn’t want to know about someone’s ass timetable anyway.

“So are you ready for the s
torm?” the sole waitress of the diner—aptly named The Diner as it was the only eating establishment in town—asked as she stood by my table with the coffee carafe in hand. “It’s going to be bad, apparently.”

I covered my
mug with a hand and shook my head. “I’m not too worried.” Hell, it had been snowing since October. A few more feet or ten were nothing to write home about.

“Well, if you need anything, you
just let me know,” she said, reached in her apron, and handed me my change. She bent down and stroked the white fur of my German Shepherd, Josie, who was laying by my boots. “Mama and I just live a few miles from your place. Even if you just need someone to watch this sweet pup for you.”

For the lif
e of me, I couldn’t remember the waitress’ name. She was in her twenties, pretty in a tired kind of way, and was always friendly whenever I came in to eat. She and I were the only two women in our twenties in this tiny Alaskan town called Ayashe, so I think she felt like she needed to befriend me. When I first moved into town, she started off suggesting that we go shopping in Anchorage together, do the things normal girlfriends do. I wasn’t exactly a mani-pedi kind of girl, so I always said I was busy.

By now she knew better, knew wh
y people around here called me The Hermit from Sommers Lane. Once someone substituted the word
hermit
for
bitch
, and he ended up flat on his back with an imprint of my fist on his face. So yeah, maybe I earned both titles, but that was fine with me too.

Large snowflakes were already falling by the time I exited the post office with package in hand and made my way back to my Jeep, my boots crunching the snow underfoot. Josie didn't even lift her head when I jumped in the vehicle; she just lay on the passenger seat, her head on her paws and a look of boredom on her all-white face.

"What?" I
asked her, starting the engine. "The line to the window was long."

Josie let ou
t a long-suffering sigh and I could swear she rolled her canine eyes.

"Sometimes I wonde
r if you're just a teenage human trapped in a dog's body," I muttered as I pulled out onto Main Street and away from the post office in this podunk town with its two hundred some-odd residents. Ayashe was in the middle of nowhere, nearly an hour away from Anchorage and civilization, and had a town center that consisted of a grocery store, police station, post office, and diner. Everything else was… well, we either did without or drove a half hour down the Glenn Highway toward the only-slightly larger town of Cormack. Ayashe was isolated and quiet and just the place in which a girl like me could disappear.

The back tires of the Jeep slid a little as I
turned off Main Street and onto Sommers Lane, which was three miles of road with nothing but frost-covered trees and vegetation on either side. A mile and three-fifths in, I turned right onto an unmarked dirt road, the end of which ended at my tan and brown mobile home. In my former life, I lived in a grand log and stone house in an affluent neighborhood in South Anchorage, with six bedrooms and five bathrooms, a pool (so unnecessary in a place that had nearly nine months of winter) and an entire room dedicated to watching movies. As fancy as the house had been, I hadn’t felt comfortable there, not quite myself.

That place
had long been sold, and now here I was fifty miles away in a three-bedroom place that was basically a gussied-up trailer, living without pretense amongst my simple belongings. In Ayashe, the life that I’d carved for myself was mine, and it suited me just fine.

I
parked in my snow-covered driveway and was gathering my satchel and package when I realized I'd forgotten to get dog food and a few other necessities. If the snowstorm was as bad as predicted, I might not get a chance to get to the store for a few days.

With a heavy sigh
, I yanked on my seatbelt and spun a one-eighty on the driveway.

It was already pitch dark by the time I finished shopping and was on my way back home. I was humming along to the bluesy tune on the radio, a P!nk song about misery, when I spotted a dark figure ahead. I slowed down and watched as the tall figure wearing dark clothes stumbled along the side of the road.

"
Fuck me," I said, making Josie's ears perk up. "Dale Hokkeland is drunk and lost.
Again
." My car was about thirty yards away when I saw the figure trip and lose his balance, falling face down into the snow-covered dirt. “Dumbass,” I said with a snort as I pulled off to the shoulder. I grabbed my long metal flashlight and jumped out, leaving the door open for Josie.

"Hello?" I
called out to the body hidden partially by the darkness. "Wake up Dale," I said, kicking at his jean-clad leg. "Your trailer is on the other side of town.”

I
stepped around him and shone the flashlight on his face, immediately realizing that neither was he Dale Hokkeland nor was he anyone I recognized from town. His was the face of a stranger, with a dark beard that covered the lower half of his face. I crouched closer and saw blood at his temple, where he'd hit his head on a sizeable rock when he'd fallen.

"Well
, fuck," I said loud enough that Josie jumped out of the car to investigate, coming to a stop beside me. "What do you think, Jose?" I asked, petting the dog's neck even as I kept my eyes glued to the unconscious stranger. "We could either leave him here and hope he wakes up before the snow really starts to fall, or we could take him to the police station.” The nearest hospital was in Anchorage, and I wasn’t about to drive that far—not unless I absolutely had to anyway.

Josie nudged my face and licked my cheek. I
pulled out my cell phone and dialed the police station. The sheriff was my age and had a newborn at home, and his deputy was a volunteer who only worked several hours a week.  The last time anybody needed law enforcement in this town was a few months ago, when Dale Hokkeland's wife had called in when she'd been unable to find her husband. Turned out Dale had been at the bar, still slumped over the table in the corner.

So when the phone rang and rang, it was no big surprise.
The residents of Ayashe were on their own tonight.

I
contemplated the man at my feet through white-tinged lashes, not sure how to proceed. As the snowflakes fell heavier from the sky, I made the split decision to help the stranger. “Come on, buddy,” I said, pulling on the guy’s arm. “Let’s get you in the Jeep before I change my mind.”

I consider
myself a strong woman—hell, I’d built my own little workout shed at home—but the guy proved harder to move than I originally expected. It was like shifting a thousand-pound limp noodle. I finally grabbed him by the armpits and dragged him backwards, making sure to lift with my legs not my back, while Josie just watched on with interest. “Grab a leg or something, you mutt,” I said to her.

I dropped my load
for a moment to open the door to the backseat, wondering how the hell I was going to get him up there before finally deciding that my best plan of attack was to heft him over my shoulders like a bag of sand and throw him into the car.

“You weigh a ton
,” I said to the unconscious man as I wrapped his arms around my shoulder and lifted. God, he must weigh more than two hundred pounds. “Might think about cutting back on the carbs once you wake up,” I muttered after hauling him up onto the bench seat.

Finally, a little out of breath
, I stuffed his booted feet into the vehicle and closed the door. Only when I got into the driver’s seat did it occur to me to check for a pulse.

“I’d better not have dragged a dead man into my car,” I muttered as I
twisted in my seat and pressed two fingers to his neck. It would be just my luck to save a guy who was already dead.

The strong beat thudding against the pads of my fingers told me otherwise.

The road was already covered with nearly an inch of snow by the time I made it home. I studied the man in my backseat and almost decided to just leave him in the car, but in the end, basic human decency won out. Besides, I already saved him from the ditch; I couldn’t very well leave him to freeze to death in the car now.

I shook my head, brushing off the
melted snow and morbid thoughts that had gathered there.

You would think that taking him out of the car was th
e easier task, but by this time my muscles were already at the exhaustion point. Once again I dragged him by the armpits, not bothering to be gentle about pulling him out. Several minutes later I had a wet trail on my floors and an unconscious man on my living room rug.

I went to the kitchen to get a glass of water, keeping the block of knives in my line of sight, and mulled over my next step.
I supposed keeping him warm and comfortable through the night was a given, but tomorrow when he woke it was off to the police station with him.

I walked back and studied him. Based on the way he was dressed, he didn’t appear to be homeless. His clothes, even covered in dirt, looked
new and expensive. With a healthy dose of trepidation, I went through his pockets and found nothing, absolutely no ID or anything that would indicate where he was from. I bent down and peered into the bearded face, but found nothing familiar in his dark eyebrows or that long, straight nose.

I wet some pap
er towels and wiped at the wound on his forehead, relieved that the inch-long gash had stopped bleeding. I’d be so pissed if he bled on my rug.

After I cleaned the area with peroxide—during which he winced but didn’t wake up—I applied three butterfly strips to keep the wound closed then
placed a bandage over it.

My butt almost touched the couch when I remembered
my stuff was still in my car. Swallowing down a frustrated groan, I brought in the groceries and package from the post office and put them away. Finally, with a heavy sigh, I collapsed on the couch and allowed my muscles to unwind, at least partly.

It was strange how one minute I had been
doing something completely mundane such as going home, and the next minute I had an unconscious man at my feet. I should have been frightened of this stranger who could very well turn out to be a serial killer, but I just couldn’t muster up the energy, so I just threw a wool blanket over my very first houseguest ever, leaned against the couch, and passed out.

I awoke to the sound of Josie’s low, throaty growl. I sat up, instantly on edge, to find a hulking figure standing over me with his palms held up, crouching over in a defensive position while Josie stood between us with her hackles raised.

“Easy boy,” the man said in a deep voice that scared the sleep right out of my brain.

“Careful, you’ll offend
her
,” I said with a croaky voice. I eyed him with wonder, impressed that I’d managed to carry a man that size on my own.

The man’s eyes flicked to me, his expression
one of confusion and terror. “Who are you?” he asked, looking around at my small house. “And where the hell am I?”

I remained seated but my hand was under the couch cushion, my fingers wrapped around the
butt of my Glock. “I could ask you the same thing.”

He froze, his dark eyebrows drawing together. “I don’
t know. I didn’t try to rob you or do something to you, did I?” he asked, his grey eyes wide with horror.

I shook my head,
a little taken aback by the luminosity of his eyes; it was like looking through glass. “No. I found you at the side of the road last night and brought you back here so you wouldn’t freeze to death.”

“Do I know you?”

“No.”

“So you brought a stranger home?” he asked as
if it was the most ridiculous thing in the world—which now in the light of day, it was.

“To save your life,” I said defensively. “Maybe I’m starting to rethink that decision.”

He glanced out the window and saw the snow that was still falling in large, fluffy clumps. He cleared this throat. “No. Thank you, I appreciate you saving my life.”

Josie growled again, a reminder that he might still pose a threat.