He's already heading for the kitchen. Leaving out the back, I presume.
"Ignore him," I murmur. "How's everything going?"
She grins then, a huge blazing grin, the sort I haven't seen since the day Graham asked her to marry him.
"It is amazing," she says. She runs her hand through her hair, droplets of water flying. "I just got back from a quick dip. It's freezing, but it feels so good."
"There's a pool?"
She laughs. "The pond. There's a lake, too, but you need an escort to go there."
"Um, you do know there's no filtration system in a pond, right? Or a lake?"
Her grin widens. "Yes, we went swimming in a dirty pond."
"We?"
From the way her face glows, I know the other half of that "we" isn't a woman. I try not to stare at her. I probably do. Thrown into a new situation, Diana usually just lies low and observes, like a rabbit in its hole. I was certain she'd be hiding in her lodgings, waiting for me to come and take her around. Obviously not, and I'm thrilled to see it.
"So are you boarding here?" she asks.
"I guess so."
"Hopefully it won't be for long. I had to board the first night because my place wasn't ready. I have an apartment now. If you'd like, you can bunk with me until they find you a permanent place."
"I'm sure this will be fine. But thanks."
We walk into the kitchen and find Dalton poking through boxes on the table.
"There's dinner in there," he says, pointing at one. "Enough for your friend if she stays. Basic supplies in the rest."
"When do I get to meet my landlord?"
He frowns at me.
"The people I'm boarding with."
"There's no one else, detective. This is your place."
Diana blinks. "This is Casey's house? But ... I get ... I have an apartment. It's less than half the size of this, with no yard and--"
"Essential services. If you provide one, you get better lodgings than those who don't."
"How's that fair?"
He turns those steel-grey eyes on her. "Casey will be working her ass off, twelve-hour shifts, six days a week, to keep this town safe. You work five hours a day sewing patches on jeans and new buttons on shirts. You want better? You work harder or train for a new position. That's fair." He heads for the door, calling back, "Eight a.m., Butler. Be ready."
Diana joins me for dinner but has to leave at nine.
"I have a date," she says, that glow returning.
I smile as we settle onto the sofa. "With your swimming partner?"
"Nope, someone else."
Her grin turns wicked, like she's sixteen and announcing that she kissed two different boys in the same weekend.
When I don't react, she jostles me. "Haven't you always said I need to date more? You should be happy for me."
"I am happy," I say. "This is my happy face, remember?"
She laughs. "Okay, okay. I'll admit, the male-to-female ratio in this town helps my popularity, but it's more than that, Case. It's the whole..." She waves her hands. "Atmosphere. It's like band camp. Which you never went to, and it's not like you needed that anyway. You never have a problem meeting guys. So I've been taking advantage of the opportunities before you arrive and they all forget my name."
"That's not--"
"When we walk into a bar, guys only glance my way if you shoot them down."
I protest. This topic of conversation comes up far too regularly for my tastes. I'm no femme fatale, and Diana is no wallflower. I joke that she's welcome to all the guys in town and then say, "Work will keep me plenty busy. And I'm ... not exactly looking." I absently finger the martini glass necklace.
"How's Kurt?"
"Doing okay."
"Good." A moment of awkward silence. Then, "Speaking of guys, how about that deputy, huh? He's just your type. Brawny. Gorgeous. Not likely to win a Mensa membership anytime soon."
"Hey," I say, with genuine annoyance.
"Oh, I'm sure Will is bright enough. Just not on your level. No one's on your level."
I try to keep my voice even. "Plenty of people are above my level."
"I'm not."
Goddamn it, Di. Five minutes ago you were glowing with confidence. And now this shit?
She makes a face. "Sorry. I'm a little scattered. It's great here, but ... After Graham ... I guess I'm a little on edge, waiting for the other shoe to drop."
"It won't." I'll make sure of it.
She twists her rings. "Maybe I should cancel my date. I agreed yesterday, when I didn't know you were getting in today."
"We have another hour. Then you're walking out that door and going on your date."
She struggles for a smile. "Is that an order?"
"It is."
After Diana leaves, I clear my head by exploring my house. The upstairs is a loft bedroom, with a balcony overlooking the forest. Standing on it, I wonder where I can get a chair so I can sit out here with my morning coffee and watch the sunrise. When I realize it might not be that easy to procure a chair up here, there's a split second of near panic. And I have to laugh, because I have never bought a piece of furniture in my life. Nor have I ever had the urge to sit out and watch the sunrise. My new balcony doesn't even face east.
But I have a house. And it's kind of awesome.
Without a book to read, I'm in bed by ten. But once I'm there, all I can think about is those files. I also realize how quiet it is. My back window is cracked open and I hear nothing. For a city girl, that's unnerving. When I strain, I do pick up sounds: a distant laugh, the crackle of undergrowth, the hoot of an owl. But there's no steady roar of street traffic or even the hum of a ventilation system. When I hear a howl, I practically fall out of bed.
There aren't any dogs in Rockton. No pets allowed. That can mean only one thing: I'm hearing wolves.
I push open the balcony doors and step out to listen. The sound is distant, meaning there's no danger that a pack of wild canines will charge from the forest. It's not that kind of sound anyway. Not a warning cry, but a beautiful and haunting song. I go back inside to grab my blanket, and I lower myself to the balcony floor, my back against the wall as I stare into the forest and listen to the wolves.
There's more out there than wolves. More than bears and wild cats. That's what I read in those files. What is beyond the town borders and how it got there.
Rockton was founded in the fifties by Americans escaping political persecution during the McCarthy years. Some had returned to the US when they felt it was safe. Others remained and opened Rockton to people seeking refuge for other reasons. When the town struggled in the late sixties, a few wealthy former residents took over managing it and organized regular supply drops. That's when the town began evolving from a commune of lost souls into a police state secretly sheltering hardened criminals.
Some residents became dissatisfied with the changes, wanting a more natural and communal lifestyle. They left Rockton in small groups and "went native," as the saying goes, giving up even the primitive comforts of the town to live off the land. Rockton calls these people--and their descendants--settlers.
But there are others out there, too. Those who aren't just living like a modern-day Grizzly Adams. Those who lost something when they left Rockton--lost their humanity and ultimately reverted to something animalistic. The hostiles.
That's why residents can't wander around in the forest without armed escorts. Sure, wolves and bears are a concern, but the bigger threat is the people who live in the forest. Step on their territory and they'll treat you like a trespassing predator and kill you on sight.
Like the wolves, though, the hostiles aren't exactly on our doorstep. They're a bigger danger to the settlers, because both live deep within this seemingly endless forest, while the average Rockton citizen doesn't go more than a half mile in, and only on escorted trips during daylight hours. The deaths occur mostly with hunting parties and the deep-woods patrols that keep an eye out for hunters, loggers, and other p
otential intruders.
As for cannibalism, like Dalton suggested, the evidence is far from conclusive. It's just a matter-of-fact possibility. In his notes, I saw the man who'd talked about the medical implications of ground squirrel hibernation. It was like reading an article in a sociology journal, the language precise, the vocabulary wide, the text thoughtful and analytical at the same time. He doesn't think there are mad savages in the woods intent on devouring the flesh of their enemies. Rather, if there is cannibalism, it would be a matter of survival, the need for food during harsh times.
It's not winter now, though, meaning there was no such reason for butchering Powys. Either we were seeing signs of a more ritualistic cannibalism or Powys had been deliberately cut up as a message--a warning from those in the forest.
Like Dalton, I'm a realist. I'm not shocked by accounts of man-eating bears and tigers. If you're on their turf, you're a threat and potentially dinner. Fair enough. As for humans doing the same, obviously I'd like to think we're above that, but if we've lost what it means to be human, would we not see people as these animals do?
What does bother me, thinking of those hostiles, is an anxiety I can't quite nail down, so I sit on my balcony, with the wolves howling and the breeze bringing tendrils of fireplace smoke, and when I close my eyes to drink it all in, that's the last thing I remember thinking. That I like it here. In spite of everything, I like it.
NINETEEN
"Butler?" The voice cuts into dreams of whipping along a forest path on an ATV.
"Butler?" Then, "Goddamn it," and a brusque hand lands on my shoulder.
I bolt awake, blanket falling free. Dalton is on my balcony, looming over me.
"Huh? Wha--?" I shake off the confusion and start to rise, then realize I'm dressed only in my panties. I pull the blanket to my neck as I get to my feet.
"What are you doing out here?" he says.
"I..." I blink hard and look out at the still-dark forest, my brain refusing to find traction. "I couldn't sleep. And wolves. There were..." I trail off, realizing how silly that sounds, but he nods, as if this requires no further comment.
"You'd better have your service revolver under that blanket," he says.
I blink harder. Then I realize Dalton is standing on the balcony. My balcony. In the middle of the night.
"Wait," I say. "Did you break into my--?"
"I have a key. You weren't answering the door."
I yank the blanket higher and peer into the dark night. "Tell me it's not eight a.m. already."
"It's not. We have a problem. First, though, if you're out here at night, you'd damned well better have your gun."
"Why?" I wave over the side of the balcony. "Do we have flying monkeys in the forest, too?"
"Keep your gun at your bedside. Always. That's an order, detective."
I shake my head. "I'm not being difficult, sheriff. Therapists call it a hypersensitive survival instinct. If I have a gun and I see a threat, I could use it to defend myself before I fully process the extent of that threat."
He snorts.
"And no, that's not my excuse for what I did down south. But if I did have my gun out here, there's a good chance I would have shot you."
He shakes his head and walks back inside, saying, "Get dressed. Come down. Hastings is missing. Someone saw him heading into the woods two hours ago. We need to find him before he gets himself killed."
We step outside, and Dalton hands me a lantern. A blast of bitter wind hits me, and I pull my jacket tighter.
"You want to grab something warmer?" Dalton asks.
"I'm fine."
"Let me rephrase that: Get the hell back inside and put on something warmer, Butler."
I obey. I'm grabbing a sweater when I remember seeing a bag of what had looked like outerwear with my supply boxes. I dump it and find gloves, a hat, and boots, all much thicker than the outerwear I brought. I scoop up the hat and gloves and hurry outside.
Anders has joined Dalton on my front porch. My first thought is, I have a front porch? Followed by, My front porch has a chair--I could haul that up to the balcony. I shake off the whim and yank on my gloves as I greet Anders. Dalton is already on the move, disappearing into the dark.
"Rule number one for working with Eric: keep up," Anders whispers as we jog after the sheriff. "Two years later, I'm still trying."
Dalton has headed around the rear of my house. He's moving fast along that strip of yard, as if this is his secret road past the traffic-jammed streets of Rockton.
When we reach him, I say, "Can I make an observation?"
He snorts. "Well, that's a fucking stupid question. I hired a detective, not a mime."
"It's an observation that might question what we're about to do."
"Still a fucking stupid question. If I wanted someone to blindly obey everything I say, I'd have hired another army boy."
"Thank you, Eric," Anders says.
"Though, on second thought, Will, blind obedience might be a step up, considering you never read those files."
"Not going to drop that, are you?" Anders said.
"Nope. Butler? Talk. And if you ever have an idea about an investigation and you don't tell me about it..."
When he doesn't finish, I say, "Trying to figure out how you could enforce that without mind-reading skills?"
Anders chuckles. Dalton looks over, sees my smile, and nods.
"Yeah, it's unenforceable," he says. "So I won't threaten. But you get the point. I hired a detective because I expect ideas. I'm tired of doing all the thinking in this department."
"Ouch," Anders says.
"That's not an insult." A few more steps. "Not really. I could use more thinking from you, Will. You're smart enough, so there's no excuse other than that you're accustomed to following a commanding officer. You're a good soldier. I need that. I also need more."
"You know what neither of us really needs at two a.m., Eric? Brutal honesty."
Dalton stops short. I think he's going to comment on that, but he's scanning the darkness.
"You got the militia up and out?" he asks Anders.
"I'm a good soldier, remember?"
Dalton ignores the sarcasm. We're right on the edge of the woods. He's still stopped. I start to speak, but an abrupt raised hand stops me.
"He's listening," Anders whispers. "The wind speaks to him."
The deputy gets a look for that. Then Dalton starts walking again and says, "Butler? Talk."
"Right. Okay, so you said Hastings took off into the woods, but I'm questioning the logic of that given what he saw on that autopsy table. Even if he doesn't realize it might have been cannibalism, the sight of someone presumably ripped apart by wild animals is not going to send him running into the woods, is it?"
"Your suggestion?"
"That he's still in town. He's a petty little man who is not above sending you on a wilderness goose chase at two a.m."
"Good," he grunts. Then he keeps walking into the forest.
"Good but wrong?" I say.
"Good call on character. Hastings is a weasel. Fifty percent chance he's done exactly what you said. Which is why I have the militia searching town."
"Oh. So you're a step ahead of me."
"I'd be a lousy sheriff otherwise."
"But you still think he could be in the woods. May I ask why?"
He motions for us to stay back while he hunkers down at the forest edge to examine something.
"Because the locals don't always believe us about the woods," Anders answers for him. "It's like saying the moat is filled with man-eating sharks and killer electric eels. Some think we're lying about the danger to keep them inside."
"But Hastings saw the corpse."
"And might be telling himself we did that to it."
"What? That you or Dalton butchered Powys post-mortem? Why?"
"To keep folks out of the woods. As a scare tactic, it'd be senselessly extreme and stupid, not to mention revolting and barbaric, but you heard Hastings--to h
im Eric is a savage with a badge."
Dalton's on the move again. We're following.
"I know there aren't any pets in town," I say. "But wouldn't it be good to have a dog for tracking?"
"Don't need it," Anders says. "We've got Eric."
Dalton shoots him the finger and keeps walking along the forest's edge. He stops abruptly and crouches again, and now I realize what he's doing--searching for signs of where someone might have entered the woods.
When I say as much, Anders nods. "There are only two maintained paths heading in, but there are smaller walking trails if you know where to find them. Running pell-mell into the forest is crazy. Following one of those maintained paths is also crazy, unless you're looking to get caught fast."
We look over to see that Dalton has disappeared.
Anders sighs and calls. "Yo, boss! We missed the non-existent signal. Follow or wait?"
No answer. Anders glances at me. "That means follow. You eventually learn to read the code. It'd be easier if we just equipped him with signal lights. Red for stop. Green for follow. Yellow for 'take a guess and get your head bitten off if you're wrong.' Except it'd probably be stuck on yellow most of the time."
"I heard that," Dalton calls back.
"Good. And yes, we're following."
I don't see the path until we're on it. I've hiked before. But my idea of a path is a groomed trail wide enough to ride a bike on. This is barely a slice through the trees, branches catching me on both sides. Even the worn dirt underfoot vanishes as the trees close in and the ground becomes a carpet of dirt and needles.
"Patrol check?" Dalton calls back.
"He's asking about the daily militia patrols," Anders explains. "They report in to me. One thing they look for is signs that someone went into the woods."
"Patrol check?" Dalton repeats, with an added snap.
"I'm using a teaching moment. It's the only way Casey will learn anything. And the patrols haven't found evidence of a wanderer in three days." He glances at me. "That tells Eric whether the signs he's picking up could be from another day. It's not impossible that someone wandered off without us knowing it, but we've got a good catch ratio. High penalties for wandering--combined with regular escorted trips--means there's no excuse for breaching the perimeter."
"Why not erect a fence?"
"There was one, years ago. First a wooden fence. Then a barbed wire one. Followed by some high-tech generator-powered boundary-marking system. The last just plain failed--it took too much power and it broke down easily. What Rockton learned from erecting fences, though, is that they don't make people feel safe. They make them feel like captives. Folks breached that fence far more often than they breach our marked perimeter. They prefer us to treat them like responsible adults and say, 'Look, we don't want you wandering in the woods for your own good.' With ninety percent of them, that's enough. It's the other ten that give us grief."