Manitou Canyon

  To which he replied, “Take all you want, love. I’ve got plenty to spare.”

  She laughed in a way Rainy knew was meant to be seductive. Trevor Harris smiled back in a way meant to say he was interested. And Rainy worked at putting all this together in a way that might help her better understand the young man before she made any judgments. In her head, she could hear Henry advising, Patience.

  “Daniel!”

  They turned and watched a handsome man in a dark business suit stride toward them across the casino floor. He held out his hand as he came, and Daniel grasped it when they met.

  “Ben,” Daniel said. “Good to see you.”

  “I thought you didn’t gamble,” the man in the dark suit said.

  “I don’t. Just here to talk to someone.”

  “Who? Can I help you find them?”

  “We’ve found him,” Daniel said. He nodded toward Trevor.

  “Oh, you know Mr. Harris?”

  “You know him, too?” Daniel said.

  “High roller, that one.”

  “And quite lucky,” Rainy said.

  “This is my aunt Rainy,” Daniel said. “And a friend, Stephen O’Connor. Folks, this is Ben Trudeau. He manages the casino.”

  They shook hands, and Trudeau asked in a guarded voice, “Is Mr. Harris a friend of yours, Daniel?”

  “I wouldn’t say that,” Daniel replied. “We have a mutual family interest.”

  Trudeau watched Trevor Harris win another hand. “He is, as you say, extraordinarily lucky. So much so that I have him under surveillance now. He knows it and doesn’t seem to care. I don’t believe he counts cards, but I think he must be playing some kind of system to be winning so consistently. We just haven’t been able to figure out what it is. But we will. We always do.” He smiled at Daniel. “If you’ll excuse me, I have things to see to. If you need anything, Daniel, just let me know. A pleasure meeting you all.”

  He continued across the casino floor and was lost among the machines there.

  “How do you know him?” Stephen asked.

  “I spoke at a conference here a few months ago, a bunch of Twin Cities businesspeople looking to invest in Native initiatives. I talked about the importance of enterprises focused on protecting the environment. Ben was extremely supportive, and we got to know each other pretty well.”

  “Is he Shinnob?” Rainy asked.

  “Odawa. He works for a First Nations company out of Canada. They train people to run casinos, and they consult on casino issues and management. Lots of experience, apparently.”

  Rainy knew that the Chippewa Grand had been through many management changes over the years. Along with the benefits of the gambling revenue had come all the dark temptations that shadowed big money. There’d been corrupt practices in the running of the casino, lingering questions about the financial records, the distributions, the hiring practices, how cleanly the games themselves were operated. Rainy almost never came to the casino. She was among those who felt it was a corruption of spirit to profit from the weaknesses of others, or even from their careless excesses. She knew, too, that there were plenty of Native folks who took the money from their tribal allotment and simply fed it right back into the same machines that had generated it.

  Stephen and Daniel flanked Trevor Harris, and Rainy stood behind. Daniel put a hand on his shoulder. “We need to talk.”

  Trevor looked left, then right. “I’m kind of in the middle of something here.”

  “Something really good,” the redhead sitting in the next chair said. “Shame to break his streak.”

  “Won’t take long,” Stephen said.

  Trevor stood. “Mark my place, Krystal,” he said to the dealer. “I’ll be right back.”

  They walked away from the table and gathered near the bar in an area that was not so busy or noisy. Harris looked tired. They all looked tired. It had been a long and emotionally exhausting day.

  “Is it about my sister?” Trevor asked. “You’ve got some word?”

  “Nothing new,” Daniel said. “We’re just trying to sort a few things out.”

  “Like what?”

  “Tell us about your grandfather.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “What kind of man is he?”

  “Rich.”

  An interesting first offering, Rainy thought.

  “Hard to get along with?” Daniel asked.

  “Depends. There are areas neither of us go.”

  “I mean in general.”

  “He sure didn’t get rich bending over backward for people.”

  “Enemies?”

  “Probably, but I wouldn’t know about that.”

  Rainy said, “The areas neither of you want to discuss, can you tell me more about those?”

  “Look, I already gave all this information to the sheriff when my grandfather went missing. It didn’t help us find him, and I don’t see how that’s going to help us find Lindsay.”

  “We’re trying to see this puzzle in a different way, Trevor,” Rainy explained. “Every piece, new or old, that we can put into place helps.”

  He thought it over and shrugged. “I disappoint him.”

  “Why?”

  “For one thing, I’m an actor. To quote my grandfather, ‘Nobody makes money as an actor.’ For another, we’re very different people. He’s spent his life in places like darkest Africa and the Amazon and the Outback. Manly stuff. Me, I like air-conditioning and a soft bed.”

  “What were you doing going with him into the Boundary Waters?” Stephen asked.

  “I thought, I don’t know, that maybe it might bring us closer. Lindsay loves the place. And Grandpa John grew up here. Seemed like it might be a way to connect before it was too late.”

  “That’s what you wanted?” Rainy said. “To connect on a deeper level?”

  “I don’t have much family. Or even a sense of family, really. That’s a lonely feeling.”

  Daniel brought out the photograph of Trevor and his prize fish. “Did you think this might help connect?”

  “Worth a try, I figured.”

  “Nice catch,” Daniel said. “What did you use?”

  “A rod and reel.”

  “I mean at the end of your line. Live bait? A lure?”

  “A lure.”

  “What kind?”

  “I don’t remember. I’m not really much of a fisherman. That was kind of beginner’s luck.”

  “It was a competition of some kind with your grandfather, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “His idea?”

  “Mine. He does a lot of deep-sea fishing from his homes in San Diego and Maui. Always bugging me to go with him. He’s never understood that it doesn’t appeal to me.”

  “Have you been to the Boundary Waters before?” Daniel asked.

  “That trip was my first.”

  “What made you decide to try your hand at casting a line?”

  “Honestly, I finally just got fed up with his constant sniping at me to man up.”

  “I understand you bet him a thousand dollars. A lot of money. Considering the nature of the enterprise, your odds weren’t good.”

  “I never said I was a great gambler.”

  “You seem to be winning big here.”

  “Winning—or losing for that matter—goes in streaks. I’m having a good streak.” He eyed Rainy. “So, how is this helping us find Lindsay?”

  “Your grandfather was a distant figure,” Rainy said. “At least in your life. But I believe there’s an important connection between your grandfather and your sister that’s at the heart of their disappearances. Do you have any idea what that might be?”

  “Lindsay’s not much closer to him than I am. We saw him two, maybe three times a year. The only connection any
of us share is blood. I can understand why someone might have it in for my grandfather, but Lindsay? It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “And you’ve given that some good thought, have you?” Daniel threw in. “Who might want your grandfather out of the way?”

  “Not until Lindsay disappeared. I mean, I just thought Grandpa John might have had a stroke or something and fell into the lake and drowned or walked off into the woods and got lost. But now everything seems different.”

  “Whose idea was it to hire my father?” Stephen asked.

  “Lindsay’s. After I told her about my dream. Or vision, if you will.”

  Stephen nodded. “What did the vision mean to you?”

  “Honest to God, I still have no idea what to think of it. I mean, it’s not something I’ve ever experienced before.”

  Daniel said, “Does playing blackjack help you think about it more clearly?”

  Trevor cocked his head. “What’s going on?”

  “I apologize if we seem to be badgering you, Trevor,” Rainy said. “We’re just a little desperate, and we’re turning over every stone we can.”

  “Okay,” Trevor said. “I get that. But I’ve got nothing to hide. And while gambling may be considered a vice by some, a lot of us just think of it as a diverting pastime. And so yes, Daniel, in a way it does help clear my head. Are we done here?”

  “I think I hear Lady Luck calling you,” Daniel said, not hiding his sarcasm.

  “Good night then,” Trevor said with a parting nod.

  He left them and returned to the blackjack table. The redhead welcomed him back with a squeeze of his arm, and he took his chair and resumed his play.

  “I’m no actor, but I know a little Shakespeare.” Daniel’s dark eyes appraised the young man, and he said, “Where his gambling is concerned, me thinks he doth protest too much.”

  CHAPTER 27

  The tall man had bound him with tape, hand and foot, wrapped a couple of wool blankets around him for sleep, and now Cork lay next to the coals of the dying fire, listening to the sounds that the woman who hated him made as she slept and the low occasional moan of the kid, whose leg pained him even in his dreaming. Lindsay Harris slept silent as death, and Cork understood her exhaustion. The tall man made no sound, and Cork couldn’t tell if it was because he slept deeply or because he slept not at all. Cork was weary in every part of his body, but sleep wouldn’t come. Above him, the moon had risen, and its glow washed out the stars in a good part of the sky. The constellations still visible were as familiar to him as his own face in a mirror. The air was cold, and when he breathed upward, his breath became a momentary cloud against the heavens.

  It wasn’t worry that kept him awake. It was processing. He was going over everything he knew now, arranging and re­arranging the pieces of information he’d gathered since Raspberry Lake. These were the same people who’d been responsible for the disappearance of John Harris. They’d been waiting for Harris and his grandchildren in the same way they’d been waiting for Lindsay and him. They’d known Harris would be on that lake. They’d known Lindsay would come back to look for him. Which probably meant that someone close to the Harrises had kept them informed. He wished he could talk to Lindsay, mine her life and even, to the extent possible, her grandfather’s. There were questions Cork had now that hadn’t occurred to him when Harris had first gone missing, and the answers might have given him an idea who had betrayed them. But the tall man kept them separate and would allow no conversation between them. So Cork had to go with what he knew.

  They were headed to Canada, to a place called White Woman Lake. He thought he recalled a lake north of the Quetico, in a beautiful, rugged, isolated part of Ontario. He’d once fished the Manitou River near there, a marvelous flow, crystal clear and full of some of the best brown trout he’d ever angled. He believed White Woman Lake wasn’t far away. What was in that part of Ontario that would involve Harris or his granddaughter? What was so important there that these people were willing to risk everything for it, including their own lives? Although he believed absolutely that they wouldn’t hesitate to kill him or Lindsay if they felt it was necessary, Cork didn’t think they were evil people, even the sour woman. Whatever the motive behind their actions, it wasn’t selfish.

  So what did drive them? He had no clue. At least not yet. But he intended to keep probing the kid, who was the weak link in all this, and listening to everything that passed between the other two. He hoped that at some point one of them would stumble and a good deal more might become clear. He had to be careful, though. The woman traveled with them but was not one of them, not family. If she’d had her way, Cork was pretty sure he’d be dead now. He wasn’t certain what he could do about that except keep a wary eye on her at all times and hope the tall man didn’t change his mind. Which was something he might well do if Cork tried another escape. Or if Lindsay tried. But she seemed resigned to her captivity, maybe because her life didn’t appear to be on the line at the moment. Or maybe because she actually believed she might be able to help her grandfather. About that, Cork wasn’t so sure.

  He heard the tall man rise and watched him walk to the edge of the lake, where he stood like some solitary pine, a natural part of all that surrounded him. Cork heard his low murmuring, and although the words weren’t clear, the cadence was familiar. He’d heard Meloux and Rainy speak in this same way, and he understood the tall man was praying in Anishinaabemowin. Praying for what? Or for whom? The tall man bent and cupped his hands in the water of the lake. He lifted his arms, and the water emptied from his palms, drop by sparkling drop, like falling stars. After a while, he turned back and wove his way among the sleeping figures toward his blankets. As he passed Cork, he said, “You’ll be no good to us or to yourself if you don’t sleep.”

  But Cork didn’t sleep, not immediately. He thought about his children and Waaboo. He thought about Rainy. He thought that if, in fact, this was a journey from which he’d never return, there were things he wished he could have said to each of them. How much he loved them, treasured them, things they already knew, but he wished he’d said them anyway. And there was something else he wished he’d said, this to Rainy alone.

  He said it now, whispered it toward the stars, as if they might hear and carry the message to her, “I love you.”

  * * *

  The lantern wick still burned in her great-uncle’s cabin. Rainy saw the light as she walked the path across the meadow toward her own cabin. The moon was high and had lit her way clearly from the road where she’d parked her Jeep and along the trail that followed the shoreline of Iron Lake. She lifted her hand to knock at Henry’s door, but before she rapped, the old man said from inside, “Welcome home, Niece.”

  She found him sitting at his table, Ember lying peacefully at his feet. The mutt’s tail wagged when she came in, but it was late and the dog didn’t rise. She took off her coat and hung it and pulled out a chair and sat.

  “You look like a woman who has traveled a long journey.”

  “I’m so tired, Uncle Henry. It smells of cedar and sage in here. You purified?”

  “I had a visitor. Your aunt Leah.”

  “No wonder you cleansed. What did she want?”

  “To wound me if she could.”

  “Because you wounded her all those years ago?”

  “She was hurt, yes, but it was not my doing.”

  “Who then, or what?”

  “Her youth, her vanity, her willing blindness. When she finally let herself see the truth so long ago, it split her heart open. For that, she has always blamed me.”

  “She’s blinded herself. She’s made herself believe you led her on.”

  “I have done my very best for nearly a century to speak nothing but the truth, Niece. I have learned that no matter how plainly I speak, there are some who hear only what they wish to hear.”

  “You told me she might be here to
stay. Is this a woman you could abide for long, Uncle Henry?” There was a harshness to her voice. When she heard herself, heard the anger, Rainy wasn’t sure if it came from her fear of the woman’s intrusion on this life she’d created for herself on Crow Point, or her concern for her great-­uncle, or her fear of what might have happened to Cork.

  The old man ignored her question. “Did you find Corcoran O’Connor and the young woman?”

  “They weren’t there, Uncle Henry. It was just like John Harris. They vanished off that lake into thin air. Only this time something was left behind.”

  “What?”

  “Miskwa,” she said. Blood.

  The old man had been tying sage bundles. He put them aside and sat back in his chair.

  “Whose?”

  “We don’t know. But there was a lot of it. I know I should be equally worried about the young woman, but I find myself praying mostly that it wasn’t Cork’s blood. Selfish.”

  “Human,” he said. “Did you feel death there?”

  “I felt a terrible violation of the spirit of that place.”

  The old man’s eyes narrowed to slits, as if he was trying to see something at a great distance. “It makes no sense to set a rabbit snare where the rabbit will not be. Someone knew they were coming.”

  “That’s what we’ve figured, too.”

  “Why these rabbits? And who set the snare?”

  “We just came from talking with the grandson. This is a man I don’t trust. I think he’s weak and easily manipulated.”

  “If he’s weak enough to be bent by others, are you not strong enough to bend him, too?”

  “Maybe.” Rainy laid her arms on the table, let her head fall forward, and closed her eyes. “I’m exhausted, Uncle Henry, and I’m so worried.”

  She felt his warm, old hands cover hers. She looked up at him and found him smiling.

  “Worry, and you open the door to the worst of possibilities, Niece. Better, I think, to hope. The heart invites a friendlier spirit for its company.”