She nodded, hearing the thickness in his voice; it matched the stinging in her eyes. She moved forward slowly, studying everything from the pile of junk by an old moss-furred stump to the dirty, stained mattress that lay between two Douglas firs. There were animal signs everywhere—this camp had been vacant for a long time; the scavengers had come in.
Back in the trees, not far from the dirty mattress, Ellie found an old trunk, rusted almost shut. It took her a few tries, but she finally opened it. Inside she found piles of old Spokane newspaper clippings—most of them were about prostitutes who’d disappeared from the city streets and never been found. The last clipping was dated November 7, 1999. There were also several guns and a blood-encrusted arm sling.
Down at the bottom, buried beneath the bandages and newspapers and dirty silverware, was a yellow plastic raincoat and a ratty Batman baseball cap.
Behind her George let out an anguished cry. “He saw it. That flower delivery guy saw the kidnapper parked in front of my house.”
Ellie didn’t turn around; she couldn’t see George right now. But she heard him drop to his knees in the muddy dirt.
“If they’d listened, maybe they could have found them before he did … this. Oh my God.”
When he started to cry, Ellie closed her eyes. She’d done her job, found the truth.
But it wasn’t the truth she’d wanted to find.
Alice’s heart is pounding in her chest. She knows she should RUN! But she can’t leave Jewlee.
Still, she hears the voices here. The leaves and the trees and the river. These are the sounds she remembers, and though there is fear in her chest, there is something else, something that makes her get to her feet.
Wolf brushes up against her, loving her. Not far away, his pack is standing together, waiting for his return. This Alice knows. She can hear their padding footsteps and growling at one another; these are the sounds below, softer than the rustling leaves and the rushing water. The sounds of life that fill all this darkness.
She bends down. It takes a long time, but she finally frees Wolf from the smelly, icky trap on his face and around his neck.
He looks up at her in perfect understanding.
She feels sad at the thought of losing him again, but a wolf needs his family.
“Fwee,” she whispers.
He howls and licks her face.
“ ’Bye,” she whispers.
Then he is gone.
Alice looks back up at Jewlee, feeling such a swelling in her heart that it almost hurts. She knows what she wants to tell Jewlee, but she doesn’t have the words. She takes Jewlee’s hand, leads her well around the place (she doesn’t want to see the cave again; oh no). They climb over one of the trees Him cut down and push through a patch of stinging nettles.
There it is.
A mound in the earth, covered with stones.
“Mommy,” Alice says, pointing to the rocks. It is a word she thought she’d forgotten. Once, long ago, her mommy had kissed Alice the way Jewlee does … and tucked her into a bed that smelled like flowers.
Or maybe these are dreams. She can’t be sure. She remembers a glimpse, a moment: Her bending down, kissing Alice, whispering Be good for Mommy. Remember Her.
“Oh, baby …” Jewlee pulls Alice into her arms and holds her tightly, rocking her back and forth.
Alice wishes her eyes would water like a real girl’s, but there is something Wrong with her. Her heart hurts so much she can hardly stand it. “Love Jewlee,” she says.
Jewlee kisses Alice, just the way the mommy used to. “I love you, too.”
Alice smiles. She is safe now. She closes her eyes and falls asleep. In her dreams she is two girls—big girl Alice who knows how to count with her fingers and use her words to make herself understood. On the other side of the river is baby Brittany, wearing the pants called diapers and playing with her red ball. The old mommy is there with her, waving good-bye.
Alice knows she is sleeping. She knows, too, that in the world where she is only Alice, she is in Jewlee’s arms, and she is safe.
Julia stood beneath the maple tree in Sealth Park with Alice asleep in her arms. No one had told her where to go or what to do after the Search and Rescue team dropped them off at the fire station, and yet somehow she and George had ended up here, like shells washed ashore, at this place where the search had begun. The whop-whop-whop of the helicopters and the peal of the sirens were finally fading away.
“What now?” George asked, looking dazed and confused, as if he weren’t really waiting for an answer.
“I don’t know. Ellie is going back to the crime scene tomorrow with all kinds of experts.”
“Did you hear what he did to my baby? How he tied her like a dog and—”
“Stop.” Julia turned to him, seeing the pain in his eyes, the tears. They didn’t have all the facts yet—there were tests to run and results to wait for—but all of them knew the truth.
George hadn’t done this to his family.
“I’m sorry, George.” She wanted to say more but couldn’t. She felt as if she were made of chalk and crumbling away bit by bit.