Dalton has spotted me, and he heads over with a quiet “Everything okay?” and a look that says he knows it’s not.
“If you’re done here, Storm’s acting a bit off. I don’t think she’d go into Brady’s food, but I’m worried. Just come, and tell me I’m being paranoid.”
Storm is in the station. We left her there what seemed like a lifetime ago. She whines as soon as she catches our footsteps.
We go inside, and I drop to a crouch to pet her and reassure her.
“She’s fine, isn’t she?” Dalton says.
I nod. Then I straighten. “The fire was a diversion.”
“What?” He winces before the word is even out. “Someone tried to kill Brady. Shit. Tell me he’s okay.”
“It wasn’t that kind of a diversion. I thought so, too—that’s why I went to check—”
“No.” He spins to the door. “Fuck, no. Do not tell me—”
I grab his arm. “Yes, I’m telling you he’s gone, and that there’s a reason why I didn’t come running to get a search party. Just listen. Please.”
He nods, and I explain.
23
You did the right thing.
That’s what Diana told me. That is, I know, what I will hear from Anders, from Nicole, from everyone else who believes in me and wants to offer support.
That is not what I get from Dalton.
Fucking impossible situation.
That’s what he says, and it’s what I need to hear. Acknowledgment that there was no right choice here. There were only choices.
He doesn’t tell me he’d have done the same. That goes without saying. Because what is the alternative? That I raised the alarm and hoped someone took Brady down before he could shoot Val?
Fucking impossible situation.
I put Val in that situation, so I could have done nothing that would end in her death. Even though what I have done might still kill her.
I don’t trust Brady to let her go. Like Diana, Dalton argues that Brady has no reason to kill her and no reason to take her with him. But he says that because, to him, this is logical.
To Dalton, if Brady has no reason to kill Val, then he won’t. He understands that we may be dealing with a man who kills for pleasure, but he cannot comprehend the implications because they don’t exist in his world. Even with the hostiles, he presumes they attack us for a reason.
When I correct him, though, he says, “Yeah, but will he endanger his life for the enjoyment of taking hers? I like sex, but I gotta warn you—if our house catches on fire midway through? I’m leaving. Taking you with me, but leaving. If Brady kills Val, we’re going to be all over his ass. Far as I’m concerned, if he gives us Val back, I’ll do a rudimentary search—that’s it. I’m not risking lives to recover him. But if she dies . . .”
“You’ll hunt him down.”
“We will.”
Back at the shed, Dalton tells people to carry on. Then he asks a few to help him tackle “security shit—’cause it doesn’t stop even for a fucking fire.” He takes Anders, Nicole, Sam, and Kenny. Paul feels the sting of being passed over. He’s core militia, and Nicole is not yet, but Dalton’s commitment to women in the militia means showing that they won’t be tokens, left off the front lines when situations get serious.
Anders runs Storm over to Petra’s. Our first stop is the station, where Dalton asks Nicole and Sam to wait outside. We take Kenny in.
Dalton closes the door behind us.
“I’m going to ask you to step into the cell,” Dalton says.
“Sure,” Kenny says. “You need me to check something?”
“No, I’m going to lock you inside until I get back.”
Kenny lets out a strained laugh. “Is it something I said?”
“When you showed up here three years ago, I thought you were useless. Couldn’t hold a saw. Sure as hell couldn’t fire a gun. Nothing I could do with you except make sure you didn’t get your damned ass killed before you could go home. Then you decided to apprentice in carpentry, and I thought, huh, maybe . . . Still, when you asked to join the militia, I thought, fuck no. Another desk jockey fancies himself a lawman. Gonna shoot yourself if I give you a gun. But you proved you could handle it. You became Will’s right-hand man. You still drive me fucking crazy sometimes, but I came to respect you. And that respect is why I’m not throwing you in the cell. I’m asking you to walk in yourself.”
“I don’t under—”
“The only thing to understand right now is that I gave you an order. Either you do it or this gets uglier than I want.”
Kenny walks into the cell. Dalton closes the door.
“Oliver Brady is gone,” I say.
“What?” Kenny says. “Someone killed—”
“He escaped.”
Kenny’s mouth works. Then he stops. “Because I left him unguarded. Shit. I’m sorry, Eric. He was secured and the fire—”
“He got himself unsecured,” I say. “With this.” I hold out Kenny’s knife.
Kenny pats his pockets. “No. No. He must have—I know this looks bad but—”
“You told me Val let you leave. She says she didn’t. After you told me that, I called you back. You kept going.”
“I didn’t hear—Wait. Val says she didn’t tell me to leave? I heard the bell, and then I smelled smoke, and I told her and she was freaking out over the fire, and maybe she didn’t understand what I was asking. You know how she gets. Bring her here. Let me talk to her.”
“Brady took her.”
“W-what?”
Dalton says, “He took Val hostage. You’re staying in that cell, and we’ll talk when we get back. Just hope we have Val with us to straighten this out.”
Before we go, Dalton changes his mind about bringing Anders. That would leave Rockton exposed. The fire was a distraction, and Dalton failed to see that, so now he’s madly spinning out all the possibilities we might be missing. One is that Brady expects we’ll do exactly this—gather our law enforcement and troop into the forest, leaving the town with a guard or two on fire cleanup. He could take more hostages, steal an ATV, even try to steal the plane.
I explain the situation to Anders, Sam, and Nicole as we walk. Then Anders runs back to town, where he’ll have the remains of the militia guard the vehicles and patrol the town while citizens handle the fire fallout.
We move at a brisk walk. Val will be alone in the forest, which she has not set foot in since she was attacked here shortly after she arrived. Now she’s about to be abandoned in these woods after being marched in at gunpoint. I cannot imagine what that will be like. Nicole can. She’s moving faster than any of us, and Dalton has to call her back, saying, “If Brady thinks we didn’t give him an hour, that gives him an excuse.”
An excuse to kill Val.
We’re approaching the final curve when Dalton’s gait catches. A split-second hesitation as his chin lifts and his nostrils flare, finding some scent in the breeze.
“Eric?” I say as I come up beside him.
His nostrils flare again. His gaze fixes on the path, and when Sam whispers, “What’s the plan?,” Dalton doesn’t seem to hear him.
“You two stay here,” I whisper to Sam and Nicole.
I slant a look at Dalton, giving him the chance to contradict the order. He just keeps moving, his gaze fixed on that corner.
“Guns out,” I whisper to the other two. “Watch the forest. Do not fire.”
I jog to catch up with Dalton. He’s rounding that final curve to the place where we should find Val—
The breeze hits, bringing with it the unmistakable coppery smell of blood.
I cover Dalton. He doesn’t have his gun out. His arm isn’t good enough for that. Instead, he reaches his right hand into his pocket for his knife.
I have my gun ready as we continue around the curve . . .
There’s something on the path. Dalton stops short, but he doesn’t look at the object. He’s scanning the forest. I give the object one quick glance, and then pull my gaze away after I’m sure it’s not a person.
As I survey the forest, though, I recall the image. A bloodied heap. Something brown.
What was Val wearing?
It’s too small to be her body. Too small to be her entire body.