“Yes.”
One of the perks of being on the Rockton police force is that we get to choose our own sidearms. Mine’s a Sig Sauer P226. Dalton is a revolver guy—the product of growing up here and using older guns. He carries a .357 Smith & Wesson. Anders prefers a gun that might actually stand a chance of taking down a grizzly: a Ruger Alaskan .454, which requires more wrist strength than I currently possess.
The bullet Dalton found fits my weapon . . . the one Brady took.
“Yes,” I say. “It is possible we’ve misread the scenario. Brady shot this dog, which appears to have rabies or some other infection that drove it mad. It might have killed its own cubs. That one”—I nod toward the third—“could have gotten tangled in a settler’s snare. Then Brady comes along, finds the mad dog and shoots. Even if it was a trap, it only seems to have been designed to slow us down, because he’s missed the chance to attack.”
“Or he was setting a trap. He killed the cubs, and the mother unexpectedly returned and attacked. He shoots her and takes off.”
“Possible. Right now, though, we have two problems, leading in polar opposite directions. Finding Val and getting that cub back to town.”
He frowns at me.
“No,” I say. “As much as I love dogs, I’m not equating that cub’s life with Val’s. But this is about yours.”
His frown deepens.
I wave at the wolf-dog. “If she had rabies, there’s a chance her cub is also infected. The cub that bit you. We need to quarantine it.”
“Yeah.” No curse for this one. He hasn’t considered this possibility, but now that I raise it, he doesn’t freak out. Huh, you’re right. I could have a terrible and deadly disease.
“Casey?”
I jump at Nicole’s voice. I’d forgotten we’ve had two militia around the corner. The only reason they haven’t come running is that they know how much shit Paul is in for disobeying an order. So they stayed put, our voices assuring them we aren’t lying in agony, gutshot on the ground.
I tell them to approach, and I warn about the cubs, but when they appear, both are obviously rattled.
I’m standing point while Dalton continues freeing the cub. Nicole sees what he’s doing and jogs over with, “Here, let me—”
“No,” I say. “The mother may have been rabid. Eric’s already been bit.”
“Rabid?”
I struggle to keep scanning the forest. Dalton may not have freaked out about the possibility, but I sure as hell am. I feel him glance at me.
“It’s unlikely,” he says, his voice softer than usual. “Highly unlikely. There’s never been a confirmed case in the Yukon. But, yeah, I’ve seen reports of it. We’ll quarantine the cub. First sign of trouble, I’ll get my ass south.”
I don’t answer, just keep looking for trouble, hoping that if it exists, it’s out there, not here in the form of a small and terrified cub.
“Casey?”
“Hmm?”
“There’s never been an incidence. Not one. The mother could have had a seizure. Could have been poisoned.”
“I vote poisoning,” Nicole says. “If that bastard did this, poison is your answer.”
Dalton continues. “Even if, by some very slight chance, it was rabies, I’m not seeing any sign that this little guy was bit by his mother. His leg’s messed up from the wire, so yeah, we have to consider the possibility that wound hides a bite. But what are the chances that she’s got rabies—in a territory that doesn’t have it—and she bit him . . . on the leg that he then got caught in a snare?”
“One in a million,” Nicole says.
“We’ll still take this guy back to Rockton to be sure.”
He hefts the cub as he stands and holds it out. The wolf-dog lies over his hands, as if too exhausted to squirm.
“Male,” he says. “Probably more wolf than dog. Which means it’s not a pet. But, yeah, we gotta take it back. Sam, give me your jacket. You and Nicki will run him to town. Casey and I need to search for Val.”
Dalton puts the cub inside Sam’s jacket and pulls up the sides. “Carry it this way, like a bundle. Keep it tightly closed, and he won’t escape. He can breathe—don’t let him try to tell you otherwise. He stays in there until you’re back at Rockton. Then take him to Casey’s house. The door’s unlocked. Put the whole jacket inside the door like this”—he demonstrates—“and then give it a push, and get that door closed before he escapes. Leave him be. His leg’s bad, but it’ll hold until we come back.”
Sam takes the bundled cub.
“Nicole?” Dalton says. “While he’s doing that, tell Will to announce what’s happened. Minimal details. Arrange search parties. Let’s get them out before dark.”
25
We search for Val. Call for Val. There’s no sign that either of them was here except for that bullet in the wolf-dog, and even that’s hardly ballistic proof. It just means someone shot her with a 9 mm.
I don’t know what’s going on here. I can speculate, but the whole thing is just fucked up. There’s no other term for it. Too many puzzle pieces could fit the hole, and yet none are exactly right.
Did Brady set all this up? That’s the answer I both like and hate. My gut likes it for the lack of coincidence. My head hates it for the complexity of the plan.
Also, do I like it a little too much because it proves Brady is a monster, which makes this easier? If it wasn’t for Val, having Brady escape might be the best possible solution—let him die out here, no longer a threat to Rockton. But if he is indeed innocent . . . ? Then he is like any other resident, and we failed him. He ran because we failed. He took Val because we failed. We put his back to the wall, and he lashed out.
Do not test me. If you do, you’ll see exactly how desperate I am.
Please. Just let me go.
Val is the priority here. But she’s nowhere to be found.
We return to the dead wolf-dog, and I examine the site. I find traces of footprints, but the ground is hard enough that they’re only smudges, too faint to even tell if they’re ours. Hell, even a perfect print of Brady’s sneakers could be from our first time here.
When we’re finished, I check Dalton’s hand. The puncture wounds are red and inflamed.
“ ’Cause it’s a bite,” he says. “Trust me, I’ve had them. Gotta get it cleaned and then bandaged so it stays clean.”
I nod.
“I’m okay, Casey.”
I nod again. He puts his fingers under my chin and tilts my face up and bends to kiss me. It’s a very sweet kiss, and when it breaks, I say, “You do realize that’s an invitation for us to be attacked.”
“I’m setting a trap.”
I smile at that, and he kisses me again and then feigns stretching a kink from his neck.
“You gotta get taller,” he says.
“I’ll work on that.”
I smile again, because I know he’s trying to coax one from me.
He rests his forearms on my shoulders. “This sucks.”
I do laugh at that. He’s right, though. It might not be the most erudite description of the situation, but it’s completely apt. There is nothing we can do about this. Maybe not even anything we could have done to prevent this. It just sucks.
“I should have gone looking for you during the fire,” he says. “Should have realized something was up. Fuck, I should have realized what was up—obviously someone set that fire for a reason. We might have stopped him.”
“Or gotten Val killed. Gotten me killed. Forced Brady into a panic and sent him over the edge. In hindsight I should have told you what I was doing. But I was playing a hunch, and my hunch was that someone was using the fire as a distraction to kill Brady. While I wasn’t going to sit back and let that happen, it wouldn’t be the biggest tragedy in the world. Even if he’s innocent. That’s a shitty thing to say, but he was a threat either way.”
“Impossible situation.”
I nod.
He looks out at the forest. “Still plenty of daylight left. You okay with walking another hour or so? Gives us a chance to get farther in while heading for a destination.”
“Jacob’s camp?”
He nods.