Her mouth opens, as if to protest that no, she wasn’t that worried. Then she closes it and says, “Yes.”
“Just make sure you tell him that when he’s ready to hear it.”
Another nod. Another glance toward the woods. “I really should be a better judge of character. I’m a psychologist and a bartender. Reading people is my job.”
“Shall we list the number of times nice people in Rockton have turned out to be assholes? Or killers? Or both?”
I wipe my bloodied hands on a piece of cloth that Dalton wordlessly passes me.
“That’s one of my linen serviettes,” Isabel says.
“Do you want it back?” I hold it out.
She sighs and waves for us to get going. We do.
* * *
There really was no question of whether I should have pursued Brandon or stayed behind to help Phil. I also wouldn’t have wanted Dalton to take off alone, not with his injured hand.
The biggest danger is that Brandon will flee into the forest, only to circle around and grab a hostage. I’ve wagered on that not happening. Possibly wagered an innocent life, but that is the job out here. Constant choices. Not that different from police work down south.
Police make mistakes. So many mistakes. Sometimes they arise from an ugly place—an emptiness in the soul filled by a gun on your hip and the law on your side. I won’t pretend I haven’t seen that. Seen it so often that when I first saw Dalton’s swagger and heard his bluster, I’d been sure—so sure—that’s what I was witnessing. Another cop who makes me want to surrender my badge and take up social work. I’d been wrong, thank God. But the fact that I’d jumped to that conclusion proves just how often I’d seen officers who fit the stereotype he seemed to embody.
Beyond those mistakes—which are, let’s be honest, the mistakes of a system that allows such people to become law-enforcement officers—there are the everyday errors. Do I let a teenager off with a warning and trust he won’t steal another purse? What if I do, and he escalates to worse? What if I don’t, and that solidifies his path in life and tars his feet to it?
Save the man with a possibly severed artery? Or stop the one who attacked him?
I played the odds here. Now that he’s in the forest, I’m betting Brandon doesn’t circle back to take a hostage.
Storm picks up his trail right away, and it heads straight into the forest. It’s still at least a kilometer before I can relax, certain he didn’t loop back.
Brandon is running full out and making no attempt to disguise his trail. By now, I swear everyone in town has figured out that the way to lose a tracking dog is to run through water. Plenty of streams around here, and at this time of year there’s no risk of frostbite. Brandon ran alongside one without ever setting foot in it.
“Still not a criminal genius,” I say as we jog along the path Brandon took. It isn’t even a game trail. It’s an actual path.
Dalton grunts. “Never was any kind of genius.”
Brandon was exactly what Isabel looked for in a bartender. Good-natured, easy to talk to, and bright enough to mix a drink but not clever enough to pilfer the alcohol safe. With the high turnover rate here, there isn’t time to establish that level of employee trust. Best to just hire someone who isn’t smart enough to rip her off.
“Should I be hoping he doesn’t run straight off a cliff?” Dalton mutters. “Or hoping he does?”
He shoots me a look that is seventy-five percent exasperation and twenty-five percent guilt. Sometimes we wish our worst criminals would just take a convenient tumble. Saves us from arguing with the council to get them removed. With Brandon, the council will claim that no one actually died, and we should just lock him up. We’ve done that before. It didn’t go well. People did die.
“Mmm,” I say as Storm veers onto a side path. “Not a fatal plunge. Too many questions. I vote that he is just gravely injured and requires immediate transport down south.”
“Unless he claims we pushed him off.” He glances back at me. “How fast can April induce a convenient coma?”
“Fast enough. That’s the best bet then. He runs straight off a cliff, and we dope him up before he can tell the town we—”
A distant bellow brings us up short.
“Was that a moose?” I say.
“Sure as hell sounds like it.”
“Tell me he didn’t disturb a moose.”
Dalton throws up his hands. Then he pinpoints the source of the sound. I map the trajectory between where it came from and where we’re standing.
“The path veers that way up ahead,” Dalton says.
“Suggesting it’s not a coincidence there’s an angry moose in that direction?”
“Yeah.” He squints. “Fuck.”
I wait, and after a moment, he sighs. “It’ll be faster cutting through here.”
I nod and follow.
SEVENTEEN
We’re tramping through the forest. The brush here is sparse, leaving open spaces between the towering pines, and Dalton weaves through them at a slow jog. All has gone silent up ahead. Has been silent since that bellow.
We’ve run about a hundred feet when a snort has Dalton slowing. He cocks his head to listen. I pick up a second snort, lower pitched, more of a grumble.
“Moose?” I murmur.
Before Dalton can nod, Storm leans against my leg, and that confirms it. She’s had bear encounters, and they don’t bother her as much as large ungulates. Last year, she was kicked by one, and while it wasn’t serious, I think her canine brain has decided caribou and moose are irrational and dangerous creatures.
Ask me whether I’d rather encounter a moose or a grizzly, and I’ll take the ungulate every time. That doesn’t mean they aren’t dangerous. One only needs to witness the result of a moose-vehicle collision to have a healthy respect for the damage such a large beast can do. In the wild, they’ll avoid humans wherever possible—especially when we usually come bearing rifles—but if surprised, they’ll charge.
Dalton considers options and then slides forward, step by step. I keep farther behind and motion for Storm to stay with me. We’ve gone about ten feet when Dalton gives another grunt and waves for me to approach.
I get up beside him and follow his gaze to see a massive bull moose under a tree. The beast stamps the ground and shakes its head, showing off a truly impressive antler rack. I’m torn between admiration for a gorgeous animal and thinking how long that much meat would last. Yes, I’ve become a hunter. I wouldn’t pursue it down south as a sport, but up here, where hunting provides our key source of protein, I can’t help mentally breaking the poor moose down into steaks and roasts.
Dalton’s fingers tap his gun, and I know he’s thinking the same thing. We aren’t equipped for hunting, though, and five kilometers is a long way to drag that much dinner without proper tools.
“What the hell did you do, Brandon?” Dalton mutters.
It’s only then that I jerk from visions of grilled moose steak to realize there must be a reason why the moose is stamping at the base of a tree. I glance up and, sure enough, a shoe dangles through the boughs.