We should have gotten more details from Jen before she disappeared in the forest with Cypher. We’d been wrapped up in everything else, and when she’d asked to leave, Dalton had only been half listening. I know she said she didn’t have militia duty for a few days—she’d banked time recently pulling extra shifts. We thought she deserved a break, and with everything going on, it was best if Cypher wasn’t hanging around Rockton, making people even more suspicious.
Have you seen that guy? He’s the former sheriff. If that’s who they hire around here …
Valid point, honestly. Just not one we’d needed anyone making when anti-law-enforcement tensions were already running high.
There are a few good camping spots not far from town. Dalton and I have used them when we want a break but don’t have time to go farther in.
Storm and I check the spots and find no evidence of camps, current or recent.
Wait, Cypher was hunting that moose. While I’m sure he’d have happily taken time off to visit with Jen, I doubt he’d have abandoned the hunt altogether. I’ll head that way, which will bring me within a kilometer of where I need to be to pick up Gloria’s trail.
I stick to the path. Even after nearly two years of hiking these woods, I’m not sure I could easily find my way back. Dalton’s taught me the landmarks to use if I get off the trail, but I still rely on paths and my pooch, and in case of an emergency, I have flares in my pack.
I get as far as I dare before I need to cut over to where we found Gloria. There’s a path that’ll take me in that general direction. I’ve gone around a quarter of a kilometer when someone whistles. I stop, and a few moments later, Cypher comes tromping onto my path.
“Thought I caught a glimpse of your pup there,” he says. He looks up and down the path. “You alone?”
“We couldn’t spare anyone,” I say. “Which is why I was really hoping to run into you guys. Is Jen around?” I pause, and then say, “They’re closing Rockton. Immediately. First flight is leaving any minute now.”
“Fuck.”
“It happened after you guys left. In a week we’re going to be down to a skeleton crew. I’ll explain more later. Right now, I need Jen.”
He doesn’t answer. Doesn’t even seem to have heard what I said.
After a moment’s silence, he says, “They aren’t bluffing then. It’s happening. Rockton’s closing.”
I resist the urge to say yes and hurry this conversation along. I’m so wrapped up in my own concerns that I haven’t realized what I just told him. That Rockton is leaving. That we’re all leaving. That Jen’s leaving.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “We can talk more about it on the way. Eric and I have plans. Contingency plans. Right now, though, I really need Jen.”
It takes him a moment to snap fully back. Then he peers at me. “Jen?”
“Uh, yes. Your girlfriend? She went with you into the forest.” My gut seizes. “Wait. Please tell me she went with you.”
“She did. But I haven’t seen her since yesterday morning. I needed to pick up the moose hunt, and she wasn’t interested in coming along. I left before dawn. She was heading back to Rockton.”
“You let her leave on her own?”
He gives me a look. “I don’t ‘let’ Jen do anything. I offered to walk her back, but we weren’t more than two hundred feet from town. We could hear Rockton. Not like she’d go wandering off the path, and we don’t need to worry about hostiles anymore. Are you sure she didn’t get there?”
I consider and then shake my head. “It’s been chaos in town. I just presumed she hadn’t returned.” I look back toward Rockton. “Can you go check? I really need to examine a crime scene out here.”
“Crime scene?”
“It’s Rockton. Crime never sleeps. Can you check on her, please?”
He agrees, and we go our separate ways.
* * *
I can’t stop thinking about Jen. I wish I could have gone back to Rockton with Cypher. I’m not in the right mental place for this search.
Part of me is back in town, waiting with Dalton for that first plane to land. It feels wrong to be anywhere except at his side, as if I’ve abandoned him at the bedside of a dying relative.
Part of me is also with Cypher, thinking of everyone we’re about to leave behind, all the relationships we’ve worked so hard to foster.
And part of me is consumed with thoughts of Jen.
It starts with the role Jen played in all this. She told Conrad about Anders, and that’s not her fault—it could have happened to me just as easily—but the fact remains that she is involved. Could that make her a target of whoever killed Jolene and attacked Gloria?
Before I can pursue that, my distracted brain jumps tracks back to Marissa and what she told me. Let’s say Jolene was blackmailing Marissa. Marissa takes her hostage and buries her, reenacting Conrad’s near fate because Gloria almost certainly wasn’t the only one having premature-burial nightmares after that. It’s the perfect torture method.
Bury Jolene alive. Put that pipe in her mouth so she can breathe. Then come back, dig her out and confront her about the blackmailing. See how far I’m willing to go? See what I’m willing to do? Now back the hell off. Agreed?
Only Marissa digs Jolene up, and finds her dead. Cleans her up, drags her to that tree, and cuts her throat. Hangs that sign to throw suspicion in another direction.
Huh, Jolene must be another killer, like Deputy Anders, and now someone took the law into their own hands.
The problem is Gloria. Whoever buried her didn’t seem to intend for her to survive. Was Gloria helping Jolene with the blackmail? Did Marissa leave that out so I’d think this piece of the puzzle didn’t fit? Did she overdo her shock and horror at hearing Gloria’s fate?
As I think, Storm finds the spot where Gloria stumbled over the wolf-dog, and we pick up her trail from there. It’s a well-laid one that Storm easily follows, and so my mind drifts back into its thoughts, circling to Jen again.
What if Jen and Conrad lied when they said she only talked about Will?
What if there’s another story she divulged, one that might provide perfect blackmail fodder … against Jen herself.
We have no idea why Jen’s here. Despite her behavior, everything she’s done has been petty criminality, with no reason to dig deeper.
Imagine Jen, under the influence, reveals her past to Conrad, who tells Jolene and possibly Gloria.
When Storm whines, I look up to see we’re at the stream where she’d tracked Gloria last night. Damn it, I missed the burial site.
I give Storm a pat and a few murmured words of praise. “Sorry, girl, but we’re going to need to do that again. I messed up.”
I set her back on the trail, and I struggle to focus on her work. I manage it for about two minutes before I start thinking about Jen again.