The Naturalist (The Naturalist #1)

“You mean, go back there?”

“I’m not scared,” she says defiantly. “If the devil wanted me, he would have come for me when he got Chelsea.”

Amber is a tortured soul, but I admire her bravery.

Going there sounds like a horrible idea, but I agree anyway.





CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR


FIELD TRIP

When I return to Amber’s house later that afternoon, Devon’s truck is still parked in front. So I text her to let her know that I’m here. She texts back, b right there.

I’m not sure what I’m looking for out there. But if the police never did a thorough investigation, who knows what still might be up there? A piece of fabric, a shoe, anything that backs up Amber’s story would help me know if I’m looking in the right direction.

But for what?

I only have a few more days before I should head back to Austin. As things are, it’s going to be tight getting everything ready for class. I’m already going to have to beg off a couple of faculty meetings. These are usually pointless anyway, but not being there has political consequences. My contract is up for renewal. It’s best to play nicely.

There’s a knock on my window. I look up from my phone and nearly piss myself. Devon is standing there. He motions for me to roll down my window.

I reach my hand toward the shifter to put the Explorer in drive, but I hesitate when he steps away from the door and holds his hands up.

“I just want to talk to you,” he says.

I fumble for my Mace and hold on to it tightly before cracking the window.

“Amber says you’re going to where she says Chelsea went missing.”

“Yes,” I reply hesitantly. “That’s what I wanted to talk about yesterday.”

“Yeah, yeah. A mix-up.” He rests his hand on the door frame. “I can’t let you take her up there alone. For all I know, you could be a whack job.”

I take off my sunglasses and point to my bruised cheek. “Do I strike you as the violent type?”

“You might be pissed and all. But that was a mistake. That was Charlie’s fault. He thought you were someone else.”

“Who is that?”

“I don’t know. Some guy that likes hitting girls. Fucking you up was wrong, but we never hit any women. Anyhow, I’m coming with you.” He grabs the handle to the back door.

“The fuck you are,” I shoot back, making sure the doors are locked.

Devon walks back to my window. “Listen, I’m sorry about what happened. Here.” He shoves his hand into his pocket and pulls out a wad of bills. “Take it back. Charlie’s got the rest.” He feeds the bills through the crack in the window like a vending machine.

I watch the money fall into my lap. When I look up, Amber is walking out of the house in a jacket.

“Is he okay with it?” she asks.

Devon looks at me through the window. “Well?”

This keeps getting worse. “Fine. But you’re sitting up front so I can watch you.” I know that’s something you’re supposed to do, but the idea doesn’t make me feel any safer.

“Sure. Cool.” He goes around the car and gets into the passenger side. Amber climbs into the back behind him.

It’s an awkward drive for the next few minutes. I keep a watch on Devon. Each time he moves, I twitch.

In the rearview mirror, I check to make sure Amber isn’t getting ready to strangle me with piano wire.

Finally Amber speaks. “I had to tell Devon where I was going. He pointed out you could be the guy that got Chelsea. Going off with you alone would be kind of stupid.”

These people are afraid of me?

“Amber is a bit too trusting,” Devon says.

“That would explain you in my life,” she replies.

“Woman, I’m the best thing that happened to you.”

“Oh, lord. If this is the best, I don’t want to go on.” Amber shakes her head and stares out the window.

Devon reaches for the radio, and I shove my hand in my pocket. He notices. “You carrying?”

Carrying? He means a gun. It might be better if they think I’m armed. “I’m always careful.” I add, “I told some friends where I was going to be.”

“We did, too,” Devon replies. “Never know.”

“No, you don’t.” I give him an anxious glance, but he’s staring at the houses as they pass by.

After a few minutes he speaks up. “Amber says you’re a scientist? What kind?”

“I studied biology. But I’m in computer science, too.”

“Cool. Cool. I wanted to be an astrophysicist.”

What a loss to the scientific community.

“I had straight As until my senior year,” Devon explains. “That’s when my mom got sick. I graduated, but barely. I guess I should do some online stuff. I watch the Discovery Channel all the time.”

“High,” Amber says from the back seat.

“Carl Sagan got high a lot.”

“He was also Carl Sagan,” I reply, regretting it, but Devon laughs.

“True. True. So, Dawkins or Stephen Jay Gould?”

“You’ve read them?”

“Yeah. The Blind Watchmaker is one of my favorite books ever.”

The debate between Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould was whether the genes or the whole animal was the principal driving force of evolution. It was actually one of the reasons I got into bioinformatics.

To an amateur scientist, asking where you stood on Dawkins versus Gould was the equivalent of asking who your favorite sports team was.

The debate died down when people began to appreciate the notion that evolution is a very complex process and saying the animal or the gene is the deciding factor is too simple.

“I side with Dawkins,” I reply, so Devon won’t murder me in the woods. “But it’s complicated. One of the things I study is how we define genes. As you know, there’s a biological definition for it as the smallest unit of inheritability. But things are more complex. I tend to think about things in terms of systems or processes. Some systems can be reduced to a few bits of DNA. Others involve entire ecosystems.”

“Where do you draw the line at the organism?”

Apparently, Devon is more intelligent than I realized. Granted, our first meeting wasn’t under the best circumstances.

“I’ve heard it argued that we’re just space suits for mitochondrial DNA,” I reply. “Another thought is that we’re just moving cities of gut bacteria. We carry more bacterial DNA than our own. Not by length, but unit. An alien might not recognize us as what we think we are.”

“I’m not sure I recognize us as us,” says Amber.

“We’re constantly changing.” I point to the darkening sky. “As the seasons change, some of our genes switch on or off. Genetically, we become slightly different organisms. Other things can do that, too.” I don’t think I want to bring up my were-frog research right now. “Nature controls us more than we want to admit.”

I catch Devon staring at his reflection in the passenger mirror. His eyes are sunken and his skin ragged from his addiction. “That’s for sure. That’s sure as hell for sure.”

This bit of introspection doesn’t comfort me as I drive into the woods and away from civilization and safety.





CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE


DARK PATHS

We park my Explorer on a side road just past a small plot where a sad pizza parlor sits next to a tiny convenience store. Two miles up the highway is an RV park.

I imagine either Amber or Chelsea had business in one of those places.

We begin walking up a small trail. Amber leads the way, while Devon is a dozen yards behind me, which does nothing to make me feel better about my choice to come out here with them.

I was foolish to agree to meet Amber under such shady circumstances yesterday. But coming here with them after what happened? Sheer stupidity.

One hand is in my pocket on the Mace. The other tightly grips the heavy flashlight I keep in my SUV. I have lighter, more modern ones, but they wouldn’t make as good of a club.

“What’d you and Chelsea do up here? Lez out?” taunts Devon.

“Get away from assholes like you.” Amber stops by a large tree stump at the top of a hill. “This is where we’d meet up. You could probably make a fortune on all our empties out here.” She kicks at a faded piece of metal.

“Not to mention the dildos,” Devon says, still in jerk mode.

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