We spend the night again at Motel Hell, and I thank God that we’ve eased the tension between us; it feels cleaner now. Simpler. And when I sleep, for the first time in a long time, I feel safe. That’s quite an achievement, since the French Inn feels like it’s been the silent witness to hundreds of crimes over the years.
The next day, the drive out to Markerville takes us into remote areas of wilderness, where it would be easy to believe you’re the only one left on earth, except for the ever-present contrails of planes passing far overhead as they glide the atmosphere. The route takes a series of progressively narrower and more forbidding turnoffs, heading up into hills that are rough and unforgiving for hikers and SUVs alike.
I’ve been doing rough calculations on mileage, and I warn Sam when we’re close; we pull over and park the truck off a little dirt track, behind trees. It’s well concealed from the road, and we take a hiker’s route up toward where Markerville once stood. According to the records, it had never actually thrived; when the railroad had stopped coming, the few businesses that had opened there failed, and most residents moved on or died clinging to their broken-down houses. The last casualties were the post office/general store and the antiques store, which had apparently been left abandoned with the doors open and a TAKE WHAT YOU WANT sign on the window. We’d found a clipping mourning the town in the self-satisfied way that city dwellers have about the woes of rural folk, and then . . . nothing.
We don’t expect to find much, and when we ease through the trees into midafternoon sun to look down at the little valley where the town had been, it looks like a movie set. The four-building main street still stands, probably because it’s built of brick, but most of the other wooden buildings are some flavor of leaning, weathered, collapsing, or wreckage. Disaster in slow motion. We hunker down and observe for a while, but nothing moves except birds and, twice, a lean and slinking cat. A door hanging on one hinge creaks shrilly in the wind.
“If she’s here,” I say, “she’s got to be in the brick structures. Right?”
“Right,” Sam agrees, then stands up. “Let’s make an agreement right now: we don’t shoot unless we get shot at. Okay?”
“Can we make exceptions for knives? Clubs?”
“Sure. But nonfatal wounds. We need to question Arden, not haul her dead.”
It puts us at a serious disadvantage, but he knows that.
As we go down the hill, I catch sight of glass glinting behind some leaning boards, and I pull Sam to a stop to point. It’s a car. It’s not some relic left behind from the glory days, either; this looks to be a fuel-efficient midsize no more than five years old. I’m lucky to spot it. Someone’s gone to some effort to keep it concealed. From the glimpses I can make out, it doesn’t seem neglected. More like it was parked there recently.
I alert Sam, and we ease around to take a look. The hood is cool when I cautiously lay a hand on it. I’m careful of tripping any alarm sensors . . . and then I think about that. I exchange a look with Sam, and we are once again perfectly in sync.
“Do it,” he says.
I yank hard on the door handle—locked—and the quiet is ripped apart by a wailing, honking banshee that rattles painfully in my ears. Sam and I fall back to the shadows and wait; it isn’t a long delay before a slender red-haired woman runs from the open doorway of one of the brick buildings, tosses aside boards, and glares at the car. The alternating hazard and headlights turn her face white, then gold, and she fumbles keys from her coat pocket and turns off the alarm.
In the silence, I say, “Arden Miller?”
She nearly falls down, she backpedals so fast, but Sam’s moved to block her retreat, and she bounces off him and into the car, practically climbing up the hood. I see the fear chasing over her face. “Leave me alone!” she shouts, then pushes off to rush at me, hoping to break past.
I calmly pull my gun and level it at her, and she stops in a spray of twigs and leaves and pebbles. Her hands shoot up like they’re on strings.
“Don’t kill me,” she says, bursting into wrenching, terrified tears. “Oh God, don’t kill me, please, I can pay you, I can give you money, I’ll do anything—”
“Relax,” I tell her. There’s a command in my tone, which I realize is counterproductive. I ease it down. “Miss Miller, nobody’s going to hurt you. Deep breaths. Relax. My name’s Gwen. That’s Sam. Okay? Relax.”
The third repetition seems to get through, finally, and she gulps a breath and nods. She doesn’t match her photo much. The hair is still red, but it’s in a short, sassy bob, and she has on thick glasses that magnify her blue eyes. She’s a conventionally pretty woman, but there’s something about her . . .
It takes me a moment to spot it. Arden Miller didn’t start life as biologically female, but her transition is very nearly perfect. She moves correctly, carrying her weight in the right places. If she’s had plastic surgery done, it’s flawless. She looks more feminine than I do, and acts it, too.
“Did they send you?” she asks, transferring her tear-filmed stare from me, to Sam, and back to me. “I don’t have them! I swear I don’t, please don’t hurt me, I’ll tell you!”
“Don’t have what?” Sam asks, and she flinches. I give him a little hand motion to back off, and he does. I holster my weapon.
“Tell you what, Arden, let’s just sit down. Is there somewhere you’ll feel more comfortable?”
She sniffles, dabs at her eyes with the care of someone who knows not to smear her mascara, and says, “Inside. I mean, it’s not much. I come here to work.”
“Okay,” I say. “Let’s go inside.”
Arden’s work, it turns out, is stunning. I don’t know a lot about art, but even I can tell that what she’s creating here with paint and canvas is phenomenal—she’s documenting destruction, breakdown, beauty. She’s taken Markerville and made it astonishing instead of morbid. There are six canvases propped against walls to dry. She’s working in the old post office/general store, which still has—against the odds—glass in the front window, and it gets eastern light. She has lanterns burning now, and she’s found an old sofa that’s reasonably clean. I think she sometimes stays here all night; there’s a rolled-up sleeping bag and a tidy collection of camping gear. Arden’s made use of the old rolltop desk—surely a collector’s item—that hulks against the far northern wall, and it holds a laptop. No Wi-Fi out here, so she probably uses a disposable cell phone for a connection, and an anonymizer to go online. It’s what I’d do.
Arden’s already feeling better, in here; the sight of her paintings, her space, gives her steadiness and strength. She leads us to the couch, and she and I sit, while Sam studies the paintings. Arden keeps glancing toward him, but she focuses on me.
“What do you want?” she asks me anxiously. “Did they send you?”
“Nobody sent us,” I tell her, which isn’t quite true, but close enough. “We just thought you might be able to help us, Arden.”