Another snap, another voice. He picked up his pace, pushing at the brush in front of him. He arms being scratched by pricker bushes as he pushed into a clearing, then instinctively ducking back.
He expected to see her, her white hair, her black jacket, that pale skin. Instead he saw a man, crouched on the log, a knife in his hand, skimming across something in his lap, the blood running down his shin. An animal. A fish. A process Nate knew on instinct, and if he kept going, behind the man, behind the log, he’d bet he would find a campfire. He was cleaning a fish for dinner.
Nate pushed his back up against the tree, his hands cold, his heart thumping. He peered around the trunk again. The man looked familiar, older, dirty, his head bowed so low Nate couldn’t see his face. Nate crouched down, a stick cracking under his boot, and the man’s head snapped up, swinging side to side, his eyes almost meeting Nate’s, and Nate felt himself suck in his breath. Suddenly, he recognized him.
It was Jimmy Hamm.
?????
He was making a sandwich in Tripp’s kitchen when he heard the front door bang shut and Tripp’s quick steps cross the living room into the kitchen.
“Hey,” Tripp said, pausing in the doorway like he was the guest, and Nate waved back awkwardly. He never knew what to say to Tripp; it had been days since they’d seen each other. The investigation was ongoing, especially now with Lucia missing for a week. Nate hadn’t asked about it, and even if he did, Tripp surely wouldn’t talk about it, so typically they fell into talking about baseball or something else utterly inane.
Nate hesitated. He wanted to tell Tripp about seeing Jimmy Hamm in the woods. What if Tripp didn’t believe him? Wouldn’t that drive yet another wedge between them? Nate floating some wild theory about Jimmy out there, just to have Tripp tell his cop buddies. Nate could hear them laughing at his desperation, playing the role of Dr. Richard Kimble—it was the one-armed man! The whole thing had a self-serving expedience to it that even Nate couldn’t deny.
Yet he couldn’t just pretend he didn’t see it, either.
In the woods, he had frozen when he recognized Jimmy. He watched him clean the fish, leave the guts in the clearing, and take the filets and the head back out the path the way he came. Nate should have stopped him. Should have called out.
He didn’t because being seen in the woods, the same woods that Lucia had disappeared in, didn’t look so hot for him, either.
Still. What the fuck was Jimmy Hamm doing cooking fish in the woods when he had a house? Seemingly, a son. A drug addict abusive son, but a son nonetheless. None of it made sense.
“I kind of wanted to talk to you. I think I saw something today.” Waving the pack of lunch meat in Tripp’s direction, Nate asked, “Dinner?”
“No, I, um, ate a late lunch.” He gave Nate a grin, the kind that made Nate stand up straight and reroute his thinking. He looked like the proverbial cat with the canary.
“Oh? A special lunch?” Nate put away the lunch meat and mayo, then grabbed a Miller Lite, kicking the fridge shut with his foot.
“Kind of. With Bridget.”
“My Bridget?” The words were out before he could think about them and Tripp turned his head to the side, gave him a weird look.
“Your Bridget?” Tripp asked, his voice edged with a new kind of wariness.
“Well, I just meant the same Bridget we know, that’s all,” Nate amended, but he felt the prickle down his back. Tripp, with his zillion dates, moving in on Bridget who was still so goddamn broken. “She’s not ready for you, stud.” It was meant to be a joke, but it came out thinner, a finer point on it than he’d intended.
“What the fuck does that mean?” Tripp’s mouth went firm, set at the corners, and Nate felt the zing between them, an electric tether, a blinking danger sign he’d previously been unaware of. But the speed at which it lit up told him, yes, oh yes, it had been there all along. At every card game, every late night at their house, when Tripp would crash and wedge himself between Bridget and Holden, gaining purchase in any hairline crack he could find, his arms flung wide around Alecia and Bridget, giggling like a schoolkid.
“Nothing. It means nothing. It was a joke, that’s all,” Nate said, backing up, grabbing his sandwich. “There’s fifty bucks on the table for groceries this week, okay? I can get you rent money if you need it. No problem.” His thoughts zinged back to Jimmy, his head low over his lap, fish scales scattering. “So, about that thing—”
“I don’t think it is a joke, not really,” Tripp continued, his voice dipping soft and rumbled, the hardness gone. “Alecia, Lucia, Bridget, Jennifer Lawson, Robin Hendricks—remember her?”
Nate shook his head, although he did remember her, a mistake, an escape, a transgression—and a mild one at that—but he’d paid for and forgotten about it, pushed to that same cobwebbed corner of his mind. Jennifer Lawson, well, that was hardly fair; she kissed him. He’d stopped her and it was over. He tried not to think of that night. The fight between her and Burt had a fine edge of violence to it: Jenny had thrown a glass, which splintered on the Tempests’ tiled kitchen floor. He’d taken her home; she’d cried and he’d held her, a natural instinct, her face pushed into the pocket of his neck. He didn’t remember how the kiss had happened.
Tripp continued, “Are they all yours, Winters? Do you think everyone in Mt. Oanoke belongs to you?”
CHAPTER 31
Alecia, Tuesday, May 12, 2015
Alecia wasn’t a drinker, not by any stretch. But when Linda arrived Tuesday morning, a headache pulsed behind her eyes and she pinched the bridge of her nose. Monday night she’d been drunk. Maybe enough to earn a barstool at the QB, certainly enough to send her retching into the toilet at three in the morning, Gabe sleeping soundly for once.
Linda screeched into the kitchen, a monolith, tall and foreboding, hustling Gabe into the next room, leaving Alecia alone for the second day of bad parenting in a row.
She checked her phone, saw a waiting text message. Are you ok? Then, I miss you.
Oh, she forgot. She texted Nate. She scrolled up the conversation: Do you know Jimmy Hamm is back in town? Came into the bank, drunk, raving like a lunatic. Then, seems like weird timing don’t you think? He wrote back, He’s been gone a long time, which was a maddeningly vague reply. A few minutes later, I thought I saw him in the woods the other day.
A sober thought: What was Nate doing in the woods?
He’d written, Should I tell Tripp? Don’t know.
She wanted Nate to deny everything again; she needed him to do it. But hadn’t he denied his guilt a million times? Begged her to believe him, even?
That hat, the coach thumbed over and muddy flipping down the embankment.