“Delivered me. I came fast. They’d brought a knife and a blanket. For the picnic. They used the knife to cut the cord and the blanket to keep me warm by the fire.”
Stag whistled softly. “I’ll bet when the elders heard that story, they made some interesting predictions about you.”
“As far back as I can remember, there was talk that I had been marked by the frog god. Like I wasn’t already marked enough for being half-white on the reservation and half-Indian in the Virtue Falls schools.”
Stag laughed, not like he thought it was funny, but like he understood all too well. “Get beat up a lot?”
“Conflict is a half-breed’s lot in life.” She managed the balance between pitiful and sarcastic very well. Years of practice had perfected the art.
Stag slowed, turned, hit a couple of speed bumps.
Lights flashed in her eyes; the car stopped and she could see the sign that proclaimed EMERGENCY ROOM in bright white and red.
He raised her seat back. “Ready to go in?” he asked.
“They’re going to yell at me. Then they’re going to hurt me.”
“That’s the price you pay for being a half-breed sheriff marked by the frog god.” He managed the balance between pitiful and sarcastic pretty well himself. “I’ll get the wheelchair.” He got out and leaned back in to say, “I liked that story, but someday you’ll tell me how you met your father.”
“I didn’t say I had met him.”
“Sometimes, Kateri, what you don’t say speaks as loudly as what you do.”
CHAPTER FIVE
WELCOME TO VIRTUE FALLS
FOUNDED 1902
YOUR VACATION DESTINATION ON THE WASHINGTON COAST
HOME OF THE WORLD FAMOUS VIRTUE FALLS CANYON
POPULATION 2487
For a sweaty hour and a half, Merida Falcon had been sitting on the hood of her recently acquired Kia Soul, on a side road underneath the WELCOME TO VIRTUE FALLS sign, waiting for the roadblock to clear. She was first in a line of seven cars. She kept herself entertained by reading the latest Bill Bryson travel memoir on her iPad—on the cruise ship, the very superior Professor Dawkins Cipre and his equally condescending wife, Elsa, had characterized Bryson’s books as puerile. Merida considered that a recommendation.
“There she goes,” said the law enforcement officer in charge.
Merida looked up to see a black Tesla whip past. She raised her eyebrows at the officer.
“Not too much longer to wait.” The name tag above his badge read SEAN WESTON. He was tall, broad-shouldered, thirtyish with sandy brown hair, a nice tan, good teeth and a superior opinion of himself. He had been glancing at her with greater and greater frequency; now he made his move. “The police chase is headed in the opposite direction.” He waved a hand toward the mountains. “That car was carrying our new sheriff.”
Merida nodded.
He took that as encouragement. “Stag Denali’s driving. He’s her boyfriend. He’s taking her to the hospital.”
So far Merida had managed to get along with smiles and nods, but this required a greater response. Reaching into her canvas shoulder bag, she pulled out her computer tablet, switched it on, typed a few commands and passed it to him.
As he read, his lips moved. “My name is Merida Falcon. I am mute. I AM NOT DEAF. PLEASE DO NOT SHOUT!”
Of course he raised his voice. “Is that why you haven’t said a word? I guess that makes you the perfect woman.” He laughed.
She didn’t. It wasn’t funny the first time she’d heard it, and it wasn’t funny now.
Removing her sunglasses, she turned her icy blue eyes on Officer Weston and smiled with her teeth clenched tight. Retrieving her tablet, she briskly typed, “Something about being without the faculty of speech makes some people think I’m mentally impaired. This seems to free them from the most elementary of common courtesies. I certainly hope you, a public servant, are not one of those people?” She also typed in excess of one hundred words a minute, far faster than the average person could read, but she didn’t feel the need to slap him upside the head with that information … yet. She passed the tablet.
He read what she wrote. “No! I didn’t mean that you … Or that anyone…” He was smart enough to shut his mouth before he dug himself even deeper. “Um, sorry.”
She retrieved the computer, inclined her head and typed, “Why is Mr. Denali taking Sheriff Kwinault to the hospital?” She turned the tablet for Officer Weston to read.
“She got all shook up in the high-speed car chase.” He hooked his thumbs in his belt and hitched up his pants. “I worked for a female sheriff on my last position. She used to cry in her office. Women can’t handle the stresses of the job.”
Merida didn’t look like the most beautiful woman in the world anymore. She’d made sure of that. She wore blue jean bib overalls, a white sleeveless T-shirt that showed off her new tattoo and ragged canvas sneakers. One side of her head was shaved, a long shank of hair grew on the other, and that hair was her natural brown with a bright streak of white—also natural—and an equally bright streak of blue—self-applied. She wore moisturizer with sunscreen, no makeup. There’d been no waxing, no Botox, no filler. She wore no rings, no earrings, no jewelry of any kind. In fact, she didn’t own jewelry of any kind. She had left all decoration behind when she walked away from her last life … except for that tattoo, and it wasn’t really a decoration. It was a declaration; a hunting falcon, talons outstretched, diving for some unidentified prey. Most men, if they were smart, would be afraid of her.
Yet somehow this officer was posturing in front of her, saying the dumb stuff that some men say when they equate beauty with a clinging need to be cared for. She typed, “Didn’t I read that Sheriff Kwinault got shot a few days ago?” and passed it to him.
“She sure did. She was sitting in the Oceanview Café with Deputy Bergen, celebrating her victory with homemade donuts, and those wack jobs, the Terrances, drove by and shot her.”
Merida typed, “So Sheriff Kwinault isn’t feeble. She’s injured.” She turned the tablet and narrowed her eyes at him.
“Well, sure.” He started to squirm. “But she said the injury wasn’t bad.”
Irritation heated Merida’s cheeks and the tip of her nose. She typed, “What did you expect her to say? That she was so hurt she couldn’t fulfill her duties?”
“No, Sheriff Kwinault would never say that. I mean, I don’t think she would. I’m new in town. When they called for extra officers to deal with the crisis, I applied. She gave me a temp job. Three months. I appreciate that, but we’re not old acquaintances. Or anything.” He took off his cap and wiped his brow. He’d been standing in the sun, and suddenly seemed to feel its heat. “Do you know Sheriff Kwinault?”
“When we were children, we were friends.”
“So you’re from Virtue Falls?”
Now Merida was sorry she’d said more than she should. More slowly, she typed, “I knew her in Baltimore.”
If he was faking confusion, he was doing a good job. “I thought Sheriff Kwinault grew up here.”
“She lived with her father for a few years.”