Chapter Two
Two
I could have walked the distance to town in about as much time as it had taken me to get in the car and drive. After several miles of nothing but wilderness on the old highway that cut through the national forest, the town of Six Rivers appeared, flanking each side of the road with a string of buildings.
Main Street was nestled in an area that had been hollowed out back when the gold rush brought people west, but in every direction, the trees thickened like a protective membrane, concealing it from the rest of the world. As a kid, it had felt to me like a shifting maze you were never meant to escape from.
I stood on the curb with Amelia Travis’s note clutched in my hand, staring at the green decal of the U.S. Forest Service crest pressed onto the glass door of the office. The last time I’d walked through that door, I’d been an eighteen-year-old girl with rehearsed words on my lips, only minutes from telling a lie that would change my entire life.
I pulled the door open and the warmth inside the office instantly sent chills over my skin. A single desk sat at the back of the small room, and the cramped space was made narrower by the filing cabinets and a Formica counter at the back that housed a coffeepot. National Forest Service posters with curling edges and faded, vintage-style artwork depicting fire safety slogans and office policies were pinned to the walls. They were the same ones that had been there years ago. But all evidence of Timothy Branson, the ranger who used to be stationed here, was gone.
Within seconds of the door closing behind me, the patter of footsteps knocked overhead. I looked up, eyes following the sound across the water-stained ceiling tiles until it was coming down a staircase on the other side of the wall.
A woman in a uniform appeared with what looked like a ream of unopened printer paper beneath one arm. She stopped short, a look of surprise widening her eyes when she spotted me. Her dark hair was streaked with gray at the temples, and it was pulled back into a lazy ponytail that revealed the soft wrinkles framing her oval, sun-worn face. The arm of the tan button-up she wore displayed the same crest that was on the door.
“Hi there.” She came around the desk, setting down the paper. There was a polite smile on her lips, but the question in her eyes was assertive. Direct. “How can I help?”
I stared at the engraved letters on the badge pinned to her chest. The name read Travis . When my eyes traveled back up to meet hers, I tried to place the sound of her voice as the one that had called me that day. The one that had told me Johnny was gone.
I glanced down at the note still clutched in my hand before lifting it into the air. “I’m James. James Golden?”
Understanding slowly settled into her expression, her dark brows lifting just slightly. “Oh, yes. I’m sorry.” She rubbed at her temple. “I must have gotten my days mixed up. I thought you were getting in tomorrow.” She took a step forward, extending a hand. “It’s nice to meet you, James.”
I shook it as her eyes ran over me. She was probably thinking that I looked like Johnny, which I did, if you were looking in the right places. There was always a beat of silence when people learned that we were twins, as if they were trying to connect those dots between us. Johnny had a brawny, tall frame that towered over mine, but our coloring was an exact match from eyes, to hair, to skin tone.
“I tell you, out here time is a slippery thing. But I hope your journey was all right?” She attempted a more genuine smile. “Can I get you anything? Tea, perhaps?”
“I’m okay, thank you.”
Amelia gestured for me to sit, and I took the chair in front of the desk, where stacks of files were piled in rows.
“Still getting settled, if you can believe it. I’ve been in this posting for almost two years and still can’t seem to get a handle on this paperwork. But it’s good to finally meet face-to-face.” She lowered herself into the seat opposite mine, and my gaze dropped to the gun holster and gleaming pair of silver handcuffs that rested at each of her hips. “I know we already spoke about this on the phone, but I want to offer my condolences again. I’m very sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you.” I cleared my throat.
“I want to assure you again that this case is being handled with the utmost care. Johnny was a friend, and as you can imagine, the entire town has been just devastated by what happened.”
“There haven’t been any more developments?” My voice was thick, and I hoped it didn’t read as emotion. The last thing I wanted was for this woman to pull out a tissue and comfort me. There were more important things to get to.
A frown changed the shape of her face. “I’m afraid not. I know this is hard to make sense of, but the working theory right now is that whoever fired the gun likely had no idea they’d even struck someone. Johnny wasn’t wearing his safety gear, and honestly, we see these accidents happen every year. It’s almost impossible to track down who’s involved, especially with a bullet like that.”
“A bullet like that?”
“Yeah.” Her head tilted just a little, a note of confusion in her tone. “I thought I mentioned that the last time we spoke on the phone….”
It was possible she had. I could hardly recall the details of our conversation now.
“We were lucky in that we were able to recover the bullet from Johnny’s”—Amelia paused—“ body. ” She cleared her throat before she continued. “We sent it to Sacramento to be analyzed, but it belongs to a very old gun, most likely a hunting rifle that was made before production required serial numbers. Most guns like that aren’t registered, either, and unfortunately, hunters from all over the country turnup in Six Rivers during that part of the season—for the elk.” Shestopped herself. “Of course, you know all of that.”
I did. Hunting season in Six Rivers was rivaled only by the town’s obsession with the high school’s soccer team, which had won the state championship many times over the years. In a town like this one, both resembled religious holidays.
“The point is, there’s no real way to even know who exactly was in the forest that day, let alone that week. In fact, it’s most likely that whoever took that shot was a visitor to the area.”
“So, that’s it?” The words felt flat in my mouth.
Amelia was silent for another beat. “Not exactly. I’ve been doing weapon checks on my rounds to verify permits, and I will continue to do so, but the season is over now. And it’s important to keep in mind that the odds of finding the gun are almost…” She didn’t finish. She didn’t have to. “I just want to be sure there isn’t anything else you can tell me about Johnny that might be relevant.”
“Relevant?”
She shrugged. “Anything you know about the days leading up to your brother’s death. Anything you think might be helpful.”
I swallowed. “Johnny and I hadn’t talked for a while.”
“I gathered that.”
My focus on her sharpened, studying the tilt of her mouth. She was looking right at me now with an acute attention that made me feel uneasy.
“I just got the impression that you two weren’t keeping in touch, per se. I mean, when’s the last time you visited?” Her eyes didn’t leave mine, and I suddenly had the distinct feeling that she knew the answer to that question.
“It’s been a long time.”
“Yes, well.” She folded her hands on the desk. “Family can be complicated.”
Her tone was still light, but there was a weight to the words themselves that made me uncomfortable. I didn’t know if it was my own paranoia or just the fact that I didn’t know or trust Amelia Travis. But that look in her eye wasn’t simple or na?ve. And I was willing to bet she didn’t trust me, either.
“Look, in my experience, it’s only a matter of time before the details begin to surface. It might take weeks, months, even decades,” Amelia said. “But I give you my word that I’ll continue to exhaust what resources are available to me. As long as I’m stationed at this post, I can promise you that.”
The pain below my collarbone woke again, and I discreetly pressed my knuckles to it, trying to breathe through the searing ache. I’d just stepped out of a coffee shop when it first exploded in my chest, followed by the feeling of hot blood soaking my shirt. I could still feel the cold in my fingertips. The gravity-spinning rush that had made me feel like I was falling. But I’d known right away that this wasn’t like the other times. I knew, as the cup slipped from my fingers, that Johnny was gone. In a blink, that image had cast over my mind like a veil. Treetops swaying, the flicker of light. I could still see it, even now.
“Now, there are a couple of other items we need to cover. I wasn’t able to track down anyone else for notification of Johnny’s death. Are you his only family?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“No one else back in San Francisco?”
My fingers dropped from the phantom hole in my chest, landing in my lap. “It’s just the two of us. Our dad passed away years ago.”
“And your mother?”
I shook my head. “Left a long time before that. We’ve never had any contact.”
Amelia nodded, making a note on the pad in front of her. “You two grew up here?”
My eyes settled on hers, trying to read the look of them again. She had to know the answer to that question. So why was she askingit?
“That’s right,” I answered.
“When about did you leave Six Rivers?”
“About twenty years ago? When I left for school.”
She tapped the end of her pen against the paper. “Twenty years ago. That would have been right around the time that kid died, right? Griffin Walker?”
I kept my hands clasped in my lap, fingers strangling one another. “What?”
She smiled, letting out a breath. “Sorry, my head’s been in all this paperwork, like I said. Reviewing old files and cases, trying to get a handle on the history of this place. That must have been a difficult time.”
“It was,” I managed, looking for any possible exit from where the conversation was headed. I’d gone to great lengths to erase that time from my life. And I didn’t like to think about what anyone following that trail would find. “Was there anything else?”
“No, I just want to be sure I have all the contact information for any other next of kin, in case more details or questions come up.”
“It’s just me,” I said, trying to look more relaxed.
She set down the pen, squaring it with the edge of the notepad. “Look, I know I’m an outsider here,” she said. “It’s not exactly easy coming into a tight-knit community like this, especially when you’re here to enforce rules and regulations. But if you need anything while you’re here, or if you come across anything that might be helpful in regard to Johnny, I hope you’ll reach out.”
She was right that Six Rivers didn’t exactly welcome strangers. Timothy Branson had learned that almost as soon as he’d taken the position. He’d been under the impression that the posting would be a simple one. But between the hunters, the semi-transient loggers, and the overly protective town residents, he’d gotten more than he’d bargained for. It didn’t matter how long he was here or how entrenched in the town he became, he’d never been one of us, and that had made it difficult for him to do his job when Griffin Walker died.
“Anyway,” Amelia said, “the real reason I asked you to come in is because I wanted to be sure you got these.”
She pushed back from the desk and stood, going to one of the cabinets. A hand lifted the keys from her belt, and I watched as she unlocked the one closest to the wall and pulled a bag from the shelf inside. Through the clear plastic, I could see the dark blue checkered fabric of Johnny’s jacket, and immediately, that seasick feeling returned to the center of my gut. Within seconds, he was there, filling the space of the small office like slowly rising water. I was already getting to my feet, as if preparing to try and keep my head above the surface.
Amelia handled the bag with care, holding it out to me slowly. “These are his things we recovered from the scene.”
The scene.
There wasn’t a single moment of each day that I wasn’t thinking about the fact that Johnny was gone, but hearing those words forced me to actually imagine it. Johnny, laying in the forest, that blue jacket just barely visible in the thick green ferns.
My hands felt numb as I took the bag from her, fingers curling around the soft shape of the jacket inside. Amelia was still speaking, but I couldn’t hear her anymore. The sound of her voice bled into a kind of white noise as I stared at that blue-and-black pattern. The jacket had belonged to Dad and was one of the things he’d left behind when he went to Oregon. After that, it became Johnny’s.
I nodded in an attempted answer to whatever Amelia was saying, tucking the plastic bag beneath my arm and turning for the door.
“James?”
My name was too loud in my ears, my face flashing hot with the tears I was desperately trying to swallow down. I looked back, one hand clutched tightly to the metal knob on the door.
“One more thing.” Amelia paused. “Johnny’s ashes. They’re still being held at the morgue in Sacramento. Should I have them sent now?”
The tightness in my chest twisted. Ashes. There was no way I could begin to conceive of that. How was it possible that Johnny, everything he was, every memory he had, every thought and feeling, was now just…dust? How could that be when he was still here, alive in the air around me?
“I’m not sure how long I’ll be here exactly,” I said, voice strained as I searched for some kind of excuse. I didn’t want them. I couldn’t bear to think they even existed.
Amelia gave me a sympathetic nod. “Of course. Maybe I could have them sent to Micah then?”
I stared at her, caught off guard by the mention of Micah’s name.
“I just mean, I know you all are practically family, and he’s been the one dealing with things up to now,” she added, by way of explanation.
Dealing with things. Was that an implication that I hadn’t been? But when I searched Amelia’s eyes for any sign of an accusation, I couldn’t find it.
“Sure.” I nodded.
Better Micah than me, I thought.
“Okay, then I’ll take care of it. And please remember, if there’s anything I can do to help while you’re here, you have my number.”
“Thanks.”
I was out the door before the word had even left my mouth, gulping the cold air down into my hot lungs. My hands shook as I pulled the car key from my pocket, my breath fogging in spurts as I tried to fit it in the lock. As soon as I was inside, the door slammed behind me and I set the bag on my lap, tearing the plastic open until I could touch the jacket inside. My fingers moved over the softened flannel, the image of Johnny flashing in my mind. The color was faded from its original rich blue and the snap buttons had lost most of their shine.
Johnny’s phone, a small ring of keys, and a money clip with his ID were secured inside a smaller sealed bag, and I set them on the passenger seat before I held the jacket up to me, lining up the shoulders with mine. There, inches below the collar, was the bullet hole torn through the fabric. In the exact spot where the pain had been throbbing for months. It was surrounded by a dark bloodstain that looked black in the dim light.
I let the jacket fall onto my lap and brushed my thumb over the stiff flannel, thinking that the sight was reassuring, in a twisted kind of way. An anchor to the reality that Johnny was really, truly gone. But I went still when I felt something take shape beneath the heap of fabric. Something round. No, it had a cylinder shape.
I sniffed, unfolding the jacket until I found the inside pocket. The object inside made a weak laugh escape my lips. It was a roll of film.
My head tilted back, finding the headrest. I used to find rolls of film around the house all the time, collecting them in the fruit basket where they would live for months, until Johnny got around to developing them. If he did at all. He left them everywhere. In the cupholder of the 4Runner, tossed inside a boot, poised on the bathroom sink beside his toothbrush.
I slipped the canister back into the pocket and bundled the jacket onto the passenger seat. When I started the car, the headlights washed over the pavement, illuminating the fine mist that drifted through the air. The diner across the street was the only thing lit up downtown, aglow with the warm light inside. Six Rivers Diner was painted in an ochre yellow on the glass in an old style that was rubbed off at the edges. The window was slightly fogged with condensation, making the people inside look like moving smudges.
What Amelia had said about this town was still wedged beneath my skin. It was a skipping rock on the surface of my mind, taking me from one thought to the next.
I’d all but erased my life here after what happened—after what we did —moving to San Francisco so I could disappear into the city’s eight hundred thousand people who didn’t know anything about me or this place. But it wasn’t just my secret, or my story. It was Johnny’s, too. That had always been true about everything.