Chapter Seventeen
Seventeen
The road to Fort Bragg was like a rope pulling me from the dark.
An hour and a half in, I was grateful that Micah had offered to come. Every few minutes, I had the impulse to turn my head and look at him, as if to prove to myself that he was really there.
The twisting route carved through the thick forests all the way to the coastline, where the sea battered the land into jagged, sharp-toothed cliffs. The farther we drove, the less I could feel Johnny. The more I could breathe.
There was an almost-comfortable quiet between Micah and me that kept me from getting lost in the labyrinth of my thoughts—Johnny. Autumn. Josie. The backpack. Each question was like a brick stacked on another. The weight of it all was proving too much to bear.
The last few days had felt like years, and having a ticking clock on my time in Six Rivers made me feel anxious. Like the stirring, penetrating energy that saturated the old-growth forest was already getting its tentacles around me. It was something that just sucked you in.
“Let’s go over it again,” I said, waiting to see if Micah would argue.
He didn’t, giving me a nod. We’d spent half the drive nailing down the timeline until it was in an order that made sense, and each time I repeated it, the events felt a little less convoluted.
“Okay,” I began. “Johnny borrows your truck and heads out to the gorge on November ninth. He would have arrived there in the late afternoon?”
“Early evening. Enough time to make camp.”
“Okay, so he stays the night and shoots the next morning, November tenth—that’s when Autumn’s backpack shows up in the film.”
“So, she could have met him out there, like you said. But for whatever reason, he returns to Six Rivers earlier than he planned,” Micah thought aloud.
“So, what? Why does he go all the way out there just to leave suddenly?”
“Maybe he forgets something or the weather turns.”
I shook my head. “I checked. There wasn’t a storm that day. There wasn’t even a drop of rain.”
“Okay, so if he’s out there with Autumn, maybe they get in a fight?”
“Maybe…” I murmured, still thinking. “And she goes back to San Francisco? There’s nothing to suggest that she came back to Six Rivers.”
“That would explain why Johnny would have been calling her. Maybe she leaves the gorge angry and he’s trying to get ahold of her.”
“But he didn’t say anything to you when he got back?” I turned to look at Micah.
“I wasn’t home when he dropped off the truck. I just came back and it was there.”
“And you didn’t talk to him at all before he went back out to the gorge?”
“No. I was booked solid that whole week and I was barely in town. But I came home that day and the truck was gone again. He’d dropped off Smoke and just took off.”
“November twelfth,” I said. That was the day he died.
“So, he goes back out to the gorge without telling anyone. Doesn’t take any of his gear. He’s up on the ridge on the other side of the ravine, and…” He didn’t finish.
“Was he going back out there to meet her again?”
Laying out the facts did little to ease my mind. There was no evidence that Autumn had ever answered Johnny’s calls, and there were no other communications I could find between them. Maybe the most concerning part of all of this was that Autumn seemed to have been meticulously scrubbed from Johnny’s life, but I was far beyond trying to dispel my own suspicions about what Johnny was hiding. The bottom line was that if Autumn was there that day, then she was the last person to see Johnny alive.
“And when you found him—” I paused. “He didn’t have anything with him? Nothing that indicated why he’d been up on the ridge or what he was doing out there?”
“No, nothing. He was just lying there. He looked like…” Micah swallowed. “He almost just looked like he was asleep.”
That image alone was enough to make a cold silence settle back in the car. Micah’s eyes were cast out the window, but I could see the tension of the memory in every inch of him. Like remembering it was physically painful.
“Let’s say Johnny did go out to meet Autumn on November ninth,” I said. “There’s something wrong about that, am I right?”
I waited for Micah to look at me as confirmation. When he finally did, it made my heart sink. There was no getting around the fact that Autumn was an eighteen-year-old girl and that Johnny was a significantly older man who was in a position of power and influence over her. And I also couldn’t ignore that Autumn was both beautiful and talented.
“Maybe he had a good reason.” Micah’s voice lowered.
“Can you think of one?”
Micah was quiet for a long moment. “No.”
We didn’t talk for the rest of the drive, which allowed the possibility taking root. I had to acknowledge that the way this all looked, it was plausible that Johnny had gotten himself into an unforgivable, inexcusable situation. And when Johnny got himself into trouble, there was a protocol. Micah and I took care of it. We covered for him. But if Johnny had done what I thought he’d done, I didn’t know if I could do that this time.
Once the forest finally thinned and the land turned into steep shoreline, we took curve after curve until town appeared in the distance. The sky was cast over with a gray haze when we arrived in Fort Bragg, and the air was full of mist, making my hair curl up with damp the moment I got out of the car.
The colors of the seaside town looked almost washed out, as if the salt in the wind had diluted their hues. It didn’t matter how many times I saw the Northern California coast. There was always something that felt unknown about it, even when it was familiar. The way the waves climbed hungrily up the beach and then tore away. As if the sea was writhing with anger.
“You sure you don’t want me to come with you?” Micah said, watching me stare out at the water.
“Yeah, I’m going to do this alone.”
He nodded, catching my hand with his as he passed, and he gave it a quick squeeze before starting up the street. The gesture was so easy and warm that I was tempted not to let his fingers slip from mine.
He didn’t look back as he headed toward the beach, and I went in the opposite direction, where the string of pastel buildings climbed the hill. Josie was based in Shasta-Trinity National Forest, and according to the emails I had seen between her and Johnny, the little coffee shop in Fort Bragg was where they met every three months for a check-in.
I’d gone through the inbox again for any sign of more messages like the one I’d found, where Josie had threatened to report him to CAS. Johnny hadn’t replied to the message, and no others had followed it, making me think that things had still been strained between them when he died.
I stopped beneath the sign for Headlands Coffeehouse that hung over the sidewalk, hesitating before I pulled my phone from my back pocket. The wind blew my hair across my face as I stood there, staring at it. I wanted the truth. I wanted to know what happened to Johnny, but I hadn’t considered what else I would learn about my brother in the process. It took several seconds to convince myself to dial Autumn’s number again, and I cleared my throat while it rang, heart racing until the voicemail picked up.
“Hi, it’s Autumn! Leave a message!”
When it beeped, I tried to sound as sane and calm as possible.
“Hi, my name is James Golden, and you knew my brother, Johnny?” I grimaced at the awkward tone in my voice. “I, uh, I wanted to see if you could give me a call back.” Another pause. “I’d really appreciate it. It’s important.”
I ended the call and let out the enormous breath trapped in my lungs, trying to replace it with the cold sea air. When I glanced at the phone again, it was only two minutes until the time I was supposed to meet Josie.
I pulled open the door and stepped inside, scanning the faces until I saw one that might be her. She had a laptop open and a stack of notebooks at her side, an abandoned pot of tea on the table. Her curly auburn hair was cut short, springing up in windblown ringlets along her chin. She had a weathered look that reminded me of Amelia Travis, but she had to be around Johnny’s and my age.
I’d almost made it to the table before she noticed me, and she clumsily stood, hand extending warmly. “James?”
“Hi, yes.” I shook her hand, bristling a little at the firmness of her grip. “Nice to meet you.”
Josie waved at the man behind the register. “Brett? Can we get another?”
He answered with a nod, reaching for two fresh mugs. Josie motioned for me to sit before she closed her laptop and attempted to tidy the table. Bunched-up napkins and torn sugar packets were raked into a pile, and once she had them cradled in her palm, she stuffed them into one of the dirty mugs.
“Sorry about this.” She laughed. “I’m not used to working indoors.” She brushed off her hands, propping them up on the table. There was a beat of silence before she spoke. “I would offer my condolences, but I imagine you’re tired of those by now.”
“Yeah.” I smiled. “I am, actually.”
“Well, then I will instead tell you how grateful we are that you were willing to come up here and get your hands dirty. I speak for the whole team, honestly. We’re really down to the wire, and Johnny’s sector is an important one.”
“I’m just glad I could help. This project meant a lot to Johnny.”
She nodded. “It did. We were lucky to find someone like him, and he was very…” She searched for the word. “Dedicated.”
My eyes ran over her face, settling on her stiff smile. It felt like maybe there was a double meaning behind the word.
“Now.” She cut to the chase, just as the barista set down a fresh pot of tea between us. He took the used dishes up, leaning over the table, but Josie didn’t break eye contact with me. “How can I help? You’ve got the originals of Johnny’s logs. Are you having any trouble with the transcriptions?”
“That’s actually not why I asked to meet,” I said.
Josie’s brow wrinkled as she picked up the teapot and poured. The movement was a little stilted. “Oh, okay. What’s this about, then?”
“I’ve been in Six Rivers dealing with Johnny’s affairs—including the CAS project, of course. But I’m also just trying to get a sense of Johnny’s life. I know that probably sounds strange, but we weren’t really in touch as much as I wish we were, and I guess…” The words faltered.
“You’re trying to get closure?” she offered, gently.
“Yeah. Something like that.”
She slid the teacup toward me and the fragrant scent of bergamot curled into the air with the steam. “Okay, how can I help?”
My hands clamped together in my lap, my palms slick. “Were you and Johnny…friends?”
The shadow of something passed over her face and she picked up her steaming cup, taking a sip. “We were.”
I waited.
“If you’re asking whether we were more than friends, then I suppose I could tell you it’s not really any of your business.” She smirked. “But sure. Yeah—sometimes more.”
“Sometimes?”
She shrugged. “This job doesn’t really lend itself to steady relationships, and Johnny wasn’t really a steady guy, anyway.”
“When were you guys together, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“I don’t mind. There’s not much to know. I wouldn’t say it was ever really serious. When he came onto the project, we connected. He had a lot of talent and passion, and that’s not always easy to find. He inspired me, I guess. Made me remember why I started doing this in the first place.” Her gaze drifted past me, as if she was watching a particular memory play out. “He had a very unique point of view.”
“How do you mean?”
“It was remarkable, really. He had a gift. He could get so close to them—the owls. And it felt like he viewed them, I don’t know, like…”
“As human.” I cut her off unintentionally. “Sorry.”
She gave me a peculiar look. “You don’t need to apologize. But I don’t know if I’d put it that way, exactly.”
It struck me suddenly that there was something about her that reminded me of Johnny. The way she held herself and carried the frame of her body was so like him. She took up the space around her and she didn’t even look like she meant to.
“How would you put it, then?” I asked.
She thought about it, mouth screwing up on one side. “I was thinking the opposite, actually. That Johnny seemed to understand that we’re not so different. That in the end, we—us, the owls, the fish down there”—she pointed at the window that looked out over the water—“we’re all just…animals.”
That, too, felt like it had more than one meaning.
“When’s the last time you talked to Johnny before he died?” I asked.
Her lips pressed together in a hesitant way. “We hadn’t really talked in a while.”
“I’m asking because—” I set the cup down on the saucer, trying to decide exactly how I wanted to ask the question. “I know it’s probably awkward to mention, but I was going through his things and saw an email from you.”
Josie met my eyes, her expression unreadable. “Yes?”
“In it, you were threatening to report Johnny to the board at CAS. I was wondering if you could tell me what it was about.”
Her gaze didn’t break from mine. “It doesn’t matter much now, does it?” she said, matter-of-fact.
“It does to me.”
She considered for a long time, letting the silence drag out before she finally answered. “I found out that Johnny was poaching.”
I couldn’t hide my stunned reaction. That wasn’t at all what I’d expected her to say. “ Poaching? ” I repeated, my tone unmistakably disbelieving.
She nodded. “In our line of work, there are controversial tactics that some employ to skew the results of a study or to impact a specific problem occurring in the ecosystem.”
“What does that mean?”
She lifted her hands in front of her, like she was weighing her answer. “I don’t know how much you know about the project, but the most direct threats to the northern spotted owl are deforestation and another species called the barred owl.”
I remembered reading about them in Johnny’s field notes. He’d written pretty extensively about them, and when I’d run across it, it had summoned a vague memory I had of him bringing it up in conversation early on in the project. According to his notebooks, their growing population had impacted the survival of the subjects he was studying.
“As an invasive species, they compete with our highly endangered subjects for food, shelter, and everything else,” Josie continued. “And in situations like these, there are those in our community who think that extermination is an acceptable solution.”
Immediately, my mind went to the gun I’d found in the closet.
“I got a couple of calls saying that one of my guys was poaching, and when I asked Johnny about it, he didn’t deny it. I thought about firing him off the project, but his work in Six Rivers was vital to the goal of CAS, and I knew we would have trouble replacing him. Especially that late in the game.”
“So, you didn’t report him?” I asked.
“No. If it had gotten out what he was doing, it would have jeopardized our entire study. If he was an actual scientist, he would have understood that. But he was very stubborn. It was hard getting through to him.” She shook her head. “Like I said, it doesn’t matter much now, does it?”
But it did. It mattered more than she could know. I couldn’t deny the fact that I was surprised by what she’d told me, but there was no reason I could think of for Josie to lie. Deep down, I could feel that it was true, and slowly a realization was snaking its way through me.
That maybe, despite everything I’d ever believed, I didn’t know Johnny. Not like I thought I did.