Chapter 20
Charlie could have screamedfrom sheer frustration as Hailey burst onto the back deck, followed more calmly by Elias. Even though Elias had been raised outside Firelight Ridge, he was almost as new to the community as Hailey, since he’d been part of the reclusive Chilkoot clan up until recently. He was a quiet redheaded boy, somewhere on the spectrum, more at home in the woods than anywhere else.
He and Hailey seemed to have one of those relationships in which Hailey did all the chattering, and he hovered nearby, watching adoringly.
Nick gave Charlie an apologetic shrug. “Want to stay for dinner? I’ll make some pasta.”
Hailey rolled her eyes. “You always make pasta. Hi, Charlie. Are we interrupting? Were you about to make out or something?”
Nick frowned at his daughter. “Hailey. Go chop up some sausage and peppers and put some water on to boil. I’ll be right in.”
She made a saucy face and danced back into the cabin. Elias lingered behind, shooting Nick a shy, sidelong glance. “Are you the one who’s a policeman?”
Charlie wanted to laugh at the expression on Nick’s face. Before long, he was going to start believing it himself. “Not technically, no,” he told Elias.
The boy looked confused by that answer. Since he’d been raised without any schooling, some words and phrasings had never made it into his vocabulary.
“But I am helping out a few people around here. Is there something you wanted to talk about?” Nick asked gently.
“But you’re not the police?”
“No.”
“Okay.” With an expression of relief, he finally met Nick’s gaze. For once, someone wanted him to not be an officer, apparently. “I’m afraid of police. But I found something strange behind Fire Peak. I was hunting for spruce grouse because it’s one of the best places.”
Nick glanced at Charlie, as if she might clue him in to what Elias was talking about. But she didn’t have any more idea than he did. “What’s a spruce grouse, Elias?” she asked.
He appeared shocked that anyone would ask such a question. “It’s like a ptarmigan.”
That didn’t help either of them.
“It’s a game bird,” he went on. “They live in the underbrush and they’re pretty easy to catch. They’re good when you roast them over a fire.”
“Ah,” said Nick. His lips twitched, meaning he probably felt just as silly as Charlie. Two city folk lost in the wilderness. “Okay, go on.”
“All I found was dead juncos. They’re another kind of bird.”
Nick exchanged another glance with Charlie, an uneasy one this time. “Sick? You didn’t eat them, did you?”
“No, and I wouldn’t let my hunting dog eat them either. They looked strange, like they just toppled over for no reason.”
“You’ve never seen that before?” Charlie asked him gently.
He shook his head, then turned back to Nick. “Do you think you can solve that?”
“I don’t know. I’d have to collect a sample and send it to a wildlife biologist, perhaps.”
“I’ll take you there,” Elias said promptly. “It’s about six miles past the Fire Peak turnoff, three switchbacks in, on the other side of Copper Creek.”
“Just drop a pin,” Charlie said, in a joke that went right over Elias’ head. Nick laughed, but Elias just blinked at her in confusion.
“If I drop a pin, do you think you’d find it in the underbrush? That’s extremely unlikely,” he said.
Charlie restrained herself from looking at Nick, but she could sense that he found Elias’ very natural question just as perfectly hilarious as she did, but neither of them wanted to offend the boy by laughing.
Hailey came waltzing back onto the deck just in time to catch the tail end of that conversation. “Please don’t pollute Elias’ brain with any internet stuff. He’s the only person I’ve ever known who knows zero about social media, and I’m rooting for him to stay that way.”
“It was a dumb joke,” Charlie admitted. “I’m sorry. It would be impossible anyway, what with no cell service out there.”
Nick nodded to Elias. “I’ll take a look at the scene, but you’ll probably have to take us out there. Can we take a four-wheeler or is it a hiking situation?”
“You have to leave the four-wheelers at the head of the trail. They scare the birds. The ones that are still alive.”
“Fair enough. Who’s up for a hiking trip?” He shot Charlie a glance that she chose to interpret as pleading.
“Sorry, this is my only day off. I’m back on shift tomorrow,” she told Nick.
He waited until Hailey had dragged Elias off to show him her loft. “We’re supposed to be investigating together, remember?”
“Sure, the smoke bomb. Not a bunch of dead wildlife.”
“Don’t you think it’s connected?”
She blinked at him in surprise. “You do?”
“It’s another suspicious event that took place in the same general area. I think there’s a good chance there’s some kind of link.” He flashed a wide grin at her. “Enough to drag you off into the wilderness with me.”
A thrill swept through her. The thought of being out in the woods with Nick Perini was surprisingly appealing. She could probably switch shifts with someone. Monday was always their slowest day.
Nick was watching her closely. Before she’d even rolled her eyes in surrender, he said, “That’s a yes, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but don’t be thinking you know me that well.”
“Never,” he swore, holding up boy scout fingers. “Until I do.”
Charlie refusedNick’s invitation to eat dinner with the family. She wasn’t sure why, except that a part of her wouldn’t relax until she had answers about Hobbs. And being with Nick and Hailey felt so normal it was surreal to her.
It’s not real, she kept telling herself. She barely knew Nick, and he barely knew his own daughter. They were all new to each other—Elias, too. They had no reason to feel comfortable together.
Before she left to track down Big Eddie for her ride back to the lodge, Nick placed a call to his primary contact at Hobbs Financial, someone named Mark Jones. She listened as he left a message on secure voicemail.
“I stumbled on an unexpected break in the Santa Lucia case. Are you still looking for information about her? I may be able to contact her too, if that’s of use to you.”
She shivered, listening to the detached, professional way he spoke about her, even though he winked at her while he left that message. It gave her the chills, and reaffirmed the reality that she really didn’t know Nick Perini.
Back at the lodge, she saw that the light was on in April’s office. April knew all about Bulldog. Why not ask her? Obviously, it wasn’t her favorite topic, since she never mentioned him. But it might be worth a try.
Outside April’s door, she started to knock, then paused at the sound of her boss’ voice. She was talking to someone on the phone in an urgent, unhappy tone of voice.
Eavesdropping is bad, Charlie scolded herself. Then, It’s not eavesdropping if you can’t understand anything she’s saying.
Besides, she had no ability to control her curiosity. She leaned closer to the door and focused intently on the one-sided conversation. “You can’t do that”… something something…”we had a deal” … something something… “that would devastate this entire”… something something… ”you back-stabbing motherfucker” …
Okay then. April really did swear like a sailor. But who on earth could she be talking to? What would be devastated?
April’s voice got louder—shit, she was coming toward the door. Charlie skipped away, disappearing around the corner just in time before catching the sound of April’s door swinging open.
Eavesdropping is bad, she reminded herself as she took the stairs two at a time toward her own tiny room in the staff quarters. And we should really think about that curiosity killed the cat thing.
The next day,she signed out two of the lodge’s Polaris side-by-side four-wheelers for their trip to the spot where Elias had found the dead birds. The ATVs always made her think of toy zoom-zoom cars, but they were perfect for some of the trails around Fire Peak Lodge.
Since Hailey and Elias wanted to share one, Charlie rode with Nick. Or rather, he rode with her, since she was responsible and therefore claimed the right to the controls. Cruising down the trail, dodging spruce branches that swept down to brush their faces, catching the startled flight of thrushes in the underbrush, or the raucous chatter of squirrels overhead, was an exhilarating experience.
“Do you always drive like this?” Nick had to raise his voice over the rattle of the engine. “Never mind, I already know the answer to that.”
She made a face at him, but she was having too much fun with this ride to take offense. “No one in a car chase has the right to criticize the driving of the person they were chasing.”
“Says who?”
“Um…Furiosa, from Mad Max. My mentor.”
He laughed and held on tight to the grip bar as they hit a dip in the trail.
Eventually they reached the intersection where the wider trail went one way and the foot trail another. They parked the four-wheelers off the trail, took a moment to indulge in a quick snack of trail mix, then shouldered their day packs and headed into the sunlit woods.
Before long, they reached a meadow filled with yarrow and blueberry bushes loaded with unripe green fruit. “I bet this is serious bear territory later in the summer,” Nick murmured.
A strange stillness hovered over the field, pretty though it was. Nothing seemed to be moving, as if the air itself was afraid to take a breath. Hailey’s chatter, which had been punctuated by Elias’ deeper-voiced responses, died away. No one said a word as they waded through the meadow grass.
And then—there they were. A scattering of maybe a dozen plump birds with striped belly feathers, lying stiff and lifeless on their sides or backs. Flies buzzed around them.
Hailey gagged at the sight and hung back, using the neckline of her shirt to cover her mouth, while the rest of them gathered around the collection of feathered corpses.
“Why does it always come down to birds?” Charlie murmured to Nick. Not so much as a joke, but as a way to deal with the queasiness the scene gave her. “It’s like an outtake from a Hitchcock movie.”
He grunted and crouched next to the closest bird. Pulling out a pair of nitrile gloves, he slid one on and gingerly collected one of the birds and dropped it into a Zip-loc bag.
“What species are these?” he wondered out loud.
“Mostly dark-eyed juncos, some spruce grouse,” Elias said.
“Have you ever seen this happen before?”
Elias took a moment to think it over. Charlie appreciated that about him. He never seemed rushed or pressured by other people’s timelines or expectations. Was that one benefit of being raised away from “civilization?” Or was it part of his neurodivergence?
“Dead birds, yes, but not all together like this.”
“So nothing else that stuck out as unusual, besides this?”
Elias shook his head, then looked around uneasily. “Something feels strange.”
“Strange?”
He lowered his voice. “Do you think someone can see us here?”
Charlie felt it too, the distinct sensation of eyes on them. All of a sudden she couldn’t wait to get out of there. “Let’s go,” she said to Nick in a low voice. “We have a long trip back, and Hailey doesn’t look so good.”
The creepy feeling was spreading; she could tell that they all felt it now, even Nick. But he didn’t show it. He spoke in a calm, steady voice that felt like a lifeline even for the perfectly grownup Charlie. “We got our sample, that’s all we need. I’m going to take a few photos to document the scene. Charlie, why don’t you start back with the kids.”
“Oh no. I’ve seen that movie. We’re staying together.”
Elias nodded in agreement, then forged through the grass to join Hailey. As soon as he reached her side, she grabbed onto his arm and held on tight.
Nick snapped a few quick photos with his phone—of the birds, the meadows, and the soaring spruce trees that marked the beginning of the woods. “I wonder what this place is, or was? Why is there a meadow?”
“What do you mean, why? Isn’t that just nature? God? Destiny?”
“Well, sure, but there’s still a reason. Maybe it floods so the trees don’t get a chance to grow? Or maybe it was cleared at some point by humans? Wait, I see a spring over there.” He pointed to a soggy spot towards the center of the meadow. “Does it look like the grass is dying there?”
The intense need to leave this spot made it impossible for her to think clearly. “Can we discuss it on the way back? Or maybe over a gin and tonic? After a long hot shower?”
“Right. Let’s go.” Nick tucked away his phone and they waded single-file through the knee-high meadow grasses, with Nick using his body to clear a path for Charlie. The farther they got from those dead birds, the better Charlie felt. She wondered what Lila would make of the atmosphere in this place. Would she be able to pinpoint why it felt so…wrong? Of course she’d never ask Lila to come out here. Even if her intuitive powers were diminished around here, she was still sensitive. She didn’t have the kind of thick skin that Charlie had developed from a lifetime of people slinging judgments at her because of her father’s situation.
A stab of pain in the back of her thigh made her stagger. At first she thought it was a bird dive-bombing her. She turned around, ready to chase it away, and saw an arrow flying right toward her face. With a scream of warning, she dropped to the ground.
Through the grass, she watched Nick run at a low crouch toward the frozen teenagers. He tackled them both and all three crashed to the ground. Charlie heard the hiss of another arrow passing overhead. Then a thud as it hit the ground—surely it must have hit the ground, because no scream ensued.
She tried to call out, “Nick,” but no sound came from her mouth other than a harsh gasp. Something warm flowed down the back of her leg. Her head was spinning. She had to get to the others, she didn’t want them to leave her. She didn’t want to die alone here in the meadow with the dead birds and the softly waving grass and the hiss of arrows flying overhead. Make them stop. Please stop.
And then it did. Because everything stopped and the world disappeared.