Chapter Four #2
“Eric’s right,” I say. “You know half the reason she’s in Haven’s Rock is to deal with her Parkinson’s diagnosis—and keep her family from finding out.
She’ll leave for family stuff, but otherwise, I don’t think she wants a solo vacation.
Once I get my pilot’s license, I’ll suggest a few of us fly out for a girls’ weekend.
I’ve just been derailed by the unexpected arrival of a tiny creature who can’t have Mom take off to do her qualifying training.
You should totally ask whether Yolanda wants to go with you. ”
“I will, but I’m not sure that’s proper payback.”
“Cover her hotel room and meals.”
He snorts. “Cover the small bills of a billionaire’s granddaughter who’s a successful business owner in her own right?”
“It’s Dawson. The bills won’t be small. Also, it’s the thought that counts. Yolanda will have fun ordering ten-dollar sodas from room service just to make you regret it. You should—”
Storm whines. She’s looking to the left, and the whine is her signal that she’d like to leave the path to check out something.
I’d taught her this as a pup, a lesson that seemed doomed to failure, as she’d leap off after anything that caught her attention.
But she’d aged into it, and now she looks from me to the left side of the path.
“Animal?” I say.
Another whine, which doesn’t mean anything.
This is one of the lessons that never quite worked—getting her to give us some idea what she smells or hears.
I still try, but mostly, it’s up to me to interpret her body language.
She’s calm and only vaguely curious. In other words, something has caught her attention but it’s neither alarming nor urgent.
She just knows that she’ll be rewarded for alerting us to anything unusual.
Dalton and Anders stop and get out their canteens, perfectly content to let me investigate this non-emergency. I follow Storm into the trees. She alternates between sniffing the ground and the air. Following a scent?
From behind me, Anders calls, “Watch out for unexplained puddles.”
Yes, there’s a good chance that the scent she’s following is either Gretchen or Blake cutting off the route for a pee break.
So I do keep an eye out for suspiciously damp trees or foliage.
But after ten paces into an open area, Storm stops at an oddly placed pine bough.
Oddly placed because it’s lying on open ground, as it if fell during the last windstorm …
except the nearest pine is twenty feet away.
Also, the bough has been cut.
Dalton joins me as I’m examining the branch. “Hacked,” he says.
“With a knife maybe? Something not big enough for the job. Strange.” I lift a rock off the bough. “Someone cut it, placed it here and put a rock overtop to make sure it didn’t blow away. Either marking a spot or covering something up.”
I pick up the bough. Underneath, the soil has been disturbed.
“Please don’t tell me there’s a body under there,” Anders says as he draws up beside us.
“If you hide a body, are you gonna mark the spot?” Dalton says.
“Fair point. Mostly, I’m just glad it’s not a body. In fact, I’m so relieved, I’m going to offer to dig.”
Anders takes off his pack and rifles around before pulling out a small collapsible spade. No one can dig a body-sized hole with it, but it’s useful for putting out fires. It’s also useful when it comes to digging out a loosely filled-in hole.
Dalton and I chill with our water canteens as Anders digs. We barely get a couple of sips in before he’s dragging something out.
I push to my feet and move closer. “Is that…?”
“A backpack.”
I take the dirt-covered pack and shake it off. It’s big—camp-sized, not hike-sized. I sniff it first, making Anders arch a brow.
“Damp but not moldy,” I say. “It hasn’t been down there long.”
“Think it belongs to our campers?” he asks.
“I didn’t take a good look at their packs, but I did notice two on the ground. One was larger, like this.” I glance at Dalton. “You okay with me opening it up, boss?”
He reaches and takes it from my hands.
“The boss needs to check for a bomb,” Anders says. “Or a rattlesnake.”
“There are no snakes in the Yukon,” Dalton says.
“I know. That’s why it’d make a great trap. That or poisonous spiders. Up here, everything that can kill you is big, so you’d never expect backpack-sized danger.”
Dalton already has the bag open. He peers inside.
“Snake free?” I ask.
“Random-body-part free?” Anders says.
At Dalton’s look, Anders throws up his hands. “Covering all the bases, boss. Not like we haven’t discovered random body parts before.”
“Will’s just giddy at it not being a shallow grave,” I say.
“Body could still be there,” Dalton says as he reaches into the backpack.
“Oooh,” I say. “That’d be clever. Bury the body deep. Put the backpack on top. Mark the spot. Then when someone digs, they’ll just find the backpack, and your shallow grave will remain undetected.”
Anders holds out the tiny spade. “Go for it.”
I shake my head. “So what’s in that backpack?”
Dalton points at the piles he’s been making on the ground. “A couple changes of clothing. One sleeping bag.”
“Hey, that’s a nice one,” Anders says as he lifts it. “Feather light. I wonder what the temperature rating is.”
“Those are expensive,” I say. “I’ve been eyeing them. I can’t justify replacing ours yet, but if they accidentally rip, I’m getting two of these.”
“Accidentally rip,” Anders says.
“If you want new sleeping bags, buy them,” Dalton says. “Hell, I’ll buy them.”
I ignore him. I have money. April and I put most of our inheritance into Haven’s Rock, but we retained enough to be comfortable for a few years if the town fails.
Everyone else on staff is paid a salary, courtesy of émilie.
It’s modest, but in a town where all your expenses are covered that salary means—for the first time in his life—Dalton has money.
We’re just both very careful about how we spend it.
Dalton takes out the next item. It’s a small toiletry pouch.
He sets it down, and I resist the urge to get a closer look until he’s done.
He pulls out a set of utensils, a tin plate, and a mug.
Finally, from the bottom, he unties a tent.
Yes, it’s a lot to carry in a backpack, but everything is high quality and lightweight, and there was actually a fair bit of extra room left in the big pack.
Neither man says anything as I unroll the clothing and examine it. Two men’s shirts and two pairs of lightweight hiking pants. One women’s shirt. All medium-size. Extra underwear and socks, mostly men’s.
Next the toiletries. One toothbrush. One mini tube of toothpaste. Bar soap. Bar shampoo. A comb.
“You think it belongs to our hiking couple?” Anders asks.
I sit back on my heels. “Yes? Mostly because I can’t think of any other answer. I only noticed two packs, meaning they travel light. Experienced campers. They’d both wear medium, so that fits. It’s all expensive gear, and they struck me as people who can afford that.”
“So they buried one pack and marked the spot?”
I peer down at the piles of items. “If they were spies for the council—or coming after one of our residents—and they bumped into us, then I could see them hiding something they didn’t want us finding.”
Anders nods. “Something they don’t want to risk us seeing.
Especially if they’ve decided to build on that accidental meeting.
Just happen to stumble over Haven’s Rock while looking for you guys because the husband’s ankle is worse.
They’d hide a sat phone or compass or anything they claimed to have lost. Which isn’t here. ”
“And there’s no point hiding the rest.” I pick up the backpack and check all the pockets. “Some tissues. An empty plastic bag for wet clothing. A line for hanging clothing. That’s it.”
“So the bag wasn’t hidden to conceal damning evidence that blows up their story.”
I consider. Dalton is quiet, but from the look on his face, he knows a possible explanation. He’s just waiting for us to get it. I have an idea, but I’m turning it over, considering whether it fits, when Anders beats me to it.
“Lightening the load,” Anders says. “The guy’s hurt his foot.
He blew off help, but last night, they realized they’d spoken too hastily.
They decide to hit the trail early and to divest themselves of all unnecessary gear so he’s not weighed down.
” He points. “Extra clothing. A second set of dishes. One sleeping bag.” He nudges the tent. “Personally, I’d have kept that.”
“They’re cutting it too close at this time of year,” I say.
“It’s been warm, but it’ll drop below freezing any night now.
Sharing a sleeping bag with no shelter is risky.
But my sense was that the husband takes too many risks.
If he said to leave all this, his wife might not have argued.
They took the food, which is the main indication that they left the rest behind intentionally. ”
“And hoped to return for it?” Anders says. “Seems unlikely they’d bother.”
I shrug. “They might have argued over leaving behind valuable gear, so they buried it on the pretense that they could get it later.”
“I can see that. Stop the fight and get moving.”
I walk back to the hole and then to the piles of supplies.
“Still don’t like it, do you?” Anders says.
“I do not.” I look at Dalton. “Do you have another explanation?”
“Nope. My money would have been on lightening the load. They could have hidden it to be considerate.”
I frown. Then I say, “Ah, right. They bumped into us. They’re lost, the husband hurt. Then, later, if we found a bag of their stuff abandoned, we might panic, thinking something happened. So they hid it. That’s a possibility. Another one is that they were caching it.”
Dalton nods. “Come to think of it, that’s what I’d do. Not necessarily bury it, but hide and mark it in case we needed to come back. Ankle feels better after a bit of walking, come back to fetch it. Ankle gets worse, come back for the tent so they can hunker down while it mends.”
“That’s my favorite theory,” I say. “So we put the stuff back? Cover it up in case they need it?”
“Yeah. Point is that they did keep moving west, as planned. We’re good.” Dalton looks at Anders. “Though you will still owe Yolanda.”
Anders sighs. “I don’t mind making it up with a trip to Dawson. What I won’t like is admitting I was wrong.”
“We all were,” Dalton says. “Now let’s get back, tell her, and take our lumps.”