Chapter Thirteen #2
“Muriel certainly could use the money,” I say. “She lost everything.”
When émilie doesn’t answer, I wince. “We’re getting paranoid, right? Why would the council even send a spy?”
“Oh, they’d send one. If they know you opened your own Rockton, they’d certainly try to infiltrate it. They started their own, in that lodge, and it is not going well, because it lacks key ingredients.”
“Eric,” I say.
He makes a face. “They need more than me.”
“Perhaps,” émilie says. “But you’re the glue that holds the rest together.
If they could convince you to join their new venture, you’d bring your wife, naturally.
Will Anders would follow. So would April.
A solid law-enforcement team plus a brilliant doctor would be the backbone they’re lacking to prop up a new Rockton. ”
“They could infiltrate Haven’s Rock,” I say. “Monitor our progress. Either wait for us to fail or wait for us to get frustrated at being in charge. Could Muriel be that spy?”
“I don’t think so. When she reached out, she was looking for help, but not necessarily the kind that came with moving to the far north.
She was far more interested in just starting over, finding an organization that would help her forge a new identity.
She had reservations about Haven’s Rock—concerns that communal living wouldn’t suit her. ”
“Like she said,” I murmur.
“Yes. Ultimately, she agreed to come, but I don’t get the sense she was looking for that. She requested the minimum one-year stay. A spy would need to be prepared for a longer term. Don’t discount it but…”
“The bigger factor is Blake’s death,” I say. “Is it possible Muriel is a spy? Yes. However, how likely is it that she’s a legitimate refugee who agrees to spy for money … and then murders someone sent to check in with her?”
“Anything like that in her background?” Dalton says. “I know we don’t let in people with records of violence but was there anything to suggest she could kill someone? Military service maybe?”
“No. She went straight from school to her job. She didn’t do any kind of military or quasi-military. If you check her form, she made it clear she didn’t want to hunt. She was mostly vegetarian, and that was another factor that had her hesitating.”
“We hunt,” I say. “And it’s hard to be a vegetarian with our food sources.”
“Yes.”
“Okay, so it seems Muriel is what she seems to be—a regular resident who’s been slipping into the forest because she needs time alone. We’ll work that out later. For now, we have a lockdown to deal with.”
“Tomorrow,” Dalton says. “Everyone’s complying, and we can get some sleep.”
“Agreed,” émilie says. “Feel free to send me any questions, but first, rest. You’ve earned it.”
Haven’s Rock is quiet the next morning. While residents may not have appreciated the early curfew, they certainly aren’t complaining about being able to sleep in.
It helps that the sun is bright, with the temperature promising that they might be able to shed their jackets by noon.
By ten, the coffee shop is bustling, and people are making their way to work, conversing quietly, no obvious word of complaint.
Even Arturo is happy—having been given a three-hour shift that allows him to sleep in and get the late afternoon off.
I have a bit of a lazy morning. Well, if you consider “not going to work until almost ten” being lazy, which it is for us.
I went back to sleep after Rory’s last feeding, and woke to find that Dalton had shut off the alarm and declared an impromptu “take your daughter to work” day.
I wake to a silent house, a carafe of hot coffee, and a plate of cookies.
Does it get any better than that? Well, yes, it might …
but only if I find evidence that Gretchen is alive and well and has fled back south after killing her husband.
Fine. Someone murdering their spouse should never be a good outcome. But it’s the best solution for this situation. Gretchen goes home and intentionally misidentifies the spot where her husband “fell,” and searchers don’t come within ten miles of Haven’s Rock.
I don’t want her getting away with murder. Yet if the alternative is exposing our entire town and destroying our safe haven? Then, I’m sorry for Blake, but he’ll have to hope his wife’s guilty conscience is enough punishment.
We do need to head out on another sweep for Gretchen, though. While I would love to find evidence that she’s long gone, I’m not even sure what “evidence” that would be. Maybe if we saw a bush plane taking off in the distance, having picked up a passenger?
In the end, days of fruitless searching will probably need to be our answer.
Or, if we’re lucky, émilie’s contacts will get back to her with the news that a lone woman was picked up, claiming her husband died on their hiking trip.
The Yukon is so small—population-wise—that it’d be impossible to keep that sort of thing a secret.
By ten thirty, we’re off. It’s just Dalton, Storm, and me for now. Anders and Yolanda will take a shift this afternoon, while we come back on baby duty before heading out again.
We start with a detailed search of the area surrounding the town.
Yes, if Gretchen killed her husband—or has been killed herself—this isn’t where we’d find her.
But our bigger concern is an exposure threat—either because she’s a spy or because she got too close to Haven’s Rock.
So we focus there for the next three hours, covering an increasingly wide swath around the town.
We find nothing except what we’d expect—evidence of people in spots they visit on authorized excursions. Places where they fish and gather berries and picnic, all predetermined locations that have been used multiple times.
Of course, we search all of them for fresh signs of activity, in case Gretchen camped where there is already evidence of past camping.
But as Muriel said, we teach residents to leave nothing behind—not even footprints in the more remote sites.
There are no signs in any of those locations to indicate that anyone has used them in the last few days.
So it’s back to town for baby time and a late lunch while Yolanda and Anders search the perimeter around the lake. At four, we’re dropping off Rory with April and heading back out.
We return to the region where all this started—the section to the west where we first met Gretchen and Blake, where they camped, where we found his backpack and where he’d been killed.
I start with the backpack. We remove it again and search it more thoroughly, now that we understand the purpose of it being hidden.
I am reasonably sure that Blake’s killer hid that backpack because the contents could identify their victim. The question is whether it’s likely that his wife hid it … and therefore is also his killer.
His wife or his work partner, I remind myself as I remember that very new wedding band.
Either way, I mean Gretchen.
When we first found the backpack, we thought Blake and Gretchen had been lightening their load because it’s filled with things you might jettison if one person was injured and you needed to travel light.
After we discovered Blake’s body, that theory still held, while pointing the finger at Gretchen.
If she killed him, she’d need to get rid of his backpack.
She’d go through the pack first and remove anything she might need, replacing it with things she didn’t.
Now I examine the contents with that in mind. Does the theory still fit?
Yes, it does. This is mostly male clothing. She’d have no need of that. But she might need to make room in her pack for food, so there’s a few items of hers here. There’s one set of dishes—his. The toiletries could be for two—sharing toothpaste and soap—but there’s only one toothbrush.
I sit back on my haunches. “Am I missing anything?”
Dalton shakes his head. “Nothing critical was left. Nothing immediately identifying, either. It’s his stuff, plus some joint items and a few things of hers.”
I exhale and rise. “Okay then. We need— Shit!”
Dalton frowns as I drop and rifle through the items from the bag. I lift the one T-shirt that belonged to Gretchen.
“This has been worn, right?” I say, holding it up.
His frown grows. “Judging by those pit stains, yeah. It was past ready for washing, which is probably why she left it behind.”
“Storm?” I say.
The dog rises from where she’s been resting, and she ambles over. Then she sees me on one knee, holding out the shirt, and she picks up speed.
“Fuck,” Dalton says. “Yes.”
I thought we didn’t have a scent marker for Gretchen. We did. I just forgot about it.