Between the Trees (Creatures of the Night #3)

Chapter One

The s in years is slightly smaller than the other letters because whoever wrote it ran out of room, and the flowers along the border are that aggressive bakery pink no flower in the actual world has ever been.

Someone has set out paper plates, plastic forks, and a pitcher of Hawaiian Punch.

Someone else has propped a card made of folded construction paper against a coffee mug.

Marcus is standing by the window with his hat in his hands.

“This is humiliating,” he says to me when I come up beside him. He says it without moving his mouth much, so the others won’t see.

“It’s supposed to be humiliating,” I say. “That’s the tradition.”

“The tradition is terrible.”

“The tradition is that forty years of your life matter, and people want to put icing on it.”

He snorts.

Marcus is sixty-seven, a tall man gone slightly stooped in the last few years.

Silver mustache. A face creased from decades of squinting into the sun and wind.

He’s the reason I’m here at all. When I walked into Lake Ranger Station at twenty-four, freshly minted and nervous and nearly certain I had made a mistake, Marcus was the one who looked at my file and said, I’ll take her, and he’s been taking care of me ever since.

His wife, Doreen, sends me home with casseroles when I have the flu. They had me over every Thanksgiving of my marriage and every Thanksgiving after it. Their two adult sons live in Billings and Portland, and they see me more than they see those boys.

“Speech!” somebody calls from across the room.

“No,” Marcus says.

“Speech!”

“No speeches,” he says. He turns to me with a flat stare that’s only a little bit performative. “Cora. Save me.”

“I can’t save you,” I say. “There’s already a cake.”

His eyes close briefly.

Sheila from dispatch is cutting slices now, and the too-sweet scent of buttercream fills the room.

Jeff from the gate crew leans on the doorframe with his hat pushed back.

A pair of summer seasonals I barely know are hovering near the coffee maker, unsure if they’re invited.

Marcus, who has dragged every single one of these people through a bad day at some point in his career, is being forced to stand still while his coworkers are kind to him.

His mouth is tight in the way it gets when he’s trying to look stoic.

“I’m having people out to the house Saturday,” he says to me. “Doreen’s doing the brisket. You’re coming.”

“I’m coming.”

“Bring something. Don’t bring store-bought.”

“I wasn’t going to bring store-bought.”

“You were going to bring store-bought.”

“Fine,” I say. “I’ll make the pasta salad. The one with the olives.”

“Fine,” he says. His mouth twitches. “That’s a decent pasta salad.”

Sheila gets to us and hands us paper plates.

The slice she has given Marcus is the corner piece with the most icing, because everyone at the station who has ever seen him eat dessert knows he likes icing.

Marcus looks at the plate in his hand for a long second, clears his throat, and looks out the window.

“Forty years,” he says quietly.

“Forty years,” I agree.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself, Cora.”

“You’re going to fish. You’re going to fix that porch rail you’ve been threatening to fix. You’re going to drive Doreen crazy.”

“I’m going to drive Doreen crazy.”

“You’re going to drive Doreen completely crazy.”

He nods once. Takes a bite of the cake. Makes a face. “Jesus, that’s sweet.”

“You love it.”

“I hate it.”

“You love it.”

He eats the whole slice.

◆◆◆

The night shift is quiet.

Night shifts in late August usually are.

Most of the late-season tourists are families with small children who are in their campers by nine, and the backcountry permit holders are self-selecting for competence.

A couple of bear jams around dusk were resolved without incident.

One sprained ankle at Pelican Creek Trailhead, which I handle.

A drunk man at Fishing Bridge refuses to put his beer away and then puts his beer away.

My radio stays silent for long stretches.

Most of the shift I spend in my truck in a turnout near Indian Pond, watching the stars come out and then fade again into the pre-dawn gray.

My mind goes to Marcus eating cake. To the empty office he’ll leave on Friday.

To, briefly and uselessly, my ex-husband, who texted me last week to say he and his new wife are expecting.

By the time the sun is coming up over the lake, my radio crackles with Marcus’s voice.

“Walsh.”

“Here, boss.”

“Meet me at the diner. My treat.”

A smile pulls at my mouth in the dark cab. “Copy, boss.”