17. What The Ground Holds
What The Ground Holds
Janice
By the time I finish with the last woman, the rumpus room looks like a field clinic that’s been through a small war.
Used dressings fill the waste bag beside me. My notes cover eight assessments. Cold injuries. Dehydration. Malnutrition. Bruising in various stages of healing. Wounds that tell me some of these women were being hurt long before Honor arrived at North Star.
But all eight are here. Alive. Warm.
Thank God.
Safe enough for the next decision to belong to them.
Steve comes in carrying fresh coffee and sets one beside me.
“How are they, Jan?”
“Stable. A couple need follow-up care soon, but nobody needs an emergency department right now.”
“That’s something.”
“It is.”
We’ve already spoken to Victor. Crew and Rafael took off from San Francisco in the larger MacLeod Learjet a few hours ago and are already on their way north. Anyone who wants to leave Manitoba can fly with them to MacLeod’s Boat Harbor in Vancouver.
Dr. Joshua Tran is already flying from Scotland to meet them there, while Cole and Liberty remain at MacLeod House with my family and the women still staying there.
Joshua will handle psychological assessments and make sure they have whatever support they need after North Star. The hotel gives HAVEN somewhere secure to protect them while we finish what we came here to do.
But the choice is theirs.
Steve and I explain it together in the living room, with Rose and Honor nearby.
“You can stay here,” I tell them. “You can go to family somewhere else, or HAVEN can fly you to Vancouver today. There’ll be people there to protect you, somewhere private to stay and medical care if you need it.
Dr. Joshua Tran will also be there if you want to talk to someone. Nobody’s deciding for you.”
That matters. I can see it in their faces, in the way their shoulders drop with relief.
After having every decision taken from them, nobody at HAVEN is going to tell these women where they belong.
Honor chooses to stay with Rose. And Kai.
The others want out of Manitoba as soon as possible.
Can’t say I blame them.
Crew and Rafael will collect them from Thompson and stay with them in Vancouver. The fewer women Perry can find here, the fewer people he can question, threaten or frighten into silence.
Rose watches the preparations from the kitchen doorway.
“He’ll come back.”
“Perry?”
“He won’t like losing them.”
Steve joins us. “Then we make sure there’s nobody here he can get his hands on.”
Rose gives him a pointed look. “I’ll still be here. And so will Honor.”
“Which is why you’re not being left alone. Kai will stay close whenever he can.” His mouth curves. “And we’ve got a little surprise in the works for our diligent Dudley Do-Right.”
Rose raises an eyebrow.
“Felicity and Faith are making sure Inspector Perry’s going to have a very bad day real soon.”
Rose seems satisfied with that.
Angus and Jax are placing discreet security cameras around the house so they can monitor the approaches without freezing their butts off outdoors.
“It’s only a bit fresh,” Jax says as he comes through the door.
Angus gives him an incredulous look.
Jax grins. “Who’s the girls’ blouse now?”
Honor gets my attention.
“There’s someone you should speak to.”
“Who?”
“Maya Cardinal. Tessa told me about her at North Star. Maya disappeared years ago and came back nearly three weeks later. She was found outside Thompson.”
“Did she ever say what happened?”
“Not that Tessa knew. But if Lockhart had her, she might remember something that matters.”
Rose nods. “I know where she lives. I can take you.”
Maya agrees to speak with me privately. She’s older than Honor, quiet at first, and tells me she never thought what happened to her would matter now.
So I listen. Gradually, the story comes out.
A Lockhart vehicle. A remote building. Men who never used real names around the women.
Threats about what would happen if anyone tried to leave. Women moved between locations without being told where they were going.
Work they were forced to do. Men they were forced to endure. Things done to them because refusal was never treated as a choice. Some of the younger women arrived frightened because they’d never been with a man before. It didn’t protect them.
The men worked remote sites for weeks or months at a time, and Lockhart made women part of what was provided to keep them there.
Food. Housing. Alcohol. Women.
As though one belonged on the same supply list as the others.
Some of the men acted as if access to them was simply another privilege of working for Lockhart.
Maya describes it as something that happened to her years ago.
I hear a system.
“How did you get out?”
Her gaze drops to her hands. “One of the men helped me.”
“A guard?”
“No. A worker. Heavy-equipment mechanic, I think. He’d seen me around one of the camps for a couple of weeks. He never touched any of us. Never joined in.”
“One night they were moving me again. He was driving a service truck south the next morning and told me if I could get behind the maintenance shed before shift change, he’d hide me.”
“You trusted him?”
“I didn’t have anything left to lose.”
He concealed her behind tools and equipment, drove her through the Lockhart checkpoint using his normal crew paperwork, then left her near Thompson once they were far enough away.
“Did he come with you?”
Maya shakes her head. “He said he had a wife and kids. If Lockhart found out what he’d done, they’d pay for it too.”
“Do you remember his name?”
“First name was Daniel. I never knew his last name.”
That could matter.
“Did you ever see him again?”
“No.”
I make a note. If Daniel is still alive, he may be the first Lockhart employee we’ve found who witnessed what was happening and chose to help someone escape.
“Maya, did you ever tell the police all of this?”
Her mouth twists. “They decided what happened before I finished telling them.”
Of course they did.
“Would you be willing to tell it again?”
She studies me.
“This time, someone will listen.”
Her eyes hold mine. Then she nods.
When I return to Nora’s house, Steve is waiting.
I think about Maya.
About seven women preparing to leave Lockhart country. One brave enough to stay.
And about a human finger bone photographed in Kai’s gloved hand.
We don’t have separate pieces anymore.
They’re beginning to fit together.
Thompson Airport, Manitoba. 1430 hours.
The sound of the jet reaches us before we see it.
I’m standing beside Steve near the terminal when the larger MacLeod Learjet appears through the low cloud and lines up for Thompson’s runway.
Seven women are leaving. Every one of them chose to go.
I’m glad.
Not because I want them gone, but because every kilometer between them and Perry or Lockhart is one less opportunity for either bastard to frighten them into silence.
Honor is staying with Rose and Kai as she chooses.
The women are dressed in borrowed winter clothes, carrying bags the community put together for them. Clothing, toiletries and enough essentials to get them through the first day without having to ask for anything.
I hug Ivy before she heads toward the Learjet.
“You know who’s meeting you in Vancouver?”
“Dr. Tran.”
“Joshua. And you don’t have to talk to him until you’re ready.”
She nods. I squeeze her hand.
“You’re in charge now.”
That earns me the smallest smile.
Steve slips his hand into mine.
“They’re out.”
“Not yet.”
He knows better than to argue. Not until that aircraft is off the ground.
Crew stands at the foot of the steps while Rafael helps the last women aboard. A few glance between the two men, and for the first time since North Star, I see something lighter in their expressions.
It’s not surprising. Crew and Rafael are both ridiculously easy on the eyes.
Crew catches me looking and immediately ruins the effect by wrapping his arms around himself, flapping his hands against his sleeves and puffing his cheeks like a dying fish.
“Bloody hell, it’s cold here!”
Jax doesn’t miss a beat.
“Mate, I keep telling everyone, it’s fresh! Get used to it, ya big pussy.”
Crew gives him the finger.
The women laugh. Actually laugh. That sound does something to me.
Then Crew heads up the steps, Rafael follows, and the door closes. The Learjet taxis toward the runway.
Only when it lifts into the low cloud do I finally breathe.
Angus comes up beside us. “Got a present for you too.”
Steve looks at him. “What sort of present?”
“The ugly Irish-American kind.”
“Fuck you, boyo. Your sister loves me!”
I turn toward the familiar voice and laugh.
Shane Donovan walks toward us carrying a hard equipment case.
Steve grins. “Never thought I’d be this happy to hear you.”
“Feeling’s mutual, mate.”
They shake hands and give each other a man pat on the back.
We drive back to Nora Beardy’s house together, Shane riding with Angus and Jax.
Once inside, he heads straight for the kitchen table where Kai’s photographs are waiting.
The collapsed adit.
The disturbed ground.
The middle phalanx in Kai’s palm.
Shane’s expression hardens.
“Who touched the bone?”
“Kai. Maskwa dug it up and brought it to him. I identified it. Kai photographed it, put it back where the dog found it and covered the snow.”
“Anyone else?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Kai comes in from checking the dogs.
Shane holds out a hand. “Shane Donovan. Former FBI.”
“Kai Morand. Former RCMP.”
Shane’s mouth curves. “Well, that saves some explaining. You have the original files?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t edit them. Don’t crop them. Don’t rotate them. I want the originals preserved exactly as captured.”
Kai nods. He looks familiar with the process.
Shane opens his equipment case.
Evidence bags. Numbered markers. Measuring tapes. Disposable gloves. A compact camera. Spare batteries. Notebooks.
“I’m starting a scene log. Everything gets recorded. Who goes in, when we arrive, what we see, what gets photographed, what gets touched and by whom.”
Steve folds his arms. “We’re not equipped for an excavation.”