Twenty-Six
The Subaru’s heater blasted hot enough to roast a weenie. Still, my hands shook badly enough to make the steering wheel wobble.
I drank a slug of gas station coffee to warm myself up from the inside.
As Layna and I had blazed along Warren Wagon Road on the stolen black Ski-Doo, four Valley County Sheriff’s Department snowmobiles
roared by, lights flashing. But they didn’t even glance our way. Of course they didn’t—the officers were looking for two women
in bikinis on a neon-yellow snowmobile.
Now darkness cloaked the canyon and the Subaru’s headlights cut through the spitting snowflakes as we drove along the Payette
River. “What a mess,” I said. “Errol didn’t kill Connor. And I didn’t get Baylee’s SIM card. Poor Baylee. That finger. Jesus
Christ.”
Layna didn’t respond so I snapped on the radio to drown out our still-chattering teeth. A local deejay let loose a relentless
patter: “By next Saturday, get ready to leave your coats at home because it’ll be fifty-eight degrees in McCall! Sixty-eight
in Boise! Those high temps should hold for several days.”
If I didn’t take drastic action, Connor’s corpse would be thawed out and rotting in my backyard in a week. “You heard what
they said, right? That Connor is a rat. A narc. Not a federal agent. That’s good news.” But Layna said nothing. How long had
it been since she’d spoken? “You okay?” I asked.
“Those guys—” she said. “That almost went so sideways.”
I risked a glance in her direction—she was shivering violently and staring straight ahead, glassy-eyed.
“Except you saved us,” I said, desperate to bring her back to the present.
“Swinging that hot pan like a Lemonade-era Beyoncé with a baseball bat.” I was a solo mom.
And I’d chosen to do something I thought was low risk. But it hadn’t
been. Not at all.
“That was a woman’s finger,” Layna said. “I’m out. I can’t. No more of this for me.” For an instant, the Subaru’s back tires
lost their hold and we skidded toward the river. But rubber gripped pavement again before we flew off the road and into the
icy water.
“Jesus,” I said. I’d been the one texting Baylee from Connor’s phone. Or at least I thought I was texting Baylee. Actually
I’d just confirmed her affair with Connor to Errol, who’d chopped off her finger in retribution. A lump of guilt sat in the
pit of my stomach like a petrified double cheeseburger.
“That was too close,” Layna said, and she didn’t mean the Subaru’s veer toward the Payette. “And . . . and I can’t go through
something like that again. I’ve got to tap out. This isn’t an adventure or me playing detective with no consequences. It’s
real people getting hurt.” She scrabbled in her backpack, pulled out a spare bear spray, and stuck it in my glovebox, as if
to do what she could to protect me. As if to rid herself of the whole situation.
“I understand,” I said. “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me.” I tried to sound brave. But I was terrified. Because
Layna’s meaning was agonizingly clear. When it came to managing the nitty-gritty of corpses and white supremacists, and staying
out of prison, I was on my own.