Unlike his son, the video showed Mr. Lewis was a muscular man with thick sandy hair and several days’ worth of whiskers on a jutting chin that he stroked throughout the interview. His complaints about his son? Too many school absences. This was obviously a common theme among the clients.
Leaning forward as if to confide in Troy, he murmured, “His mother always said he was ‘sensitive,’ but really, he needs to grow a pair.”
“The file says Nick cuts himself,” Troy stated bluntly. “And the doc says some of his cuts appear to be recent.”
“Well, yeah, he does that sometimes,” Mr. Lewis confirmed. “Why the hell would any kid do that?”
Troy said, “Cutting usually indicates that the child feels a lot of stress.”
“Huh.” The father’s face reddened. He straightened in his chair. “Nick has no reason to be stressed out.” He leaned forward again, putting both hands on Troy’s desk. “Look, Nick’s mom is not in the picture, but he has me. He likes the outdoors, so this seemed like the place to straighten him out. We’ve been through a rough patch lately.”
“Anything we should know about?”
“No.” Mr. Lewis shook his head. “No. It was really nothing special. Teenagers, you know?” He grinned, but his smile seemed forced.
Troy nodded. “I know.”
“Besides, we can’t change the past, right? We all need to put the past behind us; everything is about the future, right?”
“That’s what we focus on here,” Troy reassured the man. “Acknowledge the past, but embrace the future.”
“Nick’s basically a good kid. All he needs is to man up.”
“We’ll take good care of your son,” Troy promised.
Sam blew out a long slow breath and twisted her head from side to side, trying to loosen her neck and shoulder muscles. So far, her troop included a suicidal girl, a boy who cut himself, the on-probation son of a violent killer, and a kid who lived inside a video game. Taylor, the would-be model, seemed by far the most normal.
She picked up the photo of the last contestant. Ashley Brown, Spokane, Washington, 16. The girl’s photo revealed short chestnut hair cut into spiky layers, the tips died purple. Her mascara and eyeliner were so heavy, the girl resembled a raccoon. Her ears were lined with multiple earrings, and a safety pin adorned her left eyebrow. She’d taken scissors to the tight T-shirt she wore, cutting a deep vee to reveal the cleavage between her generous breasts.
Ashley Brown’s mother was another single parent. Like her daughter, her body was all curves. The face beneath her blond-streaked hair was pretty. Her words were anything but.
“Ashley is a smart-aleck skank,” the mother told Troy. “She dropped out of school. She’s run away three times. She’s even sold herself on the streets. She’s got to straighten up or she’s going to end up with AIDS. Or dead.”
Sam sucked in a breath. AIDS? Dead? At sixteen?
“Is she close to her father?” Troy asked.
Ashley’s mom narrowed her eyes and sat back in her chair with a heavy sigh. “Neither of us is close to her father. He’s a snake. I don’t know what I ever saw in that man.”
Add one teen prostitute to the troop.
The poor parents. The poor kids. With the possible exception of the Durands, none of these families came across as wealthy. Wilderness Quest was a nonprofit, but the costs of maintaining a staff and equipping and feeding all the participants during outdoor therapy were high. Maybe some of these clients had generous health insurance that was paying for this expedition, but she suspected most had scraped together the fee as a last hope of straightening out their kids.
It was depressing.
She didn’t want to deal with any of it; she was already depressed enough.
The door opened. Maya stepped in, dressed in her yellow uniform shirt with STAFF printed front and back, quick-dry cargo pants, and hiking boots. “I just wanted to say hi, ‘cause we’re not supposed to act like we know each other out there. I’m glad you’re on this trip.”
Sam hadn’t seen Maya since the girl started working for Kim. She turned off the computer, stood up, and hugged her teenage friend. “I’m glad you’re on this trip, because I don’t know what I’m doing.”
She also realized that she and Maya hadn’t had the chance to talk about the murders. Kim and Kyla had been Maya’s mentors and colleagues. “I’m so sorry I didn’t call you, Maya.”
The girl pulled out of her embrace. “You couldn’t call, at least most of the time. I worked the trip that ended just a couple days ago.”
“I know you’re missing Kim and Kyla, too.”
A cyclone of emotion tore swiftly through Maya’s dark eyes, and she caught her lower lip between her teeth for a second. Then the girl put a hand on Sam’s forearm and squeezed. “Shit happens.”
She turned toward the doorway, but stopped before exiting to look back. “It helps a lot to be out there, Sam. You’ll see.” Maya closed the door softly behind her.
Shit happens.
Sam slumped back into the chair. A lot of shit had happened to Maya Velasquez in her eighteen years. She’s lost her dad and then her mom to drugs, endured a series of foster homes, and paid for her juvenile burglary convictions through grueling trail work.
Compared to Maya’s, Sam’s life had been a picnic. When it came to enduring hardship, Summer Westin was a wimp.
Crossing her arms on the desk, Sam lowered her head onto them, envisioned herself back in Boundary Bay brewpub, savoring a cold ESB and a pile of yam fries.
“You’re doing God’s work,” her father had remarked when she told him she would miss their regular Sunday evening phone calls while she filled in for Kyla at Wilderness Quest.
She’d considered asking him why God wasn’t doing his own work, but she knew that Reverend Mark Westin would have an answer that she probably didn’t want to hear. She envied him his faith, if not his lifestyle in rural Kansas.
“Ready?”
She jerked her head up, startled.
Troy stood in the doorway with a much younger man beside him. “The kids and the gear are loaded in the van. Ready, Sam?”
“Not really.” She stood up anyway.
“Did you watch the videos?”
“Yep. That’s why I’m not ready.”
Troy covered the distance between them with a few long strides and wrapped her in an awkward hug. “We got lucky this time. None of these kids are too hard core; we didn’t have to lock up a single one last night and let me tell you, that’s pretty rare.”
“Good for them. Good for me.”
“You have your notebook with all the exercises; you’ll be fine. And Aidan and Maya have done it all before. Speaking of which...” He gestured to the young man to join them. “This is Aidan Callahan.”
Aidan’s appearance was as Irish as his name. He was nearly as tall as Troy, with reddish brown hair and freckles dotting his face and arms. His cheeks and chin looked freshly shaven.
Troy patted the young man on the back. “Aidan is in his last year of college. This is his third year with us, and we’ve known him since he was a kid. If he comes back next summer, he’ll be a field guide. For now, he’s your dependable second-in-command.”
Aidan shot Troy an indecipherable look, then turned to her. “I’ve got your back, Sam.”
She shook hands with him. “Glad someone knows what they’re doing.”
Aidan gave her a little salute, and then turned toward the door.
“You’ll be fine,” Troy reassured her for the second time. “Remember that you get a two-day break halfway through when the counselors come up to relieve you.”
At least she had that to look forward to. With luck, Chase would be able to escape from work again in ten days and they could spend the time together.
Troy gave her a final quick squeeze. “Thanks again, Sam.”
“Don’t thank me yet. I might march them all off a cliff.” Hefting her backpack from the floor, she squared her shoulders and followe
d him to the parking lot.
~ END OF EXCERPT ~
To find out what happens when Sam leads six troubled teens into the North Cascades wilderness, pick up a copy of Backcountry. You can find all the links
on Pamela Beason’s website:
http://pamelabeason.com.
Copyright Page
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
WILDWING PRESS
Bellingham, Washington
Copyright © 2018 Pamela Beason
ISBN 978-0-9976420-9-4
www.pamelabeason.com
Cover design by Christine Savoie
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Printed in the U.S.A.
Acknowledgements
No writer can produce a good book alone. I owe a big THANK YOU to the following people, who read the drafts of this book and helped to improve the story: astute readers Jeanine Clifford and Alison Malfatti, author Rae Ellen Lee (raeellenlee.com), and amazingly thorough editor Karen Brown. Thanks are owed also to author Sara Stamey (sarastamey.com) for her help in improving the book description.
Books by Pamela Beason
The Run for Your Life
Young Adult Adventure Trilogy
RACE WITH DANGER
RACE TO TRUTH
RACE FOR JUSTICE
The Neema Mysteries
THE ONLY WITNESS
THE ONLY CLUE
THE ONLY ONE LEFT
The Sam Westin Mysteries
ENDANGERED
BEAR BAIT
UNDERCURRENTS
BACKCOUNTRY
Romantic Suspense
SHAKEN
CALL OF THE JAGUAR (ebook only)
Nonfiction Ebooks
SO YOU WANT TO BE A PI?
SAVE YOUR MONEY, YOUR SANITY, AND OUR PLANET
There’s always a new book in the works. Keep up with Pam by subscribing to her mailing list on http://pamelabeason.com.
About the Author
Pamela Beason is the author of the Neema Mysteries, the Sam Westin Mysteries, and the Run for Your Life young adult trilogy, as well as several romantic suspense and nonfiction books. She has received the Daphne du Maurier Award and two Chanticleer Book Reviews Grand Prizes for her writing, in addition to an award from Library Journal and other romance and mystery awards. Pam is a former private investigator who lives in the Pacific Northwest, where she escapes into the wilderness to hike and kayak as often as she can.
http://pamelabeason.com
Contents
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Discussion Questions for Reading Groups
Preview of BACKCOUNTRY
Copyright Page
Acknowledgements
Books by Pamela Beason
About the Author
Contents
The Only One Left Page 22
