Cold Wind

by Paige Shelton

  Tex nodded. “Annie said that Wanda—she said the woman told her her name today, Wanda—was very nice to her and Mary. Wanda took the girls to Lane’s house, at least that’s where I think she means, when Lane wasn’t there. And then brought the girls here when Randy wasn’t here. They brushed their teeth, and played up in the loft.” He looked at me. “You were right about the toothbrushes. Wanda bought them for the girls.”

  “You didn’t notice them?” Gril asked Randy.

  “I guess not,” Randy said. “I brush my teeth in the kitchen, shave there, too. The light is better. It’s what I’ve always done; Wanda would know that. I haven’t slept in the loft since last winter. I admit, there have been times over the years when I wondered if someone had been in the house. I spend so much time at the mercantile, though. And, honestly, nothing seemed damaged. I have wondered if someone just needed temporary shelter. If things had been damaged or stolen, I might have had a different attitude, but nothing ever was.”

  “What about the construction paper on the loft window?” I interjected.

  Randy shook his head as his shoulders slumped. “I just thought it was something on the window. I’m not here much during daylight hours, haven’t been for at least a week until today. I saw something up there but didn’t bother to explore. If I’d thought it was construction paper, I would have … told you, Gril. I’m sure I would have found that strange, but I just didn’t notice.”

  “All right,” Gril said. “Go on, Tex.”

  “This hasn’t been going on for long.” Tex looked at Annie, who signed something. “Just since the mudslide for the girls, but Wanda did tell them she’d been coming here for a long time.”

  “Did Wanda ever hurt either of you?” Gril asked Annie. “You have done nothing wrong, Annie. I just need to understand if she ever hurt you.”

  Annie shook her head vehemently and then signed something.

  “She was nice,” Tex said.

  “Okay,” Gril said. He still looked at Annie. “Do you know where we can find her?”

  Annie shook her head again and held her arms akimbo. She seemed sincere. Then, she signed something to Tex. We looked at him for interpretation.

  “She sets traps. She took the girls with her to check them the night they didn’t come home. They lost her when she told them to stay back as she checked a trap. She didn’t want them to be scared, but when Wanda didn’t come right back, the girls took off. That’s how they got lost, how they ended up in here and then in Benedict. They were afraid to tell me the truth, afraid they’d be in trouble, and Wanda told them she was their special secret.”

  “Of course,” Gril said. He smiled at Annie. “I can understand you being scared, but, see, your dad isn’t mad. We aren’t mad. Can I ask”—he looked back and forth between Annie and Tex—“do the girls make a high-pitched screaming noise sometimes?”

  “Yes,” Tex answered quickly. “I taught them to do it, in case they need to get someone’s attention. They can’t yell.”

  I was surprised that the question hadn’t been asked before now, and I didn’t understand why they could make that noise and not speak. Nevertheless, it was good to know with certainty that that’s what Randy and I had heard. It also made me, and probably Randy, realize that the noise wasn’t meant to be disturbing, even in the middle of the night. It was just communication.

  Gril nodded. “Okay, Annie, I really need to know if there’s anything else you can tell us about Wanda.”

  Annie fell into thought a moment. We held our collective breath.

  Finally, she looked up and frowned, and then tears filled her eyes. She signed to Tex.

  “Oh, sweetheart, that wasn’t your fault. She did that, not you. Not your fault,” Tex said to her. He looked at us. “Annie says that Wanda set fire to the shed right before they came here.”

  “Got it,” Gril said. “Annie, we know you had nothing to do with that.”

  “Exactly. Okay, what else did you and Wanda talk about?” Tex asked Annie.

  She signed and Tex smiled. Her tears slowed. He looked at us. “Fishing and hunting, some of the same things we talk about at home.”

  “And you have no idea where she lives when she’s not at one of the houses?” Gril asked.

  Annie shook her head again.

  Gril looked at Randy. “I’ll find her.”

  “You think she ki—” Randy began, but stopped and looked at Annie before continuing, “was responsible for what you found in the shed?”

  “I don’t know what to think,” Gril said. He sent Lane a critical frown. Lane didn’t seem to notice.

  He was staring at Annie. There was a chance he was looking at his biological daughter. I wanted to ask if she looked familiar to him, perhaps like his deceased wife, but now wasn’t the time. However, I saw the scrutiny, I saw the pain and confusion. If Gril or Donner noticed Lane’s struggle, they didn’t make it a priority.

  Gril looked at Donner. “We need to find her. We’ll call in some Juneau folks and we’ll track her down. You all can come into town, stay at my office if you’re worried, but if you don’t want to, make sure you protect yourselves. I don’t want any harm to come to her, but…” He looked at Annie. “Wanda should currently be thought of as dangerous.”

  “I’m going home,” Lane said.

  “I’ll be here or at the mercantile,” Randy said.

  “Annie and I will be going home,” Tex said.

  Gril took a deep breath. “Look, folks, I’m trying to be delicate here, but I don’t want any misunderstanding. I want her alive. I need answers. Got it?”

  Everyone nodded that they did.

  Thirty-Eight

  “Unbelievable,” Orin said.

  “I know,” I agreed.

  It was late, but I thought Orin deserved an update. After using only Gril’s truck to get us all where we needed to go, I hopped in my own and went to the Petition. I left Orin a message to meet me there after he closed the library. He joined me and reached for the whiskey. He downed two shots as I relayed what had happened.

  “But if Wanda killed either or both of the Hortons, why? And how did so much time pass between the two murders? There’s something bigger here,” I said.

  “I agree.” Orin smiled. It was distinctly Cheshire.

  “What? You know something else.”

  “I do. I found some interesting information.”

  “Should we call Gril?”

  “I already sent him an email, though he might not have read it yet.” Orin thought a moment. “His goal is to find Wanda, though, and my information won’t help with that.”

  “What do you have?”

  “Randy and Wanda and the Hortons were related. Randy and Paul were second cousins. I tracked them all back to a small town in Texas, and then I tracked Randy’s career to New York City. He was extremely successful, made lots of money. From what I could discern, his cousin Paul tried to follow along behind, but he wasn’t nearly as successful. And when he and his wife had children, they decided on a different sort of life. They moved here.”

  “Wow. That’s a big move. They must really have wanted to raise their children away from everything.”

  Orin shrugged. “I get it.”

  “I kind of do, too.”

  “But then, Randy visited them out here and decided he wanted to live that way, too—I bet Gril didn’t ask Randy a thing about the Hortons until now.”

  “No, probably not. Gril’s wife died right before the fire. Big things fell through big cracks.”

  “Sounds like it.” Orin reached into his back pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. “I wasn’t the librarian at the time, but I searched just on a hunch. It’s a copy of Wanda’s library card. It wasn’t even a computer search. I just looked in my old files and there it was, with the date and everything. It’s dated about three months before the fire; they weren’t here long at all.”

  “What do you think this means?”

  “Well, according to the records, Wanda check
ed out only kids’ books. She must have read them to the Horton girls. My small interpretation from this is that she cared for those girls, even when she didn’t want to be here. I don’t know, it’s just another thing, I suppose.”

  “We’ve got to find her.”

  “Gril’s got to find her.”

  “Of course.” I fell into thought.

  It was late enough that I let Orin pour me a shot, but just as I downed it, my open laptop pinged with an email.

  It was either junk or something from one of the few people who had the address. I resisted looking at the screen.

  “Go ahead, take a look,” Orin said.

  Before I could, though, another email pinged. I was too curious to ignore two emails.

  Aiming the screen so only I could see it, I clicked it to life. The two emails were from my mom and Detective Majors.

  Mom’s subject line was “Shot the fucker.” Detective Majors’s subject line was “Your mom is on the run. Help.”

  “Oh. Oh no.”

  Orin swung his feet off the desk and sat upright. “Everything okay?”

  “Fine,” I said.

  He downed the last drops of whiskey in the shot glass and set it on the corner of the desk. “I’ll leave you to it, then. You probably have some work you need to get done. Organizing offices knows no hours.”

  “Yeah,” I said distractedly as I set the laptop to the side of the desk.

  I followed Orin to the door. He hesitated a moment. “You really okay? You know you can talk to me.”

  I smiled. “I’m fine, maybe better than I’ve been for a long time. And I know I can. I’m not … there yet.”

  “Got it. Okay, then. Later, gator.” He sent me a peace sign as he took off into the darkness, back toward the library and his truck.

  I locked the door and hurried back to my laptop.

  I clicked open Mill’s email.

  Girlie—I have to be quick. I shot him. I shot our man. He was coming out of the Piggly Wiggly and I got him. Unfortunately, I hit his leg and a goddammed security officer starting firing at me. I wasn’t hit, but I had to get away. I’ll be in contact later, but I HURT THE MUTHAFUCKER! Love you more than chocolate sundaes.

  “Oh, Mom,” I cried. I was at once elated that my kidnapper had been shot and devastated that my mom had been the one to do the deed. Maybe I had wished a little for her to have the chance, but the reality was that he wasn’t worth her freedom. I could try to reach her—phone, text, email—but she wouldn’t respond, not until things cooled down. She had hidden from the law before, but as far as I knew, never because she’d shot someone. No, her violations had been more along the lines of trespassing or fisticuffs assaults. I’d wanted to tell her how I’d managed to push him away; only once, but that it was a beginning. Now I didn’t know when I might hear from her again. She would go dark.

  My grandfather had once said that Mill couldn’t stay away forever, even if it would be best for her to do so.

  She’d get back to me.

  I opened the email from Detective Majors, but wasn’t surprised by the contents.

  Hello—I need to inform you that your mother shot a man we assume was your kidnapper. We believe he was shot in the leg. Both your mother and the man got away from a security guard who was in pursuit of both of them. I’ll keep you up to date, but please tell me if your mother gets in touch. I’ll do what I can to keep her out of trouble. Thank you. Hope you are okay.

  Detective Majors always kept it brief and ambiguous. No names, no identifying specifics. I appreciated that, but even with her sparse words, I could sense her anger. She’d been worried about my mother from day one, and Mill had just confirmed all her concerns. How had Mill found him? Was it truly the right man? I doubted I would know for a while.

  Anxiety sent a shiver through my system, and my arms quaked. I didn’t like what I was feeling—the sense of control ebbing out of me. I took a deep breath and tried to center myself.

  And then I heard a strangled cry. I thought about the noise the girls had made before they knocked on the door that night, but this wasn’t the same. This time it was a scream.

  “What the hell?” I said quietly. I perked my ears, listened hard.

  It sounded again. Was it coming from one of the girls? Surely, they were home with Tex. I hurried to the door and unlocked it, and then I stood there, my still-shaking hand on the knob. I was afraid to see what was in the dark. I was afraid to open the door.

  I was afraid.

  But if the noise was coming from one of the girls, I needed to see if she needed help. I could do this. Travis Walker was somewhere in the Lower 48, a bullet wound in his leg presumably slowing him down. An involuntary smile twitched at the side of my mouth. “Good job, Mom.”

  I pulled the door open. There was nothing to see. I peered into the darkness, wanting to see something, wanting to see nothing. I was going to have to go out there.

  One foot in front of the other, and I made it. I was outside the building, though I made sure to leave the door open wide in case I had to run back in.

  I looked all around as I walked away from the building, but all I could really see was more darkness. Until I looked toward the library.

  “Orin?” I squinted.

  It was dark over there, too, though it was neither snowing nor raining. It was cold, but I barely noticed. The library lights had been turned off, but there was one small one on the outside of the building, illuminating the improvised parking strip. Orin’s truck was still there. I looked at the building again. There was no doubt; there were no lights on inside the building. Orin would turn on the lights if he was in there.

  “Orin?” I called as I started to walk that direction. “Orin?”

  Shapes moved in the darkness a few feet from his truck. I couldn’t make out any specifics, but I thought I was seeing a body—a human body.

  I didn’t think about what I was doing as I set out in a run over the snowpack. As I got closer, I heard the noises of a fight, a physical fight. Grunts, slaps, groans. Two voices, a man and a woman. I was pretty sure the man’s voice belonged to Orin, was almost as sure the woman was Wanda.

  “Hey!” I said as I ran. I still couldn’t make out the details of what was going on, but the fighting noises stopped briefly.

  “Get help,” Orin gurgled.

  I was going to have to be the help for now.

  They came into view. It was, indeed, Orin and Wanda who were fighting. Orin’s face was covered in dark smudges that were probably blood. Wanda’s ponytail had come loose and her wild hair made her now seem untamed.

  Orin was on the ground, holding tight to Wanda’s pant leg. She was trying to wrest it away.

  “Get help, Beth,” Orin said.

  I ran at them. I didn’t know what else to do. I tackled Wanda, both of us falling to the ground with an oomph, our lungs releasing air.

  “Get off me,” she said as she squirmed beneath me.

  “What’s going on, Orin?” I yelled as I somehow managed to pin Wanda’s arms to the cold, snowy ground.

  He was rolling over and trying to make his way to us. “I caught her coming out of the library. I thought someone had been breaking in at night.”

  “If you’d just stayed away a little longer,” Wanda said between clenched teeth.

  She was squirming enough that I wasn’t sure I’d be able to keep ahold of her. She was lots stronger than me. I thought about what Cecile Throckmorton had taught me, and I moved my knees so I was straddling her better. If I could keep hold of her arms long enough to get Orin’s help, we’d be okay.

  “Did she hurt you?” I said to Orin.

  “She stabbed me. She didn’t hit any organs, but I’m losing blood.”

  Anger burned up through my gut and into my throat. Strength came with the anger; the burn helped me ignore the cold ground.

  “You bitch,” I said, sounding more like Travis Walker than I could have ever predicted I would. I punched her then, so hard I might have broken
a bone in my hand.

  I hit her only once, but it knocked her out. Orin pulled me off her before I could hit her again. He held back my arms.

  “Good shot, Beth. She’s out. I need help, though. You need to get inside the library and use the phone to call for help.”

  I blinked away the blinding, searing anger and looked at Orin. “I will.”

  “Good.” He let go of my arms.

  I scrambled up and then hurried to the library doors. I turned and looked back at him.

  “Don’t you fucking die.”

  Orin laughed once. “I won’t. Make the calls.”

  I made the calls.

  Thirty-Nine

  If murder isn’t addictive, it’s at least an acquired taste.

  Once Wanda had killed one person, Audrey Horton, she found it easy to kill Paul, too, particularly since she believed they deserved to die.

  I got to be in on the interrogation. Actually, I think Gril just wanted to make sure I was okay; he didn’t want me out of his sight. It was just him and me with Wanda inside the police station.

  He had answered his office phone on the first ring. He was working, trying to figure out where Wanda might have gone. Once I told him what had happened, he then got ahold of Dr. Powder. They, along with Donner, Viola, and Ellen, were at the library in record time. Gril made a quick beeline for Wanda—I’d tied her wrists and ankles. The doctor hurried to Orin, who was still conscious; he and I had kept enough pressure on the puncture wound at the top of his shoulder to mostly stanch the bleeding.

  Even if it had been snowing, I suspected the Harvingtons would have flown Orin to Juneau, but it wasn’t snowing and they, along with Dr. Powder, had him on a plane in record time. An ambulance would be over there waiting for them, and Orin would be delivered to a real hospital.

  He was going to be fine. Dr. Powder had called before the interrogation began to tell us Orin was stable and would get back to normal soon enough. I blinked away tears of relief; even Gril worked to keep his emotions in check.