Then she spotted the jawbone. Long, with a row of teeth. Too many to be human. The panic settled to a hum. Something had died in that spot, maybe a deer, but it wasn’t Hailey. Still, she had an uneasy feeling. It was the way the trees shrouded her. The quiet of the forest.
She moved on quickly, her steps fast as she weaved around the timber. So fast that she couldn’t pull back when she stepped onto something that gave way with a loud crack. She crashed through dirt and branches and landed hard on her back, staring up at the sky.
She stayed sprawled out, sucking at the air until she caught her breath. She rubbed dirt from her eyes, spat some out of her mouth. She must have fallen into some sort of hole, a natural erosion.
She sat up straight and saw the branches that had fallen with her. They’d been cut. This was man-made. A trap—maybe dug by a hunter. She got to her feet, clawed at the sides of the pit. Chunks of dirt crumbled in her hands. She jammed the toes of her boots into the walls and tried to pull herself up, but she kept falling backward. She stopped. There had to be a better way. She could use the gun to dig steps into the soil, or create an angle with extra dirt, like a ramp.
Noise above. Something walking? Animal or person? She held herself still to listen. Twigs snapping, the rustle of leaves. She tugged the handgun free from her backpack and pointed it toward the sky. Sniffing sounds, moving around the pit. She followed with the gun. What the hell was it? Bear? A black nose appeared over the edge, pink tongue lolling. The rest of his furry head came into view. One blue eye, one brown—her granola thief, the black dog.
He let out an excited yip that ended in a long warble, then turned to look over his shoulder. A slim figure stood in the shadows, just out of sight. The mountain man.
“I have a gun,” Beth shouted.
The shape stepped forward. The sun slanted across his shoulders, blocking his face. He raised something in his hands. Beth’s finger trembled on the trigger. The shape took another step closer, and the sun shifted away, flashing for a moment on cheekbones, a mouth. It was a girl. Black hair cut into a ragged pixie, windblown. Green eyes stared down the barrel of a rifle.
Beth knew those eyes, but it couldn’t be. She stared back, took in every inch of the girl’s face. The arched eyebrows, proud chin, and flared nostrils. Copper-colored eyelashes. Her skin was dirty and tanned walnut-brown, but it didn’t hide her freckles. Hailey McBride.
PART THREE
CHAPTER 26
“You alone?” Hailey flicked her eyes to Beth, then around the forest, her finger still on the trigger. Another rifle was slung across her back, and a knife was in a sheath on her hip.
“Yes.” Had Hailey been living in the wild for a year? It didn’t seem possible. She looked too healthy. Her faded shirt showed muscled arms, sinewy, and her legs were lean in her shorts.
“Give me your gun.”
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
“The gun—or find your own way out of the pit.”
Beth thought it over, but she didn’t have much choice. She needed Hailey’s help. She’d have to hope that Hailey wasn’t a complete psycho. Beth made sure the safety was on and threw her gun up over the edge.
Hailey bent to retrieve it, then shoved it into the waistband of her jeans shorts. She stared down at Beth. “Hold on.” She turned and disappeared.
Beth heard the snapping of branches, a soft grunt, then the knobby end of a large log appeared over the edge of the pit. Beth ducked back as the log slid down and lodged itself vertically just a few feet from where Beth stood, pressed against the side of the pit. She climbed it like a ladder, bracing her feet on broken branches and gripping the rough bark that fell off in chunks. Hailey stood above, the rifle pointed at the ground. When Beth reached the top, she rolled onto her back, catching her breath. The dog nudged her neck with a damp snout.
“Hey, boy.” She reached up to pet him.
“Wolf, get back here.” Hailey whistled sharply and he came to her side.
So the sheepherding dog was called Wolf. Well, that made about as much sense as the rest of this situation. Beth moved into a sitting position, rubbed at her bruised shoulder.
“How did you find me?” Hailey demanded.
“I wasn’t looking for you. I had no idea you were even alive. I’m Beth—Amber was my sister.” Hailey didn’t seem surprised. In fact, her expression was blank. Beth thought about how she had felt followed in the woods before, how the dog had found her. The footsteps around her campsite.
“You’ve been watching me.” She must’ve gone through her car, her purse, read her ID.
Hailey’s silence was answer enough.
“Everyone’s been looking for you. Jonny thinks you’re dead!”
Hailey still didn’t answer, but there was a flicker of something in her eyes. Guilt? No, she was watching Beth like she was waiting for her to put the pieces together.
“Oh, my God. He knows you’re here.” His grief had seemed so real. More real than this moment, standing in the forest, looking at a girl who was supposed to be dead.
“You haven’t answered my question.”
“I was looking for the miner’s cabin. Jonny mentioned it once, and I saw the photo at the diner.” Beth looked at Wolf. “He said the dog was a stray. Guess that was a lie too.”
“Jonny’s been keeping you safe. You don’t know what you’re getting into.”
“Then tell me.”
Hailey lifted her chin, defiant. “Vaughn had pictures on his computer, other girls too. Amber. He has hidden cameras everywhere.”
Beth felt sick. She knew exactly what Hailey was getting at—she could see the fear all over her face. She believed Vaughn was the killer. Could it be true? There was shame there too. That was why she ran away. She might have been abused. Amber had hinted at problems. Then another realization—Amber had known that Hailey ran away. That was why she’d been so evasive.
“Why didn’t you tell someone?”
“I tried, but he threatened me. And there were no faces in the photos. I didn’t know Amber was one of the girls he photographed until I found her body…” Hailey stared at Beth’s wrist where her bracelet had slipped from under her sleeve. “Her bracelet was gone.”
Hailey had been the one to find Amber. Her face showed the horror of what she’d seen. Beth wanted to scream and rant and cry. Her trusting, sweet sister, who wanted to see the world, who was funny and charming. Who never wanted to hurt anyone.
“You have to tell the police.”
“He is the police. Why are you not getting that? I told Thompson that Vaughn was in your room that night. I’ve made anonymous calls. It doesn’t matter. They’ll never catch him.”
“My room?”
“When he walked you home from the bar, I was in the parking lot. I had to set off a car alarm to get him out.”
Beth tried to take in all the information that was being shot at her. She remembered the distant sound of a car alarm, how her clothes had been all messed up in the morning. Did Vaughn take photos of her too?
“You said Vaughn has hidden cameras? I’ll find them.”
“Do whatever you want, but leave me out of it.” Hailey dragged branches over the pit, kicked dirt and leaves on top of them, then stood on the edge and brushed her hands off. Beth watched, confused. Should she help? Were they done talking? Hailey adjusted the straps of her backpack and looked at Beth. “If you tell anyone where I am, Vaughn will kill me.”
“I won’t, of course I won’t, but you have to give me something. I need more information.”
Hailey reached into her front pouch and pulled out Beth’s gun, gestured for her to take it. Beth stepped forward and tugged it out of her hand. She wanted to grab on. Wanted to make Hailey stay. Wolf watched, as though he sensed her internal struggle—and he didn’t like it. She backed away.
“There’s a girl,” Hailey said, chewing on her lower lip. “Emily. She’s a dealer. People say she’s a narc for Vaughn, but I think she hates him. If you talk to her
and she’s wearing a perfume that smells like spicy oranges, then she’s definitely been inside his truck.”
“How do I find you again?”
“You don’t.” Hailey walked through a narrow gap in the trees, Wolf at her heels, and she was gone. Beth waited a few moments, then took a few steps through the trees after them. Was the cabin nearby? Maybe she could see it. She stopped. There were no trails; there was nothing to follow.
The sudden noise of a dirt bike cut through the forest, sent birds flying up from trees. Beth lunged at a nearby bush and hid behind it. She felt ridiculous a moment later when she realized the sound was heading away from her. Hailey was on the move.
* * *
Beth sat on her picnic table and watched the glowing sun sink in the sky, toasted its descent with vodka. It was a miracle she’d made it out of the forest before dark. The trees had closed in on her, blocking out the sky, the sun. She’d gotten off track and lost the trail for over an hour. Finally, she found a ridge where she could stand on a stump and scan the mountainside below that stretched out in variant shades of green. When she realized she’d come up the east side, she picked her way through the slash, weathered logs, and branches spread like brittle bones all down the hillside, until she found her boot tread in the soft dirt. From there she worked backward.
She’d shredded her pants. Left locks of her hair on branches. Scratched her face. Lost her sunglasses on the trail. But none of that mattered. That wasn’t what made her feel unable to move, her arms and legs heavy. She was at the bottom of another mountain, but this one was steeper, and more dangerous. She had a suspect in her sister’s death, and no way to prove it.
She checked her phone, her finger hovering over her last text message with Jonny. She hadn’t heard from him all day. She thought he had wanted space because he was upset, but he was probably scared because she’d seen his other cell phone. He’d lied to her. She wanted to give him a piece of her mind, but she wasn’t ready yet. Tonight she was getting drunk. Otherwise she’d have to think about how he kissed her and how she told him things she’d never told anybody. How she’d felt like he was the only person who understood how much pain she was in. Then she’d think about how for a brief, sparkling, hopeful moment, when she saw Hailey’s face, she’d imagined that maybe Amber was alive too. Maybe she was hiding with Hailey, and the police had made a mistake. But Beth had come down the mountain alone.
She took another swig of vodka and stared at her blank cell screen.
CHAPTER 27
Hailey
I hit the trail hard, taking chances. Beth was already on her way back through the forest to her car. Worse, what if she was looking for the miner’s cabin? I didn’t think she would find it, but just in case, I’d grabbed my escape bag before I left. Would she go into town or straight to Jonny’s house? The handheld radio had stopped working last week—the batteries run dry. I had to get farther down the mountain where I had cell service to call him. Then I’d ride back to my lower camp and hide overnight. I clenched my jaw. How could Jonny be so careless?
I’d spoken to her. Beth. Amber’s sister. They had that same crooked tooth. That same fluid tone of voice, the soft cadence. Their words each flowed into the next like connecting lakes. Their musical laughs. I’d heard Beth’s when she was with Jonny. That night of drinking.
Wolf shifted in his crate, trying to balance. We were going fast. We rounded corners, jolted over bumps. Sunlight sliced through trees, casting shadows that distorted the ground and hid roots. I’d been riding for ten minutes when something grabbed the tire from underneath and flung the bike sideways. I was airborne, then crashed hard into a rock. I lay still, gasping. The wind was knocked out of me, but nothing seemed broken. I rolled over. Wolf was gone.
“Wolf?” Silence. I pushed up onto my knees, shouted, “Wolf!”
He slunk out from between a few shrubs, gave his head a shake that made his ears flap.
“I’m sorry, boy.” I felt his body for blood or broken bones, then buried my face in his neck. He grumbled into my ear. When we parted, he looked down the trail, then at me.
“Okay, okay.” I crawled over to the bike, lifted it up. “Dammit.” The clutch lever was broken and hanging from the now-bent handlebar. I checked it over. Wolf watched me with his head tilted. I wouldn’t be able to start the bike unless I had a steep hill and a lot of luck.
I rolled my bike behind a tree and covered it with branches. My shoulder hurt, and I’d scraped the side of my face. I gingerly felt along the raw spot, wincing when I touched a bruised area. How was I going to get a lever for my bike? Then I remembered the truck with Alberta plates and dirt bikes in the back that I’d seen at the campsite last time I was spying on Beth.
It took an hour to walk to my lower camp, where I’d hidden the old mountain bike Jonny had given me. It was late afternoon, the heat still thick in the woods. I paused for a rest, shared some food and water with Wolf. He ran behind my bike as I pedaled the rest of the way. When I finally reached the outer edges of the campsite, warm evening light was slanting through the trees. I patted my pocket and made sure the pepper spray was in place. Some campers let their dogs run free. I’d been more careful since Wolf had gotten into a fight with a German shepherd.
I crouched near the entrance where I was able to get a couple of bars of cell service and called Jonny’s burner phone. No answer. He was either working at his parents’ or Beth had already called him. I shot a text to him—using the code we’d agreed on if I was ever discovered.
Got the part you wanted. Will be in touch with price.
He would be freaking out, wondering what was going on, but now he’d know I was safe and hiding out at my lower camp. Or at least I would be after I stole the clutch lever.
The forest sloped down toward the lake, so I could walk along the edge above the campground, staying hidden in the trees, and check out all the sites below. Andy’s truck was gone. He and the guys often camped out during the summer. I never stole from them.
I found the site where the men from Alberta were camping. Three of them, sitting in lawn chairs and drinking beer around a propane fire ring. It would be a while before they went to sleep. I continued along the deer trail until I was closer to Beth’s site. Her car wasn’t there yet.
The first morning she had camped at the lake, I recognized the university sticker in her back window. I’d seen it the night I was waiting outside the motel to catch a glimpse of Amber’s sister, who Jonny had told me was working at the diner. When I’d heard Vaughn’s voice, I hit the ground hard, and then watched as he helped Beth to her room, his arm around her waist as she stumbled. After he hadn’t come out for a while, I’d found an expensive car, pulled on the handle and slapped my hands on the hood until I’d set off the alarm. Vaughn had rushed off, and when I sneaked in her window, I found her sprawled on the bed, with her dress pulled up around her waist. Vaughn had been taking photos. The gun in her purse had been a surprise.
With my backpack for a pillow, I rested against the trunk of an old fir tree. Wolf sat beside me, his nose testing the air and his ears flicking. I chewed my nails and worried about Jonny. After I got my dirt bike fixed, I’d ride the trails to his house and find out if he was okay.
Beth’s car drove through the campground and slowed to a stop near her tent. I crept alongside the creek with Wolf. We watched through a wall of ferns while she ate a sandwich, then poured vodka into a red plastic cup. She was sitting on her picnic table, staring out at the lake and holding her cell. She glanced at it a few times, but she didn’t text or make any calls.
She poured another drink. Then a couple more after that. No mix. I remembered how shocked and upset she’d looked when she realized that Jonny had lied to her.
It was getting dark, and her head was drifting lower, her body weaving. She set her phone down on the table. She got up, crouched behind a tree, and then stumbled to her car.
I waited fifteen minutes, then crept along the shore of the lake, around the back si
de of her car. I brought my head up slowly and peeked through the side window. She was on the backseat, curled into a ball, with her eyes closed and her arm hanging limp.
Wolf and I shared some of her fruit and a slice of cheese and a bun. She didn’t have many clothes, nothing suitable for living on the mountain. Her bottle of pills was still hidden in the side of the tent. She was running low. Outside the tent, I froze when I heard a vibrating sound, a soft hum. Something was glowing on the picnic table. Her phone. I scrolled through her history. She hadn’t called the cops or Jonny. No text messages to him—not recently. There were others. I skimmed them. If she woke up in the morning angry, she might call the police about Vaughn.
I tucked her phone into my pocket.
The rednecks were still drinking, but most of the other campers had turned in. Wolf padding at my heels, I kept to the shadows and drifted through a site with a blue tent. They had a posh-looking SUV, and their gear was new. I found a few bags of chips, a flashlight, a knife, some toilet paper, and a cooler full of hot dogs and steaks. My hands skimmed over the items without making a rustle, my feet whispered across the ground, my breath was soft. I tossed Wolf a weiner, and he snatched it out of the air fast and silent, his teeth barely clicking together.
At another site, I picked up a lighter, boxes of Kraft dinner, a long-sleeved shirt, and a package of marshmallows. I tucked what I could into an extra bag I had in my backpack and slung it over my shoulders. When I was finished, I moved back to the hill above the campsite and watched the rednecks drink for the next hour.
I liked being near the lake this time of night. The quiet campground. In a couple of months the weather would turn, and Jonny would begin to urge me down from the mountain. He wanted me to go to the Yukon. I rolled on my back, looked up at the starry sky. I’d thought I was hallucinating last winter when I’d opened my eyes in the middle of the snowstorm and saw Jonny’s blue ones staring down into mine. Hailey? Wake up.
Dark Roads Page 22
