BIG MOUNTAIN

by Penny Wylder

  “Born and raised,” I say.

  “I thought small towns took care of their own.” Jenna clucks her tongue. “Not threw them under the bus the first chance they got.”

  Merill bows his head, cowed. “My apologies, Ms. Walker. You’re completely right.”

  My pulse has picked up, like a shot straight to my chest. Jenna is the first person who’s defended me aloud. Even the detective, she just quietly tells me she doesn’t buy this stuff. Hell, even some of my closest friends, like Tommy, they just tell me to my face they believe me. They don’t say it in front of other people.

  Jenna, for her part, whirls away from the desk to face me once more. “Come on, Gil.” Then she loops her arm through mine, firm, and leads me straight for the staircase.

  Well. If she’s inviting me up to her hotel room, I’m not about to protest. But we’ve only rounded the corner when she pauses, pulls up sharp in front of me.

  “Sorry about that, Gil.”

  “Don’t be sorry.” I laugh. “That was fucking great.”

  “I can’t believe he’d imply that about you.” She’s scowling.

  I shake my head. “Half the town is saying it. It’s not just him. Hell, I don’t even blame him; Merill and I aren’t close or anything. How would he know any better?”

  “Um, because you’re from here?” Jenna shakes her head too, incredulous. “He’s known you his whole life, hasn’t he? How can you just assume that about a person?”

  “Well, I didn’t have an alibi. And one girl said she saw me walking into the woods—which she did, though I was only following you.” I lift a brow at her. “Another woman said she heard screams coming from my place, so, the rumors have gotten a little out of hand.”

  “Oh, god.” Jenna’s face heats once more. “I’m so sorry, Gil, I’ve ruined your reputation.”

  I bark out a laugh. “Jenna, believe me, my reputation was plenty tarnished before you came along. And I’m not about to go around kissing and telling just to get myself out of a jam.”

  Her embarrassment melts into gratitude. “Thank you for that.”

  “What any gentleman should do. Now, another thing a gentleman should do, is escort a lovely young lady on her own in a town with a murderer on the loose to her bedroom…” I wink, and she rolls her eyes.

  Then there’s that something else on her face again. That distance, the wall she’s purposefully throwing up. “I’m sorry, Gil,” she says, and that makes far too many times today she’s apologized to me. “I just… I can’t.” With that, she twists away from me and hurries up the steps.

  I watch her go, confused, until she rounds the corner to her room. Only then do I force myself to move again, back out the hotel doors onto the street.

  9

  Gil

  First thing I do is beeline for the station. I kept my temper under wraps with Jenna there, but I can’t stop thinking about creepy old Graham Denver, and the way he kept trying to sidle closer to Jenna, grab her hand, touch her arm, bend his face to hers.

  Then he has the damn nerve to ask for her number?

  And he’s a cop, he’s in a place of power in town. That’s fucking bullshit. All this murder business has me thinking about the shit we let people get away with. Jenna had a point to Merill—he’s known me all my life, why does he believe bad things of me? But there’s a counter-point to make. When we know people all our lives, do we let them slide for shit we shouldn’t?

  How many girls has Graham harassed? How many more will he back into a corner before we do something about it? Just because he’s old, just because he’s been here for-fucking-ever, it doesn’t give him the right.

  I shove open the precinct door the second I reach it, angrier than ever now… Only to stumble to a halt at the threshold.

  The main desk is empty. No Graham in sight. But I hear voices drifting from just beyond a little door off to one side—the one that leads to the little office Detective Hartman has taken over for the duration of this case. I should know it, since I’ve spent plenty of hours within its walls by now.

  Is Graham creeping on her too?

  I move closer to the door, though pause just before I do something dumb like shove it open and interrupt a private conversation. The first voice I hear inside is Hartman’s.

  “You didn’t ask her to come back tonight? That’s precisely what I told you to do, Graham.”

  “She had to leave, while I was taking down her details,” Graham says, and I realize they’re talking about Jenna. Great. So while Graham was hitting on her, he was also forgetting to do his damned job.

  “That’s it? You couldn’t have just asked her to wait another minute and explained that this is urgent?” The detective sounds like she’s had more than enough of Graham’s bullshit too.

  “It, uh, it seemed urgent,” Graham bluffs. “Her leaving.”

  There’s a pause, during which the detective huffs out a sigh. “Hmm. Probably got morning sickness again.”

  “Morning sickness?” Graham repeats, in his stupid fucking voice.

  “Yeah. She’s pregnant, poor thing,” Hartman responds. “Imagine, dealing with a case like this, and all these interviews, in her condition. That’s why I wanted to talk to her as soon as I could, get her home fast…”

  I don’t hear anything else. I can’t think straight, can’t process any more information. All I can think about is… a baby?

  I stumble out of the precinct. I’m careful to ease the door shut after me, suddenly not wanting to confront Graham yet, or face the detective. Not until I’ve collected myself. Because, holy shit, Jenna is pregnant?

  I think about that night. Her hand on my wrist, stopping me as I reached for the condoms. I’m on the pill. She didn’t look pregnant. But it takes a while to show. Maybe she’d already been pregnant, and didn’t want to tell me when we were mid-hookup. Or maybe she’s gotten pregnant since then…

  What, since a month ago? My mind points out. How would she have even had time to notice before a month in?

  My stomach drops.

  That could be my child. She could be carrying my baby. Suddenly, more than anything else in the world, I need to know. Is that my baby? My gut tells me yes. My heart wants it to be.

  A baby, our baby, mine and Jenna’s. I’ve never given much thought to starting a family, but then, why would I think about it yet? I always figured I’d have time later, when the right moment arrived. I figured once I met the right person, I’d know, and that would be that.

  But maybe the universe just figured it out for me.

  It might not be your child, I tell myself. But even if it’s not, all I want to do right now is be with Jenna. Protect her from creeps like Graham, from stressful shit like this murder investigation. I want to keep her safe, at my side, protected. And if that is my baby inside her?

  I want to be with her. I want to make this work. I want her.

  10

  Jenna

  I wake up to the sharp, piercing ringtone of the landline in my hotel room. I groan under my breath and roll over, fumbling with the receiver, dropping it to the shag carpet before I finally yank it up to my ear. “Hello?” I ask groggily, as I squint at the clock. 7am. Way too early for a day I had to take off work.

  “Jenna?” I recognize Stacey’s voice instantly. “Are you free to meet up today? We’re ready to hear your testimony.”

  “Sure,” I say, after a second’s pause. I rub sleep from my eyes. “Um, yeah, anytime. When is good?”

  “Meet me at the precinct in an hour.” At that, Stacey disconnects, and I’m left staring at the receiver. Then the nausea hits again, and I have to throw the phone back at its cradle and sprint for the bathroom.

  Good morning, Jenna.

  After I’ve cleaned myself up and recovered from the worst of the morning sickness, I get dressed and head out to face the early morning air. It’s inching toward summer here, and you can tell it from the air. Just a month ago, I’d have needed a sweater this early. Now I’m comfortable in ju
st a tank top, although I still have jeans on. It’s not quite shorts weather yet.

  Stacey meets me in front of the precinct with two coffees in hand, and passes me one, already walking. “Is it all right if I record this conversation?” she asks.

  “Of course,” I reply, eyebrows rising. I glance back over my shoulder at the office, as she sets up a portable tape recorder. “I thought we were going to chat in there?”

  “Actually, I was hoping you could show me the spot you mentioned. You said yesterday, before I had to run to that other meeting, that you heard voices and saw some lights in the woods on the first night of the festival?”

  I think back to the short conversation we had yesterday and nod. All we’d gotten through was me corroborating Gil’s alibi, and then the lights and voices I’d heard in the woods, before Stacey had gotten a call from her boss and been forced to step away for a while. Then came Gil, and the whole Graham creeping on me thing, and I haven’t seen her since.

  “I was hoping you might be able to show me where that was, and talk about it in more detail.”

  “I’ll try,” I say, as we reach the square where the festival tents used to be. It looks oddly smaller now, shrunken, as though the festival took all the life with it. Or maybe the murder, I realize.

  I walk her toward the edge of town, up to the remains of the bonfire pit, and try to explain. “It was just shapes I saw, really, could have been anyone. They had flashlights, which is what caught my eye. I thought it was another party at first, strobe lights or something, so I walked toward it. Then I started to get the creeps, when I realized it was just two people walking between trees.”

  “Did you say anything to them, or hear anything?”

  I scrunch up my forehead, thinking hard. “I snapped a twig following them; I think they heard it. They shouted ‘Who’s there?’ and pointed a flashlight my way. Then after that they stopped moving for a while. I got scared and headed back toward the fire, and when I looked back again a few minutes later, I couldn’t see them anymore.” I stop walking, realizing I’m just circling the bonfire pit, around and around. “Er, sorry, I seem to have lost my bearings a little…”

  The detective sighs. “You said it was a little ways away from town, so…” She hesitates, to look at the three different directions it could be, all leading away from the fire.

  “Um…” That’s when I spot him. Back down toward town, but walking our way. “Wait a minute, actually, I think he might know. Gil!” I shout.

  His head jerks up, lands on me in a second. He changes direction to head our way.

  “His cabin is out this direction too,” I explain to the detective. “We went there together, after, um… after hanging out at the bonfire for a while.”

  “I see.” Stacey studies Gil as he strides toward us. “And was he with you, when you saw the figures in the woods?”

  “Yes,” I answer right away, before I actually think back to the moment. “Er. Actually, no. He showed up a few minutes later, after I’d circled back to the bonfire. But he probably saw which direction I came from, it was just after that.”

  “Just after it, hmm?” Stacey murmurs, right before Gil reaches us.

  Only then do I realize what I’ve done. Did I just invalidate Gil’s alibi? Is she thinking like Merill again suddenly, wondering if that could have been Gil out in those woods, one of the shadowy figures?

  Could it have been? a dark corner of my mind wonders.

  “Fancy meeting you out here on my lonely walk home,” Gil says as he reaches us, with a wave. “What can I do for you ladies?”

  “We’re trying to piece together the night of the murder,” I tell him. “I saw a couple of figures in the trees, just before you ran into me at the bonfire. We’re trying to figure out which direction it was from here.”

  His eyebrows rise. “You saw figures? What do you mean?”

  As quickly as I can, I explain again to him. The flashlights, the two people. “I just can’t remember which way I walked back to the fire,” I finish, with a frown.

  “That way,” Gil replies without a second thought, nodding in a direction perpendicular to the path he was walking home.

  My frown deepens. “How do you know that?”

  “Because I remember every second of that night vividly, Jenna.” There’s a strange look on Gil’s face, one I’ve not seen before. He looks much more serious than usual. “I saw you coming back to the bonfire from this way,” he adds, with a glance toward the detective.

  “But that was before we started talking,” I protest. “How could you remember it?”

  He raises a brow. “Because I only came to the bonfire trying to find you, of course. The second I saw you coming back from the woods, I started planning how to approach you.”

  My cheeks go red.

  Stacey, however, is watching Gil more closely than before, I notice. “Where were you before you saw Jenna by the fire, then?” Stacey asks.

  Gil meets her eye easily. “Like I told you before, Detective. I was closing up shop for the day, and then buying my first pint.”

  “And between buying said pint and walking up here to follow your latest conquest?” Stacey arches a brow.

  A pang strikes my stomach. “Hey, I’m not a conquest,” I say.

  “My apologies.” Stacey shakes her head. “I’m just trying to figure out how he fits into all this. How soon you two actually ran into one another, when you both told me you talked all night.”

  “We did,” I insist. “Starting right then.”

  “Starting right after you saw people acting suspicious in the forest.”

  My heart sinks. She doesn’t think what I think she does, does she? But this is her job. It’s one thing if a random hotel concierge is suspicious of Gil. It’s quite another if a detective thinks so. I glance at Gil, and find him staring at me with a strange, indecipherable expression on his face. Is he angry with me?

  Or worried I just found out what he’s done? I swallow, my throat dry.

  A moment passes in awkward silence. Then Gil lifts one shoulder, lets it fall. “I’ve told you everything I know, Detective. I believe Jenna saw these figures in that direction, as best I can tell, judging by how she walked back to the bonfire.”

  “Let’s walk a little that way,” I suggest. “Maybe it will refresh my memory.” We take off again, walking with a pregnant-silence around us.

  Pregnant. My stomach flips like it’s been doing for days. Fucking hell. What if I let a murderer impregnate me? What if Gil is involved in this, what if—

  “Oh.” I stop dead suddenly. “Wait.” I glance through the trees ahead. “I think I do recognize this.” It’s harder to tell in daylight, without flashlights darting ahead, but when I glance over my shoulder and imagine a bonfire and revelers behind me, this does look like where I saw the men. “That way,” I say, pointing a little more north, to judge by the angle of the sun overhead.

  Stacey watches me very closely, mouth a thin line. “Are you sure?”

  “As sure as I’ll ever be.” I glance back to gauge our distance from the village. “It might be a little further, but it was definitely that direction… Why?” I add, because she’s begun to nod in grim satisfaction.

  In answer, Stacey just keeps walking, in the direction I pointed. Gil and I have to jog to keep up, over brambles and dead leaves. But in a few more paces, her expression becomes clear. Just over a ridge, right about where I remembered seeing those people, I now spy bright yellow tape. Crime scene tape.

  “That’s where we found Mr. Myers’s body,” Stacey replies finally, tone low and serious.

  My stomach sinks like a rock. “So those two people I saw…”

  “Most likely had something to do with the murder.” Stacey glances at me, frowning. Her gaze darts to Gil quickly, then away. “I know this is a big ask, Jenna, and a long-shot, but you didn’t happen to take any photos, did you? Of what was going on?”

  A memory leaps to mind. Me hiding behind my camera lens, like alway
s. “I tried to, actually,” I say. “It was really dim, and I couldn’t get a clear shot. I don’t know if there’ll be much to them…”

  “We might be able to get our computer guys to enhance the film,” Stacey speaks over me. “Would you mind handing the raw footage over to me? Any photos from that night, actually. Who knows what we might be able to see, what might crop up in some.”

  “Of course,” I answer, straight away.

  “Thank you.” Stacey taps on the recorder she’s wearing. “That’s all for now, Jenna. But if you can stay in town, I’ll be in touch about those pictures soon.”

  “Sure thing.” There’s another long pause, as all three of us assess one another.

  Then Gil extends his arm to me. “I’ll walk you back into town,” he offers. “Not safe to be alone out here. Not lately.”

  Stacey grunts an assent, and then, with another long, searching look at us both, she starts to walk back toward town first, a little ahead, to give us enough space to talk. For that, I’m grateful. That is, until Gil slips his hand over mine, tugs me into motion, and casts a sideways glance down at me.

  “So, Jenna. I think it’s time we talked about keeping secrets.”

  11

  Jenna

  I think it’s time we talked about keeping secrets.

  I nearly trip over my own feet when Gil says that. Somehow, I manage to keep myself upright. I focus on Stacey’s retreating back—I notice she walks far enough ahead not to overhear our conversation, but not so far she’d be out of shouting range, if I needed her. I hope she’s wrong about Gil, and that I don’t need this kind of protection around him.

  But I’m grateful for it, anyway.

  “When were you going to tell me?” Gil asks softly.

  My heart stutters. “Tell you what?” Then I shake my head, and tug on my arm. He tightens his grip, pins me there. “And why were you out there in the woods that night anyway, Gil? Detective Hartman is right; I didn’t see you until after I saw those figures—”