Hazardous Homecoming

by Dana Mentink

He nodded. “Meeting with the river preservation league.” He paused. “Can you handle the three o’clock group?”

  Ruby started. She’d nearly forgotten she was leading a sanctuary tour for a group of twelve birding enthusiasts. Excellent. Maybe it would get her mind off the insanity and back on track. She considered the crowning moment of the tour, the point where the group paused at the overlook to watch the eagles feed.

  “Aside from the tour, I think it would be best for you to stay inside today while I’m out, until the sheriff can look into the shooting.”

  “We surprised whoever was going after the locket. I don’t think it will happen again.”

  “Still...”

  “I have to check on those baby birds, Dad. I’m not going to hole up here like a scared rabbit.” She had the feeling she’d done too much of that already. “When do you think the police will be done in the cave?”

  He heaved out a breath. “They’re probably already done with the preliminaries. I imagine they will release a statement today.”

  Her breath caught. “After all these years. I can’t believe it’s really over.”

  He got up and embraced her tightly. “We’re going to get through this, and then we can get back to normal.”

  Would there ever be a normal? “Dad, who do you think took Alice?”

  He released her to arm’s length. “The likeliest person is usually the one who did it.”

  Her breath grew short. “Peter?”

  He didn’t answer. “It’s a bad idea for you to be around that family.”

  “But what if you’re wrong?”

  “The Stokeses represent the worst moment of your life. Do you really want that constant reminder?”

  She took her father’s hand, rough and calloused from the constant work outdoors, his cotton shirt stained by the oil paints he used to capture the glory of the Hudson Sanctuary raptors on canvas. “Pretending it didn’t happen isn’t going to work. I have to face it.”

  “And you think Cooper is going to help you do that?”

  She blushed. How had he become aware of her attachment to Cooper? Was it that obvious? “He’s just a good man. I didn’t trust him at first, but I think I’m beginning to.”

  “Bee, blood is thicker than water and things are going to explode with the discovery of the body. Cooper will defend his brother even if it means causing you pain. Remember that.”

  She pulled away. “He wouldn’t hurt me.”

  “He would, and what’s more he’d do anything to save his kin.”

  “How do you know that, Dad?”

  Her father seemed to age before her eyes. The light revealed patches of gray in his formerly dark hair, deep creases in his forehead. “Because Bee,” he said softly, “I would do the same to save mine.”

  She did not know what to say to the man she’d thought she’d known so thoroughly. Now he seemed an enigma. “What are you thinking, Dad? Why do I get the feeling there’s something you’re not telling me?”

  He stepped back and twirled the stub of a pencil between his fingers, looking out the window. “Your mother never liked the country. She was a city girl, all the way. After you two came along, I kept trying to convince her to move. We took a vacation here and I fell in love with the land, but she never did. Boy did we battle over it. Worst fights we ever had.”

  Ruby thought about the lovely dresses, the chic clothes, the pictures of her mother’s European travels before she met her husband. She smiled. “I can imagine.”

  “After she died, I packed up as soon as I could manage it, sold the house and bought this property.” He looked toward the splendor of the sun lighting the latticework of branches. “I love it here, with every fiber of my being. Selfish of me, maybe, to have moved you here because it’s where I wanted to be.”

  “Not selfish. We love it, too, Dad.”

  “But I know deep down it isn’t what your mother wanted and sometimes...” He sighed. “I wonder if it was a mistake.”

  She wanted desperately to comfort him. “It wasn’t.”

  He looked at her then, with eyes that saw down to the secret place. “You’re a lot like her.”

  It was as if he knew she put on her mother’s clothes sometimes, admiring the elegant garments in the mirror, and read the romance stories her mother had left behind about brave dukes and feisty governesses. Her cheeks heated up.

  “She wanted other things for you, wanted you to go to church and learn about God.”

  Ruby knew it was a painful subject. “But we never did.”

  “I don’t know how to give you your mother’s faith, Bee. I never understood it.” He let out a long protracted sigh. “I never understood what your mother saw in me, come to think of it, and I guess I don’t understand what you see in Cooper.”

  She folded her arms and gave him a stern look. “There’s no need to lecture me about Cooper. We’re just friends, and he’s only here another few weeks.”

  He fell silent, and she squirmed under the scrutiny, as if she was a little girl again, caught climbing trees in her best new school clothes.

  “I brought us here, Bee.” His voice was soft. “I let you go out on that day when Alice was taken. I...failed to protect you and Alice back then. I’m trying to do it now, to protect you and your brother.”

  Guilt, grief, fear twisted her father’s face, and she could not bear it a single moment longer. She hugged him tightly and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “You can’t protect me from everything, Dad.”

  “I’ve always known in my heart that what happened to Alice would rise up once more. I guess I’ve dreaded it, all these years, having it raked up again.”

  The rumble of an engine interrupted. “That’s Cooper. We’re going to check on the kestrels.” She hoped her voice sounded firm and sure.

  She and her father stepped onto the front porch as Cooper got out with a wave. They were in the middle of a strained round of small talk when another vehicle rolled up. The bottom fell out of Ruby’s stomach.

  Sheriff Pickford moved like a man who had not slept in a very long time. His stubbled chin sagged, and his eyes were hollow and dull. “Sorry to intrude.”

  “No problem,” Perry said. “Come in, you look like you could use some coffee.”

  “I would not say no to that,” Pickford said, as they all followed Perry inside. Cooper took Ruby’s hand and squeezed as they walked up the steps. She had not realized she was trembling.

  “We’ll get through it,” Cooper whispered into her ear. “Together.”

  Together. She clung to the three syllables as they settled at the old Formica table where Alice and Ruby had sat so many years ago, coloring with their crayons and making paper chains.

  Her father poured a steaming cup of coffee from the pot and placed it in front of the sheriff who inhaled deeply and took a swig. He pressed his hands around the ceramic. “Thank you.”

  Ruby couldn’t contain the question. “What did you find out from the cave?”

  Mick joined them, pouring himself a mug of coffee. “Didn’t know you were here, Sheriff.”

  Pickford acknowledged him with a bob of his chin. “We’ve been working at the cave solidly since the discovery. There is a lot of debris so the best we can do is photograph and gradually clear the area without destroying any evidence. The body’s been there for two decades, so it’s unclear how much evidence we can glean from it at this point, but we’re trying our best.”

  Perry nodded. “We know you are.”

  Pickford arched an eyebrow at him. “It’s always cut at me that we didn’t find her twenty years ago.”

  “We all failed that day,” her father said quietly.

  Ruby’s vision blurred with tears. A sense of anguish built inside her that had started that day in the woods and leaped to flame again the mom
ent she’d found the locket. She both dreaded and craved the announcement that Alice had been found, finally. Cooper held her tightly around the shoulders.

  “Sheriff...” her voice broke and she could not ask.

  He seemed to jerk back to the present. “I have to go soon and make a statement to the press after I visit Mrs. Walker in the hospital. Heather Bradford probably already knows everything since she’s been parked just outside the crime-scene tape, eavesdropping. I think she’s even tried to get in to see Josephine.” He shook his head in disgust. “Reporters are vultures.”

  He rose. “Nothing is official yet, but I can tell you that the body found in the cave was not Alice Walker.”

  Ruby shot to her feet, knees wobbly. “What?”

  Cooper gaped. “Who is it then?”

  “We won’t have an official ID for a while,” the sheriff said, placing his mug carefully on the table.

  “How about unofficial?” Mick asked.

  “The skeleton is that of an adult male, and it’s been there for two decades approximately. Unofficially,” he swept the room with a calculating gaze, “I’d say we’ve found the body of Lester Walker.”

  FOURTEEN

  Cooper’s mind raced forward in a series of horrified starts and stops after the sheriff left. The body in the cave, which had lain there for years, was probably that of Lester Walker. It could not be. It was not possible. As they watched the sheriff’s car rumble down the gravel road, he still could not believe it.

  Ruby was the first to speak. “If Lester Walker has been dead all this time, then who attacked us at the Walkers’ house?”

  “And who has been phoning Josephine, pretending to be Lester and trying to get the locket?” Mick finished.

  Ruby bit her lip. “No, none of this matters. The only question, the real question, hasn’t changed.”

  It hadn’t. New uncertainties only muddied the waters, but the core of issue was still the same. Where was Alice Walker?

  But something else was cutting away at Cooper’s insides, a comment, a few words from his brother when they’d told him of the attack by Lester Walker at the cabin.

  It couldn’t have been him, Peter had said. He’d sounded so certain, as if he knew for a fact that Lester was no longer around.

  Cooper felt like sprinting, pounding a path through the forest to find his brother and have his heart put to rest. It was an innocent statement, nothing more. Wasn’t it? He tried to tamp down on the doubt burgeoning in his gut.

  Mick slid a laptop on the table in front of them. “Pickford was right about Heather. Look.”

  It was the local online newspaper for their small town and the byline was Heather Bradford, contributing journalist. Inset into the article was a small photo, a sweet smiling Alice Walker, with one front tooth missing.

  Cooper closed his eyes for a moment. “Oh, man. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.”

  Perry read aloud from the screen.

  “‘A cold case, decades old, has sprung to life again. The long ago abduction of five-year-old Alice Walker from the Hudson Raptor Sanctuary property has remained unsolved, but a new development may be the key toward advancing the investigation. The discovery of a body by Ruby Hudson and Cooper Stokes in a cave near Sunstone Lake awakened fears and hopes that the child abduction might be solved at last, but an unofficial police source stated that the body was not that of a juvenile, but rather a male adult, who died approximately the same time Alice Walker disappeared.’”

  “Pickford is going to have this ‘unofficial source’ strung up by his thumbs,” Mick said.

  Perry flicked a glance at Cooper. “‘The initial person of interest in the Walker abduction was Peter Stokes. At the time Alice Walker disappeared, police also questioned then 17-year-old Mick Hudson, son of the sanctuary owner. There was insufficient evidence to implicate either man in the crime. Perhaps now, with the grisly discovery, the sheriff’s office will be one step closer to finding answers that will serve up justice for little Alice.’” He sighed. “And there’s a nice, smiling picture of Heather Bradford, prizewinning reporter.”

  Cooper shook his head. “She’s raked up the whole fiasco again.”

  “She didn’t mention the locket,” Ruby said.

  “That might give the police a leg up when they do figure out who did this.” Mick sipped coffee, eyes shifting in thought.

  It was clear to Cooper that the discovery of Lester’s body was a shock to all of them. Would it be as much of a shock to Peter?

  Ruby got up from the table, her profile determined. “I’m going to check on the kestrels. Cooper’s going with me,” she added as Mick opened his mouth.

  The air grew thick with tension. The Hudsons might as well have plastered their feelings on a billboard. Mick and Perry did not want Cooper to go anywhere with Ruby. Bad seed, trouble. Peter was still the guilty party, the child abductor, the liar.

  Yet Mick’s name had been mentioned as a suspect right alongside Peter’s. There wasn’t room for a pious, judgmental attitude from people who were no better than the Stokeses. Worry morphed into anger.

  Cooper stood and eyed Perry and Mick, firing off a challenge. “If you want to forbid her from going with me, feel free.” He folded his arms across his chest.

  Neither man spoke until Perry broke the silence. “We want to protect her.”

  “Then we’re after the same thing.” Cooper glared.

  “Surely you can understand...” Perry started.

  “I understand that you used to be kind to my family, Mr. Hudson. You believed in my brother enough to give him work, to let him tag along with Mick sometimes. I understand that we were all traumatized by a crime that ripped our community apart, and that your son was just as much a suspect at the time as my brother.” Cooper let out a harsh laugh. “I guess if I had a daughter, I’d have to ask her to stay away from Mick. I mean, after all, the guy was implicated in a child abduction.” Cooper stalked to the front door and slammed outside.

  He struggled to get his anger in check, to quiet the pulse charging through his veins. After a moment, he felt Ruby’s hand on his arm. Her cheeks were crimson.

  “Cooper, they mean well. It’s been a shock, having the whole thing raked up again.”

  “It’s been a shock for all of us.”

  “Nothing has changed since yesterday when we rode up to the mill together.”

  Nothing had changed? He knew that Mick and Perry had fully expected that Alice’s body would be found and they were hoping for enough physical evidence to put his brother away for life. How could he have let that slip his mind? Ruby was right. Nothing had changed, nothing at all.

  He stepped out of her grasp. “We’d better get this excursion going.”

  “Don’t worry about it if you have other things to do,” she said, a shade too brightly. “I can manage on my own just fine. I’ll make it a quick trip since I have a tour group later today.”

  He thought about her trembling body pressed to his as the gunshot ripped through the air, her determination to risk it all to go to the aid of her brother. Her impulsiveness could get her killed. “No. It’s fine. I need to go into town later, but there’s time for a hike.”

  She nodded and went in the house to fetch a pack and a camera. No doubt she would get another dose of advice from the Hudson men. As he waited, thoughts racing through his mind like a flock of unruly birds, he saw Mick eyeing him out the window.

  He met Mick’s eyes and fired back a challenge. No matter what, I will do what is best for my brother.

  The hard stare told him Mick was thinking the exact same thing about his sister.

  * * *

  They hiked up to the old mill. It was an arduous trek, but Ruby did not think their lack of conversation was due entirely to the exertion. Something was weighing on Cooper, no d
oubt the ugly confrontation at the Hudson home. She wished she could turn back the clock, back to the time when things were right. Then again, things had not been quite right since Alice disappeared.

  Even the sights and smells of spring in the forest could not shake away her dark thoughts. They trudged on, not stopping for more than a couple of minutes to rest. When they reached the nest box adjacent the old mill, Cooper pulled on a sturdy pair of gloves and Ruby handed him the camera.

  “We could have driven up with a ladder, you know.”

  He quirked an eyebrow and suddenly a bit of cheer returned to his face. “And have you miss a chance to admire my climbing prowess? I think not.”

  She was thrilled to see his smile, the partial return of his ebullient spirit that seemed to infect her own. In a few moments he was at the top, peering into the hole. “All birdies present and accounted for,” he called down. “Chirping their little hearts out. Sorry birds, I came without worms again.”

  “Take a picture with your phone first. I need to see.” In a moment, she had it via his text. Three hungry little beaks all vying for a plump insect or small lizard that Cooper could not provide. She made notes in her pocket journal as Cooper took pictures with the camera she’d given him before he inched back down the pole.

  They backed several yards away and sat against the sturdy trunk of a pine to keep watch.

  “Let’s sit for a little while. I want to be sure Daddy kestrel is keeping up with the job.”

  “Poor guy. Not easy being a single parent.”

  She nodded. Wind toyed with the needles above them, releasing a fresh spurt of pine fragrance into the air. “I guess we both know the truth about that. Do you think that’s why you and my brother are so protective? Because you both took over the role of a missing parent?”

  He cocked his head. “Dunno. I try to imagine sometimes how things would have been different if my dad had lived.”

  She found her throat was thick. “Me, too, if mom hadn’t gotten sick.”

  “Is it possible we could have had normal, happy families?” Cooper sighed. “It doesn’t pay to wonder about that, does it?”