SW01 - The Edge of Nowhere

by Elizabeth George

  A FLURRY OF gutter whispers hurled at them. Becca knew without seeing who was approaching. She wasn’t surprised when Jenn screeched up and braked in the dust at the side of the road.

  “What the hell’re you doing here? Get out of the way. Don’t you see what’s going on?” More gutter whispers followed but Becca could tell Jenn didn’t want to say them in front of Derric although if Derric hadn’t been standing at her side still with his hand on her arm, Becca knew Jenn would have let loose. “These’re bicycle trials and you’re in the way! What’s the matter with you? Are you a retard or something? I thought you couldn’t get out here anyway. Why’d you come? Worried there might be a cash register around?”

  Becca fell back a step. The heat of Jenn’s anger was far stronger than the smoke of Derric’s whispers.

  Derric’s grip on her tightened. He said, “Seth brought her. It’s cool, Jenn.”

  Jenn’s eyes widened. She hooted. “Seth Darrow? Wow. You’re a deep one, huh?” Her glance went from Becca to Derric to Derric’s hand on Becca’s arm. Then she seemed to catch sight of the bag from the Star Store that Becca was holding, the bag with the pumpkins and the Doritos inside. She said with a smirk, “So what’s that, then? Your lunch or your score?”

  Becca said in a stumble of words, “It’s . . . well . . . there’s pumpkins.” She was too embarrassed to add that there were Doritos as well, all things considered. Jenn was as trim as a cheetah, and she didn’t need to know there were reasons that Becca herself was heading on the fast track to l-a-r-d. She added, stupidly, “I got them for Debbie’s kids.”

  Jenn rolled her eyes. “Aren’t you the little saint. Like no one knows why you hang around those kids, Beck-kuh.” She shook her head, gave a laugh, and took off again.

  When she was gone, Becca realized Derric still had his hand on her arm, but his grip had loosened and now he was patting her and his whisper was sorry . . . oh gosh . . . stupid, although he didn’t say anything. She was the one to speak.

  She said, “Why’s she hate me so much?”

  Derric moved his hand briefly from her arm to her shoulder. “It’s not you. Okay?”

  “Who is it, then? ’Cause the way I see it, I haven’t done a thing to her except see a ten and not a twenty.”

  Derric looked confused. “What?” he asked her.

  “Never mind,” she told him. “It’s dumb. Forget it.”

  * * *

  TEN

  The first outside job that Debbie had for Becca in exchange for her room at the motel came on Saturday following the bike trials on Goss Lake. It wasn’t too huge a job, Debbie told her that morning, but it was a bit dirty. Still it needed doing.

  The job turned out to involve the entire front of the motel. There, flower beds ran along the two streets at whose junction the Cliff Motel sat, and they also formed a border between the motel rooms and the parking lot. Just outside the door to room 444, Debbie placed a bucket of tools, a huge container of bulb food, and two dozen bags crammed with bulbs. Autumn, she said, was the time for planting. She herself was heading out for groceries, along with Chloe and Josh.

  Once Debbie and the kids had rumbled off, Becca got out the cell phone. So far, she’d continued to phone Laurel. So far, Laurel had continued not to respond. Unable to help it, Becca had begun to dwell on the unthinkable: that somehow Jeff Corrie had managed to track her mother. If he had found Laurel, then she would have ditched her cell phone as soon as she saw him. There was no way she’d want him to be able to trace Becca, and that cell phone would have been one of the ways.

  Once again when Becca tried, there was no contact. She told herself Laurel was okay, okay, okay, okay. She shoved the phone in her pocket and began with the bulbs. Each bag held more than a dozen, she saw. With two dozen bags to deal with, she was going to be at it for quite a while.

  She’d never planted bulbs before because bulbs didn’t do well in San Diego. So when she emptied the first bag, she picked up a bulb and tried to decide which way it was supposed to go into the ground. It seemed to her that the pointy end went down first, so that was how she began to plant them. She’d done the first four bags when a car drove into the parking lot behind her, and she stood up and brushed off her knees, ready to greet a potential customer for the Cliff Motel.

  The car was a Volkswagen: Seth’s. In the passenger seat sat a yellow Labrador. As soon as Seth opened his door to get out, the dog leaped over him and loped to Becca. His tail wagged so hard that his entire butt swayed. He was in among the bulbs before she could stop him. He started digging immediately.

  “Gus!” Seth shouted. “Hey, cut it out! Sorry, Becca. He’s just a pup.”

  Gus didn’t look like a pup to her, but Becca figured Seth meant he was still very young. He certainly wasn’t well trained because, despite Seth’s words, he just kept digging.

  Seth dragged him off, telling him he was a very bad dog. Gus didn’t appear to be bothered by this. He leaped up and licked Seth on the mouth.

  “Bleagh!” was Seth’s good-natured response. He grabbed a leash from the front seat and looped it through the VW’s bumper. He attached the dog to it and then came over to see what Becca was doing.

  She plopped a few more bulbs in the ground, telling him she was planting them for Debbie. Seth asked what she expected the bulbs to do.

  “What d’you mean? They’re supposed to be flowers next spring. Tulips and daffodils and . . .” She looked at one of the bags, “and hyacinths.”

  “Got it,” he replied. “Except they won’t grow as good as they would if you planted them right side up.”

  “What? Oh no!” Becca picked up one of the bulbs and looked at it. Didn’t pointy ends always go down? she wondered.

  Seth said, “How many’d you put in so far?”

  “Four bags.”

  “Bummer.” He scratched his head and looked from the dog to her. “What the hey,” he said, “I’ll help you. Fair exchange.”

  “For what?”

  “Helping me out with Gus after.”

  “What’re you doing with him?”

  “Taking him to Saratoga Woods for a run. So we got to be fast here or he’ll eat his way out of the leash.”

  Fast, then, was what they were, especially since Seth set about with the digging. They had just completed the job when Debbie returned with Josh and Chloe. Seth was sweeping the extra dirt back into the flower beds and Becca was picking up the empty bulb sacks and the tools. She heard the SUV and turned as Debbie parked it.

  Josh and Chloe came tumbling out, crying, “Doggie! Dog!” at Gus, and the dog responded by leaping, barking, and straining at his leash to get to the kids. The feelings that came from them felt like marshmallows to Becca: soft and sugary. But when Debbie got out of the truck and slammed its door, Becca felt her whispers, which were strong and angry. She heard pothead and loser, and she saw Debbie was looking poison daggers at Seth and Seth was turning from the flower bed farthest from Debbie’s car. His expression grew wary.

  Seth nodded and said, “Hey, Mrs. Grieder,” and Debbie said, “What’re you hanging around here for, Seth Darrow?”

  Becca said hastily, “Seth helped me with the bulbs. This is so dumb. I was planting them sort of wrong.”

  To one side, Gus was still barking and jumping. The kids had knelt in front of him. He was licking their faces when he wasn’t trying to jump onto their backs and Josh called out to Seth, “C’n we let him off the leash?”

  “Heck no,” Seth said pleasantly. “He’d probably make a run for it. But you c’n hold on to the leash if you want. His name’s Gus. Here . . .” He strode over to the VW and unwound the leash from the car’s bumper. He handed this over to Josh, who immediately got dragged around the parking lot and, ultimately, around the side of the motel in the direction of the vacant lot. Chloe followed, laughing. Becca felt their joy. It was as strong as their grandmother’s anguish.

  Seth seemed to feel it, too. Or, as Becca thought, he knew what it was about and where it came
from. He quickly opened the door of the VW and flipped the driver’s seat forward. He said over his shoulder, “I brought this by for Becca, Mrs. Grieder. It’s better than what she has, and now I’ve got Sammy—”

  “Who’s Sammy?” Debbie’s voice had an edge. “I thought the dog was Gus.”

  Seth said, “Sammy’s the car.” He ducked his head inside and began to wrestle with something in the back.

  Becca couldn’t see how he’d managed it, but Seth had somehow crammed a bike into the back of his Volkswagen Bug. He brought it forth and smacked his hand down on its seat. He said to Becca, “Road bike. Twenty-seven gears. A little old but it works fine, and I greased it up. I’ll show you how to ride it.”

  “What, now?” Debbie glanced in the direction the kids had gone with Gus. Excited barking sounded. She said, “Is it safe for the kids to be around that dog?”

  “Yeah. But I’ll go get him.” Seth leaned the bike against the car and jogged around the side of the building. He called, “Hey, you dumb dog!”

  Becca looked at Debbie. Debbie was looking at the bike. Not was between them in the sunny autumn air. Becca couldn’t tell exactly what the not referred to, but from what Seth had told her about Debbie’s daughter, she figured it had to do with getting hurt while riding a bike. She said to Debbie, “I traded with him. I bartered.”

  Debbie tore her gaze from the bike and said, “What?” as she quickly pulled some cigarettes from the pocket of her jacket.

  “I told Seth I’d help him with Gus in exchange for helping me with the bulbs.”

  “How’s he need help with Gus?”

  “Running him.”

  “Where?”

  “Saratoga Woods.”

  At that, Becca could hear the alarm bells go off in Debbie’s head. They might have been ringing all over town so loud were they. The bells were followed by oh yeah . . . run . . . that’s it, which seemed to suggest that Debbie thought she was lying.

  She said to Debbie, “I sort of promised him. He did help me, and I kind of want to pay him back. Anything else you need me to do first?”

  Debbie said, “No,” as Seth and the kids came back around the side of the building, this time with Seth in possession of the leash. “No, you go ahead to the woods. If that’s what you want to do.”

  Chloe and Josh heard this and began to clamor to go to the woods, too. Seth said, “Sure. More the merrier,” and looked to Debbie for permission.

  She said, “Time for you to have lunch,” to the kids.

  Seth said, “I’ve got tuna sandwiches. Only two, but we could all share.”

  Debbie said shortly, “No way. The kids stay here. Have a nice time, Becca,” and she went to the SUV, and started jerking grocery bags out of it.

  THEY DIDN’T TALK about Debbie once they left the Cliff Motel. Instead, with Gus panting noisily in the backseat behind them, they rumbled down the slope of Second Street, where a cluster of people were sitting at tables eating and drinking in front of a coffeehouse called Useless Bay Coffee. Guitar music was coming from someone playing in a band shell there. It was fine and complicated. Just for a moment Seth slowed to listen.

  He said to Becca, “That’s me in six months. Gypsy jazz.”

  “You play guitar? Like that?” she asked him, impressed.

  “Guitar,” he told her, “is pretty much my life.”

  The day was bright, and the air was crisp, and it came to Becca once again how different this place was from what she was used to. There, if the sun was out, the day was probably going to be warm. Here, the sunlight meant only that the dawning autumn colors were going to be brighter and the sky was going to be bluer than blue.

  Saratoga Woods turned out to be a couple of winding, tree-shrouded miles from the town, just across the road from Saratoga Passage, which glittered and heaved in the day’s bright sunlight. The woods showed itself as a wealth of forest that climbed a hill across an expanse of meadow. A parking lot just off the road held five cars and a truck. The truck Becca recognized immediately. The woman who’d given her a ride on her very first night on the island, Diana Kinsale, was somewhere in the forest. Like Seth, Becca figured, she was probably there with her dogs.

  Seth made sure Gus was on his leash, telling Becca that they’d let him off for a really good run once they got through the meadow and onto one of the trails. If he took off before then, Seth said, they’d be sunk because no way would they be able to catch him. He was too fast and the woods were too thick. They were vast, too.

  Becca didn’t have the AUD box with her. She’d not been using it while planting the bulbs, and she’d not dug it out of her room before setting off with Seth. So the first thing she heard as they crossed the meadow was the rustling of whispers, barely audible but definitely there. Along with those whispers came a subtle scent that she knew at once.

  She looked around, back the way they had come. No one was nearby. There were only cars, the truck, and an information board beneath a sheltering roof that protected it from bad weather. Against one of the poles that held up this roof, a bicycle was chained.

  Becca looked from that bike to the forest. A rush of warm sweet air came at her, which could have been the sunlight warming a breeze except here there was no breeze. What was there was that scent again, the fragrance of cooking fruit.

  She looked at Seth, but he hadn’t seemed to notice anything. He bent down when they came to a trailhead dipping into the shadows, and he unhooked Gus from his leash.

  They began their walk. Everything went perfectly for about five minutes: They strolled into the woods along a path where the ground was springy and smelled richly of decomposing leaves while Gus dashed off, snuffled at the smells, lifted his leg against some huckleberry bushes, and came loping happily back to Seth for a treat.

  Then some barking started, and things went south. Gus raised his head. He barked joyfully in return. And just as Seth read his intentions and yelled, “Gus, stay!” the dog took off. Clearly, there were canine companions to be had in Saratoga Woods. The yellow Lab shot up the trail and disappeared into the trees.

  Seth said, “Oh damn! I’ve got to catch him,” and he took off at a run as well. He was yelling, “Gus, stay! Stay!” as he dashed in the dog’s wake.

  Becca followed. Gus’s barking grew distant and it wasn’t long before she saw why. She came to a three-pronged fork in the trail and there were no indications which way Seth and the dog had gone.

  BECCA STOPPED. THE air was cool under looming hemlocks, cedars, and Douglas firs. It was also teeming with whispers. They were oddly strong, despite no one being close by, as if people were hiding behind every tree. They spoke of longing and desperation. They seemed to reveal confusion, anger, and despair. They came from every direction at once.

  Becca had had experience with whispers from the time that she’d been four years old. But these were too much for her to contend with. She felt a dizziness come over her, as if the whispers were an unseen hand that was spinning her around as she tried to distinguish them one from the other. Playing along with them like a constant undercurrent was Derric’s sweet scent.

  So he was indeed here. So was Diana, along with her dogs. And because of all the cars in the parking lot, there were other people, too. Somewhere, they were doing something. And they weren’t terribly far away.

  She had to choose a trail. She called for Seth. Then she yelled for Gus. In return came barking, but she couldn’t tell which direction had sent it. So she chose the left fork, and within fifty yards she was climbing. She scrambled past the exposed gnarled roots of an ancient cedar and brushed against tall elderberry bushes.

  She heard a yell then. It sounded like Seth. She yelled back and more dogs barked. The trail got narrow, climbed ever higher, made a hairpin turn, was broken by stones, and burst out of the trees. The sudden sun caused Becca to shield her eyes and stumble, and then she felt the assault of dizziness again. She fell back, a hand out. It made contact with a tree stump, and she lowered herself to this. She was out
of breath from the climb. She was also dismayed from being what she was at the moment, which was completely lost.

  She made herself try to ignore the whispers, to put some effort into thinking straight. But then there were dogs coming at her. They were barking with excitement, and one of them jumped and knocked her from the tree stump to the ground.

  Snuffling ensued: dog noses everywhere. With the snuffling came a shout of, “Dogs!” and Becca knew immediately that Diana Kinsale was there. Had she not been, Becca would have recognized the dogs quickly enough, especially since the number one place they were sniffing was the jacket pocket in which she’d kept the sugar cookies she’d bought on the ferry. She was getting to her feet and pushing the animals to one side when the black poodle, Oscar, joined the pack, trailing his leash. And just behind him was Gus. She tried to grab him the second he got close, but he danced away.

  Diana commanded, “All dogs come.”

  Just like that, they did as they were told, all except Gus, who trotted a safe distance from Becca and watched, eyes bright, tail wagging, and obviously waiting for more of the game called Chase. Diana said to Becca, “Did they knock you over? I’m sorry. They’re harmless but they shouldn’t . . . Why, hello. It’s the girl with the bike. Becca, yes?”

  Becca got to her feet, one eye on Gus to keep him in sight. “They didn’t knock me over. I was sitting on the stump. I sort of slipped.”

  Diana said, “D’you need a leash for him?” meaning Gus. She took the one from the poodle’s neck, saying, “Oscar doesn’t really need it. You can use it. Is he your dog?”

  “Gus? No. He belongs to Seth.”

  “Seth Darrow?” Diana spoke in a way that suggested she not only knew Seth Darrow by name but also by something else. “Which way did he go?”