Alone in the Wild

by Kelley Armstrong

  No, that isn’t entirely true. It would have been when she first arrived. Now, there is a chance she’ll be out, not exactly socializing but at least interacting. Inviting someone into her home is too much. She’s been known to haul the toilet tank onto her back porch for pickup to avoid having anyone come inside.

  April opens the door as I’m reaching for a second knock.

  “What are you doing back?” she says.

  “Nice to see you, too, April.”

  Her brows crease, as if she’s trying to figure out why it would be nice to see her. Isabel—a former psychologist—believes my sister is on the autism spectrum, undiagnosed because my parents refused to see anything “wrong” with their brilliant older daughter. They had enough trouble dealing with their rebellious younger one. To them, a diagnosis of even mild autism would have meant April was intellectually imperfect, and so they instead let her struggle through life, a gifted neurosurgeon and neuroscientist unable to form all but the most tenuous of personal relationships, lonely and alone and never knowing why. My parents screwed up my life in so many ways, but compared to what they did to my sister, I got off easy.

  When we raised the possibility of autism with April, I’d been terrified she’d see it as sibling envy—me trying to knock down my brilliant older sister. I’d been convinced otherwise by a joint coalition of Isabel, Kenny, and Dalton … and they’d been right, which is humiliating to admit, proving how little I know my sister. Too much familiarity and too little actual understanding, a lifetime of trying to get to know her and, when I couldn’t, creating her wholesale.

  April was fine with the diagnosis. She treated it the way I would have: like a physical ailment. Here’s the problem, and now that we know what it is, let’s tackle that. Relief, I think, at giving it a name.

  “I brought you a body,” I say.

  Her frown deepens, and she’s looking for some alternate meaning in this. A sign that I’m joking.

  “I found a murdered woman in the forest,” I say.

  Now she relaxes, and I get the April I know well, rolling her eyes at her feckless little sister. “Really? You don’t have to make the world’s problems your own, Casey.”

  “You know me. Can’t relax. Always looking for work. If I don’t have it, I make some.” I pause. “Which does not mean I made this dead body. That would be wrong.”

  A pause. Then, “That’s a joke, isn’t it?”

  I clap her on the arm as I propel her back into the house. “Yes, April. It’s a joke.” I pull shut the door before she can protest. “Don’t worry—I’m not coming in for tea. I found something else, which I’d rather not broadcast.”

  SIX

  After I explain, we head out April’s back door and across her yard to the clinic’s rear entrance. As we do, she says, “I hope you’re not thinking of adopting this child, Casey.”

  I tense so fast my spine crackles. “No, I’m not stealing someone’s baby, April.”

  “The mother is dead. That is not stealing.”

  “Presumably the father is alive, and potentially other family, which I’m going to find.”

  “Good. This isn’t a stray puppy.”

  My teeth barely part enough for me to say, “I’m aware of that,” but one of my sister’s cognitive challenges is interpreting body language, so she ignores that and continues.

  “There is no place in your life for a baby, Casey. I realize you’re comfortable here, and you’ve settled into a long-term relationship with Eric, but this is not a situation for motherhood.”

  “I found a baby with a dead mother. Buried under the snow. Alone and in distress. I brought her back to Rockton so she doesn’t die, not to fill a hole in my life.”

  “There is no hole in your life. You have Eric, and you have Storm, and you have Rockton and your job. You are happier and more satisfied than I have ever known you to be.”

  I answer slowly, keeping my tone even. “I appreciate the fact that you recognize I’m happy, April. And there isn’t a baby-size hole in my life. I just happened to find a child, whom I intend to return to her family. Just because I’m a woman in a happy romantic relationship doesn’t mean my ovaries go into hyperdrive seeing a baby.”

  “Good.”

  I push open the back door of the clinic with a little more force than necessary. I tell myself that April isn’t being patronizing. I’ve spent my life dealing with this from her, and I’m trying to understand that she doesn’t mean it the way it sounds.

  Yet it’s also a constant reminder that my sister put me into my box when we were young, and nothing I’ve done since then has—or possibly ever will—let me escape it. I’m reckless. I’m impulsive. I’m thoughtless, rushing headlong into every bad decision life offers. My sole consolation is that anyone who knows me would laugh at all those descriptors.

  Inside, Dalton and Anders have the baby on the examining table. As soon as I see that, I barrel into the room and snatch her up.

  “You can’t leave her on that,” I say. “What if she rolls off?”

  “She can’t even lift her head, Casey,” Anders says.

  “Which doesn’t mean she can’t wriggle. Or slide.”

  He snickers. “Slide off a flat surface?”

  “You are both correct,” April says. “It is almost certainly safe, given the child’s lack of mobility, but a slippery metal table still doesn’t seem like the safest place to set a baby.” She aims a look at Anders.

  “Hey, I’m not the one who put her there,” Anders says. “And Eric literally just unwrapped her as you two came in.”

  April nods at Dalton, as if to say that if he did it, then it’s fine. The first time they met, she referred to him as my fuck toy, and I’m not sure what was more shocking, the word coming from my very proper sister or the sentiment coming from my very straitlaced sister. In the last six months, she’s done a complete about-face, and now, if Dalton does something, then it’s the right thing to do. I’m totally on board with her not treating my lover like trash, but I can’t help wishing I could get a little of that approval thrown my way.

  “Eric?” she says. “It’s a bit chilly in here for the baby. Could you…?” She looks over to see he’s already starting the fire, and she nods, pleased that her trust is so well placed. Anders and I exchange a look.

  I hold the baby until the fire’s blazing and the chill is leaving the room. Then I lay her on the exam table.

  “Would you take over?” I ask Dalton. “I need to find something for her to eat.”

  “Yes,” April says, not looking up from her examination of the baby. “We’ll need formula and bottles. Also diapers, for the inevitable after-products of feeding. Tell the general store to put together a box of all their infant supplies.”

  Anders, Dalton, and I all look at one another.

  “Uh,” I say. “We don’t carry infant supplies. We don’t … have any infants.”

  “In case you haven’t noticed that in the past six months,” Anders murmurs.

  April shoots us both a glare of annoyance. “Yes, I have noticed there are currently no babies, but I’m sure there are supplies in storage for them.”

  “There aren’t,” I say. “We don’t ever have babies here. Or children. Or even teenagers.”

  She glances at Dalton.

  “Yeah,” he says. “I was special. But Casey’s right. We don’t allow anyone under eighteen, and there’s a reason why we have a shitload of condoms and diaphragms and every other method of contraception. We’re not equipped to handle childbirth or children.”

  April flutters a hand at me. “Just get … whatever.”

  * * *

  As I hurry through town, I’m trying to figure out what I can get. Milk is the obvious choice. We have it in powdered form, and I know that’s less than ideal, but it’s that or nothing.

  As I’m racking my brain for alternate foods, I keep thinking, Oh, I can google that. For someone raised on modern technology, it’s a natural instinct. Well, unless it’s a med
ical question, where even “I have an odd rash on my thumb” will lead to “Cancer! Death! Plague!”

  Sixteen months in Rockton have not yet rerouted my neural circuits enough to keep me from reaching toward my pocket every time I have a research question. Now, instead of a cell phone, I carry a notepad, where I can write down all those questions for the next time I’m in Dawson City with internet access. This problem won’t wait that long.

  I need to find a resident who has had a child. That should be easy enough in a town full of people in their prime child-rearing years. Yet that is exactly what makes this not easy at all. Like Dalton said, we don’t allow children. We also don’t allow spouses. You come alone. You leave everything—and everyone—behind. That means that if you’re deeply devoted to a partner, you won’t come to Rockton. If you have kids, you won’t come to Rockton. There are exceptions, I’m sure, where the danger is so great that you say goodbye to your family for two years. But single and childless is the normal.

  I don’t even know who has grown children. Residents reveal only what they want and invent whatever backstory fits who they choose to be while they’re here.

  That’s when I spot the one person I know for certain has had a child.

  Petra is coming out of the general store after her shift. Before I can catch up, another resident stops to talk to her. I hear them discussing art that the resident has commissioned as a Hanukkah gift. Down south, Petra had been a comic-book artist. Well, after she spent a decade as special ops in the United States. She’s also resumed the latter job here, as a spy and—at least in one case—assassin for her grandmother, one of the town’s early residents and current board members.

  Until six months ago, I’d have said Petra was my closest friend in Rockton. The whole “actually a spy and assassin” part has put a damper on that. Petra and I have resumed some form of cautious relationship. We’re not going to sit around braiding each other’s hair but we weren’t exactly doing that before either. It had been a stable, steady, comfortable friendship, and it no longer is, and I mourn that.

  When Petra sees I’m waiting to speak to her, she wraps up her conversation quickly. I motion her over to a gap between the general store and the next building.

  “We have a baby,” I say.

  Before I can explain, she says, “You’re having a—?”

  “No, we found a baby abandoned in the forest. She’s very, very young, and we’re … We’re a little lost. We don’t exactly have baby guides in the library, and I could really use some help.”

  When I’d first hailed Petra, her step had lightened, and she’d smiled as she walked over. Now the remains of that smile freeze before sliding away.

  “I…” She swallows. “I can’t really…”

  “Was that a lie?” I say. “About your daughter?”

  Confusion flashes, and then anger. “Of course not. What kind of person would make up…”

  She trails off because she realizes the answer to that. A child’s death is exactly the kind of tragic backstory anyone with her training might give. I have no idea specifically what she used to do. “Special ops” is as much as she’ll say, but if she’s done any spy or interrogation work, she knows only a stone-cold bitch wouldn’t have been affected by the story of her daughter, so I must question it.

  “No,” she says, quieter now. “I would hope you’d know I wouldn’t make up something like that, but yes, I get it. Anything I know about babies, I’ll happily pass along, though I’ll warn that my ex was the expert parent. I meant that if you’re looking for someone to care for this baby?” She manages a wry smile. “I’ll stick to dog-sitting.”

  “I understand. If you can pop by the clinic and give us anything—maybe some sense of how old the baby is—that’d be great. Right now, though, we need food. She’s not rolling over or lifting her head yet, and as little as I know about babies, I realize that means she’s still on an all-liquid diet.”

  “Damn, she really is young. Okay, well, I guess milk will have to do until you can get into Dawson for formula. We’ll need to rig up something to use as a bottle. Let’s go into the store. I have a couple of ideas—”

  “You have a baby?” a voice says.

  I glance over my shoulder and wince. “Does this look like a private conversation, Jen?”

  “Fuck, yeah. Why do you think I’m eavesdropping?”

  I used to joke that I always wanted a nemesis. I mean, it sounds cool, and I’m not the type of person who makes enemies easily. Neither friends nor enemies. In Rockton, I have more of the former than ever. I also have my first nemesis, and she’s standing right in front of me.

  “Jen…” I say.

  “You know, Detective, everyone keeps talking about how smart you are. Not as smart as your sister, but still fucking brilliant. Yet I really have to wonder sometimes. You brought a baby into town, and you think you can keep that a secret? This entire town is going to hear exactly what you’re hiding within … Oh, I’ll bet two hours. Petra, you want in?”

  “You know what I want to lay bets on, Jen?” Petra says. “How long you can go without insulting Casey. I’ll give that two hours, though I might be granting you too much credit.”

  “Someone has to keep our detective on her toes,” Jen says. “And it sure as hell won’t be you, Miss Artiste. Go draw some rainbows and flowers, think happy thoughts, and keep polishing your nicest-girl-in-town title. You can keep it.”

  I look at Petra, and I choke on a laugh.

  “What?” Jen said.

  I turn to Jen. “Yes, there’s a baby. Yes, people will figure it out. But right now, that baby needs to eat, and we have to figure out what to give her and how to feed her.”

  “Powdered milk with an extra fifty percent water plus sugar.”

  We both look at Jen.

  “That’s why I interrupted your conversation,” she says. “It was too painful listening to you both flounder. A baby needs formula, but watered down and sugared milk will do in an emergency.”

  “You have kids?” I say.

  “God, no. I was a midwife.”

  Now Petra and I are staring.

  “I thought you were a teacher,” I say, and I’m still struggling to reconcile that with the woman I know. Jen certainly looks like she could have been a teacher—well groomed, late thirties, pleasant appearance—but I cannot imagine her interacting with children. I don’t want to.

  “You know how much a primary school teacher makes? I was a midwife on the side. Also did some day care in the summer, and I specialized in babies.”

  “Whoa,” Petra says. “I finally know why you’re here. It wasn’t a real day care, was it? You were secretly conducting Satanic rituals on children.”

  “Oh, ha ha. That’s actually not bad. You get a point for that one, blondie, but no, my kids were just fine. I like children. It’s once they hit puberty that they become assholes. Now let’s go get what you need.”

  SEVEN

  By the time we return to the clinic, April has her report ready. The baby is dehydrated and had mild hypothermia but not frostbite. She appears to be healthy. April estimates she’s approximately a month old. All of this is what I expected. Even the negatives—the dehydration and hypothermia—are minor and easily reversed. She does ask one question that makes me smack myself for not considering it before.

  Were the blankets soiled when I found her?

  The baby had been naked and wrapped in hide blankets. No diaper. My very preliminary exam on her mother’s body suggested the woman had been dead for hours when I found the baby. The baby has been wrapped in the same blanket ever since. Yet there are no bowel movements in it, and no obvious sign of urination. When I sniff-test, I do smell uric acid, but only faintly. So even before her mother died, the baby hadn’t eaten in a while. Is that significant? Maybe not, but it’s something for me to remember. It also means she’s very, very hungry now. Hungry enough to gobble down our makeshift formula without complaint.

  Dalton feeds her. When he’s
done and Jen says, “Now you need to burp her,” he hands her to me, and I awkwardly pat her back until Jen says, “Burp her, not jump-start her.” She takes the baby. “You really don’t have any idea what you’re doing, do you?”

  “No,” April says. “It isn’t a skill Casey needs when she cannot have children.”

  Silence falls. Dalton’s opening his mouth when Anders says, “And that’s no one’s business except Casey’s, but thanks for broadcasting it, April. I’m sure your sister appreciates that.”

  April turns on him in genuine bafflement. “I was stating a medical fact. It’s hardly Casey’s fault—”

  “It’s okay,” I say. “Yes, these aren’t skills I possess, so I appreciate Jen’s help.”

  Anders and Dalton quickly change the subject, but I feel the weight of Jen’s gaze, and even if I can’t tell what she’s thinking, I squirm under that.

  April is right. Saying I can’t have kids should be no different than saying I’m deaf in one ear or my pancreas doesn’t produce insulin. It’s a medical issue, beyond my control.

  I’ve heard people admit that being unable to have kids makes them feel less like a woman. That’s not me at all. I just feel … I feel as if an opportunity has been snatched from me, this thing I wasn’t sure I wanted, but I would like to have had the option. I don’t, and that stings, and it’s stung more in the past few hours than I ever imagined it could.

  I let Jen handle the burping while I talk to April about the baby’s mother. I might not be able to burp the baby properly, but here’s something I can do for her. I am a detective, and if her mother holds any clues to tell me where this baby belongs, I’m getting them from her.

  * * *

  We’ve put Jen in charge of the baby. I cannot believe I’m saying that. I’m definitely not comfortable with it, but we don’t have a lot of options. Dalton and I need to be with April for the autopsy, and Anders has a town to manage.