I take a deep breath. “Yes, I think it’s possible this woman was attacked by hostiles. Possible. Not even probable.”
“She didn’t come out here alone, right? People don’t do that.”
“Not unless they’re paranoid gold miners, which she isn’t. Her clothing and—”
A gasp. Both of us swivel to see the woman’s eyes open and staring at the ceiling. She blinks twice and then starts to lift her arm.
“Hold on,” I say, leaping to my feet. “You’re—”
Before I can get to her, she realizes she’s restrained and howls in terror, thrashing. I shout at Diana for help, and we steady the bed before the woman’s flailing tips it over.
“It’s okay!” I shout to be heard over her screams. “You’re fine. You’re in a hospital—”
Diana undoes the restraints on the woman’s right arm. I’m so focused on the woman’s face that I don’t see what Diana’s doing until the woman’s freed hand smacks Diana, sending her staggering backward.
“Nein!” Diana says. “Nein!”
Not exactly helpful. If I woke tied to a bed with strangers, I certainly wouldn’t listen if they told me no. I’d only fight harder, and that’s what she does.
I manage to pin the woman’s free arm as I lean over her. “It’s okay. You’re hurt. We’re helping. You’re in a hospital.”
I don’t expect her to understand, but I’m hoping my tone will calm her.
“Hospital,” Diana says. “Krankenhaus. Klinik.” She grabs the second muffin and waves it, as if this is some kind of proof of where we are. Somehow, it works. The woman stops fighting and stares at the muffin.
I pull the eyewash kit from the wall. On the front is a red cross. The symbol for medical care. I hold it up.
“Hospital,” I say. “Krankenhaus.”
The woman pauses. Then her free hand yanks from mine, and she grabs the front of my shirt instead. Her eyes round with desperation as she begins to babble, the way she had last night, the words rushing out.
I set down the eyewash kit, wrap my hand around hers, and lean in carefully. She keeps talking, her voice barely above a whisper, words never stopping even as I glance over at Diana for a translation.
Diana’s eyes widen in panic, and even before she gives a helpless shrug, I know she’s not catching any of this. The woman is talking too fast. I’m considered bilingual, but when Mathias gets caught up in a subject, speaking French, I need to tell him to slow down, much to his annoyance.
“Can you tell her to speak slower?” I ask.
Relief floods Diana’s eyes as she nods. “Kannst du bitte langsamer sprechen?” she says, several times.
The woman doesn’t even glance Diana’s way. She just keeps frantically trying to communicate with me.
“Do you speak any English?” I say.
No response.
“Parlez-vous français?” I try.
She stops, and I think I have it, but she’s only pausing for breath, no recognition in her gaze.
“Sprechen Sie Deutsch?” I ask.
She’s taking deep breaths, but there’s no response.
“Did you understand anything she said?” I ask Diana.
“I … I think maybe … a word or two?”
“Are we sure it’s German?”
“I…”
“Shit,” I mutter.
The woman starts up again, frantically trying to speak as both Diana and I run through our repertoires of languages.
“Are we sure her hearing isn’t damaged?” Diana says finally. “I do think she’s speaking German. It sounds like it, at least.”
“It’s not,” says a voice.
SIX
I look over to see a stranger, and I give a start. With under two hundred people, Rockton is community policing at its purest, where there’s no excuse for me not to know everyone’s name. Okay, occasionally I’ll blank, but even when I substitute “Hey, there” for “Good morning, Heather,” I still recognize the person as a resident of Rockton. And here, standing in the doorway, is a stranger. Male, white, mid-thirties, light-haired, blue-eyed, taller than average, lean build. That could describe a half dozen residents, but my mind screams an alarm, telling me I don’t—
Oh, shit. Yes, I do.
“Hey, Jay,” I say, putting out a hand. I turn to Diana. “Diana, this is Jay. We brought him in yesterday.”
I’ll blame the chaos of the last twelve hours, which had me forgetting that we hadn’t just been getting supplies in Dawson City. We’d flown three residents to the airport and picked up Jay.
Residents coming and going has become routine in Rockton. Most of those who were here when I arrived are now gone. We lost one of our core militia—Sam—in this round.
As callous as it sounds, I’ve learned not to pay too much notice to the new arrivals until they make themselves noteworthy, for better or worse. I don’t know who Jay was or what he did for a living down south, but whatever skills he possesses, they aren’t critical up here, so he’s been assigned to general duty, meaning I’m unlikely to have much contact with him unless he turns out to be a troublemaker. Jay’s pressed clothing and quiet demeanor, though, set my threat rating at low.
Escorting them to Rockton is the extent of law enforcement’s initial involvement with newcomers. With Phil—our council liaison before being exiled to Rockton last year—we have a quasi leader for the first time in over a decade. I say “quasi” because Dalton is still the guy in charge. Phil doesn’t even take second place. That goes to the woman he’s currently sleeping with: Isabel, whose power comes from controlling sex, alcohol, and secrets, the most potent currency in town.
“I was told to come by for a physical,” he says as he turns to Diana. “You’re not Dr. Butler, are you?”
“I’m her assistant. I can perform the physical basics, but I think Casey is a little more interested in what you said when you walked in.”
Diana turns to the woman in the bed, who’s whispering to herself. “That’s not German?”
Jay offers a half smile. “No, sorry. Close, though. It’s Danish.”
“Please tell us you know Danish. Please, please, please…”
Jay’s smile widens, and in that moment, with this champagne-bubbly blonde pleading with him to know Danish, I think if he didn’t, he’d promise to run out and learn it for her.
He gives an awkward chuckle. “You’re in luck. I’m not fluent, but my mom is Danish, and she taught me enough to carry on a conversation. I’m presuming she”—a nod toward the woman—“doesn’t speak English. That’s unusual for a Dane.”
“Her injury led to some mental confusion,” I say.
If he interprets this to mean she’s a resident who temporarily lost a language, I’m okay with that. I’m not eager to tell Jay that the place where he was promised privacy and security has admitted an outsider.
I continue, “We’re trying to figure out exactly what happened, and she’s eager to tell us but…”
“You need a translator. Guess I came by at the right time.” He looks at the patient. “She seems to be asking about someone. I can’t quite make it out though.”
I turn to the woman. She’s whispering under her breath, eyelids sagging, as if her violent outburst sapped her energy.
“Hey,” I say, clasping her hand. “We have someone who can talk to you.”
“Jeg snakker dansk,” Jay says, walking over.
The woman levers up, her still-bound left hand snapping against the restraint. Jay jumps back, but she grabs his sleeve and hauls him to her, fever-bright eyes burning.
I catch her hand, but Jay shakes his head. “It’s okay. She just startled me. I’m guessing those…” He looks at the restraints and gives a soft, strained laugh. “No violent criminals in Rockton, right? That’s what the brochure said.” His laugh turns awkward again as he adds, “Not that there was a brochure,” as if we might not get the joke.
“I totally got the brochure,” Diana says. “Full-color. Glossy. It p
romised a hot tub.” She turns to me. “You know anything about a hot tub here, Case?”
I lift my middle finger, and she laughs and says, “There is a hot tub, but it belongs to the sheriff. He catches you in it without permission?” She draws a line across her throat. “It’s a real tease, having it here. I don’t know who would have gotten it for him. Some sadist.”
Her gaze shoots my way, and Jay laughs louder than the joke deserves. I tell him that the patient is fine—she just had an episode of delirium—and he nods and turns to her, having forgotten his question about violent criminals in Rockton.
Thank you, Diana.
Jay clasps the woman’s shoulder and murmurs something soothing in Danish. She leans toward him, her lips parted, enrapt. She’s in a strange place with people who don’t speak her language and now finally someone does. She listens until he’s finished, and then I expect a fresh stream of frantic Danish, but she only pauses.
“Can you ask her name?” I say.
His voice rises in what is obviously a question.
“Sophie,” she says.
“Good,” I murmur. “Can you ask her what happened to her? She was injured outside Rockton.”
He turns to Sophie, who hangs there, patiently waiting for the next question. Yet as soon as he asks, her agitation returns as she white-knuckles his hand, gaze locked on his, her words spilling out.
As he listens, his brow furrows. Finally, he lifts a finger to his lips and says something calming, reassuring. Then he turns to me.
“I think you might need to wait until she feels better,” he says. “She’s not making much sense.”
“What’s she saying?”
His gaze darts to the woman. “It seems to be some kind of nightmare.”
“Even if what she’s saying is obviously confused, I might be able to get something useful from her.”
“Okay, well, she says she was attacked by a man in the forest. A man who…”
“Go on,” I say.
“She’s saying it was some kind of wild man.”
“There are settlers in the forest, and the occasional miner wanders through. They can seem a little … wild.”
Diana snorts. “You should see the former sheriff.”
I nod. “As much as they might want to stay clean, they can’t live up to the standards of people with twenty-four-hour access to hot showers and razors and Laundromats. Then there are some who don’t care to try. Consider it human repellent. Most people out there are very private. You need to be, to live that life.”
“Understood, but…” He takes a deep breath. “She says it was a man with long matted hair and a beard, and mud on his face. Only the mud…”
He says something to her, and she shakes her head and then speaks in rapid Danish.
“I asked if his face might have just been dirty,” Jay says. “She says no, the mud was put on intentionally, in whirls, like a pattern. He also had scars across his forehead—parallel lines that looked intentional, too.”
“Well, we do get all kinds up here,” Diana says.
“He was dressed in hides.”
“Most people out there are,” I say. “They don’t have anything else.”
“No online shopping,” Diana quips. “Even in Rockton, we don’t get much selection. Make sure whatever you brought lasts as long as possible or you’ll end up in this.” She plucks at her T-shirt and shudders.
Because this is police business, I should ask Diana to leave, but she’s doing a fine job of keeping Jay from pursuing questions I don’t want to answer.
“Just tell me what she’s saying,” I say. “Don’t filter it. Don’t try to figure out what she actually means. That’s my job.”
“Sorry.”
“That’s fine. It’s frustrating for me not being able to speak to a witness directly, so the best thing you can do is give me unedited translations. Can she describe the man more? Coloring? Age? Size?”
He asks, and Sophie hurries on with a stream of Danish that perks up my hopes, only to have Jay shake his head. “She says she was so focused on what he looked like—the strangeness of it—that she didn’t really notice anything more.”
“Hmm. Well, we do have an artist in town.”
“Comic-book artist,” Diana mutters.
“We have an artist,” I repeat, firmer. “I can bring her if that would help.”
Jay speaks to Sophie. She pauses, her gaze slanting my way, and then she rushes on and Jay shakes his head again.
“She can tell you all about the mud and scars, and she seems to think that should be enough, but…”
“It would be if she was talking about a man who attacked her in downtown Vancouver.”
“Exactly. Sorry.”
“Ask whether there were others with her. Are they hurt? Are they still out there?”
He nods and asks, and as she answers, his frown deepens. After she stops, he pauses.
“Jay?”
“I … I think she’s really confused, and I don’t know how much good any of this will do.” He clears his throat. “Rockton is for victims, right? I’m guessing there are women here running from men. My sister…” Another throat-clearing as his gaze ducks to the side. “My sister died at the hands of an abusive ex-boyfriend. It didn’t matter how many times she reported him, no one listened. We did, too—her family—but…” He shifts in discomfort. “It wasn’t enough.”
“The system, frankly, sucks, and yes, obviously there are women here to escape what happened to your sister.”
“Right, so what I’m saying is that I think we might be dealing with a past trauma here, one that’s returned after a head injury. If there’s any chance it involved an attack in the forest, that might be what we’re hearing here.”
“Can you just tell me what she’s saying? Please? Unfiltered. Unedited.”
Color touches his cheeks. “Sorry. I’m interpreting data. That’s what I do for a living. Occupational hazard. She’s saying that she and her partner were hiking in the forest, which I know you don’t allow here.”
“Just tell me what she said, Jay.”
I finally get the whole story, and part of me thinks I should have just cut through the bullshit and told him the truth, which he’ll probably find out soon enough. On the other hand, this gives me Sophie’s words without him making the assumptions he might if he knew she really was a hiker who’d been attacked in the woods.
According to what he says, Sophie is indeed a tourist, one who’d come from Denmark with her partner and two friends to fulfill a lifelong dream of hiking in the Canadian north. They’d been dropped off by a bush pilot a week ago, and they’d been having the adventure they’d envisioned when she’d woken to the wild man in the forest attacking them. From there, everything is a blur. She isn’t sure how long ago the attack happened. A day? Two? Three? She only recalls running for her life through the forest, and the next thing she knew, she ended up here, in a hospital bed, back in Dawson City.
That’s where she presumes she is: Dawson. Which could mean either her opinion of Canadian health care was extremely low or her mind is still addled enough that she hasn’t noticed she’s in a wooden building, being treated by people in T-shirts and jeans. Scandinavian medicine has a reputation for being top-tier, so maybe this primitive building is what she expects in the Canadian north. I fear, however, given her lack of questions, that she’s still feverish and mentally confused. Confused about the part where a wild man from the forest attacked them, though? No. Her description is impossible to mistake for anything else. Her hiking party was attacked by hostiles. And either she’s the only survivor, or there are people in that forest who need our help even more than she does.
SEVEN
I end up telling Jay that the woman isn’t from Rockton. I must. If he’s going to translate, I can’t keep pretending she’s a local and expecting useful information. I keep it to the basics. We presume she’s a tourist who seemed to have been attacked in the forest, and we’re trying to help. I ass
ure him that we’ll handle all security issues arising from her being here, but he dismisses that. Helping her is the important thing, and he’s happy to do that.
* * *
I’m in the police station. Dalton’s sitting at the lone desk and staring at a hand-drawn map. I’m perched on the desk with Storm at my feet.
“Read it again,” Dalton says as he balls up the map and pulls over fresh paper.
I could just hand over my notes, but this works better for him. I read Sophie’s description of the area where they camped, and each time he draws it, he adjusts the parts she leaves out. Her description is full of landmarks that I’m sure seem as clear as signposts to her, but out here, telling us she camped near two pines growing together and a huge boulder covered in black moss is like telling a city dweller that you live on a corner lot with a basketball net and a weeping willow.
She’s given us what she remembers in terms of mountains and bodies of water, as well as the unusual landscape markers, but it’s a hodgepodge. “We camped in an old burn area near a lake with a mountain behind it.” Was the burn area north of the lake? South? How far were those mountains? Snow-topped or tree-topped? A single peak, double, triple? I’d tried to get more, but she wasn’t able to provide it.
What Dalton’s doing now is taking the significant parts and rearranging them. Put the lake here and the burn site here and the mountain there. Does that look familiar? No? Okay, what if …
One might say we should just get off our asses and go look. And whoever said that would have zero concept of the sheer scale of land we’re dealing with. This isn’t a state park with three small lakes and a single mountain peak. Even “burn site” means little. Forest fires are part of the natural cycle.
“I need Jacob,” Dalton says finally, pushing the paper away.
I figured he would. The problem is finding his brother. Last year, Jacob met a woman from Rockton, and that went as those things often did. Having failed to lure his brother from the forest, Dalton grumbled when Nicole managed it, but he’d been pleased. It was a lonely life, and even if nothing came of the flirtation, it portended a day when Jacob might not be alone.
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