Bound

by Kirsten Weiss

  Darla shrieked, ducking, and clapped a hand to her face.

  Patrons stared, wide-eyed.

  I sketched a wave. “Only a broken pot.”

  Rising from behind the counter, Darla gaped at her palm. Blood smeared it and trickled from a cut high on her cheek.

  “Come on.” I sped around the counter and grasped Darla’s wrist, tugging her through the brown and gray ikat curtain into the kitchen. I sat her on a stool and whisked the first aid kit off the wall. “You were lucky that shard didn’t hit you in the eye.”

  “You call this luck?” Her hands twisted in her lap. “The pot falls when I happen to be standing under it?”

  “Near it, not beneath it.” I cleaned the cut. “This isn’t deep. Subconsciously, you must have known something was wrong with that pot. I saw you touching it.”

  Darla’s voice rose. “So it’s my fault?”

  “No. But sometimes pots fall.”

  “You weren’t cut,” Darla said, accusing.

  “I guess I was—”

  “Lucky. I’ve been unlucky ever since I turned sixteen. So consider me an expert on the subject.”

  “What happened when you turned sixteen?” I taped a bandage to Darla’s freckled cheek.

  Her expression shuttered. “Nothing happened. Sixteen is when my luck changed, that’s all.”

  “Maybe the change you felt was connected to the rise of sexual awareness. When a girl turns sixteen, some think she’s reached adulthood, and that marks a change in the psyche.”

  Darla stared at me. I never should have taken that psych course in college.

  “Or not,” I said. “I’ll clean up in the café. Why don’t you take a break?” Grabbing a broom and dustpan, I brushed through the curtain into the café and swept up the mess. When I’d cleaned up the worst of it, I grabbed a washcloth from the sink and tackled the counter, dusted with leaves and dark earth.

  The customers ignored me, their heads bent to their computers.

  I returned to the kitchen.

  Darla stood, unmoving, in seeming suspended animation while I’d cleaned the café.

  I hung the broom and dustpan on their wall hooks, by the stairs to Jayce’s apartment.

  Darla gazed at her hands. “Alicia said the same thing.”

  I blinked. “What?”

  “About my bad luck.”

  “You talked to her about it?”

  “She talked to me, said she was doing an article on luck. Of course, she told me that after she’d picked my brains about my run of bad luck. I told her I didn’t want to be in her article. She said she wouldn’t use my name.”

  “That doesn’t seem fair. If you don’t want to be included, you shouldn’t have to be.”

  “That’s not the way journalism works, I guess.” Darla stood and went to the sink, washed her hands.

  “When was this?” Brayden hadn’t mentioned an article on luck on his wife’s computer. Then again, Brayden had been drunk.

  “A couple weeks ago.”

  “Did she publish it?”

  Darla shook her head, her pony tail flinging back and forth. “No. She didn’t get a chance, I guess. She told me she wanted to interview a person with good luck to round out the article first.”

  “Did she tell you who she planned to interview?”

  “When I asked, she laughed and said I could figure it out if I tried hard enough.”

  “That’s annoying,” I grumbled. Who in Doyle was super lucky? Darla aside, the entire town seemed charmed. When fires had decimated the nearby hills, they’d skipped Doyle. Developers gave Doyle a miss too, building their high-density condos lower down the mountainside. “But I doubt an interview on luck is enough for the police to suspect you of her murder. Unless you’ve got some anti-publicity mania?”

  One corner of her mouth slanted upward. “No.”

  I leaned a shoulder against the wall. “But what did happen when you were sixteen? When exactly did the bad luck start?” I might not believe in bad luck, but Darla did. And I was curious about Alicia Duarte’s article.

  Darla’s eyes took on a faraway look. “It started on my birthday, after our party at the spring.”

  I straightened off the wall. “At the fairy spring?”

  “Yeah. I got drunk. It was stupid, but…” She shrugged. “Sixteen. You know how it is.”

  I nodded. My sweet sixteen party had been cake and ice cream with Ellen and my sisters. No booze, no boys, no bother.

  “How drunk were you?”

  “I got pretty sick. Let’s just say nobody was swimming in the spring afterward.”

  “Oh.” Ick.

  “And then I got lost on the way home,” Darla said. “After that, it was bad luck all day, every day.”

  “You got lost,” I said slowly. The back of my neck tingled.

  “I got separated from the group. It was dark, and the trees got weird. I found my way home, eventually.” She shuddered. “I haven’t hiked in those woods since.”

  “What do you mean, the trees got weird?”

  Darla turned away. “It was a long time ago. I was disoriented.”

  “The other night, I had a strange experience in the woods too and in roughly the same area. It seemed as if the paths were changing, moving, taking me places they hadn’t before.”

  She tugged on the charm around her neck. “I guess things look different when it’s dark.”

  “No, it was more than that.”

  “I need to get back to work. I can’t afford to lose this job.” Darla swept through the curtain and into the café.

  Terrific. I’d managed to annoy Darla and shut her down.

  My phone rang, and I answered it. Jayce.

  “Sorry, Jayce. I stopped by Ground and—”

  “You’re there? Oh, that’s okay then.”

  “Why? What’s going on?”

  “Ellen’s still sleeping, mostly, and if I can’t be there, well, you’re support for Darla. She’s great, but she doesn’t have a lot of confidence. Compliment her, will ya? Make her feel good.”

  Too late. “Sure. I’ll be home soon.”

  “No hurry. It’s your turn for an afternoon off. Stay at Ground if you want to. Relax. And say nice things to Darla!”

  I scrubbed my hands across my face. Had I imagined Darla’s evasiveness when I’d asked if she’d reason to harm Alicia? Whether I had or hadn’t, I was zero for two in the interrogation department. Some detective.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Unwilling to give up on Darla, I ordered a mochaccino at the counter and sat at my favorite table by the front window. Outside, two boys in karate uniforms raced down the sidewalk.

  I smiled at their energy and, setting the grocery bag on a vacant chair, drew my slim computer from my purse. My brain was too jangled to write, to work, fears for my aunt and Jayce shrieking for attention. If Jayce was worried about Ground, I could swap places with her. I could stand watch at Ellen’s house, while Jayce managed her coffee shop. But something told me to stay put.

  I connected to the Internet and typed in a search for “missing hiker.” My eyes widened. There were dozens of incidents on the west coast within the last month, most ending unhappily.

  “This is nuts,” I muttered. I clicked to the local newspaper and searched its website. Nick was wrong. Hikers got lost in these mountains a lot more often than every seven years. I sighed, feeling… what? Disappointment? Relief? And the hikers didn’t simply vanish. They were found, alive or dead.

  Except one.

  JULY 10, 2009

  (Angels Camp, CA) Wednesday the Doyle Sheriff’s Department suspended the search for a 22-year-old California woman who went missing in the Sierra foothills.

  Emily Heathcoat went missing July 3 while hiking along the Calaveras River.

  “We’ve exhausted all search resources available. Sadly, we have uncovered no information that would lead us to believe continuing the search is the best use of resources,” Sheriff Meredith McCourt said.


  The sheriff’s office launched the search July 5.

  The effort, covering a 40-mile radius, included aircraft, 12 search dogs, and some 250 people.

  Heathcoat was visiting Doyle with friends. She was last seen hiking along a path in the canyon.

  Heathcoat? That was Nick’s last name. Were they related? I ran another search for Emily Heathcoat and found two brief articles. Her parents had offered a reward for any information leading to her recovery. I found an obituary printed six months later, noting that she had never been recovered and was presumed dead. I sucked in my breath. Survived by her parents, Katherine and James Heathcoat, and her brother, Nicholas Heathcoat.

  Her brother.

  Darla slid a mochaccino onto my table.

  “Thanks,” I said, glancing up. But Darla had already hurried to the counter.

  Emily had gone missing six years ago, in 2009. Was that why Nick had been in the woods? Could he still be searching for her after all these years? But he had chased after the homeless man, and I didn’t believe it was to impress me with his dedication.

  I thought of what Nick had told me about the hikers, and another burst of irrational anger sparked my blood. Maybe he thought the homeless man had something to do with his sister’s disappearance. And he’d used me to get to him.

  But the homeless man had been outside Ground the morning of the murder. Whatever Nick suspected, we needed to find him.

  I checked the newspaper archives for 2002, seven years before Emily’s disappearance. Another hiker had disappeared that July, right on Nick’s schedule.

  July 16, 2002

  (Doyle, CA) Local authorities on Monday suspended their search for an experienced hiker who went missing last week in the mountains near Doyle, CA.

  San Mateo resident Tom White, 32, was last seen on Tuesday, July 10th, leaving his campground with a gallon of water and snacks. He’d told a friend he was planning a long hike to Doyle, and intended to catch a ride back to the park.

  The Doyle Sheriff’s Department began a search and rescue operation that night. California State Park rangers also combed the area.

  On Thursday, a volunteer search team explored the Calaveras River area. A larger rescue effort took place over the weekend. No sign of White was found.

  Friends said White was a skilled hiker with experience in many different terrains.

  While a popular hiking destination, there are often reports of lost hikers in the Sierra foothills. In July of 2001, one woman died after getting lost in the mountains, and her body was recovered by search and rescue. In 1988, 28-year-old Evan Delgado’s truck was found near the trailhead to Calaveras Spring with no sign of the Truckee, CA resident.

  By Friday, the Doyle Sheriff’s Department called in additional teams from Calaveras County to search for White. The California Highway Patrol and California National Guard provided aerial support, but were unable to locate White.

  A family member said White was not the kind of hiker to get into trouble, having hiked parts of the Pacific Crest Trail and finishing the John Muir and Tahoe Rim Trails.

  After hiking over 100 miles of trails between Big Trees and Doyle, rescuers have found no trace of the missing hiker.

  The Doyle Sheriff’s Department has called off the search. It has said it would consider future searches if more information about White is discovered.

  Sipping my mochaccino, I ran another search on Tom White. No trace of him had ever been found.

  “Every seven years,” I muttered. But there had been no mention of a hiker vanishing in July of 1995. The only disappearance that year was Ely Milbourne, the high school teacher accused of the statutory rape of… Alicia Duarte. He’d jumped bail, vanished like Brayden had said. My fists clenched. Poor Alicia. All roads seemed to lead back to the murdered woman.

  But it gave us another suspect, assuming he was still alive. Ely had a motive to kill Alicia — a warped motive, but motive. A guy who’d take advantage of his students, claimed Alicia was the seductress, would probably blame her when he got caught. But that scandal was two decades old, too long for vengeance to fester and explode into murder now.

  Ceramic crashed, and I looked up, startled.

  Darla wrung her hands in her apron. She stood behind the counter. Face scrunched in annoyance, she stared at her feet and, I presumed, a broken mug.

  My gaze returned to the photo of Ely. He was handsome, his blue eyes piercing, his dark hair thick and wavy. He should have had no trouble getting a date from someone his own age. Instead, he’d poached one of his naive students. The bastard.

  He’d been thirty-seven when he’d disappeared, which would make him fifty-seven now. Had he moved on and created a new life for himself?

  The newspaper’s online archives ended at 1992. If I wanted to look further back in time for information on Ely or Nick’s seven-year-cycle of disappearances, I’d have to search elsewhere.

  Gathering my things, I paid a monosyllabic Darla at the register. The clock over the counter read four o’clock. It was time to return to my aunt and sisters.

  But my footsteps took me in the opposite direction, up a steep side street toward the historic library. I passed Gold Rush-era brick buildings sandwiching funny little homes with sloped roofs.

  A man stepped through the gate of a white-painted house for sale, its garden flush with blooms.

  I stepped off the sidewalk to avoid bumping into him. “Whoops.” I blinked. “Brayden. Hi.”

  “Sorry,” he said. “My fault.” His jeans and t-shirt had an unwashed look just past fashionable. But Brayden looked more rugged than ramshackle. He wore decay well.

  I sniffed and tried not to wrinkle my nose. His clothing really was unwashed, but at least he didn’t stink of alcohol.

  The realtor, Sunny Peel, locked the door to the house and clacked down the porch steps, closing the gate behind her. She smoothed the front of her fitted, red blazer. It didn’t look as if she was wearing anything beneath it, the curve of her breasts swelling above the v-neck. When she noticed me, her cheeks flushed. She smoothed her expression. “Hello, Karin. How’s your aunt doing?”

  My lips pinched. The question shouldn’t have annoyed me. If Sunny seemed like a vulture looming over my aunt’s house, it was because of bad attitude. Sunny had done nothing wrong. “Not well,” I said. “The doctors say she doesn’t have much time left.”

  “Oh, Karin.” Brayden’s green eyes crinkled with sympathy. “I’m so sorry. How’s your family holding up?”

  “Jayce is fine,” Sunny said, her smile taut. “You worry too much, Bray. It’s not healthy.”

  “We’re doing okay, thanks.” So Sunny knew Brayden had a thing for Jayce too. Fantastic.

  I motioned to the FOR SALE sign spiked beside the rose bushes. “What are you doing here?”

  He ruffled his dark hair. “I guess I needed a diversion. I told Sunny that the house seemed empty. She suggested we look at a smaller place.”

  “And he needed to stop hibernating and get out of that house.” Sunny nudged him, looping her arm through his.

  His wife hadn’t been dead a week. Downsizing seemed a little premature, but what did I know? “Is it as cute on the inside as it is on the outside?” I asked.

  He smiled, wan. “If by ‘cute’ you mean ‘fixer-upper,’ yes. It could be a good project for me though.”

  “Fixer-upper?” Sunny laughed. “The house may not have been updated recently—”

  “Not since they installed indoor plumbing,” Brayden said.

  “But it’s in excellent condition. I mean, look at it!” She motioned expansively with her free hand.

  I angled my head. The little white house could have stepped out of time. Its gingerbread trim gleamed in flawless white curlicues. “How old is it?”

  “It’s Victorian,” Sunny said. “So are the other homes on this street. For its age, it’s in fantastic shape.”

  “Do you have any idea what Victorian plumbing was like?” Brayden asked me.

  “Of
course it needs modernization,” Sunny said, “but its bones are strong. It’s got all copper pipes, and a plumber verified they’ll last another fifty years.”

  “The fireplace needs to be replaced,” he said.

  “You can do it. You’re so handy, Brayden.” She moistened her lips and turned to me. “Did you know he renovated his current home, top to toe?”

  He looked up the street, his gaze empty. “Alicia and I remodeled it,” he said, his voice flat. “Together.”

  “It must hold a lot of memories,” I said.

  “Sometimes too many,” Brayden said.

  Sunny shook her head. “I still can’t believe she’s gone. And I saw her the night she died.”

  “You did?” I asked. “Where?”

  “She interviewed me for an article on luck. We met at Antoine’s bar.”

  So Sunny was the good-luck girl. I should have guessed. “What time?” I asked.

  “We met at eight — part interview, part girl’s night out.” She rubbed Brayden’s shoulder. “She didn’t say anything about having a fight with you. I’m sure it would have blown over.”

  “What time did she leave?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure. I left her at the bar around eleven. If I’d stayed…” Her brows scrunched together.

  Brayden shifted his weight. “Where are you headed, Karin?”

  “The library. I won’t keep you,” I said, anxious to get moving. Jayce had given me the afternoon off, but the afternoon would be over soon.

  He nodded and walked down the street, Sunny click-clacking beside him in her high heels. She tossed her hair and laughed at something he said.

  “House hunting less than a week after his wife died. What could go wrong?” I said beneath my breath. I continued to the library and up its even, concrete steps. Inside, the air was cool. Ceiling fans rotated in lazy circles.

  The library had changed little since it had been built nearly a century ago. Its wood paneling glowed with a fine patina. Pendant lamps hung from the ceiling on brass chains and illuminated old-fashioned wooden tables and bookcases. Pointed arches marked the entries between the rooms.