Backcountry

by Pamela Beason

  “I put down the Seattle office as my OP. But it’s a long shot.”

  Sam understood that meant that Agent Starchaser Perez had requested a transfer from his Salt Lake City FBI office to his “office of preference” in Seattle, but the Bureau seemed to run like the army; agents had little say in where they were assigned. Today, after a three-day visit, her lover was rushing off in typical spook fashion to an FBI explosives training course in a location he refused to disclose to her.

  “I’m trying,” he added.

  Was there was an unspoken “Are you?” after that sentence? She still felt guilty about turning down Chase’s proposal to move in with him in Salt Lake City. Did he truly understand her reasons, or was he only pretending to be patient because he hadn’t yet found a replacement girlfriend?

  There was no time to sort it out now. Chase had a plane to catch and she had to get to this blasted job. Just thinking about the assignment knotted the muscles between her shoulder blades. Twenty-one days, she reminded herself. She couldn’t save her friends, but she could help save their dream. Three weeks, and she would be done with this commitment to the ghosts of Kyla and Kim.

  She paused to pick up a plastic bottle top and a gum wrapper from the side of the trail.

  “Summer?” Chase prompted, glancing back over his shoulder. “I know we came in separate cars, but I want to make sure you get back safely to yours.”

  “I’m right behind you.” Sam stuffed the trash sack into her pack and focused on hustling down the mountainside, keeping a wary eye on the thick forest around them, watching for the glint of a rifle barrel or some obvious sign of evil lurking along the trail.

  “Think you can find your way out of here?” he asked as they neared the parking lot.

  “I got here, didn’t I? My trusty GPS lady helped.”

  He ran a knuckle over the dark whiskers already starting to shadow his jaw line. “The GPS unit you haven’t updated in a decade?”

  “Forest roads haven’t changed much in ten years either, Chase.”

  “Touché.” He practically galloped to his rental car, but she grabbed him before he slid into the driver’s seat and wrapped her arms around him, pressing her ear against his heart and squeezing hard. For a change, he was the first to pull away. “I’ll see you again in a few weeks.”

  “You never know,” she murmured. Every goodbye could be the last.

  “We’ll talk tonight.” His kiss was too quick.

  They both slid into their cars, and Chase waited until she’d started up her Civic before he peeled out of the lot in a cloud of dust.

  Sam shut off her car engine. Walking back to the memorial, she plucked out the Mylar balloon and stabbed it through the heart with a car key before stuffing the deflated remains into her back seat and heading for Bellingham.

  Chapter 2

  When Sam arrived at the Wilderness Quest office, she found Troy in the administrator’s office. The name Troy Johnson had replaced Kimberly Quintana on the door plaque.

  “It’s best not to remind clients of our tragedy,” Troy explained. “We were lucky to keep the Wilderness Quest connection out of the news.” He grimaced. “Probably helps that Kim never took my last name.”

  Kim had always maintained that Quintana was a much more interesting name than Johnson, but Sam was not going to share that comment with her friend’s husband.

  Troy noticed Sam staring at the empty spot where Kim’s computer had rested. “The police took her laptop. They took mine from home, too. And my cell phone. They already had Kim’s and Kyla’s.”

  She didn’t know what to say.

  His expression grim, he fingered his beard. “Kim had a hefty life insurance policy, with me as beneficiary. I had one, too, but they’ll figure I took that out just to make the situation look less suspicious.”

  Sam groaned. “Oh, Troy.”

  “The spouse is always a suspect. I should know.” Troy Johnson was a retired deputy prosecuting attorney from the Whatcom County court system.

  The kids in her expedition “crew,” as Wilderness Quest liked to call each group of client kids, had arrived in town yesterday, along with their parents. All of them had met with the company’s counselors, who reiterated the goals of wilderness therapy—healing old wounds, strengthening family relationships, setting realistic expectations for the future, breaking bad habits. A three-week expedition into the backcountry was a chance for teens to escape the distractions of a perpetually connected world and learn to rely on themselves and find joy in the present. The kids were examined individually by a physician and a psychologist while the parents met with Troy for a frank discussion of their issues and expectations.

  Today the kids would be counseled; relieved of personal clothing, jewelry, electronics, drugs, and weapons; and issued uniforms for the outing.

  While the staff readied the kids and equipment for the field, Troy installed Sam in an empty counselor’s office to watch recorded videos of his interviews with the parents.

  The staff had taken photos of the kids as they’d first arrived yesterday, and Sam held them in her hands now to match up kids and parents.

  The first video segment was labeled Olivia Bari, Toledo, Ohio, 16. In her intake photo, the girl wore a green striped blouse tucked into close-fitting jeans. With her olive skin, long raven hair wrapped in a green headscarf, thick eyeliner, and dangling filigree earrings, the girl resembled a stereotypical gypsy. But Olivia had far more lines engraved on her forehead than any sixteen-year-old should.

  Setting the photo aside on the desk, Sam started the video on the computer screen. The camera offered a fish-eye view over Troy’s shoulder from the corner of his office. Like their daughter, the Baris’ builds were on the small end of average, and they both had bronze skin and dark eyes. The father’s hair was graying; the mother’s was covered by a paisley scarf.

  “Frequent truancy.” Troy read aloud from Olivia’s file, which lay open on the desk between him and the parents.

  Mr. Bari nodded. “She says she goes, but then the school calls and tells us she doesn’t.”

  “She lies,” Mrs. Bari affirmed, her gaze fixed downward.

  “She is disrespectful,” the father added. His accent—Middle Eastern?—was barely noticeable, but his choice of words were too formal for a native-born American.

  “I understand.” Troy folded his hands on top of his desk. “Olivia tried to commit suicide by taking pills?”

  “It was an accident,” the mother assured him, looking up to meet his eyes. “The pills were Tylenol. She had a headache and didn’t know how many to take.”

  Sam leaned away from the screen. Yikes. The first kid in her crew was a suicide risk? How many pills had Olivia taken—ten, fifty? She shook her head, already feeling out of her element.

  The conversation continued about Olivia’s health: good, no allergies, no drug addictions, no smoking, no drinking.

  “There will be boys on this trip?” Mrs. Bari looked worried at the prospect.

  “Yes,” Troy confirmed. “But you have no need for concern. Our field guide and our two peer counselors will keep Olivia safe at all times.” He paused, waiting until both parents nodded. “Now, can you tell me what you hope to gain from enrolling Olivia in Wilderness Quest?”

  “We want her to be happy,” Mr. Bari said. “We want her to go to school.”

  Pursing her lips, Sam blew out a long breath. It sounded so simple.

  Next up: Gabriel Schmidt, Boise, Idaho, 18. The photo revealed Gabriel to be a large boy who reminded her uncomfortably of the white flour dumplings she had eaten with stew last night. He wore an extra-large T-shirt and the saggy knee-length shorts that corpulent males everywhere seemed to favor.

  The interview video showed that, like Gabriel, both Mom and Dad Schmidt had pasty complexions and were significantly overweight. To Sam’s surprise, their issues were all about their son’s use of his computer.

  “Gabriel won’t come out of his room. He stays up all night playing
games.”

  “He lives in an Internet world.”

  Troy consulted the boy’s file. “Gabriel turned eighteen on August third?”

  Both Schmidts nodded.

  “You realize that means that our staff, acting on your behalf, cannot compel Gabriel to do anything?” Troy asked.

  The point seemed irrelevant to Sam. She’d had a day of coaching by the counselors, but she was pretty sure she couldn’t compel a teenager, especially one as large as Gabriel, to do anything he didn’t want to.

  Mr. Schmidt squirmed in his chair. His wife spoke for both of them. “He understands that this is our condition for him continuing to live at home.”

  At least Gabriel had received his high school diploma a few months ago; that put him ahead of the other kids. And there was no mention of drugs or alcohol.

  “He’s got to come out of his bedroom,” Gabriel’s father reiterated. “If he’s not going to go to college, he needs to get a job.”

  Sam rubbed her forehead. Why didn’t the Schmidt family just take away the computer or game console Gabriel used to feed his Internet addiction? Mom and Dad appeared to be in their late fifties or early sixties, with graying hair. Maybe Gabriel had been a late-life baby. Maybe they were just tired.

  If the Schmidts looked worn, Justin Orlov’s parents appeared downright elderly. Which was soon explained by their answers to Troy’s questions: they were Justin’s maternal grandparents. They’d legally adopted Justin at age nine, and changed Justin’s last name to theirs. Justin’s father had killed their daughter in a drunken domestic violence incident. The father was now eight years into a twenty-five-year prison sentence.

  Sam chewed on her thumbnail. Another family coping with murder. In his photo, Justin glowered at the camera, his fists clenched at his sides. He was a tall, muscle-bound boy with a blond buzz cut the Marines would appreciate. A dragon tattoo crawled up the left side of his neck, the beast’s snarling head and one clawed foot emerging from the neck of his black T-shirt. Justin was a seventeen-year-old who could pass for twenty-three. Repeatedly suspended from school for bullying. On probation for vandalism and assault.

  The Orlovs lived in Los Angeles. They were terrified their grandson was going to end up a professional gangbanger.

  With his family history, the kid had probably learned his threatening behavior from the cradle. She made a mental note to keep Justin away from anything that could be a weapon. Sam licked her lips, trying to imagine how she would handle this boy. A stun gun might be a good addition to the standard field guide equipment.

  Taylor Durand, Sacramento, California, 16. The teen was a tall angular girl. Her straight blond hair, artistically streaked with strands of burnished copper and platinum, dangled past her shoulders. Her bright red lipstick matched the off-the-shoulder blouse tucked into her skinny jeans. Her face was a matte beige mask that spoke of a layer of heavy foundation.

  Sam started the video. Like his daughter, Taylor’s father was tall and blond and casually handsome. The mother was of average appearance, with an expensive angled haircut and sophisticated makeup. The problems with Taylor?

  “She doesn’t think she needs to complete high school,” the father said. “All she cares about is becoming a fashion model. And we’ve found drugs in Taylor’s room, too.”

  “Mainly diet pills,” the mother added.

  Mainly? Sam leaned back in her chair. Would Taylor be in some sort of quaking, hallucinating withdrawal during this expedition? Sam reminded herself of the promotional video she’d watched on the company website. Kids with drug issues came into the program only after going through rehab. Taylor might be jonesing for a fix during the expedition, but she wouldn’t be actively detoxing.

  Nick Lewis, Everett, Washington, 15. Sam’s youngest draftee, and the one closest to home. Nick’s photo showed a slight dark-haired boy wearing a green plaid shirt that was at least two sizes too big, the sleeves turned up into French cuffs, double-buttoned in place around his skinny wrists. As a petite woman who lived in perpetually rolled-up sleeves, Sam knew that trick well. Nick held his hands clasped in front of his stomach as if they were cuffed together. One of the two buttons on his right sleeve was missing; a red thread dangled in its place.

  Unlike his son, the video showed Mr. Lewis was a muscular man with thick sandy hair and several days’ worth of whiskers on a jutting chin that he stroked throughout the interview. His complaints about his son? Too many school absences. This was obviously a common theme among the clients.

  Leaning forward as if to confide in Troy, he murmured, “His mother always said he was ‘sensitive,’ but really, he needs to grow a pair.”

  “The file says Nick cuts himself,” Troy stated bluntly. “And the doc says some of his cuts appear to be recent.”

  “Well, yeah, he does that sometimes,” Mr. Lewis confirmed. “Why the hell would any kid do that?”

  Troy said, “Cutting usually indicates that the child feels a lot of stress.”

  “Huh.” The father’s face reddened. He straightened in his chair. “Nick has no reason to be stressed out.” He leaned forward again, putting both hands on Troy’s desk. “Look, Nick’s mom is not in the picture, but he has me. He likes the outdoors, so this seemed like the place to straighten him out. We’ve been through a rough patch lately.”

  “Anything we should know about?”

  “No.” Mr. Lewis shook his head. “No. It was really nothing special. Teenagers, you know?” He grinned, but his smile seemed forced.

  Troy nodded. “I know.”

  “Besides, we can’t change the past, right? We all need to put the past behind us; everything is about the future, right?”

  “That’s what we focus on here,” Troy reassured the man. “Acknowledge the past, but embrace the future.”

  “Nick’s basically a good kid. All he needs is to man up.”

  “We’ll take good care of your son,” Troy promised.

  Sam blew out a long slow breath and twisted her head from side to side, trying to loosen her neck and shoulder muscles. So far, her troop included a suicidal girl, a boy who cut himself, the on-probation son of a violent killer, and a kid who lived inside a video game. Taylor, the would-be model, seemed by far the most normal.

  She picked up the photo of the last contestant. Ashley Brown, Spokane, Washington, 16. The girl’s photo revealed short chestnut hair cut into spiky layers, the tips died purple. Her mascara and eyeliner were so heavy, the girl resembled a raccoon. Her ears were lined with multiple earrings, and a safety pin adorned her left eyebrow. She’d taken scissors to the tight T-shirt she wore, cutting a deep vee to reveal the cleavage between her generous breasts.

  Ashley Brown’s mother was another single parent. Like her daughter, her body was all curves. The face beneath her blond-streaked hair was pretty. Her words were anything but.

  “Ashley is a smart-aleck skank,” the mother told Troy. “She dropped out of school. She’s run away three times. She’s even sold herself on the streets. She’s got to straighten up or she’s going to end up with AIDS. Or dead.”

  Sam sucked in a breath. AIDS? Dead? At sixteen?

  “Is she close to her father?” Troy asked.

  Ashley’s mom narrowed her eyes and sat back in her chair with a heavy sigh. “Neither of us is close to her father. He’s a snake. I don’t know what I ever saw in that man.”

  Add one teen prostitute to the troop.

  The poor parents. The poor kids. With the possible exception of the Durands, none of these families came across as wealthy. Wilderness Quest was a nonprofit, but the costs of maintaining a staff and equipping and feeding all the participants during outdoor therapy were high. Maybe some of these clients had generous health insurance that was paying for this expedition, but she suspected most had scraped together the fee as a last hope of straightening out their kids.

  It was depressing.

  She didn’t want to deal with any of it; she was already depressed enough.

  The door o
pened. Maya stepped in, dressed in her yellow uniform shirt with STAFF printed front and back, quick-dry cargo pants, and hiking boots. “I just wanted to say hi, ‘cause we’re not supposed to act like we know each other out there. I’m glad you’re on this trip.”

  Sam hadn’t seen Maya since the girl started working for Kim. She turned off the computer, stood up, and hugged her teenage friend. “I’m glad you’re on this trip, because I don’t know what I’m doing.”

  She also realized that she and Maya hadn’t had the chance to talk about the murders. Kim and Kyla had been Maya’s mentors and colleagues. “I’m so sorry I didn’t call you, Maya.”

  The girl pulled out of her embrace. “You couldn’t call, at least most of the time. I worked the trip that ended just a couple days ago.”

  “I know you’re missing Kim and Kyla, too.”

  A cyclone of emotion tore swiftly through Maya’s dark eyes, and she caught her lower lip between her teeth for a second. Then the girl put a hand on Sam’s forearm and squeezed. “Shit happens.”

  She turned toward the doorway, but stopped before exiting to look back. “It helps a lot to be out there, Sam. You’ll see.” Maya closed the door softly behind her.

  Shit happens.

  Sam slumped back into the chair. A lot of shit had happened to Maya Velasquez in her eighteen years. She’s lost her dad and then her mom to drugs, endured a series of foster homes, and paid for her juvenile burglary convictions through grueling trail work.

  Compared to Maya’s, Sam’s life had been a picnic. When it came to enduring hardship, Summer Westin was a wimp.

  Crossing her arms on the desk, Sam lowered her head onto them, envisioned herself back in Boundary Bay brewpub, savoring a cold ESB and a pile of yam fries.

  “You’re doing God’s work,” her father had remarked when she told him she would miss their regular Sunday evening phone calls while she filled in for Kyla at Wilderness Quest.

  She’d considered asking him why God wasn’t doing his own work, but she knew that Reverend Mark Westin would have an answer that she probably didn’t want to hear. She envied him his faith, if not his lifestyle in rural Kansas.