by KJ Kalis
Eighteen miles west of the city, Mike got off the highway. The congested edges of the city had disappeared behind him. Mike merged onto a rural two-lane road, cruising along at nearly the same highway speeds he’d driven at when he left the city. On either side of him were fields that had just been harvested, the ruts in the ground and the short stalks left to be plowed under for the following year’s corn production. Ahead, he saw a rise in the hills. Though many people didn’t know it, the western edge of Illinois was the place that the foothills of the Rocky Mountains began. They were certainly nothing like the craggy, towering mountains that people thought of when Colorado came to mind, but there was enough wooded area and contoured land to provide plenty of places for people to hide. People like Mike.
Twenty-five minutes later, Mike turned off the rural highway onto a side street that was particularly difficult to find. It was nearly unmarked and ran at a sharp, unnatural angle to the main road. He spent another fifteen minutes driving and finally made a right turn onto a gravel driveway that seemed to not be there, wedged between two stands of trees. He thought long and hard about whether to put a gate up or not, but he decided the presence of a brand-new gate would let someone know that there was something worth caring about at the other end of the driveway. Mike didn’t want that. Instead, he’d left just enough room to pull onto the driveway before having to stop in front of a pile of brush. A few trees that had fallen in years past worked as a natural barricade. Mike got out of the car, closing the door carefully behind him, making sure Miner was still in there before walking over to the brush and pulling it off to the side. As soon as the road was clear, he got back in the car, making a mental note to walk down later to pull the brush back across the driveway. He didn’t want any visitors. He hoped the brush was enough to deter someone in an ATV or a truck from coming to visit.
The driveway wasn’t much more than an old hunting trail. The guy he’d met on the day he’d bought the cabin said that his uncle had owned it. Whether that was true or not, Mike didn’t know. What he did know was that it was perfect for his purposes. Mike pulled the car around to the side of the cabin in a dry spot where he could get out and unload.
The cabin sat perched on a small rise under a canopy of fully grown trees. It looked like it had grown up out of the ground at the same time as the rest of the forest that surrounded it. There was a small wooden front porch with a couple of posts that held up the roof. As Mike stepped up on the porch, Miner at his heels, the wood creaked. He fished his keys out of his pocket and unlocked the padlock that secured the door. As he pushed the door open, he could smell the musty air that hadn’t moved in a few weeks. The fall rains made the cabin smell that way. Mike closed the door behind him, opening a window to let some fresh air in.
Mike looked around. The interior of the cabin wasn’t fancy. It was pretty much a single room. To the right was a small bank of counters, a sink and a stove with a small refrigerator pushed up against the wall. In the back left corner, there was a twin bed covered in blankets. Toward the front of the cabin was a small couch, a table, a chair, and a big screen. Every time he saw the big screen, Mike smiled. Who put a huge TV in a hunting cabin? If Mike was going to be trapped outside of the city for any length of time at all, he knew he’d want to try to play video games to pass the time.
Just behind the kitchen, there was a bathroom with a toilet, a small porcelain sink, and a shower. Directly opposite of that was a storeroom, a small table with two chairs and a back door that led out into the woods. There was already one shed on the property when Mike bought it. A week after buying it, he had a second shed installed, one that was much larger, the size of a single car garage, to store more supplies, hold an improved generator system, and give him a place for a makeshift faraday cage. He didn’t know if the Faraday cage would be necessary — it only would be if there was the threat of an EMP attack — but you could never be too cautious. At least that’s what he thought.
As Mike glanced around the cabinet, satisfied with what he saw, he watched as Miner crawled up on the couch, groaned, and laid down.
20
Three more hours had passed with no word from Mike. A lump formed in Emily’s throat. Where had he gone? Why had he taken Miner with him?
Though Emily knew Mike was a little different, she never expected that he would run off. He’d told about an off-grid cabin he’d bought — he’d even driven her out there one day to show her. From what she remembered, it was a little hunting cabin west of the city. Is that where he went? Emily’s mind reached back to the conversation she had with him before she went to boxing. She remembered telling Mike that she called Anthony, but that was it. What had happened to make him run? That was all she could assume at this point. He was gone, not answering her phone and Miner was nowhere to be seen. Anger started to burn inside of her. Getting mad at her was one thing. Running was another, she thought.
It was nearly dinnertime, and the sun had begun to sink in the sky. Emily went upstairs to the bathroom, catching a glance of her face in the mirror as she splashed water on it. She was pale with circles under her eyes. In a way, she didn’t look much different than Marlowe had the last time she saw her. Worry and uncertainty had stretched the corners of her mouth. How had she gotten to the spot in her life where Miner going missing left her dead in her tracks? She shook her head. It didn’t matter. She was okay with the fact that the thing she loved most in life had four legs and not two. Miner wouldn’t intentionally try to hurt her, unlike the men in her life had. Luca, Lou Gonzales, her partner from the Chicago Police Department, her father — they had all betrayed her at one time or another. That was not even to mention the idiots from IAB who hadn’t bothered to do their research before making a big show of arresting her. They had learned their lesson, thanks to Anthony Tizzano. But now, even Anthony wasn’t returning her phone calls.
Swallowing hard, Emily walked out of the bathroom and sat on the edge of the bed. She held her phone in her hand, silently willing Mike to reach out to her, to tell her where he was and if he had Miner with him. Nothing happened. The silence in her bedroom was deafening. She couldn’t imagine crawling into bed that night, not knowing where they were.
She stood up, walking over to the window, staring out in the backyard. There was a red ball in the center of the lawn, Miner’s toy left in the yard. Another lump formed in her throat. The last few days had been torture. Angelica yelling at her, Marlowe’s lies, following Vince and learning he was back in the Lakeview project but not understanding why, and now Mike and Miner disappearing. It was all too much. Emily was all alone. Her stomach dropped, a cold sweat forming on her brow. Something had to give. She couldn’t go on like this. As Emily looked down at her hands, she realized they were shaking. Get it together, she whispered.
Emily had been in some tough situations before, but none of them had gotten this personal. None of them had involved her sister or her home. Dealing with the kind of cold cases she solved meant that she had to make hard decisions which sometimes meant hurting people. She had never lost any sleep over that, not even when she killed Benny Walters, the man who had abducted and raped a young girl from Ohio. After his body dropped, she simply walked away, got in her truck and drove back home.
For some reason, this was different. This trouble was inside her walls. They were walls, both physical and mental, that she had constructed carefully. Walls that she wasn’t prepared to defend. But she had no choice now. Emily turned back towards the bathroom, glancing at the closet. She couldn’t just sit around and wait for Mike to resurface. It could be days or weeks before he reached out. He was like that. She didn’t much care if he left, though she depended on his technical support, but that was a gap that could be filled. Taking her dog, that was something else entirely. For a moment, a brief thought fluttered through her mind that Mike might have hurt Miner, tossing his lifeless body off on the side of the road somewhere. Though she knew it wasn’t likely, fury started to burn inside of Emily. This whole situation is out of
control, she thought.
From out of the closet, Emily pulled her overnight bag, quickly stuffing two extra pairs of jeans, a couple of shirts, a jacket, and a sweatshirt and her toiletries inside. She pulled a pair of hiking boots out of the back of her closet and zipped the bag shut just as her phone rang, “Mike?” Emily’s heart stopped beating for a second, waiting for the voice on the other end of the line to speak, thinking maybe he decided to call her burner phone.
“It’s Marlowe.”
Emily’s heart dropped. The last thing she needed was to talk to Marlowe right now. “Yes?” she managed.
There was a pause, then faint sobbing on the other end of the line. “It’s the building,” Marlowe said.
A surge of impatience rose through Emily. She was in motion, ready to leave, and once again, Marlowe was in the way, again. “Listen,” Emily said, shouldering the phone and picking up the bag with her other hand. “This isn’t a good time. I’m on my way out the door.”
“You don’t understand!” Marlowe blurted out, “They just condemned the building!”
Emily stopped for a second, shifting the phone to her other ear. She started down the steps, “Sorry about that, but like I said, this isn’t a good time. I’ll get back with you later.”
“You can’t just leave me like this!” Marlowe cried, “I have no one else. You said you would help me. If they’ve condemned the building, I’ve got nothing. Nothing!”
For a moment, Emily felt a wash of guilt, but then she saw a glimpse of Miner’s water bowl as she walked around the corner into the kitchen with her bag. “Marlowe, there’s nothing I can do about that. I’m not the city. Take it up with them. I’ve gotta go.” She didn’t give Marlowe a chance to respond. There was no point. Emily knew all that Marlowe was going to do would be to cry and shriek at her on the phone more. She had a twinge of guilt, knowing that she was leaving someone in trouble on their own, but she could say the same about Miner. Who knew, maybe Mike was in trouble, too? Maybe that was the reason he ran.
Before Emily could make it out the door, her phone rang again. Glancing down, she realized it was the same number Marlowe used to call a minute before. Emily didn’t answer.
Emily walked out into the cool night air, opened her truck, checking she had everything she needed. She put her pistol on the seat next to her and made sure she had her shotgun and her rifle in the back seat. They were hidden in a compartment that would be difficult for anyone to find. She got in, hearing the roar of the engine as it warmed up. She put her phone on the charger and watched as it rang two more times. Marlowe wasn’t giving up. As Emily pulled out of the driveway, she got a text from the same number. “If I don’t make it through the night, it’s your fault,” it read. Two more texts said the same thing.
Emily swallowed. Would Marlowe really kill herself? Emily had no idea. What she did know was that she wasn’t responsible for anything at that moment other than getting her dog, and her life, back.
21
Heading out of Chicago, the drive down the freeway seemed pretty normal. Emily had a good sense of direction, but she’d need to be at her best to find Mike’s cabin in the dark. Without an exact address, she hoped she would remember the couple of turns after that to get to the cabin. If not, she’d end up spending the night in the truck and searching for them in the morning.
Though the night had cooled off, it wasn’t so cold that she felt the need to keep all the windows closed. As Emily got off of the freeway and turned west on Highway Twelve, she cracked the window. She sighed and tried to relax her grip on the wheel, glancing at the pistol on the seat next to her. She didn’t think she’d have to use it if she found Mike, but the entire day had been so unpredictable she realized it would be better to be safe than sorry. Focusing her eyes back on the road, she muttered under her breath when an oncoming car refused to dim their brights. I’m going to be blind by the time I get there, she thought.
Emily turned off Highway Twelve at Junction Street where her truck bumped over a set of railroad tracks. I don’t remember these, she thought, her stomach sinking. Though she knew she was in the approximate area of Mike’s cabin, finding it in the dark without a specific address would be like finding a needle in a haystack. A few minutes later, Emily found herself in the middle of a small town, with nothing more than a feed store, a tiny grocery, and a post office. She pulled the truck off to the side of the road to think. When she visited the cabin with Mike, he had talked about a small town nearby where he could get some supplies, but she hadn’t been there. Nothing around her looked familiar.
Emily drove the circumference of the town and then headed back the way she came. Maybe I just missed the turnoff, she thought. She cracked the window in the truck, the damp night air swirling around her. Every bone in her body ached, a headache streaming from the crown of her head all the way down her neck from clenching her jaw. The fight with Angelica, Marlowe’s outburst, Mike’s disappearance — it was all too much. And now she was driving aimlessly around a small town unable to find Mike or Miner. She slammed the palm of her hand into the steering wheel.
After another hour, Emily realized trying to find Mike in the dark was useless. There weren’t enough landmarks she could see in order to find Mike. Emily headed back out of town and found an abandoned building, the windows hazed over with dirt and dust from years of neglect. She pulled the truck behind the building and shut the lights off, locking the doors. Reaching into the backseat, she pulled a blanket she kept in the truck toward her and tilted her seat back. There wasn’t anything more she could do until the sun came up. Covering herself with the blanket, a surge of anger ran through her. Emily struggled to get comfortable on the seat, knowing all she had in front of her was time and darkness.
Emily woke just as the sun pushed up over the crest of the ridge behind the truck, a searing pain in her neck. She reached down on the side of the seat and lifted the lever, the back sitting up. As she looked out the windshield, the glass misted over with a combination of the cool night air and her body heat inside the truck, she noticed the sky was clear. It would be a sunny day. At least there’s that, she thought.
Emily started the truck, pulling her hair behind her into a ponytail. She put the truck in gear and pulled away from the abandoned building and back out onto Highway Twelve, retracing her steps. She felt a nervous buzz in her body, the frustration from the night before still chasing her. The idea that Mike would take off was one thing. The idea that he would take off and steal Miner was something completely different. Things were hard enough right now without him pulling a stunt like this. All Emily could hope was that she’d be able to find him and get her dog back.
By the time Emily got back to the junction of the freeway and highway twelve and turned around to approach again, the sun had bathed the area in a cool light. The fields that flanked the highway quickly dissipated into undeveloped acres of woods and scrub. Emily leaned forward in her seat, peering left and right, looking for anything that might seem familiar. She remembered the turn was to the left, but where that street was, she wasn’t sure. Rolling down the window, she leaned forward, hoping a different position would give her a better view of what was coming up.
Ten minutes later, Emily caught a glimpse of a thin road pulling off of the highway at a sharp angle. That seemed familiar. Twisting the wheel to the left, the truck lurched around the corner, Emily barely keeping it up on the pavement. It was a tighter turn than she anticipated. Now if I can only find the next turn, I’ve got a shot at this, she thought.
The road she was on didn’t have a street sign at the corner and it narrowed the farther she went down on it, still two lanes, but not wide enough for much more than passenger cars. From the way it looked, it seemed to be a road that was originally a hunting trail or a trade route, one that had just been paved over without much concern for modern-day vehicles. It was striped following state law, but Emily bet that the road department had no idea how narrow it actually was. A single car came the other direction,
Emily veering to the right, the tires rumbling on the gravel berm to avoid side-swiping the other vehicle.
The road seemed to go on forever, but Emily knew the turnoff was sooner rather than later, as she looked for an unmarked driveway on the right side of the road. The closer she thought she got, the more butterflies formed in her stomach. A worry passed through her mind. What would this do to her relationship with Mike? Could she trust him to have her back in the future? Did he even have Miner? What if he had run off and was waiting for her at home?
Emily slowed the truck down, something in her telling her she was getting close. She rolled her neck right and left, trying to get the kink out of it from sleeping in the truck all night. She certainly hadn’t expected to spend the day this way, that was for sure. Just as she was tilting her head to the left, she caught a glimpse of a barely there path cut in the woods. Emily slammed on the brakes, the rear tires of the truck skidding just before the turnoff. Emily peered forward wondering if that was the path to Mike’s cabin. She could only see a few yards down the driveway, the opening fairly overgrown. She remembered Mike talking about how he wanted to leave it untrimmed so people would think it was abandoned. The driveway she was looking at certainly fit the bill. Emily eased off the brake, shifting the truck into four-wheel-drive and pulling onto the path. The last thing she needed was to get stuck in the mud on the wrong driveway. That would only add to the nightmare. Whispering a prayer, Emily goosed the engine, feeling the increased torque from the wheels, the dead branches and scrub pushed off to the side of the driveway making a little scratching noise on the side of the truck as she passed through.
