Crossfire Creek

by Melissa F. Miller

  “Aroostine? Rue, what’s going on?” Joy-Lynn parroted from the doorway to Ellis’ office. She was flanked by Ellis and Joel, both wearing expectant expressions.

  Great.

  She shot Banks a grim look. Thanks a lot.

  He looked back at her impassively. Before she could respond to Joy-Lynn, the radio at Banks’ hip crackled.

  “Pat, you there?”

  It was Ranger Painter, and his voice was ragged, urgent, and out of breath.

  Banks depressed the talk button. “I’m kind of busy, Luke. I’ll ping you back in a few.”

  The ranger answered instantly. “This can’t wait. Rory took Rue’s dog for a walk. They followed the trail to the creek. Rory says Rufus freaked out, broke off the leash, and tore down the hillside. Pat … they found Marlene Glasser’s body. Someone tapped her between the eyes. Two bullets. She’s dead. I have to take care of Rory. I need you to come secure the scene. Do you copy?”

  Aroostine’s stomach lurched. Banks’ face went white. Behind her, Ellis moaned. Aroostine heard Joel shout and turned to see what he was saying. Everything was too slow and too loud. She felt as if she were underwater.

  Joy-Lynn streaked toward her, running flat out for the unlocked door as tears streamed down her face.

  “No, Joy-Lynn,” she cried. She grabbed for her and managed to get a handful of her sweatshirt. She lowered herself to her knees and wrapped Joy-Lynn in a tight hug. She could feel the girl’s heart thrumming through the soft sweatshirt material.

  Banks growled into the radio. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  “Crap. Could this night get any worse?” Ranger Painter’s anguish was clear even through the static.

  Something told Aroostine it could and would.

  Banks turned to her, but she spoke first, lifting her chin over the top of the sobbing girl’s head. “Go to the crime scene, I’ve got Joy-Lynn.”

  He hesitated.

  Ellis joined them in the hallway. “We’ll take care of her, Special Agent Banks. Boyd should be here any minute. They have a good rapport.”

  “What’s your cell phone number, Aroostine?”

  He input the numbers as she rattled them off. Her phone buzzed from within her bag.

  “I just texted you. Now you have my number. Call me immediately if anything goes south here. And Ms. Brown, please have the tribal police post a sentry at both doors.”

  “I will,” she promised.

  Banks stared at Aroostine for a long moment. His look was unreadable. He swallowed hard, turned away, and raced out the door.

  26

  Boyd locked his car and turned to walk toward the cultural center. It was well after six, but judging by the extra vehicles in the lot, Joy-Lynn was still here. He spotted both a pickup truck with out-of-state plates and a Jeep, probably one of the Jeeps he’d spotted this afternoon out by the cabins.

  He picked up his pace and tried to clear his mind as he walked. He needed to focus intently on what Joy-Lynn said as she worked through her feelings about the week’s events. His ability to completely and thoroughly compartmentalize his own issues, worries, and troubles made him the skilled counselor he was. No matter how bad his personal situation might be, he could put it aside during his clients’ sessions. And right now, his personal situation was dire.

  As he strode toward the door, it burst open and the man in the federal police windbreaker ran through it, nearly clotheslining him in the process.

  “Hey!”

  “Sorry, pal,” the law enforcement agent called over his shoulder.

  Muttering to himself, Boyd walked through the doorway before the door could swing shut and landed in the middle of a chaotic scene.

  A tall Native woman knelt on the floor trying to soothe a struggling Joy-Lynn, who was wailing and pounding at the woman’s chest with her tiny fists. Ellis and Joel Pine stood nearby making useless calming noises.

  He assessed the situation in a split second and took charge.

  “Let me go!” Joy-Lynn shrieked.

  He crouched beside her and the woman and spoke slowly and loudly so the words would penetrate her wild anger or fear or whatever had her in its grip. “Joy-Lynn, it’s me. It’s Mr. Caine.”

  She stilled. “Mr. Caine?”

  She turned up her tear-stained face to search his, as if that would tell her anything.

  “Yes. Listen to my voice. Joy-Lynn, it’s me.” He wasn’t sure his voice would be enough, given her state. “Remember, I’m supposed to meet you here tonight after you talk to Ellis and Mr. Pine?”

  She nodded, her lower lip quivering. “Yes.”

  She gulped then let out a wail. “My mom’s dead! He killed her, and she didn’t even see him.”

  His brain and body froze for a full second, while he struggled to process what she was telling him. He locked eyes with Ellis, who nodded.

  Very gently, he pried her out of the woman’s arms. “Let’s go in my office and talk for a minute, just you and me.”

  He listened to her sobbing, mewing cry for several long minutes. Finally, cried out, at least temporarily, she lifted her head to look at him through puffy red eyes. “Can we take a walk instead? Please, I have to get some air. I feel dizzy.”

  He looked at Ellis for guidance. Ellis deferred to the woman on the floor.

  “Rue? What do you think?”

  “Are the tribal police on their way?”

  “Yes. It should only take them a minute or two to get here.”

  “Then I guess it’s okay. If you stay right outside the door, under the light. There’s a bench there, right?”

  “That’s right,” Boyd told her. “I’m Boyd Caine, obviously.”

  “Rue … Aroostine Higgins.” She bent her head to catch Joy-Lynn’s eye. “Stay with Mr. Caine and do what he tells you, okay?”

  “I will,” Joy-Lynn promised.

  She placed her hand in his and they walked outside.

  No sooner had the door closed behind them when she gave him a sidelong glance, “Please can we go to the rocks and talk there instead? I know the way.”

  He winced and glanced back toward the cultural center. He’d just promised they wouldn’t leave the grounds. And the police would be here any minute.

  But it was always better to meet a client where she was. If Joy-Lynn felt more comfortable talking at a specific location, he would honor that, the consequences be damned.

  “Sure. Let’s go to the rocks.”

  She let out a great, shuddering breath and smiled tremulously. “It’s this way.”

  They walked in silence. Boyd didn’t much like the woods at this hour. The sun was setting, throwing shadows at strange angles into their path. He tried not to think of bears. Or snakes. Or coyotes.

  As the path curved, he realized they were headed in the direction of the creek. Suddenly, he knew where the rocks were. There was a clearing near a bend in the creek—upstream from both sets of cabins and not far from the waterfall. It formed a natural amphitheater of sorts.

  He listened harder, straining now to hear not only wildlife, but sounds that might indicate rangers or other humans were nearby. All he heard was the nightsong of birds and rushing waters, too loud to be the creek. It must’ve been the waterfall.

  “It’s just over here,” Joy-Lynn said, veering off the path and walking toward a cluster of flat rocks.

  She sat down on a wide rock and swung her legs back and forth over the edge. He joined her. They sat quietly for a long moment.

  “What happened to your mom?”

  She made a strangled, mewling sound. “I heard Ranger Painter over the radio. Someone shot her.” She shuddered and pointed left, down the hill, in the direction of the creekbed around the bend. “Down there, I think. At the other end of the creek.”

  “And you think it was the man she told the police she saw shoot that bad guy in the picnic area?”

  Joy-Lynn nodded. “Even if he was a bad guy, the man was wrong to kill him. And he was definitely wrong to
kill my mom. She didn’t even see him!” She slapped her hand over her mouth as if to belatedly trap the words that had flown out.

  “What do you mean, she didn’t see him?” he asked slowly.

  She bit her lower lip. “She didn’t see him. I did.”

  “You were in the woods Sunday afternoon?”

  She nodded.

  “Alone?”

  Another nod.

  “Why did your mother tell the police she witnessed the shooting?”

  In the years he’d known her, Marlene had made a lot of ill-advised decisions. But this one … what had she been thinking?

  “We had to tell someone what happened, but I couldn’t describe the man’s face, and she was afraid Chief Wagner wouldn’t believe me …”

  “… And she didn’t want to tell the chief about your condition.” Another one of Marlene’s poorly thought-out positions.

  “Right. So she said she saw. But I couldn’t tell her what the man looked like, so Chief Wagner got mad at her and leaked her name and our address to the reporters.”

  “Which is why you ran?”

  She nodded miserably. She dropped her eyes to the ground, kicking her heels against the side of the rock. “And the whole thing is so stupid because Mom is … was … face blind, too. We were never going to be able to say who the man was.”

  His heart skipped a beat. “Wait. Your mother had prosopagnosia, too?”

  “I think so. She never said, but I think she did.”

  He nodded. It tracked. Congenital prosopagnosia was widely known to run in families, although Marlene had been adamant she didn’t suffer from the condition.

  But of course she had. And she was too scared to tell anyone because if people knew, it would inhibit her single-minded mission to protect Joy-Lynn.

  “Your mom died for no reason.”

  She snapped her head up to frown at him in confusion for a moment, but she quickly returned her gaze to the ground.

  Joy-Lynn’s breath caught in her throat and she went rigid, like a board. She shook her head. Her vision was blurry from the tears that still swam in her eyes, so for a moment, she was sure she was seeing things. She blinked, hard, and looked again.

  Then she started to tremble. Her whole body shook.

  Mr. Caine was wearing a pair of tan hiking boots with black and green paracord laces. The boot closest to her was gashed open along the side. She held her breath and leaned forward to peek at his other boot. Yep, there was a glob of white paint covering the front of the boot.

  Her heart went crazy, bouncing against her chest. Without thinking, she launched herself off the rock and ran into the trees. She heard Mr. Caine jump off the rock. His feet pounded against the hard-packed earth as he chased her.

  Aroostine reached into her bag to pull out her phone, and the pages she’d taken from Joy-Lynn’s bedroom fluttered to the floor. She bent to gather them up and froze.

  Boyd Caine had been wearing a pair of tan hiking boots with black and green paracord laces. She was sure of it. But to confirm, she relaxed her eyes and let them fall half-closed while she focused in on the memory of him coming to a stop right beside her as she knelt on the floor hugging Joy-Lynn. His feet had landed directly in her line of vision, and she had noticed the details because she was a tracker and that’s what she did. The right boot had a big, jagged rip along the side. The left, a big splatter of white paint on the toe.

  She opened her eyes and stared down at the sketch in her hand, which began to shake wildly. Tan boots. Paracord laces. A rip in the right boot. A splotch of paint staining the left. She’d just handed Joy-Lynn over to a man wearing the boots she’d been drawing obsessively in an effort to unlock the details of the murder.

  She turned toward Joel Pine, who was standing near the door. She worked up the saliva to croak out the words even though she already knew with dead certainty what Joel would say.

  “Joel, could you peek out there and tell me if you can see Boyd and Joy-Lynn.”

  He glanced outside. When he turned around, his face was ashen. “They’re gone.”

  Her stomach churned. She bolted for the door, pulling up Banks’ cell phone number as she ran.

  27

  The setting sun filled the sky in a red-orange blaze as the mountains turned purple. Aroostine couldn’t shake the feeling that the world was burning as she ran through the parking lot, headed for the woods.

  A battered sedan was parked near her truck. It hadn’t been there when she’d arrived, so she assumed Boyd and Joy-Lynn were on foot, and off the Qualla.

  Where would he take her?

  Please don’t let them have gone anywhere near the creek. Please don’t let Joy-Lynn see her mother’s lifeless body.

  That, as she knew firsthand, was a sight a girl would never forget. Years later, Aroostine would be walking her dog or researching a case and her mother’s unseeing eyes and slack face would materialize out of nowhere, dragging her out of the present and back to a darker place.

  Not now. Focus.

  Neither Pat Banks nor Luke Painter had picked up her call. Then again, they did have a murder scene to contend with. She stopped at the edge of the trail to type out a text to the two of them before she lost her data signal in the thick of the woods:

  Boyd Caine took Joy-Lynn. Have reason to believe he’s the killer. Also believe they are in the woods. Going after them.

  Despite being too busy to answer her call, both men texted back instantly.

  First, the ranger:

  Don’t go alone. We’ll send an officer to meet you. What’s your location?

  Then Banks:

  No.

  She stared at her phone for a few seconds, waiting for a follow-up text, but Special Agent Banks was evidently a man of few words. She had neither the time nor the inclination to wait for a babysitter, so she dropped the phone into her backpack and plunged into the woods.

  Boyd Caine and Joy-Lynn weren’t difficult to track. Even at dusk, with the failing light, she could make out two sets of prints. After about a quarter of a mile, she recognized the terrain and realized where they’d gone—they were at the site of Joy-Lynn’s last outing with Marlene. The rocks where Aroostine had found them. It had likely been Joy-Lynn’s idea.

  She poured as much speed as she could into her trembling legs and burst through the trees into the clearing.

  Caine and Joy-Lynn stood just inside a shallow cave. He gripped Joy-Lynn’s arm with one hand and covered her mouth with the other. She wrenched her body from side to side, trying to get free.

  Aroostine started toward them.

  “Stop. Bear.” He uncovered Joy-Lynn’s mouth just long enough to point to the right with a shaking index finger.

  Aroostine turned her head slowly. Twenty paces away, a fat black bear stood between two pine trees, its gaze fixed on the man and the girl who were trespassing in its space. It hadn’t noticed her arrival.

  She froze. After a heartbeat, she shifted her eyes back to Joy-Lynn and the man to assess the situation.

  Joy-Lynn was flanked by a hungry black bear and the man who’d murdered Demetrius Costa and her mother. Aroostine began to calculate her options. None of them were great, to put it mildly.

  She made a small coughing noise to clear her throat. “I see the bear,” she said to the man in a calm, measured tone. “Why don’t you let go of Joy-Lynn and we can all get out of here?”

  “I have a better idea.”

  Joy-Lynn’s eyes flashed a panicked look at Aroostine.

  Aroostine locked eyes with the girl and willed her to stay calm.

  Caine looked from Aroostine to the bear and back. Then, with a sudden motion, he shoved Joy-Lynn out of the cave and directly into the path of the bear. She stumbled, fell, and began to scream.

  A blood-curdling scream pierced the air. Pat looked up from Marlene Glasser’s corpse and scanned the woods.

  “I think it’s coming from that direction. What’s there?”

  Luke raised his head to track P
at’s finger. “A bowl in the rocks. It’s directly north of where Aroostine said she found the Glassers.”

  “You think it’s Joy-Lynn?”

  “Who else would it be?” Luke dropped a hand to his daughter’s shoulder and gave her a reassuring squeeze through the light rescue blanket that was draped over her like a cape.

  “Daddy, go with Mr. Banks and help her.”

  “I’m not leaving you.”

  “I’ll wait in the Jeep.”

  Another urgent scream filled the night. Pat rose to his feet and released the safety on his sidearm. “I’m going to check it out.”

  “Go, Daddy.”

  “Absolutely not, Rory.”

  She raised her chin, defiant through her tears. “Go save Joy-Lynn. I’ve lost my mom, and now she has, too. Do I have to lose my best friend on top of everything?”

  Luke wavered, unsure.

  “I’ll go. You stay,” Pat told him.

  “Dad, go. I have Rufus.”

  Luke set his mouth in a firm line. “Do you have bear spray?”

  “Yes.” She lifted the small canister to show him.

  “I want you to use it on anyone or anything that approaches you. Spray first, ask questions later.” He dropped a kiss on her forehead and followed Pat up the embankment.

  They ran noisily, sacrificing stealth in favor of speed. Pat crested the rise and his heart leaped into his throat.

  Joy-Lynn was curled into a ball on the ground about five feet away from a full-sized black bear that had reared up on its hind legs. Caine, wild eyed, had his shaking hands wrapped around a gun, which was pointed at Aroostine Higgins, Rue Jackman, or whatever the heck she called herself.

  “Do you have a tranq gun on you?” Pat asked Luke out of the corner of his mouth.

  “It’s in the Jeep.”

  Pat closed his eyes for a beat to regroup. He opened them at the sound of Aroostine’s voice.

  “Mr. Caine, you need to come out of the den. She’s going to feel territorial. That won’t end well for you.”