by Kyla Stone
A lot of people were paying attention, packing up and heading out of the cities into rural areas.
Last night, she’d driven the last hundred miles with the sky like a red ocean, the aurora undulating waves. The way the lights swayed across the velvet-black heavens reminded her of jellyfish drifting in the deep.
She’d never seen anything like it. Even Bear had awakened for the show, leaning his head out the opened window, tongue lolling, grinning like a hairy brown fiend.
“It’s pretty but it’s dangerous, buddy.”
Bear chuffed in response.
“How dangerous? It’s going to be bad.”
She’d contemplated utilizing some of her cash to spring for a hotel room, but she couldn’t justify spending two to three hundred bucks simply to sleep.
No way was she leaving Bear alone in the Tan Turd. Or leaving her supplies unattended.
Instead, she’d found a truck stop outside of Marietta and parked between two semis. The place was packed. She’d checked three different truck stops before she found an open spot.
She’d slept with her M&P pistol on the center console beside her, fully loaded with a round in the chamber. If something happened in the middle of the night, she’d be damned if she wasn’t ready to defend herself with lethal force.
Bear was protective, but he wasn’t the optimal guard dog—he wanted to lick and love on almost everyone—but he was a good warning system. He’d bark if anyone got anywhere near the SUV, whether it be human or squirrel.
As she passed billboards for carpet stores in Dalton, green hills rose all around them. She listened to the radio as scientists discussed the stunning auroras at tropical latitudes—over Cuba, Hawaii, Jamaica, the Bahamas, as far south as Portugal.
Millions of people in dozens of countries had canceled work and school to throw lavish midnight parties, dancing in the streets, setting up tents and lawn chairs to watch the sky.
She rolled her eyes and switched channels. How could so many people not realize what was coming? The information was out there, if they were willing to listen.
“…The FAA has grounded all planes, leaving millions of travelers stranded leading up to Memorial Day weekend. The FAA released a statement that it was necessary to cancel flights due to damage to low earth satellites. Stay tuned for further updates…”
She switched the station again. “…The primary threat of a CME and the resulting geomagnetic storms is to electrical power transmission grids, oil and gas pipelines, undersea cables, telephone networks, railways, satellites, et cetera. Small-scale electronics won’t be affected, but we won’t be able to access any of the systems we depend on. For example, almost every system from communications to banking to aviation is dependent upon GPS data…”
As they approached the Tennessee border, traffic increased again. Bear whoofed unhappily, tail thumping the window, the back of her seat, the back of her head.
“Oof.” She reached back with one hand and swatted his fluffy butt. “I know, I know. Bathroom break. Just give me a second.”
A wave of dizziness washed over her. One eye on the road, she checked the screen on her pump. Her blood sugar was getting low at 80.
Time to eat. With one hand, she rummaged in her bag, pulled out an apple juice box and granola bar, tore off the wrapper with her teeth, and ate while driving.
A blue rest stop sign appeared ahead of them. Bear thumped the back of her seat with his tail. He stuck his head between the seats and panted in her ear, hot doggy breath on her face.
He needed a break. So did she. Her thighs burned, her butt was sore, her head pounded. They still had a thousand miles to go. “I know. We’re stopping, I promise.”
Her muscles tensed as she pulled off the highway and navigated the parking lot. The place was packed. Every parking slot was taken. Several dozen vehicles had driven over the curb and parked in the grass.
Lena followed suit, snagging the last spot beside a picnic table.
She holstered her pistol before exiting and opening the door for Bear. He bounded out with a relieved whoof and promptly began peeing on the rear wheel.
Lena stepped back and scanned the parking lot. She could feel eyes on her. Families were crammed at picnic tables and spread out on the grass. Several children were crying. People looked frazzled and stressed.
She got food and water for Bear, then she checked the mini-fridge. Still good and cold.
Tension drummed through her. She needed to use the restroom, but she was loathe to leave her supplies. The refrigerated vials inside that ugly SUV were her life, her salvation. “Stand guard, Bear.”
Embarrassing as it was, weird as she felt, she squatted right there in the parking lot next to the Tan Turd and did her business.
Bear rounded the side of the SUV and stared at her, head cocked, ears pricked.
She glared at him. “Really? You’re supposed to be keeping an eye out.”
He plopped on his haunches and gave her a goofy grin.
“That’s it. You’re fired.”
After using wet wipes to clean up, she tried calling Jackson again. Was he paying attention to the warnings? She knew how he was. When he was on a case, it consumed him.
He would believe her—she knew he would.
Sometimes the phone rang, sometimes it didn’t. Nothing went through. Not texts, not phone calls.
With a sigh, she pocketed her phone and scanned the horizon. No sign of the aurora, though dark clouds bristled on the horizon to the south. Electrons sizzled in the air, the wind picking up, whipping strands of chestnut hair into her face.
A storm was coming. It was headed straight toward them.
24
JACKSON CROSS
DAY FOUR
“What do you have?” Jackson asked.
“Dumb phones aren’t working.” Devon set the phone on the table and squeezed into the booth. “Again.”
“Everything’s scrambled because of the solar storms,” Jackson said,
Devon chewed on her thumbnail. “I thought that’d be done by now. Every day, they’re like, ‘Surprise! We’ve got another one. Gotcha!’ It’s not funny anymore.”
“The universe has an ironic sense of humor.”
“Or a perverse sense of punishment. I feel like the ant under the magnifying glass being tortured by the gods. I just want to check my Insta ten million times a day. Is that too much to ask?”
They were grabbing lunch at the Falling Rock Cafe on Munising Avenue before heading back out. Devon had ordered another beef and potato pasty; she couldn’t get enough of them.
Jackson dug into his broiled whitefish, the best tasting freshwater fish, reeled in from the deep waters of Lake Superior. Though the town didn’t have power, the restaurant was running on a generator.
Devon had spent the morning with the crime scene techs while Jackson had hooked up with the park service to search for Cody Easton’s missing boat.
They’d found nothing. Neither had the Coast Guard. If the fishing boat had become unmoored—or intentionally released—it could be in any of a hundred coves or inlets along the coast.
After lunch, they planned to head back to the crime scene and hike to the coast from Easton’s property. Outside, the sky was turning an ugly shade of gray; they needed to hurry.
The case file was opened on the table between them. Devon pointed to a crime scene photo of the print with blood transfer that they’d found near the back fence. “The DNA came back. It’s the victim’s blood. We found a shoe box for a pair of size nine Nike Air Force 1 sneakers in Cody’s closet. Morena tracked down another pair at a shoe store in Grand Marais. The treads match the plaster cast of the footprint.”
“That’s a popular shoe. Could have been someone else.”
“It’s most likely Cody, boss. You know that.”
“It still doesn’t mean he’s the perpetrator. Keep going.”
“Most of the prints were a size eleven in mens. Cody is a size nine. Amos has sneakers that are a size
eleven, boots that are eleven and a half. The smaller prints, size four in womens, match the shoes in Shiloh’s closet. A couple of prints match Walter Boone, but he discovered the victim, so that’s to be expected. We have dozens of partials we haven’t been able to match. Customers came into the salvage yard all the time.”
Jackson leaned forward and rubbed the stubble on his jaw. “And the murder weapon?”
“Easton’s prints are on it. Cody’s prints aren’t in the system, but the techs lifted a print off his chromebook’s fingerprint reader. Cody is also a match.”
Jackson shook his head. It was far from a smoking gun. “Cody worked in the salvage yard with Amos. He could have picked it up a dozen times for a legitimate purpose.”
Devon looked dubious.
“What else?”
“There is a partial print on the tire iron that doesn’t match any hits in the system. Hasting is tracking down the list of customers over the last thirty days, focusing on the five folks who visited within seventy-two hours of the crime. We’ll see if we get lucky.”
“We need more than luck.”
Devon finished her pasty and used a crust of bread to sop up the last of the juices. A line appeared between her brows. She was focused, considering the options, the angles.
Jackson knew what she was thinking. “Say it.”
“Here’s what I have.” She ticked off the evidence on her fingers. “No signs of a suspect entering or exiting the property. Cody’s fingerprint on the murder weapon. Cody’s likely footprint with blood transfer that places him at the scene, near the victim. Cody’s established propensity for violence. He has the means and opportunity. And the motive.
“Say he’s had enough of his grandfather’s drinking and snaps. Or maybe Easton goes after Shiloh and Cody defends her, like he defended her from that bully at school. Cody kills his grandfather, then panics and flees. Shiloh witnesses the horrific cycle of family violence repeat itself, gets scared, and runs away.”
It was the obvious answer.
“It doesn’t feel right.”
“Maybe you’re too close to it.”
It was possible. Maybe more than possible. Jackson clenched his jaw. “Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched. There’s a lot of directions this case could go yet.”
“Occam’s Razor seems relevant here, boss.”
“When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.”
“Exactly.” She paused. “Underwood seems like he’s under a lot of pressure to close this case fast.”
“I know that.” He felt the pressure like a thousand bricks slowly crushing his chest.
There was never enough time. He’d hardly been home in four days. He had yet to investigate Ruby Carpenter’s missing person’s case. Her mother had stopped in at the sheriff’s office this morning, begging for an update.
Though Sheriff Underwood had told him to drop it, he wouldn’t. He’d have to investigate on his own time. He’d called her friends and discovered nothing. He’d also talked with Shiloh and Cody’s classmates and come up empty.
Devon shook her head. “How hard can it be to find one teenage kid?”
“Two teenage kids,” he said. “Don’t forget Shiloh.”
She was still in the wind. He’d tried to follow her yesterday, but she was too fast. She knew the woods far better than he did; there were a million places to hide.
Hiawatha National Forest alone accounted for 879,000 acres of rolling hills, dense forests, and wetlands. It contained hundreds of miles of ATV, snowmobiling, and hiking trails.
When the waitress came by, Devon ordered a mocha latte to go, extra chocolate syrup. Jackson asked for black.
“We’re about out of syrup, hon,” the waitress said. “We’re running low on a lot of things. Tomorrow, we’ll be running on a reduced menu. No more coffee.”
Devon stared at her. “What do you mean, no more coffee?”
The waitress shrugged. “We haven’t received a delivery since this thing started.”
Jackson’s phone rang as the waitress took their cash payment. It was Hasting. Local calls went through occasionally; long distance calls were the issue.
Still, it failed twice before he finally got ahold of Hasting. The connection was staticky.
Jackson gripped the phone. “Spit it out before we lose service.”
“The warrant came through. Sprint delivered the goods. We still haven’t found Easton’s phone, which means it’s either been destroyed or the battery died. Last time it pinged a cell tower, it was in Alger County. Sprint was able to bring up the call log. Normally, we’d get the text messages, too, but they’re having server issues and don’t have it yet. Big surprise.”
“And?”
A buzzing silence. Then static.
“Hello?”
“I’m here, I’m here.” Hasting’s voice came through tinny, half-fading, but clear enough for Jackson to make out his words. “You’re never gonna guess who’s on that log. And no less than five times in the last ten days alone.”
“Hasting, for the love of all that’s holy, spit it out.”
Hasting paused for dramatic effect. “James Sawyer.”
25
JACKSON CROSS
DAY FOUR
Devon lowered her binoculars and pointed. “What’s that?”
Jackson joined her along the lip of the bluff. In the distance, storm clouds gathered. Lake Superior whipped herself into a frenzy, the waves crashing against the cliffs.
A dense fog had rolled in as they’d hiked the two-mile trail from Easton’s salvage yard to the edge of his property along the coast.
He had no idea why Sawyer had called Easton, but they were going to find out. Hasting and Nash were looking for Sawyer, but Jackson knew he wouldn’t speak to them. He was slippery as an eel. Everywhere at once, his fingers in every pie.
Jackson would have to do it himself. It was a task he dreaded.
Devon grabbed the sleeve of his jacket and pointed. “There!”
Jackson followed her gaze. Great boulders littered the base of the cliffs. To the left was a sheltered cove with a narrow sliver of sandy beach.
A dock jutted into the water. A weathered shed stood anchored to flat rock near the cliffs, likely used to store ropes, fuel, tackle, and other boating paraphernalia.
“There’s no record of a dock here,” Devon said. “No permit ever pulled. I checked the county records this morning.”
“Amos probably built it himself and ignored regulations and permits. No surprise, there.”
Devon edged closer to the drop-off, trying to get a better look at the dock, but she was too close.
“Be careful,” Jackson called.
Small pebbles gave way beneath her feet and tumbled over the edge of the cliff. Devon took a rapid step back from the ledge. Her brown skin went ashen. “It’s steep here.”
“That’s why you stay away from the edge.”
“Yeah, yeah. I got it.” She raised the binoculars again, then pointed. “I think there’s a path down to the beach over there.”
They gave the edge a wide berth as they headed east until the narrow path revealed itself. It was a rocky, steep descent. It took a good five minutes to pick their way down to the dock itself.
“It’s in good shape,” Jackson said. “Used recently, too.” He studied the smooth straight boards, the lack of algae build-up on the wood or the rope pilings.
“I see something. Down at the water line, among the rocks.”
Jackson looked where Devon pointed. Past the dock fifty yards, a litter of boulders crowded the base of a jagged cliff. One of the boulders was smoother, brighter than the others.
He stared harder, squinting. The boulder moved, bobbing with the waves.
“It’s a fishing boat,” Jackson said. “Flipped upside down.”
The storm drew closer, the sky darkening, the heavens about to open up and drench them.
Cautiously, they picked their way along the sandy beach, cl
imbing over water-slick boulders, mindful of the swirling eddies and deeper pools between the rocks. The wind threatened to pull them off the rocks into the wild surf.
As they approached, Jackson recognized the name painted onto the side. Little Neptune.
They’d found Cody Easton’s boat.
Jackson’s phone rang. They’d hiked back to the salvage yard in pouring rain. He pulled it out of his pocket, relieved. Every time cell service went out, he wondered if it would return.
Six new messages blinked back at him. Four from his mother, one from his sister. A voice mail from Hasting, but it was just static.
And four missed calls from Lena.
Anxiety hummed through him. He’d been worried for days. Sixteen hundred miles was a long journey; still, she should be here by now.
He gestured for Devon to go on ahead to the patrol truck. He ducked into the corrugated metal shed, which smelled like gasoline and cut grass.
Rain dripped down his face. His hair was plastered to his scalp. He pressed the call button.
She picked up on the fourth ring. “Jackson.”
“Lena. You okay?”
“Shiloh…” Lena’s voice came through tinny and distant. She sounded stressed. “Is she safe? And Cody?”
“We’re still looking. We could use your help.”
“I’ve had some…troubles. Bear and I are okay. I should be there tomorrow but…need to tell you…”
The phone spat static.
“Lena? Can you hear me? Lena?”
“…Jackson. Have you seen the news…about the sun? The solar storms?”
“Yes. I have some supplies. We’re set for a while.”
“That’s not good enough. It’s going to get worse…a lot worse.”
His gut clenched. Lena was smart. He’d always trusted her judgment. He’d been so consumed by this case, he hadn’t paid attention like he should have.
“There was a scientist on TV… I believe him, Jackson. A big one is coming…bigger than this planet has ever seen...he said it’s going to change everything. It’s coming. In a day. Maybe two. We need to get ready.”
