by Kyla Stone
Sheriff Underwood had always despised him. Good old-fashioned racism. Or maybe he’d just wanted to close the case fast and Eli was the simplest target.
Then there was Amos Easton, who had hated Eli since the day fifteen years ago when Eli had seen the bruise on Lena’s face. Eli had confronted Amos, threatened to kill him if he laid a hand on Lena or Lily ever again.
“Jackson’s huh?”
“It wasn’t him.”
“Are you sure?” Again, no reaction in Sawyer’s expression. Just that shark’s smile that played around his lips. “Who got the press? The praise? The promotion to undersheriff?”
“Jackson. He never wanted that stuff.”
Sawyer shot him a pitying glance.
Nausea churned deep in his belly. It wasn’t sea sickness. “He never wanted that stuff. He didn’t care about the press.”
“You’re certain?”
“Yes.”
“There were…anomalies in your case.” Sawyer’s voice took on a tinge of bitterness. He gave a careless shrug, then hunched his shoulders against the biting wind. The dark clouds opened up and rain poured down, heavy droplets pelting the yacht. “There were rumors of an unreliable witness. The judge wouldn’t give them a warrant.
“They’d decided early on that it was you. Once you were in their crosshairs—” Sawyer raised a hand to the side of his head, made a gun of his finger, and mimed pressing the trigger. “They were going to nail you, no matter what they had to do.”
“That doesn’t mean it was him.”
“It was, Eli. It was Jackson.”
“How do you know? How can you know for certain?”
“How do I know? Because I’ve had a particular officer of the law on my payroll for five years. He gets regular payments, which he needs to feed his healthy addiction to eight balls of blow—and hookers. Both of which I supply him. I have the film. He'd go to prison. I own him. One night, I got him particularly hammered. He told me everything.”
The blood drained from Eli’s head. A great rushing filled his ears that was not the wind. His legs went weak. “No.”
“The officer that stopped Eli did so on Jackson's instructions. He ‘found’ the evidence Jackson had planted for him to find.”
His tongue was thick in his mouth. He couldn’t get enough oxygen. “What cop?”
Sawyer gave a sharp bark of laughter. “My informants are my own.”
Eli stared across the lake, unblinking. The haunting landscape of mist and dark water. Never had he been so starkly reminded of his own mortality. How brutal and fickle Mother Nature could be.
“The aurora will be back again tonight,” Sawyer said, nonchalant. “She’ll do her worst with a Mona Lisa smile, just like this girl does.” He gestured at the lake with his own enigmatic smile.
Eli couldn’t focus on the maze of his words. He was reeling from Sawyer’s revelation. Rolling the words in his mind like agate stones polished by the rushing surf.
He could not find defects in the logic. Neither could he make an argument against the sickening twist in his gut that confirmed the truth of Sawyer’s words.
Maybe Sawyer was lying, but he didn’t think so.
Sawyer watched him with dark eyes. “The question now is, what will you do with that information?”
Eli didn’t respond. He couldn’t.
“I wonder,” Sawyer said slyly. “I wonder what you will do.”
“Take me back to shore.”
“What chaos will you wreak, Eli Pope?”
Eli met his sharp gaze with his own. “I said take me back.”
Sawyer threw back his head and laughed. Eli could barely hear it over the wind.
Mist glued Sawyer’s dirty blond hair to his forehead in sculpted curls. He looked like a creature of the sea, a captain bravely manning the SS Edmund Fitzgerald freighter before it sank in the storm-tossed waters in 1975, a modern-day Ulysses determined to avoid the siren’s song.
“Sawyer!” Eli said.
“No need to worry,” Sawyer said. “I will always get you back, safe and sound. Haven’t I just offered you a massive favor?”
“There’s a price.” He barely heard his own words over the rushing inside his skull. “There’s always a price with you.”
Sawyer’s smile reached his eyes for the first time. Sunlight playing on dark water. Obscuring the monster of the deep sliding beneath the placid surface. “There’s a price for everything, my old friend. Most people just don’t realize that they’re paying it until it’s too late. All of life is a transaction. When you know that going in, you’re going to come out with the better end of the deal.”
“I make no deals.”
Sawyer said, “Sometimes, you don’t have a choice.”
Sawyer worked the throttle and turned the yacht in a slow arc. Waves sloshed the hull. The rain slapped down as they motored back toward shore. The fog obscured everything. He could see no land, no safe harbor.
The brutal cold of Lake Superior would drown a man within sight of shore as mercilessly as it would out in the middle of open water. Submerged logs, dangerous rocks below the surface, sudden gales that drove hapless ships into unforgiving outcroppings.
Over three hundred and fifty shipwrecks littered the cold dark bottom of the lake. At least half remained undiscovered to this day. A thousand generations had lived and died on this lake.
How many more? How many lives would sink, simply vanishing, never to be seen again, never to be found? How many had been thrown overboard, bodies intentionally dumped? Possibly by the man standing next to him.
“They say over ten thousand people have lost their lives to this lake,” Sawyer said as if he’d read Eli’s mind. “Eerie to think about, isn’t it? Some of those bodies still down there. Right beneath us.”
“Lake Superior never gives up her dead.”
“No,” Sawyer said, “She doesn’t. She keeps her secrets.”
Finally, the rugged shoreline appeared out of the dense fog. Mere outlines in the murkiness. The bright beam of a lighthouse shone like a tiny star in a universe of gray. The beacon leading them to safety.
“So do I,” Eli said, so quietly that the storm took his words and whipped them away. “So do I.”
28
JACKSON CROSS
DAY FIVE
Saturday morning dawned bright and sunny. The northern lights had lit up the sky the night before, putting on a spectacular show. Inside, the lights had flickered, power surging before it went out and did not come back on.
Jackson’s family was sitting at the dining room table when he came home from running errands around 10 a.m.
His father, Horatio, fiddled with a radio set on the table next to a platter of bacon, eggs, and pancakes. Jackson’s mother, Dolores, bustled around the massive kitchen in heels, serving everyone but herself.
Once, they’d had a maid and an in-home chef. Those days were gone, though his parents both cared about keeping up appearances.
The table was set with a meal fit for a king. Mounded platters of sizzling bacon, scrambled eggs, and fluffy pancakes. Large glasses of orange juice. Homemade cinnamon rolls no one was even eating.
Jackson felt sick. “I thought we talked about this. We should ration our food. The power is going to be out for a long time.”
His sister Astrid snorted. “The power company has their people working on it now. They’re saying a couple of days, as soon as the damn auroras end.”
“They’re wrong.”
“It’s just a power outage,” Astrid drawled. Her eyes were half-lidded, like she’d already taken more than her share of Valium. She was on a multitude of prescriptions. “We’ve weathered them fine before.”
Astrid was a large woman, 5’11 when she stood, broad-shouldered and sturdy. An attractive woman, her silky blonde hair framed strong, striking features. She wore oversized glasses over green eyes.
Astrid had never been able to maintain a regular job. With their family’s considerable wealth, she hadn�
�t needed to. She was not confined to a wheelchair but used one due to the chronic pain in her legs from the drunk driving accident that had shattered them ten years before.
Dolores bent over backward to see that her every need and want was met. They all did.
“There’s food at the grocery store,” Dolores said. “I don’t understand, honey. We’re fine. Everything’s fine.”
“When is the last time you went to the grocery store, Mother?” Jackson asked with a calmness he didn’t feel.
“On Monday.”
“Before the auroras started.”
“What’s your point, Jackson?” Astrid asked.
“The local grocery stores are empty. I checked this morning.”
Dolores paused over the frying pan and blinked at him. She had no answer. She’d never considered the possibility. In her late fifties, she was slender as a whippet and wore a white pantsuit, her silver-streaked hair swept back in a French twist.
Astrid gave him a patronizing smile. “I’m sure things will be restocked by tomorrow.”
“Not this time.” After his phone call with Lena, he’d listened to several radio station broadcasts. While some still downplayed the disaster, a few were taking it seriously.
Lena was right. If the geomagnetic storms worsened, the power might not come back on for a decade. Society as they knew it would collapse under the strain.
Horatio sighed. “Not this prepping stuff again.”
“If not now, when?” he snapped. “When we’re all starving with nothing to eat?”
His mother shrank back, a look of consternation on her face.
“Jackson,” Horatio said sharply.
“I apologize, Mother. But the fact remains. And why are all the lights on? We should save the generator only to run the essentials—”
Astrid waved her hand to encompass the expansive dining room, the massive house. “These are the essentials.”
Jackson fought down a surge of frustration. “The fridge, the stove. Maybe the washing machine. That’s it. Use the fireplace if you’re cold. Use the Coleman lanterns and LED flashlights I bought.”
Flustered, Dolores touched the pearls at her throat. She wore them without fail, even on days she didn’t leave the house. Her face went pale. “Surely, you’re joking, Jackson.”
“I’m not.”
“I can’t live like that. We can’t live like that. There’s no need. That’s what the generator is for—”
“We need the generator to last as long as possible. The sun is shining. You don’t need lights on in every room of the house.” Lena’s words echoed in his mind. “We need to be ready.”
Astrid guffawed. “Get ready for what? Armageddon? Please.”
“You’re not listening—”
“That’s enough!” Horatio barked. “You’re scaring your mother, Jackson.” His father spoke with a booming finality. He took a sip of coffee and set the mug next to his half-eaten plate of eggs and bacon. “Enough.”
“We talked about this,” Jackson said, reining in his temper. “On Monday when the power first went off. And then again yesterday. We’re supposed to be conserving.”
Dolores stared at him like he’d grown two heads. “For what?”
Jackson was at a loss for words. She didn’t get it. They didn’t get it. No, they refused to understand because they didn’t want to,
An engine rumbled outside. Astrid’s boyfriend pulled into the driveway in his red Ford Mustang. Cyrus Lee entered the house without knocking, as if he belonged there.
Dolores greeted him with a kiss to the cheek. She scurried around the oversized kitchen, getting him a plate he was perfectly capable of getting himself.
“Thank you, ma’am,” he said with exaggerated graciousness. He sat next to Astrid’s wheelchair and shot Jackson an appraising glance.
Cyrus was an unwelcome fixture in the Cross household, at least to Jackson. Where Astrid was an intimidating presence, even in her wheelchair, Cyrus was thin, wiry, and bristled with dark energy. He had a narrow, ferret face.
He came from money and good breeding. His great-grandfather had been the owner of a prosperous copper mine in Keweenaw County. For work, he did some sort of Wall Street day trading from his couch.
Cyrus had dated Astrid for years. They’d never married. In all that time, Jackson had never grown to like him. He was entitled, arrogant, and damn creepy.
Jackson figured his parents were simply grateful that someone wanted their disabled daughter. They only cared that his pedigree was respectable.
“Sit down, Jackson,” Dolores implored. “Eat with us.”
Jackson’s stomach twisted. He’d lost his appetite. Guilt and resentment needled him. This was his family. For better or worse.
Jaw clenched, he moved around the house, flicking off light switches. His family watched him like he was an alien creature they didn’t understand.
Morning light streamed through the oversized bay windows. Outside, past the double-level deck, the lake reflected the pristine blue of the sky, clouds like billowy cotton.
He strode through the gleaming kitchen and made for the basement stairs.
“Where are you going?” Astrid asked.
“To check our stores. Make some notes. See where the holes are, and shore them up while we still can.”
“Good luck with that.” There was a false syrupy sweetness in her voice that grated on his nerves. He ignored her.
He had a list in his head. It was growing by the second. More propane for the generator. Batteries. Anything solar powered. More ammo. Additional first aid supplies.
Would they need to grow their own food? He was terrible at that sort of thing, but Dolores loved gardening. Instead of roses and lilies, they needed heirloom seeds and materials to build a green house.
Jackson’s parents assumed money and influence could buy their way out of any problem. Not this problem. And not this time.
He doubted they knew how to deny themselves anything. They continued to consume everything around them like they’d done their whole lives, as their ancestors had done for generations.
Their baron grandparents and great-grandparents had exploited the land and water, stripping the earth of precious metals, cutting the great timber without a thought to conservation, to what might be left after they’d ravaged it.
They had never stopped to consider the sources of their consumption. Or that the resources they squandered could be used up.
As he descended the stairs, he took the flashlight from his belt and flicked it on. He lived in the finished basement. A storage room was located to the right of the downstairs bathroom, inside the home gym.
The last time he’d checked their stores a few weeks ago, he’d built up six months of food, toiletries, and first aid for the four of them. He didn’t consider himself a prepper, but when you lived in a hostile land like the UP, you needed to be ready for anything.
Inside the storage room, it was windowless and dark. He swept the flashlight beam over the wooden shelves he’d built several summers ago—and froze.
He blinked, looked again.
Every shelf was completely barren. The five-gallon buckets of beans and rice were gone. The plastic containers of MRE were gone. The boxes of canned goods, of vegetables and fruits and tuna. It was all gone.
29
JACKSON CROSS
DAY FIVE
Jackson’s hands shook. The flashlight wavered. He stared, stricken.
What the hell had happened? The months of buying extras, the time spent organizing the supplies by date, rotating food in and out. All wasted. Disbelief, frustration, and anger warred within him.
All this time, he’d felt okay, confident he had this stash. He’d had time to figure things out. Except now he didn’t.
They had no back-up. No reserves. No safety net.
Jackson backed out of the storage room without bothering to close the door. Numbly, he moved to the stairs. Frenetic thoughts ricocheted inside his head. He couldn
’t focus, couldn’t think.
A growing sense of alarm built inside him. He was balanced upon the lip of a cliff, far too close to the edge, vertigo about to push him over.
Astrid rolled her wheelchair to the top of the stairs. “Something wrong, brother?”
Jackson stood at the base of the stairs and stared up at her. “What the hell did you do?”
Astrid loomed above him. Cyrus stood behind her, a silent hovering shadow. His eyes were bottomless in the shadowy light.
Jackson’s hands balled into fists at his sides. Anger roiled through him, sharp and bitter. He struggled to control it, to control himself. “What did you do?”
“Whatever do you mean?” she asked.
He hated it when she spoke like that. Derogatory, insulting, but with a cloying, saccharine sweetness. Smiling at him, her hands caressed the wheels of her chair, as if simultaneously taunting him and reminding him of her helplessness.
That was the problem. No one could get offended. No one could get upset. Astrid was forever the maimed crippled girl, a permanent victim. No matter what she did, how she treated people, her small cruelties.
“Where the hell is everything?” he demanded.
Her pretty smile widened. “You know I have a heart for charity. I donated all those boxes to people who really needed it. The Harbor was so grateful to receive all the supplies. It went to some real good.”
“How?” he choked out. “When?”
“On Monday, actually. They brought a truck. Cyrus helped lug everything upstairs. He was so helpful. You work all the time, anyway. I knew you wouldn’t notice, and you didn’t.”
He vibrated with restrained rage. How could she? How could she invade his private spaces, steal what did not belong to her?
But he knew how. And he knew she’d enjoyed every second of it.
Her green eyes glinted. “You don’t need to be so selfish. You’re the one always talking about helping others. And all along, you had this stash you were hoarding, all to yourself.”
