by Kyla Stone
She’d almost told him about the man in the black boots, almost showed him the photo of the girl she’d stolen from underneath Calvin Fitch’s bed. Almost but not quite.
A lifetime of mistrust was a hard thing to overcome. Her whole life, she’d been alone, alone except for Cody.
Still, Shiloh recognized when she was in over her head. The time she’d spent recovering at Eli’s campsite had clarified things in her mind. She had clues that law enforcement needed.
The plan was to drop off the envelope at the Sheriff’s office or the police station. Maybe leave it with the front desk and tell them to give it to Jackson Cross.
On second thought, they could have wanted posters out for her. As soon as she showed her face, they’d grab her. Not a good idea. She’d drop it off, then run.
She turned onto Main Street in Munising. The bike was too big for her, but she couldn’t handle it. Her crossbow she’d left back at the cave, though she hated to do it. It was incognito time.
It was sixty degrees at ten a.m., perfect weather for her navy-blue hoodie, the hood drawn over her face, her black hair in a ponytail. With her features in shadow, along with the baggy sweatshirt and loose jeans, she could pass for a boy.
There were tons of cars in town. Lots of folks packed the Dollar Tree and Dollar General parking lots, the grocery store, and the hardware store.
The Munising public library was still open. The parking lot was empty. Shiloh biked into the lot, parked the bike near the entrance, and limped in. Her ankle throbbed when she put weight on it. Other than the librarian, Shiloh was the only person there.
Guilt pricked her for mutilating the magazines, hiding behind a carrel as she cut out the letters and words she needed and glued them onto a plain piece of paper, items she’d borrowed from the librarian.
No one needed Cosmo or Good Housekeeping. Not when things were normal, and certainly not now.
Using the magazines, she’d written what she knew: the photos under the bed, the blue truck, the black boots. Then she placed the photo of the girl in an envelope. On TV, detectives could figure out your handwriting.
She was careful. She wouldn’t get caught.
“You’re the first person I’ve seen in three days,” the librarian said as Shiloh stacked a few reference books on the counter.
The librarian checked out the books with paper and pencil, using a Coleman lantern for extra light. Mrs. Grady was a trim, attractive woman in her late-forties who wore flowy, colorful skirts and billowy peasant blouses, her long silver-streaked hair in braids.
Mrs. Grady peered at the books. A Dummy’s Guide to Homesteading and Edible Plants.
“You’re gonna start a garden, eh?”
“Everyone should.”
“I have a feeling you might be right.”
“Why don’t you close like everybody else?”
The librarian gave her a probing look. “People still need books. For entertainment, but for learning, too. With everything going on, they’ve forgotten, but they’ll remember again. When their phones die. When they can’t stand the blank screen of their TVs and laptops any longer.” She gave a grim smile. “They’ll be back, and I’ll be here.”
Mrs. Grady knew who Shiloh was, but she didn’t seem the type to listen to police scanners. Or turn in recalcitrant runaways against their will.
Shiloh and Cody had spent more than their fair share of time here after school, sometimes during school hours when they felt like cutting. Or when their grandfather had been drinking too much.
Mrs. Grady never turned them in. Never said boo about it to anyone. One time, he’d come in searching for them, drunk and ranting. Shiloh had been sitting cross-legged in the fantasy section; Cody on the computers in the carrels, researching drawing contests.
Mrs. Grady had threatened to call the cops, real loud in front of everyone. Then, after he’d stormed out empty-handed, Mrs. Grady had brought them Twix candy bars and bottled waters. Shiloh had loved her ever since.
Shiloh slipped the books into her backpack and shoved the straps over her shoulders. She’d forgotten her library card; Mrs. Grady hadn’t even cared. “Thanks, Mrs. Grady. I’ll return them next week.”
Mrs. Grady peered at her over the counter. “You okay, honey?”
Self-conscious, Shiloh touched her swollen lip. She smiled, though it hurt. “You should see the other guy.”
Mrs. Grady looked pensive. Her hair was messier than usual. Her eyes were red like she’d been crying. For a second, it seemed like she was going to say something, maybe I’m sorry for your loss, blah blah blah. She didn’t. “You’re taking care of yourself?”
Shiloh drew herself to her full height. “Damn straight.”
“You can always come here, honey. I hope you know that. I’ll keep this place open as long as I can. As long as I’m still breathing.”
A surge of emotion warmed her chest. Her cheeks went hot. Shiloh blinked rapidly, spun on her heel, and limped from the library. No use trying to speak with her throat tight and this damn wetness in her eyes.
She hopped awkwardly on Eli’s bike, turned right from Munising Avenue onto Lynn Street and headed toward the Sheriff’s office. The bay shimmered in the sunlight between the buildings. The sky was a perfect blue, not a cloud in sight.
She parked a block down, wound the bike chain around a lamppost, and locked it. The rest of the storefronts were closed.
Maggie’s Boutique had a sign that read, Open No Matter What! Cash Only though no one stood behind the counter. The touristy knickknacks, hats, magnets, keychains, and racks of sunglasses looked untouched.
Shiloh kept close to the building overhangs, in the shadows. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. It felt like everyone was watching her.
What if he was out here? In a car. On the street. In one of the shops, peering at her through a darkened window.
He could be anywhere. Could be anyone. Following her right now. She didn’t know him—didn’t know his face. Terror scythed through her. The invisible monsters were the worst kind.
She wanted to see evil, to fight it face to face.
Footsteps echoed behind her. Her heart leapt into her throat. She flinched, whipped around.
Behind her, a couple hurried up the sidewalk. The woman wore hiking gear with a pink gaiter around her neck. The man had a beard, his blond hair tied back in a ponytail. They both wore heavy-duty hiking backpacks.
“What are we going to do?” the woman said. “I can’t get stuck here. I’ve got to get home. I’ve got kids—”
“I know, okay? Everyone knows. We’ll figure something out.”
They passed Shiloh and hurried toward the corner gas station, where a dozen vehicles crammed into every available inch of asphalt. A red minivan blocked the road in front of the gas station like they’d run out of fuel before reaching the promised land. Cars honked at each other.
Her stomach growled. While she waited to cross the street, she tugged a Snickers bar out of her pocket, ripped off the wrapper with her teeth, and ate it. Chocolate stuck to her fingers and she licked it off.
Another car idled past. A white Jeep with muddy tires, splatters of muck gunked to its undercarriage and fenders. It coasted to a stop and pulled to the curb not twenty feet ahead of her. The license plate was covered in mud, too.
The Jeep driver switched off the engine. The driver stepped out, pocketed his keys, shoulders hunched as he headed for the hardware store. Several people hurried out the double front doors, clutching wood two-by-fours, rolls of plastic, tarps, and various tools.
Shiloh froze midbite. She forgot how to breathe. Her eyes were glued to his feet. Black work boots. White stitching. Red laces. A dull roar filled her ears.
He wasn’t driving the blue truck, but it didn’t matter.
It was him.
50
SHILOH EASTON
DAY SEVEN
Outside the hardware store, the man stopped, still turned away from Shiloh.
Panic
clawed at her throat. A loud roaring sound filled her ears. New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, Western Australia.
She forced herself to calm down, to breathe. Gradually, sound returned. Keeping to the shadows, she looked down the street. The man in the boots still held the front door open, chatting with another customer. Their words were muffled and indistinct, but the tone was friendly. They knew each other.
The customer wore a blue police officer’s uniform. He was tall, with dark hair. Big hairy hands rested on his belt. She recognized him. He’d been at her house with all that crime scene tape.
The cop laughed. The man in the boots slapped his shoulder and chuckled, then entered the hardware store. The door swung shut behind him.
The terrible truth sank in. This monster was friends with cops. Hell, maybe he was a cop himself.
She wasn’t safe with the police or the Sheriff’s office. She never had been. Jackson couldn’t help her; she couldn’t trust him or any of them.
Walking into that police station was tantamount to surrender. And Shiloh Easton did not give up or back down. Ever. It wasn’t in her blood.
On wooden legs, Shiloh retrieved her bike and found a hiding spot around the corner of the alley between the bakery and the flower shop. There she waited, breathless and tense.
Anxiety torqued through her. This was too big, she should get help. Maybe she should find Eli.
She didn’t trust any adults except for Eli…but he was too far away. The Jeep was here now. The license plate was covered in mud. She had to follow it or he would get away.
She would follow him all the way down the rabbit hole.
Twenty minutes later, the man in the boots exited the hardware store, carrying a shovel and a folded brown tarp beneath one arm. Shiloh crouched, peering around the corner.
He glanced down the street at the closed cgas station, gave a sharp shake of his head, and got into his vehicle. She listened to the engine rumble to life.
Shiloh mounted the bike, hands gripping the handlebars, one foot on the pedal, ready to go as soon as the white Jeep rolled past.
A moment later, it did.
Dread scrabbled up the knobs of her spine. Every cell in her body screamed at her to do the opposite of what she intended.
Follow the monster to his lair.
It was the only way.
For a few blocks, she kept it within sight. The white car drew further and further away. It swung a left off M-28. Bicycling as fast as she could, the wind in her face, whipping her hair back, her ankle throbbing, muscles aching in protest as she reached the intersection a minute later and jerked the handlebars left.
The bike skidded, tires biting asphalt. She nearly lost control but righted herself.
A dot of movement far ahead, a glint of sunlight on the metal roof, the engine already fading. She rode hard. As hard as she ever had, teeth clenched, jaw grinding, furious with herself, with the bike, with her own mortal helplessness.
It wasn’t enough.
No way could she bike as fast as he could drive.
By the time she reached the next intersection at Jasper Avenue the Jeep had completely disappeared.
She craned her neck and looked left, then right, then left again.
It was gone.
She’d lost it.
Angry, defeated tears stung her eyes. Coasting to a stop, she let out a curse. “You stupid maggot-riddled piece of dog—!” She screamed at the sky.
A lawn mower growled down the street. Crows chattered from the branches of a maple tree growing next to the stop sign to her right. No other sounds but the steady whirr of insects and her own ragged gasps.
Dismay filled her. She could feel her brother slipping away. His smile, his touch. Even the memory of him was fading. Like she didn’t deserve to remember him. All those times he’d rescued her, saved her, stood between her and her grandfather’s fists.
This one time, this once when he needed her, she was failing him.
She closed her eyes, breathing deeply. Anchorage, Alaska. Nassau, Bahamas. She pictured her maps in her head. All the paths converging to lead to her brother, if only she could suss out the correct one.
If only she were smart enough, clever enough. Brave enough.
Balanced on the bike in the middle of the road, she forced herself to breath, to think. She thought of the clues. The pictures hidden beneath the bed. The blue truck. The boots. The empty trailer.
In her mind, she walked through the trailer again, cataloging everything: the birding books, the photo of Calvin Fitch with his arm slung around that man with the familiar face she still couldn’t quite place.
The one that had snagged her attention before she’d remembered the cat box beneath the bed. Calvin Fitch arm in arm with that familiar man—the man who’d driven the white Jeep.
They’d been squinting, sun in their faces. An old clapboard cabin behind them. Rotting and warped wood. Weeds everywhere. Vines climbing up one side. An old hunting cabin.
Her breath caught in her throat. Steadying the bike, she unslung her backpack and unzipped it, rifling through her stuff until she pulled out her topographical map and the DNR state forest roads map of the area.
Studying it, her brow creased, head tilted. The Hiawatha National Forest boasted over two thousand miles of state forest roads for recreational riding. She traced a line with her finger from the cross-section she stood at along Jasper Avenue all the way north to a network of forest roads.
There were several derelict cabins scattered along that route. She and Cody had found most of them on their explorations. There was access from the Elderberry Trail, an isolated snowmobiling trail that passed behind her grandfather’s property.
She and Cody rode their ATVs on that trail sometimes. She knew it well. And she knew how to get there. She knew these woods, the hills and trails, the forest roads and wild miles of shoreline.
She shielded her hand over her face and looked west.
It was possible. Maybe more than possible.
He might be at one of those cabins. He might not.
She set her jaw. She’d return to her cave and gather what she needed. And then she’d check every nook and cranny, unearth every rock and climb every mountain, descend into every hole in the whole damn world if that was what it took.
If that was the price that fate demanded of her, she would pay it.
51
JACKSON CROSS
DAY SEVEN
Jackson and Devon stood in Walter Boone’s empty house. Sunlight streamed through the windows. The house was too quiet, an eerie silence Jackson was getting used to.
No HVAC unit switched on and off. No low hum of the refrigerator. No ticking clock in the kitchen. The world without electricity was fast transforming into a place of quiet desperation.
Boone’s address was listed as a small yellow cottage in Au Train off Woodland Road, fifteen minutes west of Munising. Moreno and Hasting had gotten a warrant and were searching Fitch’s trailer.
No one had known that Fitch and Boone were cousins. On their mother’s side, different last names. Jackson had seldom seen them together, though they both worked at the Munising Middle School. Technically, Fitch did. Boone was a volunteer.
Boone’s tiny house looked pretty as a picture. Neat and clean. The bed made. Towels hung on the rack in the bathroom. Knick knacks on the end tables, a glass coffee table stacked with books—A Birder’s Guide to Michigan and The American Birder’s Association Field Guide.
Jackson recalled the binoculars hanging on the hook in Boone’s office at the middle school. There were no pictures anywhere. No other personal artifacts. No signs of life.
. “Boone found the body,” Devon said. “He must have returned to the crime scene to give a valid reason for the presence of his prints.”
“It looks like it. But why. What’s his motive to kill Easton? And where the hell is he?”
They only had parts of the puzzle. It was maddeningly unclear.
/> Jackson riffled through the kitchen cabinets. The usual plates, bowls, glasses. Silverware and pots and pans in the drawers. The pantry was empty but for some spices and a can of kidney beans. “Does it feel like no one actually lives here?”
“I’m getting that vibe.” Devon stood in front of the fridge. “Ready? Brace yourself.”
She opened the fridge. No foul odor from three-day-old rotting food assaulted them. “Bottled water and some mustard.” She sounded disappointed. The freezer was equally barren.
“Maybe he cleaned it out once the power went out.”
“Maybe.” Devon sounded dubious. “He’s lived here for fifteen years. It’s so…”
“Sterile,” Jackson finished.
“Right.”
“If he’s not here, then where is he?”
They stared at each other; the unanswered question immense in the unnatural silence.
Jackson rubbed his jaw in frustration, turning in a circle. “What the hell are we missing?”
Just then, Moreno pulled in, driving fast. His tires kicked up dust. He exited the patrol truck and hoofed it up the porch into the house, panting. “We found something at Fitch’s trailer.”
“Spit it out, man,” Jackson said.
His eyes darkened with anger. “Polaroid photos. Of teenage girls. Fitch admitted that Boone kept them at his trailer. Boone moved in with him, pitched in with the rent, but kept his official address here.”
“How do we know the pictures aren’t Fitch’s?” Devon asked.
“We’ll test for fingerprints, but for now, we know this much. Boone is in some of them.”
The truth struck Jackson like a jackhammer to the chest.
All along, they’d focused on Easton as the primary victim. Amos had been contentious, unlikeable, a belligerent drunk. It had been an easy assumption to make.
But Amos hadn’t been the target. He was the collateral damage.
The kids had been the targets from the beginning. Either Shiloh or Cody, or both.
