by M K Dymock
“You didn’t even know what she was talking about.”
“She was talking about a movie. Plus, we’re not going back until tomorrow. What’s the harm?”
Jen gave him a withering look that only an older sister can bestow. “The harm is someone could see us and start asking questions.”
He was still young enough to let his disappointment show through, and he kicked a rock in the dirt. “Everybody thinks we’re dead. Merrell said so.”
“Yep, we’re dead, so we better not turn up alive or that would be awkward.”
He didn’t let up. The begging continued during the one-hour hike to their temporary campsite and while she opened up cans of stew. “Fine,” she finally blurted out. “We’ll go.”
Jen had insisted they wait until ten minutes after the movie was supposed to start to walk in. They needed the cover of darkness. Apparently thirty minutes would’ve been more appropriate, as the entire town was still milling around the gym waiting for the lights to dim when they got there.
Despite it being his pleas that brought them, Link clamped onto her hand at the sight of hundreds of people. She should’ve shaken him loose, but she needed his support, too. The hoards brought on claustrophobia that threatened to sink them both. There had to have been fewer people than at her last school assembly, but she’d forgotten this many people existed in the world.
With Link’s hand firmly tucked in hers, Jen turned to the gym door and their escape. This was a mistake. As she dragged her brother back down the hall, he offered no protest, and his feet eagerly jogged to keep up with her.
Twenty feet shy of the outside door and freedom, Elizabeth and her daughter blocked their way. “Hey, you came,” Elizabeth said with a grin. “Where are your parents?”
Jennifer stared back. The sight of the crowd and someone who recognized them unnerved her so much she couldn’t find the cover stories that were usually so readily available. “They’re back at . . .”
“The cabin?” Elizabeth finished for her.
Jennifer nodded, squeezing Link’s hand harder.
“Must be nice to be old enough to have a kid who drives,” she smiled down at her own daughter, who clung to her side and refused to look up.
“Yeah,” she said, unsure. It took a moment to realize Elizabeth was referring to her. “Yeah, I drove.”
“Why don’t you two sit with my family?”
Jen looked to Link, who examined his shoes with intensity, shoes they’d had to replace twice since leaving home. He hadn’t experienced a childhood. A real movie would be something to carry with him for the next . . . hopefully not much longer.
“Okay, but we have to leave as soon as it’s over.”
Elizabeth had brought several pillows and blankets and threw them out on the wood floor. Jen almost immediately regretted their decision, as everyone seemed to know the woman from the store and stopped to say hello.
Elizabeth’s daughter seemed as uncomfortable with all the attention as Link. Luckily, the adults ignored them for the most part, and the lights eventually dimmed.
As the movie began and the screen filled, all regrets left Jen. She felt like a child again. Both she and Link leaned forward in stunned silence at the brilliant colors. About halfway through the movie, Link whispered in her ear he needed to use the bathroom, and she let him go alone. She justified it as looking weird to accompany a boy of his age, but the truth was she didn’t want to miss a second of the show before her.
Not two minutes later, she heard a frantic whispering. “Jen!” It came again, this time louder. A few people turned to look at the noise, and a few more turned to glare at its source. The gangly outline of her brother broke through the darkness. “Jen,” he said, louder now than a whisper.
“We’re here,” Elizabeth called back before Jen could.
Her brother sank on the blanket and leaned into her. With his gummy worm breath, he whispered, “We’re in trouble; we have to go.” His entire body trembled in the darkness.
“Is Merrell here?”
“No. Bigger trouble.”
“Okay,” she said in a whisper loud enough those around them to hear. “I’ll help you find the bathroom.”
The light from the hallway gave enough of a glow into the gym for them to pick their way through the families on blankets.
“Ow,” someone said as she stepped on something other than floor.
He half-stood, and Link let out a sob. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” The man sank back down as the gazes of those around them returned to the screen.
They made it to the bright lights of the hallway, which momentarily blinded her.
“Come on,” Link insisted, dragging her down the hall where he paused in front of a community board filled with fliers announcing everything from rodent removal to ballet lessons. “See.”
It took only a second for her to see what he was talking about. Underneath a flier advertising horse shoeing, Link’s face smiled back at her. Not Link now but Link as he’d been four years ago. Slowly, she reached up and moved the top paper, revealing a face resembling the Link of now.
It was like everything around them stopped and the entire world focused on one thought. How had anyone gotten his picture? She shifted the flier more and trembled to see her own face looking out.
“Have you seen these children?” The headline blared through the building, through the town. Next to that was a flier with bright red letters screaming “Wanted.” Merrell looked down on them. The smaller letters below detailed lies about how he was a suspect in his own children’s murder and a person of interest in their mother’s.
Just as everything slowed down, the roaring in her brain sped up. They had to get out.
Jen ripped the flier off the wall and stuffed it into her pocket as if that could somehow make their faces disappear from the town’s collective memory. They moved to the door, and she grasped Link’s t-shirt as he tried to bolt. “Walk,” she commanded in a whisper. He almost ran in place beside her—his adrenaline not allowing him a quiet step.
Their footprints echoed in the empty hallway as most of the crowd remained in the gym. They rounded a corner, passing a bank of lockers. Another thirty feet and they were at the door.
She shoved open the double doors, her mind leaping ahead to their campsite. Would it be safe to return? It was far too risky to stay in town, but could they stop to at least grab what they could carry?
Before she could swing the door completely open, a hand grabbed on the handle and pulled it the rest of the way. Jen found herself staring at a star-marked deputy. Her legs almost sank beneath her, and if Link hadn’t been with her, she would’ve surrendered entirely.
She lifted her eyes to the cop and was surprised to see a smile under two brown eyes. “Not staying until the end?”
Link bumped into her from behind, jarring her through the doorway and jarring some words out of her mouth. “No, we have to go home.”
His smile faded slightly at her brisk tone. “Everything okay?”
No! her mind screamed at him. “My brother is sick.”
She jabbed him with an elbow, and he peered around her. “My stomach,” he said with a pained voice.
Something seemed to click in this young man’s eyes; maybe it was seeing their two faces together. “You sure?” She could almost hear the spark of his brain as he tried to make a connection. “I could give you a ride back. Are you staying around here?”
“In a cabin.” Curse this town and their knowing everyone. “I drove,” she added hastily, remembering the lie Elizabeth came up for her.
“Jen, everything okay?”
Had her thought conjured up the woman? Elizabeth had exited out the other door. “Yes, my brother got sick in the bathroom so I figured we’d go home. Didn’t want to disturb everyone.”
“Oh, that’s too bad.” Her hand went to Link’s forehead, who visibly flinched at the woman’s touch but managed to hold it together. “You are a little hot.”
> “Yes,” Jen said to both adults blocking their path. “I’m going to drive him home.”
“If you want, you can text your parents and stay longer. I can drive you home.”
Before she could respond to her request with an adamant ‘no,’ Elizabeth answered her own question. “Of course not, your parents don’t know me.” She laughed. “I forget you’re not one of the locals.”
“Thanks anyway.” Jen took control of the situation and walked past the deputy with Link so close he gave her shoes flat tires. She forced herself to turn once and smile and wave. Elizabeth had already turned to go back inside, but the deputy still watched them.
Link told Merrell what had happened. She reluctantly handed over the flier and any hope of ever leaving the mountains. She didn’t need more proof that people were still chasing them. They didn’t return to Lost Gorge again while she was with them. It would be more than a year before they returned to any town. That’s when they started breaking into empty cabins.
She’d spent two days searching with Sol Chapa and hadn’t recognized him as the deputy who had stopped her so long ago. It wasn’t until the third day, when she saw him in his sheriff’s uniform and the questions turned accusatory. That’s when she fled again.
The outside world had kept track of them—no matter how hard they tried to hide.
24
Sol sat over oatmeal at Beth’s, taking inventory of what little they knew so far. One woman on the run, one woman dead, and one missing child. What they didn’t know could fill the Gorge.
He started at the beginning—Hylia Hayes. What did Clint say about her background—that she’d stolen the identity of a twelve-year-old dead girl? He dug his iPad and the files out of the backpack, logged into the criminal database using the government-issued device, and ran the alias, not expecting any results. A child didn’t have a lot of time to create a criminal record.
Clint’s original check had pulled up a Washington death certificate, but he hadn’t pursued it once he suspected the woman’s identity was false. Sol read on. The information that came up caused him to pull the screen within a few inches of his face.
Had they dug into the seemingly dead end a little more last year, they could’ve pulled on a thread that unraveled everything.
Almost twenty years ago, before Sol was SAR chief, his main job had been guiding hunters into the mountains. For an awkward, backwoods, not-quite-twenty boy, this was the perfect job. Six months in and he’d already started to earn a reputation as a man who knew these mountains better than most. Another ten years, and he’d be known as the man who knew them better than anyone.
That summer the FBI had descended on their town in droves, hunting for a suspected murderer on the run with his two children. With the crossing of state lines, the case had crossed into federal jurisdiction. Sol, happily three days into a two-week trip, stayed oblivious to the hoopla until he came down after its tragic conclusion.
As the story went, which he would be told more than a few times, the father had killed his wife and gone on the run with his children. The agents hadn’t reached out to the local law enforcement with more than a heads-up that they suspected he was in the area. They brought high numbers, knew where their man was, and chased him over the literal edge.
David Hayes fired two shots as agents closed in. By the time they reached the cliff over the raging Lost Gorge river, David stood alone on the other side. He jumped as they watched. The Feds spent three days looking for the bodies. Blood from the children was found on a small rocky outcropping twenty feet above the river. They would’ve searched longer, but an early foot of snow shut down the hunt for the winter. An attempt was made again the following spring, but nothing ever came of it.
Clint hadn’t lived in the area at the time, and Sol didn’t remember the names of those involved.
He brought up an image of the young Hylia, her last school photo. While she wore a school uniform, a green blazer over a button-up white shirt, she didn’t look polished. What it was that gave him that impression he couldn’t say for sure. It wasn’t like he was a man who dressed with more thought than how long the clothes had gone without a good washing.
With two fingers, he enlarged the photo, and the details came through. The white shirt, buttoned incorrectly, had a few stains. Her dark blonde hair had been braided into two separate plaits, with chunks of hair bursting out of the elastic. A large well of anger rose up unexpectedly. Had this little girl lived a life like Amy’s—neglected until it was too late?
Then he remembered that same girl might’ve left him in a cave to die, and he pushed those feelings down.
Sol pulled up a few blurry images of the woman claiming to be Hylia. Clint had taken some at a distance when he began to become suspicious but still didn’t want to spook her.
Sol compared the photos, including the image he carried in his own memory. Hylia of the present had darker hair and skin, both things that could change with age. The little girl had crooked front teeth, but try as he might, Sol couldn’t remember the woman’s teeth.
The eyes, however, they told a story that would not dim or change with the years. The girl stared into the camera with a daring look—not of anger but of challenge—like she knew her clothes and hair were misplaced and refused to be cowed.
That full day they’d spent together had told him so much about her and nothing at all. She hit the trail with a quiet fervor, and he found himself struggling to keep up. Not until darkness signaled a day of failure did she let up. They walked back into the make-shift camp, where instead of a warm meal, Clint awaited them. While his boss had spent all day on the trails, the deputy had gone at the missing girl with a cop’s instinct.
It was the first time Sol had proved unready for the position thrust on him. Clint had attacked with questions about her story and its inconsistencies. She’d pushed back, but Sol stopped that line of questioning before it went too far. He wanted, even needed, one more day of searching before being willing to call it criminal.
What he had a hard time admitting back then, but could see clearly now, was that as long as the case remained in the mountains, he was the expert in control. If it became criminal, he would prove unready.
Sol pushed back the shame of that day and focused instead on the woman’s response in the moment. That same defiant look flashed across her face in the same deep brown eyes. She would not be cowed.
Hylia Hayes hadn’t stolen the identity of a dead twelve-year-old. She was that twelve-year-old.
With the photo of Hylia was one of her younger brother, called Link. The six-year-old didn’t show the same signs of neglect. While his white shirt was splashed with chocolate milk, his hair had been combed and slicked back. Had a parent paid more attention to the boy, or had Hylia readied him?
Sol did the math on the boy’s birthday; he would be in his mid-twenties if he lived. What about the father, the suspected murderer? Where had the little girl Hylia searched for come from? Had she been born of the young woman, or was she another stray they gathered? Were there others?
He flipped to a clean sheet on his yellow legal pad and began to count the ghosts that lived in the mountains.
25
With an appointment set up with the lawyer for the next morning, Jen fled Sela’s hospitality and normalcy for a make-shift camp in a small patch of woods by a park. Her screaming mind needed the solitude.
Paranoid schizophrenia, that’s what Sela said the doctors had diagnosed her father with. She spent the night turning that one over in her mind and finding no clear answer. The boom of the shot that killed her mother still ricocheted in Jen’s memories. The man’s back had been to her with a gun pressed against Charlotte’s head.
If that didn’t happen, then she’d inherited more than her father’s crooked ears.
But it did happen . . . didn’t it?
The next morning, Jen walked through her old neighborhood, where the lawyer her mom had trusted still lived. Kids walking to school filled the streets
—some cheerful, some arguing—all painfully normal. When she was little, she went through a phase where she was embarrassed by her family’s situation. Other moms didn’t work, and other dads did. For the life of her, she couldn’t remember now why that had mattered so much.
An older girl dragged her little brother down the sidewalk as he begged to watch the ants for “just one more minute.”
“Link,” Jen whispered, as a hot sting of pain shot through her. Where was he? He’d lost someone he loved, and she hadn’t been there for him because of her own needs. How could she ever make that up to him? Was he okay? Was the kid?
The lawyer’s house number came up sooner than she was ready for. It was the largest house on the street—additions had clearly been made to the original footprint and she could spot a pool through the fence—not a common occurrence in the northwest.
She plastered on her safe smile, which she’d spent years perfecting. It wasn’t a frown or a grin, only a perfectly acceptable bland smile that no stranger would question.
With trepidation, she hesitated at the sight of the red door and what lay behind it. Did she really want to know more painful history? How much more would she have to expose herself? Link’s goofy grin, mirrored in the little girl’s face, nudged her onward.
The lawyer opened the door within seconds of her knock. Despite the almost thirty years he must have on her, he held the look of a man in his late-forties. She didn’t need a mirror to see how life on the road had pulled her face down, while his still crinkled with life and youth. He was probably one of those guys who spent retirement trekking the world. Only a few strands of gray peppered his dark hair, and a goatee gave him a rugged, yet distinguished presence.
He stood in the doorway, his bright blue eyes taking her in and filling with shock. “It is you; you look a lot like your mother.”
A stranger knowing who she was made her deeply uneasy. She wanted this over so she could retreat to the mountains. “Can I come in?”
