"She came a long way," I tell Wolf. "It's only proper."
I check my watch. If I leave now, there's plenty of time. I can fill her in on what she doesn't know and still wrap it all up in time for her to catch the noon bus back to the city and the rest of her life.
"Fine," I snarl. "Fine. But don't you say a word about this, you hear me? I'm doing this for her, not you. So just… just shut up, goddammit."
I jerk to my feet and stomp back into the room. Wolf follows, sticking out his tongue and thumping the walls with his baseball bat of a tail in approval. I glance back at him and growl indistaste as I snatch my keys off the kitchen table and loop my Remington strap back over my shoulder, just in case.
Fuckin' dog. Always thinks he knows better than me.
The sun has melted the snow down further, so little rivulets run down the road, making me take every turn slower lest I slide the Bronco into a ditch. Because my eyes are streaming from the rush of cold air in my face, my first glimpse of Pike Hollow from above as I descend the mountain is a blurry watercolor of streets and buildings.
It takes another twenty from that first sighting before I've finally finished descending the hairpin switchbacks that mark the road up the mountain. Finally, I can open up the engine on the straightaway and go roaring into the town.
I pull onto the main road and gun it toward the bait shop. I'm already phrasing the story in my head, excising all unnecessary detail.
But when I arrive at the bus stop, it turns out that the whole damn trip was unnecessary.
Because the bench is empty.
I park the Bronco and step out. The engine ticks as it cools. The swirling wind pushes a Styrofoam cup around the gravel lot in a lazy orbit. Across the street, the bait shop is dark. The post office is dark. The laminated bus schedule is still tacked to its post, flapping in the breeze.
Caroline is nowhere to be found.
I check my watch again. It couldn't possibly have taken me that long to get down the mountain, right? No, it's 10:52. The noon bus isn't for another hour. She should still be here, sitting on this bench, furious with me, composing elaborate revenge fantasies about the stubborn asshole who threw her out into the cold.
"Caroline?" I call out, even though it's pointless. The whole town feels emptied, hollowed out, a set that's been struck after the final performance.
I cross to the bait shop and cup my hands against the window. Inside, I see rows of lures on pegboard, a dusty cash register, a rack of yellowing newspapers. No people, though. The security camera above the door blinks its red light at me. I'd be shocked if that ancient piece of shit is actually capable of recording anything.
I try the door. Locked.
I'm starting to feel a dull sense of dread in my stomach.
I circle the building. Out back, there's a dumpster, a stack of pallets, and a coil of garden hose frozen solid. None of it provides any indication about where Caroline might've gone.
Could she have hitched a ride? I surely fucking hope not. The girl is impetuous, but there's a difference between that and stupid. Her father must've drilledNever trust a strangerinto her head from the day she was born.
I'm standing in the middle of the road, turning in a slow circle, when something catches my eye.
It's gone as soon as I saw it, though. I channel all my years of hunting and slow my breath, my pulse, relax my vision to its widest extent and wait for the sign to appear to me again. Atfirst, it's just the same hazy miasma of snow-covered buildings, gray asphalt, brown mud. That pop of color I saw a moment ago isn't visible.
Slower. Slower. Breathe. Empty yourself and wait…
There.
Right over there, where the gravel slopes down toward a drainage ditch, something caught the pale yellow sun and winked at me. I charge over and peer down into the ditch. Half-submerged in the grey slush at the bottom of the ditch is a granola bar wrapper.
I've seen it before. It was in the pocket of her jacket the night I carried her inside—I pulled it out when I was checking her for injuries. She'd smoothed it flat and tucked it away like she intended to dispose of it properly later.
I pick it up. It's damp but not frozen through. Recent.
I start to search around. The snowmelt can hide a lot, but not everything, especially if she was here recently. Eyes on the ground, I make my way back to the bus depot bench.
Directly across the street, I find tire tracks. Long wheelbase. A van or a truck of some kind.
And alongside it, boot prints. Multiple sets, overlapping and smeared, heels and toes digging deep at various points. Something happened here. A struggle? And is that…?
Oh, fucking hell.
