Alone in the Wild (Rockton #5)(81)
THIRTY-FOUR
Once Storm’s fine, we track Lane. It’s easy at first. He doesn’t have a flashlight or a lantern. In winter, under a three-quarter moon, the reflection off the snow is enough. However, that leads to a quandary for Lane. More open land means better light but deeper snow. His choices are clear sight or easy movement. He tries both, racing through thicker woods, and probably tripping over an obstacle or two until he veers to less dense forest, and then staggers through knee-deep snow. Eventually he finds a happy medium. He’s still walking through snow, though, meaning we barely need Storm to track him.
At some point, he must realize that and he heads for the foothills. There he finds windswept rock to run across, and Storm earns her keep then. Ultimately, though, we lose him. Storm is wounded, and she’s been up since her wolf suitor came to call yesterday morning. She isn’t the only one flagging either. When Lane plays one too many tricks on us, we run out of the patience needed to keep Storm on target. We also run out of the will to push her when she’s so obviously exhausted.
Lane has confessed to killing Ellen. He’s a threat to Nancy, but … While I won’t say that’s the Second Settlement’s prob lem, I have no jurisdiction here. The dead woman was their friend. The killer is their resident. I have no right to keep investigating. I will, if they ask for help, but I have a baby momma to find, and solving this crime doesn’t get me any closer to resolving that one.
When Dalton came after me, he’d told Tomas to take Nancy home. That’s where we go, and it’s seven in the morning by the time we get there. It’d have been longer if we backtracked, but I’m blessed to be with a guy who doesn’t need to follow his own footprints to find his way in the forest.
Tomas and Nancy haven’t told the elders anything. They’re waiting to talk to us, and I fear that means they want us to cover for Lane. They don’t. He didn’t kill Ellen in self-defense. He has no excuse and no remorse, and he followed up one cold-blooded murder by attempting another, this time against the woman who raised him.
I can blame a twisted sense of loyalty to his uncle or the homophobic teachings of his settlement, but neither is an excuse for murder. Whatever his father and the settlement taught him, Tomas and Nancy raised him in a loving and open-minded home.
We speak to the elders with Tomas and Nancy. Lane will face their judgment. They’ll wait for him to return, protecting Nancy and the children, and if Lane doesn’t come back, then yes, they would appreciate our help finding him.
Afterward, Tomas and Nancy ask us to join them for breakfast before we leave. The children feed Storm, who is doing an excellent impression of a fur rug, sprawled on the snow, refusing to move. Apparently, she’s getting breakfast in bed, and I have no doubt she’ll rouse enough to eat it. I wouldn’t mind an hour of sleep myself before the long walk home, but I can also rouse myself to eat, and I know Tomas and Nancy want to talk to us.
We’re barely settled into the small alone-hut when Tomas says, “I would like to ask for transportation down south. For my family.”
“What?” Nancy says, startling enough that she nearly drops her breakfast bowl.
Tomas doesn’t look at her. “We’ll go to Whitehorse. I should still have money in an old account. It’ll be enough to get us started. I’ll set up Nancy and the kids someplace outside the city, where they’ll be more comfortable, and I’ll rent an apartment and find work in Whitehorse.”
“Did I miss our discussion on this?” Nancy says. “Because I’m quite certain I’d have remembered it.”
Tomas folds his hands in his lap. “I should have done this twelve years ago. Taken you away instead of marrying you and tying you down with—”
“With our children?” Her voice rises. “If I have ever—ever—given the impression that I consider our children anything but blessings—”
“I don’t mean it like that,” he says quickly. “I just … I made a mistake, and I want to fix it now.” He looks at her. “I want to set you free.”
“Set me free? Or be rid of me?”
Dalton says, “Maybe Casey and I should wait out—”
Nancy doesn’t seem to hear him. “I made a mistake. Not a mistake in what happened with Ellen. Maybe I should say that was wrong, but it was something I needed. The mistake was not telling you that I needed it and working out a solution together. If you want to leave, then I understand, but as for setting me free?” She meets his gaze. “You never held me captive. I could have left anytime I wanted. I didn’t want to.”
I slide toward the exit, Dalton following, but Nancy stops us.
“Yes, we apologize for making you bear witness to a very personal conversation,” she says, “but I have a feeling if you aren’t here, this won’t be resolved. You are our passage south. We need to decide this before you go.”
That isn’t true. We’ll be back. But I understand what she’s saying. They’ve avoided this conversation for over a decade, and if we’re awaiting an answer, they can’t push it aside again.
“Do you want this?” Nancy asks Tomas. “If you do, then yes, we’ll go south and start over in separate lives sharing our children. Because that last part is the most important. I’d never give them up, and I’d never ask you to. They are ours, whether we are together or not. But if you’re offering me a way out of this marriage, the answer is no. I don’t want that. If you’re saying I can stay on the condition this never happens again…”