Don't Look for Me(36)

“I know … but you are right. We can’t always have everything we want. I want to be home, but I also want to be your mommy. I can’t have both, and that’s okay. I can just be your mommy now for as long as you want. Home will always be there waiting.”

Tears, tears, tears as I choke on these words. On the hatred that keeps knocking.

“Oh,” she says now. She has perked right up. “Well, you should have wanted to stay this whole time. Because you killed your daughter and she was nine. And I’m nine! And I need someone to teach me, and you’re a teacher! You should have seen that this was your second chance.”

A piece of the puzzle falls into place.

“Who told you that?”

“It doesn’t matter anymore.”

A long breath. I swallow tears. “Why is that?” I ask. “Why doesn’t it matter?”

“Because he likes her. He likes the way she looks and the way she acts. She’s more like my first mommy.”

The next word comes out through trembling lips. “Who?”

My lips tremble because, again, they know the answer before she says it.

She says it anyway.

“Your daughter. Nicole. And he wants her to come back.”





14


Day fourteen





Roger Booth was not at the inn when Nic returned from the woods. A laminated sign was posted on the reception desk saying that management is off site for the evening. He left a phone number in case of emergencies. Where the hell would Roger Booth be for an entire evening?

Nic’s mind was still on the thoughts, the words, that had been set free on her run, but also the fence and the small hole someone had tried to cut in it. She had questions that needed answers. She needed Roger Booth.

In the parking lot, she saw a car, then Kurt Kent in the driver’s seat. She’d forgotten about their meeting, and ran now, outside to catch him before he drove off.

“Did you find out anything? About the truck?” he asked when she jumped into the passenger seat.

“Not yet,” Nic answered.

“Yeah. Things move slow around here. Which is strange since there’s not a lot to do. Inertia, I suppose.”

He took a left out of the parking lot, heading toward the river.

“Inertia?”

“Yeah. Physics, you know. An object in motion.”

“No—I know what it means. I just…”

“Figured I wouldn’t?” He sounded insulted, like he knew she was making assumptions about him just because he was stuck in this town. And because he felt above all of it—this town and Nic’s assumptions.

“I’m the high school dropout,” she said, hoping to diffuse him.

He looked at her, then back at the road. It seemed to work.

“Yeah. Okay.”

They drove in silence, past the police station, town hall, the auto body shop. They got to the end of Hastings Pass, where the road met the river, and made another right.

“Did you know there’s a fence behind the inn?” Nic asked. “It’s about a mile and a half into the property, and about eight feet tall. Barbed wire coils. Barbs in all of the wires, actually.”

“Did you ask Booth? Maybe it’s his fence.”

“He said he didn’t know. But why would the Booth family need a fence? You can get to the property from either side of the buildings, and through the back doors. Not exactly a steel trap.”

Kurt shrugged. “Animals, maybe. Bears, but also wolves and deer. The deer can jump seven feet. The wolves hunt the deer. I don’t know.”

“There’s something else about it,” Nic said. “There was a spot where it looked like someone was cutting through the wire. It looked precise, not an animal, but a person. Maybe with wire cutters. Like someone was trying to make a hole to crawl through.”

Kurt appeared more surprised now. “That’s weird,” he said. “Kids, maybe—from a house next door? Looking for a cut-through to town? How old were the breaks in the wire?”

“I couldn’t tell. There was some rust, but not a lot. Nothing had grown over it, like weeds, or fallen branches. I don’t have anything to compare it to, but I don’t think it started before the summer.”

“Yeah,” Kurt said. “Hard to tell without knowing what kind of wire it is. If it’s been treated with something. Rust repellent. I don’t know much about fences.”

Nic looked out the window as he drove. The road was narrowing, cutting a path between tall trees whose canopy erased part of the sky.

“You know your way around here.”

“Hard not to after a lifetime.”

“Fair enough.”

They made a turn onto Pond Road. Another onto Jeliff. Nic made a point of looking for the signs, some of which were just paint on rough cuts of wood nailed onto a tree. Pavement turned to gravel and then dirt. Another turn onto a road with no name, then a mile or so farther into the woods. The road ended in front of a small house.

The structure was no more than a thousand square feet. One story. Flat metal roof.

“Someone lives here?” Nic asked. There was no car. No electrical wires. An old clothing line ran between two trees. A sheet and some women’s clothing hung to dry, though the frost was coming in the mornings now.