Gone(38)

“Come on,” Millard goaded. “Tell me what’s going on. Who am I gonna talk to?”

“Are you kidding?” Rondeau said. “You talk to everyone.”

“I do not.” Millard folded his arms and stared out the window. They were passing by a lake, wind-chopped and battleship grey. Softly, he added, “No one listens to me or believes me anyway.”

He had a point there. “I listen,” Rondeau said.

Millard shifted in his seat. His enthusiasm was palpable.

“First of all,” Rondeau admitted, “I don’t trust Addison Kemp. For someone whose brother and his entire family went missing . . . I don’t know. She’s hiding something. Then she tells me she’s got footage he’s working on, but gives me the wrong clip. For a supposedly successful business owner and all that, hard to believe she’d make such a critical mistake.”

“Maybe she wanted you to see something,” Millard said.

Rondeau cut him a look. “She also never said anything about this Indian Lake conspiracy.”

“She was being careful.”

The first buildings were showing down the road; they were coming into the small town of Indian Lake. Millard elaborated on the idea. “She could be compromised. She could know exactly what happened to her family, but she has to protect them.”

They passed a construction site with two large cranes and a green school bus. The road bisected white-painted houses, a gas station, a grocery, and the Indian Lake School — a small brick building which probably housed all the grades in one school. The GPS had only been working intermittently. The route forked, Rondeau took a turn, and the GPS died.

“Terrible what happens to a family like that,” Millard said. “You take this nice, happy family . . .”

“We don’t know they were happy.”

Millard looked over. “Why?”

“People just assume,” Rondeau said. He was thinking of the home video, those few frames where Lily Kemp looked at her husband, who was operating the camera. He remembered her eyes. Emoting a kind of pain, or longing. Could’ve been normal marriage strain, but it could’ve been because her husband was poking a sleeping bear.

Already the buildings were thinning out as they headed out the other side of town. They reached a dirt road. The sign read: Private Drive. Rondeau made the turn.

The truck bounced over the rugged terrain, and Rondeau suddenly blurted it out to his brother-in-law. He told him about the call from that morning while he was outside the jail. He told him about the ultimatum. “Now we’ve got eighteen hours,” he explained. “And goddammit if I’m not seriously considering calling them.” He meant the Bureau. Old Ninth Street.

“Oh no,” Millard said immediately. “You don’t want to do that.” The big man jiggled in the seat as they bounced along the rocky road.

“No, no,” Millard repeated. “If this is what I think it is, I can promise you: you bring them in with what you know, and it’s bad for you, Jason.” He stared. “We’re better off on our own.”

*

Rondeau swung the truck door shut. The slam echoed in the forest. The house sat on a rise, trees all around on three sides with a sloping, tangled yard. The two wheel ruts heading up towards the house barely passed for a road.

“We’ll walk from here,” Rondeau said.

“We should have brought something to eat.” Millard dragged his fingers across his flannelled belly.

“You just ate.”

Christ, this place was backwoods. Was anyone home? They left the truck and moved up the rugged trail meant to be a road. Rondeau didn’t see any vehicles up there.

What are you doing, Jay? Jessy’s voice, her ghostly image surfacing in his mind’s eye. She stood by the old gaslight stove. Stirring one of her magnificent stews in the large cast-iron pot. He could almost smell it; garlic and earthy spices — a hint of saffron. You really think this is the best thing, Jay?

No, he didn’t think this was the best thing. He didn’t know what the best thing was, that was the problem. Normally, decisions came easy. A quick analysis followed by a choice, often the lesser of two evils.

But Addison Kemp’s betrayal spoke volumes: Be careful. Go it alone, get to the bottom of it.

He continued up along the path, Millard breathing heavy behind him.

The lawn was covered with fallen leaves and cairns of rocks. The house itself seemed in okay shape. A side building was not, the center strut between the two bays listed so the building tipped left.

The screen door squeaked open on the porch. “Hello?” A woman stood there in rugged clothing; work pants and a sweater. She was holding a shotgun.

“Hello,” Rondeau called over. He stopped in his tracks. Behind him, Millard stopped, too.

Rondeau held up his hands and introduced himself. “You placed a call this morning? You said you had information on the missing family case we have going up there?”

She held the shotgun like someone who knew how to use one, her hands on the stock and the barrel. It was unsurprising for someone in a place like this, far off the beaten path. He attempted levity. “We mean you no harm.”

The woman had a good vantage from the porch, a view of the whole overgrown yard. Rondeau imagined her blasting away at rabbits, or aiming at the heads of big fall turkeys. Maybe cops, too. But then, she’d been the one to call the police.