City of the Lost (Casey Duncan #1)(128)

So Mick wasn’t just a cop. He was a cop with a taste for vigilante justice. And two of our victims are in his files, as killers who escaped justice by buying their way into Rockton.

Isabel thought he’d been keeping notes for Dalton. She’s partly right. These are Dalton’s notes—the same ones I read in his journal. But there’s no way Dalton let Mick in on his secret crusade, and he certainly wouldn’t have allowed Mick to keep a copy of his notes.

Mick must have found out about the journal when he’d been working under Dalton and known where he kept it. They’re a little out of date, and he’s added extra notations, as if he’d been investigating on his own. Bartending is exactly the kind of job that makes it easy to learn other people’s secrets.

I work methodically, reading each page. Dalton will be in the forest for hours. I’m in no rush, the fire is blazing, his couch is comfortable, and I’ve made a hot chocolate chaser for my sandwich.

The last page in Mick’s file is for a guy named Calvin James. He’s the only one Dalton didn’t have in his book, which means this must be Mick’s own detective work. James was a soldier who walked into his commanding officer’s bedroom and shot him dead while he slept. Then he walked out … and shot and wounded two other men. He disappeared while being transferred to a military jail stateside.

I read that page three times. Then I set it aside, and I stare at the fire, and I tell myself that I should be ashamed of the conclusions I’m drawing.

Mine was in the military. Killed someone who didn’t deserve to die.

When the door flies open, I’m still staring into that fire. I keep staring as footsteps pound across the floor, even as I hear Anders say, “Casey?”

I turn, and I look at him, and that’s all I can do. I look, and I tell myself I’m wrong. I must be wrong, but I can’t stop thinking it.

“Casey?”

It takes a moment to rise out of my thoughts, and when I do, I see Anders—really see him—sweat streaming down his face, his eyes round.

“It’s Eric,” he says. “I lost him. We were out there, and we were sticking together, and then—I don’t even know how it happened. I stepped away for a second to take a piss, and I barely even turned my back and—”

“And he’s gone,” I say, and my voice is an odd monotone. “You lost him.”

His brow furrows. “Right. Did … did you take something? For the pain?”

“Yes,” I say, in that same hollow voice.

He exhales hard. “Okay, okay. So you’re a little out of it. But I need you to come with me. Can you do that?”

“Go into the forest with you.”

“Right.”

“To look for Eric.”

He swears under his breath. “Shit, you’re really out of it.”

“Just take me to him.”

“I don’t know where—”

“Take me to him.”

He nods and grabs my coat. I put it on and follow him out.





Eleven



It’s dusk now, darkening into night. Normally, we’d take lanterns, but we don’t bother with those, using the flashlights we keep in our jackets instead. As we walk into the forest, I still tell myself I’m wrong. I have to be, because if I’m not, what does that mean for…

Eric.

Oh God, Eric.

I keep going back to that moment in my house, when I saw Anders reading Mick’s list and the look on his face when I caught him.

“Since I’m professionally allowed to be nosy, I’m guessing that’s a list of real names?”

“Hmm?”

“Real names of locals.”

“Something like that.”

Something like that.

As soon as I can take advantage of the narrowing path, I fall behind him. We’re about a kilometre in. I go another hundred steps—yes, I count every damned one of them. Then I say, “Calvin?”

I expect a “Huh?” I hope for one. Desperately, desperately hope. But he jerks to a halt, his shoulders stiffening, and he stands there with his back to me.

“It is Calvin, isn’t it?”

He turns then, and in his face I expect to see the final proof. Cold anger or maybe even a twisted smirk.

Yep, you got me, Casey.

But there’s none of that. He turns, and all I see is Will Anders. Even when he notices the gun, pointing straight at him, he only closes his eyes and dips his chin, and says, “Okay,” and it’s not as if he’s saying, “Okay, you’re right,” but, “Okay, go ahead.”

Okay, pull the trigger.

“Where is he?” I say.

He opens his eyes. “What?”

“Where is Eric? What have you done with him?”

He blinks hard, as if trying to process what I’ve said. “Eric? You think—? No. I didn’t—” He starts toward me, but I raise the gun and he stops. “I would never do anything to Eric, Casey. Never.”

“Because he saved you.”

Emphatic nods. “Right. He did. He—”

“So he knows what you did.”

Silence.

“He knows who you are and what you did? Yet he trusted that you’d never do anything to him? You. The man who murdered his last commanding officer.”