Endings by Linda Richards (portable ebook reader .TXT) 📗

black nylon strap, a few inches wide, a few feet long. An innocuous enough object, but it looks new—not as though it’s been out in the weather for months—and its presence and location seem to confirm the possible recent presence of a tent.

“That way,” I say, pointing into the forest. “That’s the way I saw him go.” And then more quietly, “I shot after him, but he was moving and it was dark. At first, I thought I hit him, but now it doesn’t seem like it.”

At this admission, three heads swivel towards me, and Curtis articulates the question, but I saw it coming anyway.

“Who the hell are you?”

And I can’t help but laugh a little, not unkindly. Because the way he says it—his tone and demeanor—he may as well be talking to Batman, even though I’m anything but that.

“It’s a long story. It’s complicated.”

“Are you even an author?”

“Yuh,” I say. “Something like that.”

I head in the direction I’d seen Atwater run, and the team troops behind me, as I’d hoped they would, their questions on hold for now. Rocky and the girl keep their lights going broad, and we can make out trails here and there, but we see no further signs of either humans or vehicles until we come to a crude road in the forest that heads in the direction of the highway. It hasn’t rained recently and in the dark we can’t be sure if a vehicle has been this way, even when we search with the aid of lights.

“Well, if he was here, he’s gone,” Curtis says needlessly.

“Yeah,” I say. “And I don’t know where this road ends up. Pretty sure it’s not connected to the one I took off the highway.”

So it’s another dead end, but oddly I don’t feel like the team disbelieves me. As we troop back through the forest, the girl suddenly calls out. “Wait,” she says. “Look at this.” She has a .380 caliber slug in her hand, and on inspection, it looks to have something that might be blood on it. It’s flattened on one side and looking—to my admittedly not knowledgeable eyes—as though it was prised out of something. Or someone. I don’t dare hope that.

“You said you shot after him,” Curtis says. “This slug from your gun?”

“Yuh,” I say. “It’s a thirty-eight.”

“Backs up your story,” Curtis said.

“You believed me anyway,” I say.

He nods. “I did.”

“How did you even find it?” I ask the girl. The thing is miniscule: maybe the size of a peanut. The odds against seeing it would have been huge.

“I know, right? Got lucky. My light just hit it the right way.”

One of those things about chance and fate. And odds. I am encouraged. Maybe things are going our way.

We traipse on.

“So now what?” he says when we’re back at the vehicles.

I let the dog out of the Volvo and he races around us happily, clearly glad to have extra people around to pet him. Instinctively, he goes to the young woman who coos over him happily as he rolls onto his back, offering up his unprotected belly. It would be a charming scene if I weren’t focusing so sharply on what Curtis is saying.

“I have a feeling you’re not going to consent to an on-screen interview.”

“You’re one smart cookie,” I tell him, grinning. “But I have a story for you anyway. It’s only been a few hours. I have a feeling it will still be an exclusive.”

I tell him about Emma. The hospital.

“How will I say she came to be there?”

“If you could find it in yourself to say you don’t know, it would help me a lot.”

He nods to let me know he heard me and is considering.

“Yeah, so I’ll talk with the team, but I think we’ll do it. Thank you. But I’ve got something for you, too.” I regard him silently. Waiting. “I told you, we got a tip: we were heading to Morning Bay when we ran into you.” I still wait. “That’s it, really. Someone called our tip line: spotted him at a gas station on the way into town. We thought we’d deploy and just come check it out, see if we turned anything up, do some location spots while we were here.”

“And look what you turned up,” I say.

He laughs. “Yeah. So, anyway: Morning Bay. We’ll head down after we see what this Emma business is about. We can connect down there, if you like. Swap notes. Let me give you my number.”

He reaches for his card, but I wave him off. “I’ve got it,” I tell him. He shoots me a look, but I’m already calling out to the dog and heading for the car.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

MORNING BAY.

I’m working at remembering why the name resonates, and then I do: Atwater’s mom. Morning Bay was a name she had mentioned and I’m having a hard time recollecting why. Maybe he’d just liked it? So before I head to Morning Bay, I feel myself turn the car back towards San Pasado, thinking to try the mom one more time.

I dig the address out of my notes, then find it without much trouble: San Pasado’s wrong side of the tracks is mercifully small and uncomplicated.

The place looks just the same as it did on my first visit, even though it’s night. This time when I rap on the door, there is no feeling of being watched, and I realize, in the same breath, that the gray car is also nowhere to be seen. The scary-looking dog that had been chained up outside last time is gone, too. And the house is dark.

I knock harder. When no one answers, I try the door. It’s locked but I’m sure no one is inside. I creep around to the back of the house. I am prepared to take out the Bersa, use the butt of the gun to break a window, but there is no need. A low window is open at the back of the house, to let in