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“Right. He’s got every survival skill a kid needs growing up here. He can move around the woods like a ghost. And yet he thinks he’s stupid. But he’s certainly not. His reactions are just…different. He’ll go for a while without saying anything, like he’s lost in his head. I think he’s struggling with something, but he wouldn’t tell me what it is. It’s going to take some time to win his trust, because that fear of outsiders runs deep.”
“He must be getting over it a little bit, since he’s still here.”
“That’s true. I asked him more about Soraya, but he didn’t say much. He seemed afraid. I asked if he’d ever gone to school or had lessons. He said some of the kids do lessons, but some don’t.”
“So they decided it wasn’t worth trying to teach him to read and write?”
“I guess so. He didn’t seem to miss it much. He said they only have a few books out there, and the other kids told him they were boring and he wasn’t missing anything. He did get taught how to handle a knife, obviously, and guns, like everyone else out there. I asked him why and he said, ‘it’s our duty.’ I thought that was an odd way to put it.”
“Everything about them is odd.” Her body was so close to his, he kept losing the thread of the conversation. “Does the name Jimmy Marsh mean anything to you?”
“It rings a bell, yeah.” He frowned, trying to remember where he’d heard it. “Why?”
She explained about the blog. “I think Daniel asked the same question. He lives in Blackbear.”
“I must have run into him there. If we go to Blackbear, we can find out more.”
“Are you still thinking we should take Elias there?”
“Yeah, I talked him into it. I told him that Soraya shot up my house, and that freaked him out enough that he agreed to go. He also told me—” He broke off, because he hadn’t intended to tell Molly this last detail.
“What? Come on, don’t hold back.”
Crap. Well, might as well tell her. “I found a bird with a broken neck outside my house a couple weeks ago, right after we went to the Chilkoot property. It was a redheaded woodpecker. He was the one who left it. It was a warning.”
“A woodpecker is a warning?”
“A redheaded woodpecker. He doesn’t write, so he had to use the things he knows. I wondered why Buttercup didn’t bark at him, but now I get it. He stayed downwind and didn’t make a sound.”
She took a step back and put her hands on her hips. “You didn’t tell me this before?”
“No. I wasn’t sure what it meant, if anything.”
“A woodpecker. Wonderful. Now I want to make a million jokes about wood and peckers, and it’s completely inappropriate to the situation, but I’m a little freaked out.”
“Understandable.” He touched her arm. “But he was actually looking out for us. He saw us come out, right before he decided to run away. He got a good feeling about us. Even though everyone was calling us spies, he wanted to warn us. He spends a lot of time in the woods, so he had no trouble locating me.”
She was still shaking her head as he tugged her back to his side. “Why is it always the red hair? I should flip the whole script and dye my hair blond.”
He chuckled, happy that she let herself be coaxed closer to him. He realized that he could barely remember a time when he’d been working this case all alone, even though he’d done it for a year. Molly had blown into his life like a redheaded hurricane—the good kind, not the kind he had to fly Rover through.
The door of the cabin opened and Ani stepped out. She was a stunning woman, with waves of black hair and pale coppery skin. Her manner was both capable and gentle, and Elias had responded to her right away—well, not right away. At first he’d stared in amazement since he’d never seen a darker-skinned person before.
Molly hurried across the clearing toward her friend, with Sam on her heels. “What do you think? Did he open up to you at all?”
Ani shook her head. “I don’t know how much I should say.”
Molly linked her hands on top of her head and tilted her head to stare up at the sky. “Ugh. I get it. Doctor-patient confidentiality. What can you tell us? Do you think he’s in danger? Has he been abused?”
“I saw no signs of physical abuse, but emotionally, perhaps. He’s very afraid to talk about certain things, and the distrust of anyone who’s not a family member is very powerful.”
“Do you think he’s on the spectrum?”
“Most likely, yes, but it’s hard to say without a full assessment. But?—”
Molly was shaking her head in disgust. “They see him as stupid just because he’s different. That’s cruel and?—”
“Molly,” Ani interrupted. “I’m not done yet.”
