Then she turned and walked across Maple to her own house. Before heading inside, she pulled her bag and her phone out of the unlocked Jeep where she’d left them twenty hours ago.
The note was wedged into the storm door at chin height, folded in thirds, her name in the square block print she unfortunately recognized.
Daniel Goodwin.
It gave her a chill to know he’d been here.
She pulled the note free, walked it straight through the house, and dropped it in the kitchen trash without unfolding it. The lid swung shut.
“We’re not playing his games anymore.”
Atlas thumped his tail against the cabinet in agreement.
She pulled her phone out of her jacket pocket to plug it in on the counter, and her stomach dropped when the screen lit up. Dozens of voicemails. Even more missed calls.
She didn’t listen to them. She held the power button until the options appeared, then powered the phone down. She leaned both palms on the counter and looked at the grain of the wood until her breathing evened out.
She wasnotafraid of Daniel Goodwin.
She wasfuriouswith Daniel Goodwin.
And it was about time she told him.
The wipers thumped a steady beat against the rain, the highway gray and wet, the Bitterroots barely visible through the low cloud. Atlas had his face in the two-inch gap she’d left in the passenger window, ears streaming back, rain speckling his muzzle, completely unbothered. She’d tried closing it on him three times, but he wouldn’t back away, so she’d given up. Some dogs were weather dogs, and that was that.
She kept both hands on the wheel and her eyes on the road, and rehearsed what she was going to say. Mainly, it was going to be some variation ofleave me the fuck alone.
Goodwin’s Outfitters sat at the edge of Hamilton in a converted barn with a new tin roof. A huge antler chandelier was visible through the front window. An offensive, hand-carved wooden Indian stood by the door that should’ve been retired about the same time dial-up internet was. The parking lot was small and gravel, and she counted two vehicles: Daniel’s black F-250 and an older Subaru that probably belonged to whoever was inside buying fishing tackle.
She parked the Jeep right by the door, in full view of the front window.
“Stay,” she told Atlas.
He turned those amber eyes on her. It was the look he used when he disagreed with a decision but would honor it anyway because he trusted her.
“Stay,” she said again. “I mean it.”
She locked the door behind her.
The shop smelled like gun oil and cedar. She’d been in here twice before, both times on professional business. Both times, she’d left feeling vaguely ill.
Daniel Goodwin just had that effect.
He was behind the counter, ringing out a man in an orange vest, and he didn’t acknowledge her until he’d walked the man out. Then he turned from the door and grinned.
“Greta,” she said, like she’d made his morning. “He leaned both palms on the counter. “I was hoping you’d stop by. Did you get my message?”
She walked to the counter and stopped three feet short of it. “I didn’t read your note. I didn’t listen to your voicemails. I’m not going to. And you’re not going to call me anymore. You’re not going to stop by. I don’t want to see you. I am not interested.”
He tilted his head, and a rueful, concerned expression crossed his face. “I understand you’re upset. I might have gone a little overboard.” He kept his voice low and reasonable, as one might when speaking to a hysterical person. “I’ve just been worried. After the trouble at your shop, and the tires, and you alone over there on Maple—” He opened his hands. “You shouldn’t take it the wrong way.”
“I know it’s you.” She kept her voice level. “The trailer hitch. The padlock. The office. The dead bird on my hood last Tuesday.”
Something dark shifted behind his eyes. Annoyance. Anger. It was just for a half-second, and then the smile came back. “You’ve been under enormous stress, searching for Alice?—”
He came around the counter.
She should have taken a step back then. She should’ve left the shop and gotten as far away from him as she could.
