“Well, then. Going to give me time to find someone else?”
Ralph looked around at her diploma-covered walls, and the cards on her desk from grateful parents, and even a few from boys like him.
“No,” he said.
“Figures. I owe you a final paycheck.” She went searching for her account book.
Ralph picked up one of the cards from her desk. This was so sacrilegious, she gasped.
“Put that down,” she said. She didn’t know what had gotten into him, and she didn’t like it. It was good he was leaving.
He put it down, and she exhaled. She wondered at herself. Why did she even have all those thank-you cards out? Some were dangerous. She vowed to hide them as soon as he left.
“I was wondering if he would write you,” Ralph said.
“Who?” She glanced up, filling out his check. It wasn’t for much money, and she didn’t care.
“Your father.”
“My dad?”
“Tough old man. Mean, actually. Everyone thought he was great, cleaning up the streets of Sleeping Giant. No one asked if the streets needing cleaning.”
“You know my dad?”
She looked up at Ralph and frowned, as if seeing him for the first time.
“It made sense. Perfect your whole life, from what I heard. Graduated magna cum whatever. Director of the Axis Treatment Center. Helping boys. That’s what they always said. Her dad keeps the town clean, and Martha keeps the boys’ hearts clean. Two good souls, doing a lot of good work.”
“You were at Axis?”
“I was there. One of your boys. That’s what you always said. ‘My boys.’ Like you owned us.” He stopped, trying to restrain his emotions before they broke loose all over her office. She didn’t deserve them. “You know what I think? I think you did something to some of those boys. Just like here. You made them disappear too. But I don’t have any proof. The constable here won’t listen to me, and I tried. But I know you. I used to look in your eyes when I was just a child. I could see that you were the one who needed help.”
Martha King felt frozen in time and space. She was inside one of those sleeping giants, screaming at the sky to just make it stop.
She spoke deliberately, her lips tight.
“What are you going to do?”
“What is there to do? Like I said, I have no proof. I could dig up every inch of forest from here to Seaside, look over every cliff, and still not find those boys. So I’ll make you a deal. You close down this place and stop working. I move away. Someday you’ll die, and then I’ll be at peace.”
Martha thought about it. He was right. It was time to retire. She could stop taking risks and having accidents. She could leave this all behind and be thankful for all she had accomplished. Maybe she could even write a book.
She looked up, hope in her face.
“Did I help you at all?”
He breathed in at the temerity of it.
“No,” he said.
31
Amanda met Pete Ashoona at the Seaside airport. It wasn’t a commercial airport but a small landing strip outside of town with a helicopter pad advertising tourist rides. Pete had a friend who was willing to loan him his little plane to fly to Alaska.
“Anger Bay, here we come,” Pete said. He was wearing the same plaid shirt as before, only this time under a heavy parka. His long gray hair coiled down his back. He carried a flight bag over one shoulder.
“Is it big enough?” Amanda asked, looking askance at the plane.
