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I am, however, committed to finding Penny and Bruno, and if their disappearance is connected to this death, then yes, I willneed to solve her murder. Yet if they had nothing to do with this, then she was murdered by someone possibly residing in this area, andthatis our problem. We will not bring innocent refuge seekers into a dangerous situation. We’ve done enough of that.
CHAPTER SEVEN
With the examination completed, April gone off to write up her own notes, we have finally reached the point we’ve been waiting for. The point in this visit that, with everything that has happened, we’ve actually forgotten. Deep in the mystery of who killed this stranger, I’ve forgotten where we are, what lies beyond these walls.
Haven’s Rock.
Our new town.
When Dalton says “You ready?” it takes a moment to make the connection. He’s at the door, hand on it, looking at me expectantly. I’ve covered our mystery woman and cleaned the area, and now it’s time to step through that door.
I give a little “Oh!” and his mouth twists in a half smile.
“Not exactly the way you dreamed of it?” he says.
Ihavedreamed of this moment. I’ve dreamed of stepping off a plane and walking into town, and seeing it laid out before me. Dalton and I would come alone, after the construction crew had left, and a few weeks beforeourcrew would arrive. Our honeymoon, the others joked, but really, that’s what it wouldbe. We’d been married in a small service, and we hadn’t wanted to spare any time for a honeymoon. We’d have this instead—two or three weeks alone in our new home, the two of us exploring and settling in and making plans.
When the schedule shifted, our first residents due to arrive sooner, our “few weeks” became one week—maybe five or six days alone before the others arrived.
We can still carve out that time, if this wrench doesn’t throw construction too far off schedule. Yet it will be different, because we will already have been here. I could mourn the loss of that fantasy, but I accept it as more of a passing fancy. The important part is that we are about to see Haven’s Rock.
Dalton stands ready to head out front. I shake my head and motion to the back door instead, the one we came in through. Dalton frowns slightly, but only follows me down a small hall and out the rear door.
There’s a deck here, behind the clinic. That wasn’t part of April’s plan, but I added it. A small deck, with the forest beyond, where she can sit with a book and a glass of wine. My sister won’t care much about the forest view. She hasn’t taken to the wilderness the way I have. To her, it’s simply another environment. What I think she will appreciate is the privacy of being out here. I added a balcony, too, off her bedroom, and I see it above us, acting as a roof for the deck.
“She’s going to love it,” Dalton says as he catches me looking up at the balcony. “She won’t say that. She’ll fuss about the added expense. But she’s going to love it.”
“I hope so.”
I lead him around the side of the building. The neighboring one is Kenny’s workshop, with his own residence overtop. Kenny isourcarpenter, and head of our militia. April doesn’t know his house is beside hers, but this, too, will please her.They’re friends, and I keep hoping that’ll turn into more-than-friends, but they’re in no rush to get there.
We walk between their two buildings and out the front. All the services form an outer ring, with the common residences in the middle. It’s the opposite of Rockton’s setup, but it’ll be safer this way, with only our core group having homes at the forest’s edge.
We head left. There’s no one in sight, though we hear the sounds of construction inside the buildings. From the exterior, the town is complete, and it is exactly the vision we gave to Yolanda and Penny, of a modern wilderness town with a touch of the Old West—or, in this case, the Klondike gold rush—in the wooden buildings and rustic porches and dirt “roads” that are really only walking paths in a town with no vehicular traffic.
The buildings might look old-fashioned but they are as modern as possible, at least in terms of eco-consciousness. For a self-sustained town, that’s more about common sense than environmental awareness, but it’s also Yolanda’s specialty—she recycles old building materials to produce high-efficiency homes. These are built to the highest standards for northern living, from thick insulated walls to the quadruple-paned windows that cost us a small fortune but will ensure maximum light for minimum heat loss.
Earlier, we’d left Storm behind the clinic, and now she’s with us again, and when someone notices strangers, it’s the dog they see first, as a woman steps out and quickly retreats on spotting a huge shaggy black beast. I call a greeting and assure her we’re invited guests—and Storm is not a black bear—and she waves tentatively before returning to her work.
We pass buildings, ticking them off in quiet voices. The general store. The toolshed. The community center and library.When we reach the next one, we stop. It will be our bar and coffee café, fashioned just like the last bar, reminiscent of an old saloon. That’s no accident, not in design and not in materials. When we broke down Rockton, board by board, Yolanda rescued as much as possible to recycle, and our new “the Roc” is constructed with the DNA of the last one.
I walk onto the oversized front porch and lay a hand against the weathered wood.
“Think Isabel’s going to like it?” I say.
“I think she’s going to find everything that the builders did even slightly wrong, but allow that it will do the job.”
“But, since it is notexactlyas requested, she’ll feel free to renegotiate the percentage of credits she’s allowed to retain.”
He snorts. “She can try.”
I push open the wooden doors and step inside, and I’ll blame swirling dust for making my eyes tear, but it is the smell of the place. The sawdust is from the construction, but the Roc always smelled of that, sawdust used to line the floors, an easy way to clean up spills and keep the less savory scents at bay.
It’s more than that, though, and when I turn, I even see “our” table, the one in the corner that every resident knew to steer clear of, even if the sheriff wasn’t in the building. I picture our friends, an ever-changing cast revolving around a few core faces. I see people long gone, and people recently gone, having decided not to join our new venture. I see those who will return immediately, and those who will return after we are settled, and those who may join us only temporarily to get us through the opening.
I mourn for the friends and allies we’ve lost, and I mourn for those who are going to step away, while completely understanding their reasons for doing so. I look forward, too, to the day when I’ll sit at our old table with those who remain and with those yet to come.
It’s a fresh start that pulls in just enough of the past for comfort and stability. I take Dalton’s hand and squeeze it, and we gaze at that table, dust motes swirling around it in the sunshine, and we anticipate the future. Then we turn our backs on the past and focus on the present.
