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“And the cannabis helps?”
“It does.”
“Good. We will discuss that.” She looks between us. “Is there anything else?”
“I can leave if you two want to discuss it further,” I say.
“No,” April says. “It is late, and I am going to bed.”
We say good night. Then we step out onto the porch.
As the door closes behind us, Yolanda says, “I won’t apologize for disrupting your investigations.”
“And I won’t apologize for outing your medical condition. You could have just told me that you were going into the forest to smoke cannabis for a medical condition. I might have insisted on seeing actual evidence of cannabis, but it’s an odd enough excuse that I would have accepted it.”
“I couldn’t trust that.”
“So you made sure I couldn’t trust you.” I shake my head. “Whatever. I’ll keep your secret. It’s none of my business. I’ll tell Eric what you were doing out there and that it’s a medical condition, and he’ll leave it at that.”
She nods abruptly and walks away, chin up, gaze forward. I watch her go, and then I set off to find my husband and my dog and get home.
Dalton accepts the explanation, as I knew he would. As I would have, too. I understand why she doesn’t want Émilie knowing, even if I question how long she can sustain that secret.
Parkinson’s is a terrible disease. I’ve never known anyone who had it, but I remember a coworker whose mother did, and I recall the stories he confided in me when we worked together. Why confide inme? It happened sometimes. I was a woman ina job with a lot of men, and if they mistook my gender for a sign that I’d be a good listener, empathetic and understanding, well… well, I guess that wouldn’t be entirely wrong, even if it’s not how I see myself. I did listen. I did empathize. I did understand. Does that mean I’ll cut Yolanda slack? Not a chance, because that’s the last thing she’ll want.
In all that excitement, I temporarily forgot what I found on Bruno. Dalton and I discuss that, too. Without a DNA test, I cannot absolutely say it’s Denise’s blood. But it could be, and if so, then that plus the dirt on his knees suggests he knelt beside her as she was dying, her blood soaking the ground.
If Bruno is the killer, then there’s no justice to find here, and that comes with something like relief. Denise was collateral damage. That’s horrible, and I feel for her and for her poor husband. She came to surprise him, and she stumbled on a plot to steal his claim. She may even have tried to defend that claim, threatening Bruno with her little pocketknife. He took it and—in the panic of seeing his prize disappearing—stabbed her before he knew what he was doing. Or stabbed her to defend himself. Or stabbed her with all due forethought, making a cold and vicious choice. Whatever the answer, he has paid the price.
That still leaves Bruno’s partner in the wind. And our architect in the forest. Are those things connected? They must be, but I’m no closer to a definitive answer to that question than I was this morning.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Over an early breakfast on the back deck, we plan our day. Dalton wants to start a more systematic search for Penny. We know where she went, and we’ve been focused on that area—and, to be bluntly honest, on hoping to stumble over her while pursuing Bruno or Denise’s case. We both need more before we give her up for lost. Our chances of finding her alive are slim, but as guilty as we feel about that, it’s unlikely we’d have seen a different outcome if we found her on day one. If she is, somehow, just wandering around the forest, then with the warm weather and plentiful fresh water, she’ll still be out there. But that is not the scenario either of us expect.
Option one is that she overheard Bruno and his partner, and they killed her. But that also seems to have been Denise’s fate. How likely is it that two women both overheard a plot—in the middle of the Yukon wilderness—and were both murdered for it… their bodies left in different places?
No, option two is seeming increasingly likely. Penny is Bruno’s partner. She went out to meet him at Mark’s mining site. Denise found Bruno—or both of them—and died for it. Pennypushed Bruno off a cliff and then met with him outside town and has been hiding ever since. In that scenario, there is still one permutation where she is not a cold-blooded killer: if she saw Bruno murder Denise and that’s why she pushed him off a cliff and now, not realizing he’s dead, she’s in hiding fromhim.
Whatever the answer, we cannot devote all our time to finding her. Nor can we abandon her. So we come up with a plan, one that will see us working on the construction project until midmorning, and then heading out for three hours to search, returning to the project and going back out to search another grid after dinner. At this time of year, we have the advantage of increasingly long days of sunlight, meaning we can hunt for Penny while still putting in an eight-hour shift for Yolanda.
Between Anders, Dalton, and myself, only Dalton is truly adept with a hammer and saw. Anders and I are suburban kids, who grew up taking coding classes instead of woodworking. We expected to follow our parents’ example of calling in experts for repair work. Oh, we can manage the basics, like a clogged toilet, but here we’re mostly going to get in the way. Dalton takes on general crew work, while Anders and I are on hand to fetch tools and carry wood and “hold this.”
It’s nearly time for Dalton and me to leave when a scream rips across town. I drop a plank and run, Storm rousing from her doze to charge along after me.
A voice rises from one of the residences. A man’s voice, babbling in panic.
It’s the men’s residence, and there are several people working inside—the building is only partially finished, and completion has been prioritized so this can house the new arrivals. As I swing through the door, footfalls thud behind me and I glance to see Dalton.
We tell Storm to wait outside—along with a handful ofothers who’ve raced over to see what’s happening. Inside the door, we pause and listen.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the man’s voice says. The French accent tells me it’s Pierre.
“Don’t give me that bullshit. Where is she?”
Is that Nanette? Another woman’s voice comes, telling them both to calm down, but Nanette tells her to step aside.
Dalton and I proceed down the hall. Most of the doors are shut. Three at the end stand open. As I near the first, I can tell the voices are farther down, and I’m about to pass when I see someone in that first open room. It’s Gunnar, holding a drill. He raises his hands and shakes his head, as if to say he has no idea what’s going on.
