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“Two people who have nothing to do with the purpose of the town.”
I sidestep around a pile of bear scat and point it out with my flashlight.
“See?” she says. “I rest my case.”
I glance back and arch my brows.
“I just blamed your town for two deaths it’s not responsible for,” she says. “And you didn’t even retaliate by letting me step in a pile of shit. You’re too nice. Too fair. These deaths may be unconnected, but that’s the nature of a place like this, where a guy can murder his wife, hide her body, and get away with it.”
“You have a point. Down south, he could murder her,nothide her body… and probably get away with it.”
She throws up her hands. “Whatever. I am not going to win this argument, so I surrender. You’ll do your best, and you might even help more people than you harm.”
When I don’t answer, she says, “Fine.Youwillhelp more than you harm. I just don’t understand why anyone would take on that responsibility when it comes with that much risk. But we agree to disagree, and as for your earlier concerns, like I said, my grandmother will fix whatever needs fixing. That’s her role. Fixer.”
“Not sure I’m comfortable asking her to handle murderers and murder victims.”
Yolanda snorts. “Because she’s a nice old lady?”
“Oh, I don’t doubt she can handle it.”
“You just don’t want her getting her hands dirty? Gran knows what she signed up for, and she knew it when she and Pops took over Rockton before we were born. Things may have gone downhill after they took a managerial back seat, but these will not be the first criminals—or bodies—Gran has had to deal with. Even without the peculiarities of Rockton, shit happens up here. Gran can handle it. The question is, can you?”
I glance back at her.
She ducks a branch. “You want the anti-Rockton, where putting in a jail cell is a precaution you hope to never need.That ain’t happening, Casey, and I think you realize that. You must.”
I say nothing and continue down the stream, watching and listening for Dalton and Anders.
“You have to shift the goalposts,” she says. “Youwillneed the jail cell. Youwillneed a police force. And youwillneed Gran’s help. Once people start coming to Haven’s Rock, no matter how careful you are, shit is going to keep happening, and the goal, I presume, is to send more people home in plane seats than you send home in body bags.”
I shake my head.
“Okay,” she says. “More in plane seats than body bagsorhandcuffs. Even at its worst, Rockton did that. The biggest danger you face out here is suffocating under the weight of your own expectations. That goes for all of you. I’m not sure you can handle it.”
“Thanks.”
“I’m not sure I could handle it, and I’m a helluva lot less nice than you. But the point—”
A boom rocks through the silent forest. I lunge and knock Yolanda down.
“Gun,” I whisper.
She stares at me as we huddle against the ground, and I can see her brain processing, still confused. I want to laugh. How does someone this tough—this competent and independent—not know what a gunshot sounds like? Because she might be all that, but she’s also not someone who comes from the sort of neighborhoods where you hear that sound regularly. When she hears a loud noise, her brain thinks,Was that a firecracker, a car backfiring?
Her confusion lasts only a second before she realizes that what she heard was indeed gunfire.
We stay down as I listen. I’m trying to figure out where the shot came from, but it happened so quickly that I only caught thebangof it.
Dalton’s Smith & Wesson? Anders’s big-ass Ruger Alaskan .45? I don’t think so. It’s not possible—at least for me—to distinguish between different firearms at this range. My brain says that neither Dalton nor Anders is going to fire unless absolutely necessary, and it is highly unlikely to ever be necessary. My gut says that I heard that exact same sound only a day ago…
When Mark fired his warning shots at us.
I keep straining to listen, and thankfully Yolanda stays quiet and lets me. Yet as still as the forest is, I don’t pick up any unexpected sounds. Not voices. Not a shout. Not someone running through the forest.
One shot, and then silence.
I look around. We’re nearly at the lake, and there hasn’t been any sign of Dalton. The stream is narrow enough that there’s no way we’d pass him heading along the other side.
