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“We certainly do remember her,” Mrs. George says. “Joni Mayfair. I don’t even need to double-check the name in our files. I’ve never forgotten that poor girl.” A wry smile. “Woman, I should say. She was in her early twenties. Her husband was about ten years older, and he was... a brute.”
Mr. George grunts. “That’s putting it nicely. Everyone knew he hit the poor girl—they could see the damn bruises—and he didn’t care. He knew she’d cover for him. She was too scared to do anything else.”
“I tried talking to her,” Mrs. George says. “When I saw the futility of that, I snuck her the name of a shelter in Vancouver. She handed it back and said she was just clumsy.” She glances at her husband. “My sister is a social worker, and we decided to have her stop by while Joni’s husband was fishing.”
Mr. George waves at the note. “That’s why he was gone that day. I offered him a free fishing trip, leaving at dawn. He didn’t think anything of it. Men like that never do. They figure they’re entitled to everything life offers them.”
“We got him out at dawn,” Mrs. George says. “When Joni didn’t come down for breakfast, I went up and found the room empty. She’d packed her things and left.”
“And we said, ‘Good,’” her husband says.
“I wish I could have done more.” Mrs. George sighs and picks up her tea. “But she barely knew me, so I understand why she couldn’t take help from near strangers.”
“But according to this message, she didn’t run away alone,” Mr. George says. “I’m glad to hear that.”
His wife says nothing. Her gaze lifts to Casey’s. “You said you found this in a bottle.”
“Yes.”
“Stuffed into a log.”
“Yes.”
Mrs. George leans back, her shoulders sagging. “You aren’t idly chasing down a feel-good story about a young woman who escaped an abusive marriage. If that letter was still in the bottle, it suggests the recipient never got it.”
“I didn’t think about that,” her husband says. “Her boyfriend wouldn’t leave the message there.”
“Then there’s the part about him selling her jewelry,” Mrs. George says. “That’s a red flag.”
“Do you remember if she hung out with any of the other guests?” Casey says. “Or had contact with someone from town? Whoever it was, he knew his way around these woods, which might mean he was local.”
“I remember that Joni kept to herself. I also remember that if any man so much as looked her way, she got another bruise, as if she’d invited it.”
“Bastard,” her husband mutters.
“If she met someone, she wouldn’t have let anyone see them together,” Mrs. George says.
“Did anyone local disappear around the same time?”
“No, and no other guests disappeared that day. I can check whether anyone checked out. That’d make more sense—it wouldn’t have seemed suspicious.”
“Thank you,” Casey says. “What happened when Joni’s husband found her missing? Did he presume she ran off?”
Mrs. George shakes her head. “He was convinced someone kidnapped her. That she’d gone for a morning walk, and some forest fellow grabbed her. That’s ridiculous, and we all knew it. Every person the police interviewed told the same story—her husband had been beating her, and she must have taken advantage of his fishing trip to run away.”
“It was the obvious answer,” Casey says.
It was. But what if that’snotwhat happened?
* * *
We talkfor a while after that. When we leave, Mrs. George promises to send us whatever she can find on Joni Mayfair. She texts that to Casey after dinner, and with Will helping, we spend the next hour using the information to search the internet.
After an hour, we’ve uncovered all we can find online.
“The husband—Paul Mayfair—filed a missing person report,” Casey says. “But it didn’t go far. The local police put up a half-hearted BOLO. I don’t blame them. For one thing, she took all her belongings, which means she wasn’t kidnapped. Then a woman called in a report saying she’d picked up a hitchhiker matching Joni’s description and driven her down to Kelowna.”
“That’s where Joni Mayfair disappears,” Will says. “I can find references to her before that from yearbooks and such that were later digitized. She grew up in Vancouver. Went to nursing school. Dropped out after a year to get married. The marriage announcement is here. After she disappeared? Nothing.”
