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“I think we have enough for now.”
Maybe the lieutenant realizes what Silas has known for weeks: that his life has been careening increasingly off-kilter long before yesterday. Solo parenting. Returning to the Sierra. Facing past demons ... He’s finally been flung off his carefully constructed axis, and his kids are now paying the price. It’s all so fucking familiar, he wants to cry.
His shoulders shake as he fights it, and he feels Santos shift uncomfortably, as though this situation has risen above his pay grade. “I’m sure your boys’ mother—Miranda—will be here just as soon as she can.”
Walters has been quiet, scanning Santos’s notes. “You really haven’t been back here since high school?” he shoots at Silas.
The question feels like a swift yank on an emergency brake, jerking Silas right back to ’03. “Sorry, what?”
Walters juts his chin toward Marble Lake Lodge. “You said you hadn’t laid eyes on the place since you were a kid.”
“That’s right.”
“Not even for a family visit? A quick trip? Or a reunion, maybe?”
“None of the above,” Silas says. He’s tense again in his seat, defenses rising as quickly as the wind flapping the walls of this canvas tent. Yeah, he should have done more to help Les and Mary out in recent years, but Walters’s words imply much more, and they both know it.
Walters studies him for a moment. “Huh.”
Silas takes the bait, as Walters probably knew he would. He’s never been one to back down.You don’t have to meet every battle head-on,Meg used to say. But that was back when the battles were between him and Danny, after everything had gone south. “Why?” he challenges Walters now. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“I just find it noteworthy, is all. Given that you have friends here. Friends who certainly seem to have your back.”
“Hadfriends here,” Silas is forced to correct. As for that second part, he has his doubts. Has he been forgiven for what had happened?The irony is, Walters probably knows the answer to that better than Silas himself.
Another long moment passes, and then Santos offers coffee, which Silas dismisses. He does not want coffee. He wants the hell out of this glorified tent they call a command center, out onto the trail so he can continuelooking. Outside, he hears the K9 dogs barking, their harnesses jangling as their handlers release them into the wild, and he wants to join them with every fiber of his being. Just thinking about this has his muscles jumping with tension under his skin, nerves shooting up and down his spine. The idea of coffee seems downright absurd, in fact, and he has to fight the sudden urge to laugh.
He pushes the canvas tent door open with gusto and storms across the operations area and parking lot toward the lodge grounds. They may be able to stop him from actively searching the wilderness, but they can’t keep him from the only real home he’s ever known.
10
SILAS
Nine months prior to Howard search
November 2002
Feather River
When the weather proved unpredictable in the High Sierra, which was most of the time now as winter neared, Silas started spending some weeknights at the Cairnses’ house in town. While Danny volunteered at the fire station, Silas usually killed time on the bleachers in the gym, scribbling trig equations amid the cacophony of basketballs bouncing and the cheer squad practicing routines. Which was how he found himself peering up at Jessica Howard standing over him one random Thursday afternoon. He figured she was going to start up a conversation about the game the next day, or, better yet, invite him to join the squad at the Frostee for post-practice fries, but she just bounced down next to him instead.
“Need help?” she said, studying his work over his shoulder.
He didn’t think he did, but as it turned out, Jessica was a whiz at trig, and didn’t mind sharing her biology lab notes, either.
“She’s also got a killer bootleg MP3 of Linkin Park live at the Fillmore,” he told Danny and Meg, while eating the Cairnses’ snacks later that afternoon.
“Did you ask her to homecoming, then?” Danny asked.
Silas blinked at him. “I didn’t even think of it.” He’d been too busy listening to “In the End”over and over again on Jessica’s brand-new iPod.
Danny muttered something about some people being hopeless, and Meg said nothing at all, leaving it up to Silas to provide the trio’s next distraction, as usual.
“Let’s go fishing,” he said, eyeing the gear stashed, as always, by Danny’s front door. Feather River’s namesake river divided the downtown blocks right down the middle, separating the two halves like an axe blade splitting a chunk of firewood, and Meg and Danny had traversed just about every inch of it. It was their turn to play tour guide.
Danny looked dubious. “It’s the wrong time of day. Besides, I have to study.” He made a show of digging through his backpack, throwing back over his shoulder, “I failed that English paper, by the way.” Like it was Silas’s fault. It wasn’t as ifhe’dread the whole book, either.
“I told you: all you have to do is remember the important parts, and then you can bullshit the rest.”
