There it is.” I swerved onto the gravel parking area next to the White Wolf Trailhead. It was the same place where I had stopped the previous evening on my way into town. Now, with honeyed morning light spearing through knots of cloud, it was hard to remember why I’d been spooked. Still, I reached into my jacket pocket, reassured by the hard, angular shape of my Glock. I didn’t have a concealed carry license—wasn’t sure they were even legal in California—but there was no way I was going into those woods without my gun.
“Don’t freak out,” I said, and pulled the gun out to check again that the safety was on.
“Liv! What the fuck!” Gemma planted her back against the passenger-side door like I’d pointed the gun at her. “Why do you have that?”
“The Second Amendment.”
“Do you even know how to use it?”
I slid the Glock back into my pocket. “Better than most.”
“Did you bring one for me?”
I laughed and opened the door. Gemma followed me to the trunk, where I retrieved my digital camera and hung it around my neck on its strap. Then I got out my GoPro and the accessory kit I’d bought to go with it. I attached the GoPro to the head strap and handed it to Gemma.
“Put this on,” I told her. She stared at the head strap like I’d given her a pair of my dirty panties to wear. “You wanted to help. You get to be B camera.”
“Oh.” She didn’t complain, but I saw a flicker of haughty displeasure in her eyes, a look that said very clearly, I’m Gemma Hill, and I am no one’s camera B.
I hid a smile as she pulled the strap over her head. Then I stood back to examine her and nodded, trying not to laugh. She looked ridiculous.
“What am I supposed to do?” she asked.
“Nothing,” I said. “Just walk. The camera will do all the work for you.”
Gemma’s frown deepened, and I knew what she was thinking, that she was wasted behind a camera. She belonged in front of it.
Not today, sister dear.
By the time I locked up the car, a layer of ink-dark clouds had become visible along the western horizon, on a collision course with the sun. Rain was an hour away, maybe two, but I couldn’t wait around for good weather. A twenty-thousand-dollar clock was ticking.
I turned to Gemma. “If I’m filming, try to stay out of the shot, okay?”
“Why?”
“Because you haven’t signed a talent release, and even if you did I’m sure Desiree would lose her mind if you ended up on something as low-profile as my web series. I don’t want to deal with her or your lawyers, so just do what I’m telling you to do, okay?”
She held up her hands. “You’re the boss.” A shiver shook Gemma. In the shade of the black trees that arced above us, the temperature seemed near to freezing. It was barely nine o’clock, but suddenly it looked like night was about to fall.
I pressed a button on the GoPro to start it recording, then turned to the faded wooden sign that marked the trailhead.
“White Wolf Trail,” Gemma read softly behind me.
“You may have been right about those bread crumbs,” I admitted.
* * *
Wind whistled around the stark, burnt trees. Everything around us was shifting. Rattling. Shivering. I kept my eyes moving, scanning the looming trees, the tangled ground cover, but as far as I could tell there was nothing to see. Each acre of the woods looked the same as the next. Mile upon mile of brittle, baked stalks. The forest floor had begun to come back to life in a green tangle, but the blackened trunks served as a constant reminder of the fire that had blazed through the area.
“Do you know what started the fire?” Gemma asked from a few feet behind me.
I answered without looking back. The trail was overgrown, roots and branches waiting to trip me every time I took my eyes off the ground. “The articles online don’t mention the origin,” I called back. “But the disappearances didn’t start until after the fire. Maybe there’s a connection.”
“How long after the fire?” she asked.
“Three years. The first was in 2006.”
“I don’t know, Olivia. That sounds like a stretch.”
I stopped abruptly and turned to her. “Why did you call me that?”
She blinked at me, head cocked. “What?”
“Olivia.”
She shrugged. “It’s your name.”
“It’s not my name,” I said, my chest tight. “Don’t call me that. Ever.”
“Sorry,” she said faintly as I revolved and marched forward.
Gemma and I didn’t talk for a while after that. We trudged ahead through the shuddering gauntlet of branches and leaves, the lower halves of our faces tucked into our scarves for warmth. Abruptly, after we’d walked for close to an hour, the trail curved, revealing a clearing and the Wolf King’s cottage Porter had told me about, nestled among the trees. For once, a Kron location did not immediately strike me as familiar, but only because the cottage had been transformed by the fire, given a scorched makeover. No walls had toppled, but an oak tree as tall as a three-story building had collapsed onto the roof, caving in a large hole. The tree remained propped against the cottage, its trunk the color of a cold campfire. At some point the structure would likely buckle beneath the weight of the oak.
I filmed as I moved toward the devastated structure, but stopped when I remembered Gemma. This footage would be more compelling with me in it. It needed a focal point, a narrator. I turned to ask Gemma if she would take over camera A and film me giving exposition and exploring the cottage, but she wasn’t on the trail.
“Gemma?” I called, turning in a circle. I scanned the forest in all directions, searching for a flash of the bright-red anorak she’d been wearing. It should have been easy to spot. “Gemma!” I listened for her voice, realizing that the wind had died down as abruptly as my sister had vanished.
Now there was only silence and the watchful remains of the trees.