“Honey, do you think Luke is in that cave you and Pim went to?”
Chris’s tone was casual, almost conversational, as they shared a bottle of wine on the terrace outside their room. Shorebirds wheeled overhead, the ocean whispered below, and golden evening light glowed through the trees. In a curious move, Chris had brought his daypack out and, without saying a word, had propped it on the ground by his chair. When she had questioned him, he merely smiled and raised his glass to her in a toast.
He had wanted to take her to the Wild Point Inn to get the best view and the best meal in all of Tofino, but Keener insisted he could prepare just as good a feast without subjecting Amanda to the crowds and din of Tofino’s night scene.
Amanda had been grateful. While they nibbled prawns ceviche, she had filled Chris in on Matthew’s news, and he had told her about his day with the police search. She’d begun to feel mellow, almost at peace.
Now, as he slipped the casual question in, she tensed. “As it happens, I don’t know, but I’m not happy you think I’d withhold that.”
“I’m sorry. It’s just …” His gaze lingered on the backpack, and he lifted his shoulders in weak surrender. “He needs to come in. We need to talk to him. Damon is in custody at Victoria General, charged for now with the attempted murder of Tag, but Luke’s evidence is crucial.” He paused, toying with the last prawn on the plate before leaving it for her. “Tag’s statement confirms yours and Gilligan’s about that night. Luke needs to know he’s not facing any charges, but Richard Vali’s death still has multiple questions. We’ve made inroads. Today, Dovid Lantos identified the boat they saw carrying Richie and the older man up the coast of Flores Island that afternoon. He couldn’t identify Damon, so it’s not airtight, but it was Damon’s boat, not Luke’s. So Richie was last seen alive with his father. The boat has been impounded, and forensics has found trace amounts of blood on the decking. The rain washed a lot away, but there is still some caught in the cracks and crevices.”
“Richie’s blood?”
“Too degraded to tell, but it’s not fish blood.” He hesitated. “We also found the trail cam hidden by the dock, as you suggested. It was late afternoon, so the cove was in shadow, and it just caught a side glimpse, but it showed Richie walking up toward the trail, followed by Damon. Time was last Wednesday.”
The day Richie probably died, Amanda thought with alarm. Had Luke been involved after all? “What about the other cams?”
“No sign of either man on the two other cams, but maybe the angle was wrong. But about thirty minutes later, a bulky shape passed by the dock cam again. It’s too dark to tell what it was, even with our enhancement techniques, but it might have been a person carrying a bulky object on his back.”
Her mind raced ahead in horror. “They’re thinking Damon killed his own son?”
Chris shrugged. “There are a lot of dots to connect. Luke probably doesn’t figure in the scenario, since thirty minutes isn’t enough time to get up to his cabin and back, but we need his evidence to nail this down.”
Amanda left the prawn untouched, but she picked up her wine. Her hand shook as she replayed the scene in the forest that night: Damon brandishing his gun and screaming about his son being dead. Luke’s quiet response. And whose fault is that?
Good God, why would the man kill his own son? “I have to talk to Luke.”
He drew back, frowning. “Then you do know where he is.”
“No, I don’t, Chris. But I have some ideas.” She held up her hand to forestall his objections. “I know him, Chris. You and the search team can’t find him.”
He gave her a long, searching look. “But you can.”
“I don’t know. But except for Pim, I’m the only one who might.”
“I’m coming with you.”
She shook her head. He reddened and thrust his plate away. “You’re not going by yourself. Out of the question. For one thing, this is an official police search. And for another, after all you’ve been through, after your narrow escapes, I’m not letting you go alone.”
She glared at him. Keener ventured by to remove the plate and eyed them uneasily. “Do you want to wait a bit before the black cod?”
“We’ll wait,” Chris said.
In his sharp tone, she recognized the cop in control but also the lover in a panic, and gradually her anger faded. “Compromise. Come with me to the island but wait on the shore. If he sees you, he’ll run, and we’ll lose him.” When he opened his mouth to object, she held up her hand. “I can leave him alone, and he will melt into the forest forever, taking all his answers with him. Or I can try to find him. If I’m lucky, he’ll talk to me.”
“Amanda, I can’t authorize —”
“You’re not authorizing a fucking thing!” she snapped. “Don’t make it official, don’t tell your colleagues. Just you and me. I’ll try to persuade him to come talk. But only to Saint-Laurent. You bring some officious heavyweight in from Victoria, and Luke’s gone.”
“And if you can’t persuade him?”
“Then I’ll show you where he is.” She could see the skepticism in his face, and she locked her gaze on his. “That’s the deal, Chris. Can I trust you on this?”
He peered back at her. In the fading light, she could see the hurt and anger in his face. The rebuke. He leaned over and picked up his backpack. “If you don’t trust me, what have we got?”
The next morning, after leaving Chris in the small cove, Amanda considered that question as she worked her way inland along the narrow trail that led to Luke’s secret cave. At the shore, the path had been trampled by dozens of officers searching the area for Luke and for forensic evidence related to Pim’s shooting. But as Kaylee led the way deeper into the dense forest, past the many decoy side paths and the spot where Pim was shot, the trail became almost invisible. Amanda was grateful for Kaylee’s unerring nose.
She hadn’t told Chris about Luke’s battered old canoe, which she’d spotted tucked into the brush at the start of the trail. Secrecy was an ingrained habit.
Chris was a wonderful man, as caring and committed to fairness and justice as she was, but he had chosen a different path to find it. Even he knew sometimes that path wandered far from the goal, but in his view, the rule of law was still the best route. Without law came chaos.
Even more than where they would live, this question troubled her. If she didn’t trust him, what did they have? He had a sworn loyalty to his profession and to the law. It was unfair to ask him to break it. But she stood on the other side of that line, free to choose when and if she would ignore it for the greater good. She’d been in too many parts of the world where people were betrayed for the cost of a loaf of bread and where the law did not lead to justice but to control, or worse. Trust was a fragile thread; once broken or doubted, it would fray to nothing. Would trust always be fragile between them, too often questioned to endure?
Her heart was heavy as she approached the cliffside that hid the entrance to Luke’s cave. She put the sadness aside with an effort and stopped to scan her surroundings. If Luke was here, he was probably aware of her presence and watching her from a safe distance.
“Luke?” she called softly.
No answer. Kaylee pulled her eagerly toward the entrance. Giving in, Amanda let go of her leash, and the dog disappeared through the hole in a flash. Amanda crouched down and felt her way through the darkness on her hands and knees. A gentle breeze wafted through, bringing with it the fresh smell of smoky loam, wool, leather, and oil. A light glowed up ahead, and within a minute she emerged into the dimly lit cave.
Luke sat in the corner on his makeshift bed of spruce boughs. He was ruffling Kaylee’s fur and looked up, as if he’d been expecting her. The cave was filled with objects she recognized from the cabin. An oil lamp, his dishes, blankets, and fur parka. And leaning against the walls, stacks of paintings.
He had moved himself in.
“Leo? Tag?” were the first words he uttered.
“He’s recovering well in Victoria General. I saw him yesterday.”
“And my brother?”
“He’ll be fine too. He needs surgery on his arm. The shot pretty much shredded it.” She paused. “He’s in custody at the hospital, charged for now with the attempted murder of Tag.”
He peered at the ground. “I think he thought it was me.”
“Maybe he was just afraid.”
He shook his head. “In my family, we lived by a very narrow code. If it’s in the way, kill it.”
She hesitated. It sounded too monstrous. She’d seen Damon’s shock when he shined his headlamp on Luke’s face. Up to that moment, he might not have believed his brother was alive. He might have thought there was a bad man out to swindle him, and he might have shot at Tag not out of ruthless premeditation but out of panic. He was a man alone in a dark, alien landscape, reacting as his training had taught him to.
“Luke, the police don’t suspect you of any wrongdoing. They know Damon shot first and you were only protecting Tag. They just want to talk to you, to get your statement about what happened.”
“But they have your story, Gilligan’s, and Tag’s.”
“They want to know about Richard Vali’s death.”
Luke recoiled, as if he’d had an electric shock. He whipped his head back and forth. “They’ll blame me.”
“Is that why you ran away?”
He shifted farther into the corner.
She softened her voice. “The police don’t suspect you anymore, Luke. They found blood on Damon’s boat and saw the trail cam footage of the two of them. But you were watching them, weren’t you? You saw something.”
“I should have saved him.”
“Why did you say it was Damon’s fault?”
Luke sighed. He looked up at the ceiling as if imagining another scene. “Richie saw my paintings. The ceiling. He saw the helicopter.” He paused, his jaw working. “Coming up the trail, they argued. My brother thought I was a fake, that I was in on it with Tag. Richie said, ‘That war was real. That helicopter was real. You knew, didn’t you?’” Luke’s breath quickened. “‘You knew Uncle Luke was there, and you ordered the bomb.’”
Amanda’s eyes widened. “Was that true?”
“Until the other night, I wasn’t sure. My brother was a soldier. He saw black and white and the glory of serving our country. I saw miracles in the desert flowers after the rain, in the butterflies landing on my jacket. Growing up, I used to steal moments to draw and paint. My father and Damon never understood.” He shrugged ruefully. “I think they were ashamed of me.”
She waited until he pulled himself back from the sadness. “After the napalm bombing, I wondered — did he do that on purpose? Or did he just not see the little things? Like me and my friend crouching in the hayfield. The children running. Did he only see the glory?”
He paused again, struggling to articulate what he thought. “Richie wanted him to face that. He wanted the truth. A truth Damon wouldn’t face. They were yelling. Richie asked was a medal more important than your own brother’s life? Damon hammered him. Two, three times, shouting he was as bad as me and he wouldn’t have the family dragged through the mud. It would be an insult to all the brave men who fought and died in that war.”
Amanda pictured the scene playing out on the narrow, precarious path up the mountain.
“Richie tried to duck. He slipped and fell. You know that steep drop?” Luke gave a soft whimper, wrestling back the images. “I should have helped him, but I ran away. That’s something I live with every day. I ran away. Again. I should have helped.”
The oil lamp flickered, and Amanda wondered fleetingly whether Chris had run out of patience. Whether even now, the police were on their way up the trail. “Luke, please tell all this to the police. I’ll go with you. Help you.”
He didn’t seem to hear. “I knew Damon would blame it on the crazy hermit. That night when Gilligan and you came to the cabin, I was watching. Afraid for you. I knew Damon had come back looking for me. Then Tag showed up, and Damon saw him. In the dark, maybe he thought Tag was me. Do we look alike? I mean, without my scars? He looked at Tag, said, ‘Time to put an end to this,’ and shot him. Point-blank, before Tag could even ask why.”
Jesus! It had not been a moment of panic, but a ruthless choice. “Luke, you have to tell the police. Your brother is a dangerous man. He can’t get away with this.”
Luke shook his head and cradled himself as if for comfort.
“My boyfriend is waiting down at the shore. He’s RCMP, but he’s a good man, I promise you. You don’t have to go to the big city and talk to some stranger. He will take you to see Sergeant Saint-Laurent right here in Tofino, and we’ll stay with you. We’ll make sure he understands.”
Luke said nothing, but she could picture his mind racing over the terrors. Sensing his distress, Kaylee nestled against him. Amanda let her plea hang in the air, unsure what she would do if he refused. Damon Vali had to be stopped.
Eventually, she broke the silence. “It’s time to stop being afraid. Time to stop running away.”
He kneaded Kaylee’s fur. “Okay. I will come. But not yet. Let me find my way.”
She gave him a long, searching look. “You promise you will come?”
He nodded.
She left him then, and as she walked back down the path, her thoughts turned over the horrors she had learned. How would she explain this to Chris, and how would he react?
She found him where she’d left him, sitting on the rocky headland by the little cove, watching the boats go by. Her heart swelled as she ran into his arms. He had not followed her. He hadn’t called his colleagues. He had trusted her.
Now she needed him to trust her one more time.