Dylan stepped in front of Chelsea. “Who are you?”
The man stepped back. He stared at his feet, shook his head. Tapped his legs with his fingertips—three taps on the right, three taps on the left.
Behind him, Chelsea said, “Dougie?”
“Chelsea Hamilton. You’re Chelsea Hamilton.” He nodded with the words, which were clear despite the fact that he hadn’t looked up.
She stepped around Dylan toward him.
Dylan gripped her arm to stop her, but she smiled up at him. “It’s okay. Dougie and I are friends.” She focused on the strange man again. “Aren’t we, Dougie?”
Tap, tap, tap on his legs. “Chelsea Hamilton was my friend in school.” Tap, tap, tap.
“Right. We sat together. You remember?”
“You sat beside me at lunchtime. Other kids made fun of me, but you told them to stop.” The tapping continued, almost like a tic. Or maybe it was a tic. That made sense. “You told them to be nice to me, and you’re rich, so everyone always did what you said.”
Chelsea’s laugh was natural and genuine. “That worked in fourth grade. It doesn’t work so well anymore.”
“You went away. You were my friend, and you went away.”
“I had to. I missed you, though.”
His gaze slid up, bounced off Dylan’s, and fell back to his feet. “Your mother died. I’m sorry your mother died. I liked her. She was nice to me. Mr. Early said I should reflect feelings. So I’m not sad, but I should feel sad because you feel sad. Do you feel sad?”
“Yes, Dougie.” Her voice cracked. “I loved my mum very much.”
“I love my mom, too. Not the same because I don’t feel feelings right. But Mr. Early says I love her in my way.”
“That’s all you can do.”
The whole time they’d spoken, Dougie hadn’t moved closer to her, and she hadn’t moved closer to him. No old-friend’s hug, no handshake.
Dougie’s glance came up again, focused on Dylan for a moment, and went back down.
Dylan backed up a step and put his hands behind his back. The most non-threatening pose he could imagine.
Chelsea sent him a quick smile. Apparently, that had been the right move.
“This is my friend Dylan,” she said. “He wanted to see this place.”
“This is where you were pushed.” Dougie phrased it not like a question but a statement. Dylan had to clamp his mouth closed to keep from speaking. Everything about Dougie said skittish. Dylan, while not the most imposing figure in the world, could easily scare him away.
“I was standing over there.” Chelsea pointed to the spot on the boulder where Dylan had stood moments before, trying to imagine what had happened to her.
The thought of her careening over that cliff… He hardly knew this woman, but what he did know, he liked. Respected. And watching her interact with Dougie only increased that respect.
Chelsea said, “A man came out of the woods right about where you are and pushed me off the cliff.”
“The detective said that.”
“Did you see anything that morning?” she asked.
Dougie shook his head, then nodded. Both movements were slight, like maybe he wasn’t sure.
“If you did, you can tell me.”
“The detective asked me if I saw any cars in the lot or any men on the trail. I didn’t. There were no cars in the lot. There were no men on the trail. I told him that.”
Dylan willed Chelsea to press harder. Dylan didn’t know much about autistic people—and that’s what he guessed Dougie was—but maybe Cote had asked the wrong questions.
“Did you see anyone that morning?” Chelsea asked.
“Saw you, standing there.” He pointed to the cliff edge.
“You did?” Her voice registered surprise. “I didn’t see you.”
“I wasn’t sure it was you, but it looked like you. I saw your picture in the paper, and I remember you from school. So I thought it was you. But I had to leave. I walk all the trails every morning to make sure they’re safe before people get here. I have to walk the trails in case something happens overnight. I couldn’t stop to talk.”
“Of course,” she said. “That makes sense.”
“You didn’t come up from the parking lot or I would have seen you.”
“There’s a trail down the side of the mountain that leads to my house.”
“Not an official trail. They’re not on the map. I only walk the trails on the map.”
“That’s good. That helps keep people safe.”
“That’s my job. To help keep people safe.” He rocked, tapped his legs, tapped again. “I didn’t know you weren’t safe. I didn’t know. There was nothing I could do. Nothing I could do.” His voice rose. He rocked, tapped. “The trails are safe, but you weren’t safe.” He rocked more, tapped more.
“It wasn’t your job, Dougie,” she said. “You did your job. You did a good job.”
“I didn’t keep you safe.”
“The trails were safe, Dougie. That’s your job, to keep the trails safe.”
He rocked, tapped. Seemed to calm. “Yes. That’s my job.”
“You do a very good job,” she said.
Dylan itched to ask the next question. Had Chelsea picked up on it? Another minute and he’d ask himself.
Dougie met her eyes for a split second.
“You look good,” she said.
“You look older. Older than before. You were twelve when you left. Your last day of school was a Thursday. I looked for you on Friday. Friday was hamburger day. I hated school hamburgers. You always brought food from home on Friday, and I did too. You used to share your cheese crackers with me.”
“And you’d share your grapes with me,” she said.
“I like grapes.”
“Me, too.”
He looked up, held her gaze longer before his slid to the left. But not down. Seemed like a good sign.
Chelsea said, “May I ask you another question?”
He rocked, tapped his legs. Nodded.
“Did you see any men that morning? Off the trails or on them?”
“There were no men on the trails.”
“Okay.”
This was absolute torture, waiting for Dougie to speak.
“There was a man,” Dougie said, “but he wasn’t on the trail. He was in the woods. Running through the woods.”
Chelsea glanced back at Dylan, who mouthed, When?
“Was that after you saw me or before?” Chelsea asked.
He pointed farther up the trail. “I was there, over there, on the red trail. After I saw you. You were on this trail, the blue trail. The first trail is the blue trail, and then it splits, and the red trail goes to the north. He was going north. Near the red trail.”
“And he was running?”
“Not on the trail. Through the woods.”
Dylan clenched his fists behind him, willing questions into Chelsea’s head.
“What was he wearing?”
Good. Yes.
“A black sweatshirt and black jeans.”
“Did you see his face?”
A beat. Dougie nodded, tapped each leg three times, then again. Then, “A little. Not much.”
He’d seen him? Would Dougie be able to work with a police sketch artist? Or describe the man?
“Can you tell me what he looked like?” Chelsea asked.
“He had a big nose.”
A big nose. Dylan had seen the same trait on the gunman. Maybe the same guy. Maybe two guys with big noses.
“Anything else?” Chelsea asked.
“I drew a picture.”
What?
“Oh!” Chelsea sounded delighted and perfectly relaxed—not at all what Dylan was feeling. “Can you show me?”
Dougie nodded, turned, and walked away.
Chelsea followed, then gestured for Dylan to do the same.
He fell in step behind her as quietly as possible.
Dougie turned back and said, “I saw you and your friend. I finished walking the trails this morning, and I wanted to say I was sorry about your mom.”
“Thank you, Dougie. It means a lot to me that you would go out of your way to tell me that.”
“You were always nice to me.”
Dylan could imagine that. Even as a child, an only child and the richest girl in town, Chelsea had been kind.
They walked in silence. Dylan desperately wanted to know where they were going, but he kept his mouth shut and followed.
They veered off the main trail to a little shack, like a guard shack, nearly hidden in the trees.
“This is where I work,” Dougie said. “I come here when it’s raining or if I have to use the phone.”
Dougie disappeared inside.
Chelsea paused on the wooden platform just outside. She glanced at Dylan, shrugged.
He put his hands behind his back again and stayed on the dirt a good ten feet away.
A moment later, the door opened, and Dougie stepped outside holding a few pieces of paper. He held them out to her.
Chelsea looked at the first and gasped. “That’s…” She paused, shifted her tone from shock back to gentle and kind. “You’re a good artist.”
“I like to draw.”
“I remember that. You were the best artist in third grade. You remember when we were supposed to write and illustrate books?”
“I can draw but I can’t tell stories, so I just drew my mommy and daddy.”
“Remember I wanted you to illustrate mine?”
“You can’t draw very well. I couldn’t help you. It was against the rules.”
Dylan couldn’t see her face, but he heard the smile in her voice when she said, “That’s right. You wouldn’t do it.”
“Rules are important. It’s not okay to break the rules.”
She looked at the next piece of paper, then the next. “Do you mind if I take a picture of these?”
“You can have them. I made more. I have lots more inside.”
“Thank you.”
Dylan cleared his throat, and she turned to him.
Dougie’s eyes got wide, but he didn’t move.
Dylan whispered, “Cote might come back.”
She focused on Dougie again. “Do you mind if we tell Detective Cote what you told us?”
“He’s not a very nice man. But I answered his questions. I answered right.”
“Is it okay if he comes back and asks you different questions?”
“Maybe you can come with him,” Dougie said. “You’re nice.”
“Or maybe Mr. Early could come,” Chelsea said. “Then Mr. Early can help Detective Cote to be nice.”
“Mr. Early’s good at making people be nice and asking good questions. That would be okay.”
“Good.” Chelsea lifted the drawings. “Thank you, Dougie. It was good to see you again.”
He turned and walked inside. The door slammed behind him.
Dylan and Chelsea made their way back to the trail. She was limping more now but moving quickly.
As soon as she stepped into the trees, she handed him the top sheet. “It’s me, at the cliff.”
It was the image of Chelsea’s back as she stared at the vista.
She said, “Just so you know, he captured my clothing, even my ponytail, perfectly. That’s exactly how I was dressed. I say that so you’ll realize how accurate Dougie is. He never improvises. He only draws—and tells—the truth.” She handed him the next sheet.
Dylan studied the pencil drawing in his hand. The image was of a man running through the woods, his hood pushed partially back, his face angled so that Dougie had caught his features. Large nose. Dark eyes. Lips pressed closed.
Chelsea asked, “Is that the man you saw at Daddy’s cabin?”
The image flashed of the shooter. He’d hardly seen anything beyond that black hood, but the nose… “I think so.”
She swallowed. “My would-be murderer.”
There was still one piece of paper in her hand. “What’s that?”
She shook her head, swallowed.
He stepped closer and looked over her shoulder. The picture was of a sedan that had crashed against a tree at the edge of the forest. Most of the car was mangled, but the back bumper was intact. Chelsea traced the emblem there—the four linked circles that indicated it was an Audi.
“My mom’s car,” Chelsea said.
Dougie’s intricate drawing showed that, on the road beyond the accident, an SUV was rounding the corner. No auto manufacturer’s logo, but the license plate was clear.
“Why didn’t you ask him about it?” Dylan studied the picture. It would have looked like a simple car accident, but that other car… He’d have to ask Cote if anybody had come forward to say they’d witnessed the wreck.
“He was done answering questions,” Chelsea said. “He was afraid to even give it to me. Which tells me… He saw something, something that scared him.”
“How could you tell?”
Her eyes narrowed slightly. “You have to trust me. He was getting agitated. I don’t think we should tell Cote anything until we know more. Cote might scare him into keeping quiet. Maybe we can come back tomorrow.”
Dylan stared at the picture. On the face of it, there was nothing sinister about it. One car got in a wreck. Another car passed by. Maybe they hadn’t seen the Audi. Had the accident occurred at night? He’d need to find out more details. But if another car had been there, then maybe someone had witnessed the wreck—or caused it. “I think maybe your mother’s death wasn’t an accident.”