When he opened the store’s door, he found an old man sitting behind a counter, his head down, snoring. Logan hated to wake him, but he didn’t have much choice.
“Excuse me?” he said softly.
No response. The snoring just got louder.
“Excuse me?” he said with a little more volume.
This time the old man’s head shot up, and he glared at Logan. “You don’t have to yell at me, young man,” he snapped. “I ain’t so old I can’t hear.”
“I’m sorry. Do you have a map of the lake area?”
The man got up from his stool and pointed to a table near the window. Logan noticed a name stitched on his shirt. Elmer. “Maps is over there.” He looked toward the large window at the front of the store. “Is it icin’? What in the world are you doin’ out in this?” He stared at Logan’s jacket. “FBI? What’s the FBI want out here? Ain’t nothin’ illegal goin’ on.”
“Looking for someone. I don’t suppose you’ve seen another FBI agent, have you? A woman with long black hair tied back in a ponytail?”
The old man stared at him for a moment. Logan could tell he wasn’t sure what he should tell him, so he reached into his inside pocket and pulled out his creds, then waited while he looked them over.
“Okay,” he said. “I guess you’re the real deal.” He coughed a few times and then spit into an old paint bucket behind the counter. “I didn’t know she was FBI, but she was here about . . . an hour ago maybe? Lookin’ for a cabin on the south side of the lake.” He nodded toward the maps, then held out his hand for one. Logan picked up a copy and gave it to him.
Elmer opened it up on the counter and pointed at a spot. “She wanted old cabins, so I sent her here. There’s also a couple of small houses there, but they were deserted years ago . . . I think. No one goes down there anymore. Now that I think about it, though, someone told me they seen a light comin’ from one of them old properties. But I wouldn’t drive down there, young man. The roads are terrible. And in this?” He pointed at the window, and Logan’s eyes followed. The ice was coming down faster. “You could get stuck real easy.”
“You say that area has old cabins and a couple of houses,” Logan said. “There’s a difference?”
“They all look like small houses, but only the houses have basements. Cabins might have a cellar, but that’s it. ’Course, everyone calls them all cabins.” His eyebrows knit together, causing even more wrinkles than the old man already had. “I’m pretty sure one of them houses was torn down a couple of years ago.”
The mention of a basement got Logan’s attention, although he wasn’t sure why. “Can you tell me where that house with the light might be?”
Elmer pointed to another spot on the map. “Probably on Waywind Road. That’s the road I told that woman to watch for.”
Logan pulled out his phone and scrolled through his photos until he came to the one he’d taken of Adam Walker’s employee photo.
“What about this guy?” he asked, holding the phone up so Elmer could see it. “Do you recognize him?”
“Hmm. No, he don’t look familiar.”
“Thanks.”
Logan was putting the phone back in his pocket when Elmer said, “Can I look at that one more time?”
“Sure.” Logan retrieved his cell and reloaded the photo. He handed the phone to Elmer, who stared at the screen for several seconds.
“I ain’t seen him as a man, but I think he used to live around here when he was a kid. I wouldn’t have thought it was him except for this.” He pointed to the scar on Walker’s chin. “His family was in here once in a while to buy some of the staples I carry—milk and the like. But one time the father brought him in here and asked for antiseptic and bandages so he could treat a gash on the kid’s face. Never said what happened. I told him he needed to take his kid to the hospital. Get him fixed up proper.”
Elmer shook his head. “I still remember him lookin’ back at his car. The woman I always assumed was the kid’s mother was sittin’ there starin’ daggers at him. Then he said he couldn’t do that.” He sighed. “I gave him what I could, but I was concerned that gash weren’t gonna heal right. And sure enough, it looks like it didn’t if this is that kid all growed up.”
“So you didn’t really know the family?” Logan asked.
“Nah. I could count the number of times they stopped in here on one hand. They bought their gas somewhere else, though. I kinda worried about the kid after that gash thing. And then one day I realized they must have moved away because I hadn’t seen them for a long time. Never seen them again.”
“Are you pretty sure the boy you knew is this man?”
“Well, how sure can anyone be? Nah, I can’t say I’d write it in blood. But if I had to bet my store on it, I’d say, yeah. It’s him.” He sighed. “Sorry I didn’t figger it out when you first showed me the picture. It’s been maybe . . . twenty years? Guess it slipped my mind.”
“And you think the boy and his family lived on the lake?”
“I think so. I mean, they always came from that direction. But I don’t know for sure. I ain’t connected to the lake. Just run my business near it. Sorry.”
“That’s okay. I understand. You’ve been very helpful.”
Logan jammed his phone back into his pocket, then paid for the map and turned to leave. But before he made it to the door Elmer called out, “Hey, FBI agent. I sure do hope the kid turned out all right. I don’t think his childhood was anything to write home about.”
Logan turned back and grappled with what to say. “He’s certainly made an impact with his life. Went to college. Got a good job. Has a wife and two children.”
Elmer nodded. “That’s good. Thanks. You know, he had such sad eyes. That’s somethin’ I’ll never forget.”
Logan pushed the door open. It took effort since the wind pressed back with intensity. He hurried to the car, ice pellets stinging his face. He pulled his hood as far over his face as he could, trying to protect himself.
When he got into the car, Monty said, “You talked to that guy for quite a while. Did you learn anything helpful?”
“Yeah. Alex was here and got some directions from him. And he recognized Adam Walker from his photo. Knew him when he was a little boy, although not by name.”
“Did he know where they lived?”
Logan shook his head. “No, but the few times he saw the family they came from the direction of the lake. And he mentioned a small house where someone thought they saw lights recently. We need to find it. My gut tells me that’s where they lived and that’s where Alex will end up.”
“We need to call backup,” Monty said.
“Not yet. We don’t know for certain we’re going to find Walker. If we’re wrong and we pull people off what they’re doing now . . .”
“It could be disastrous for all of us.”
“Yeah. Let’s find the house. See if Walker’s there. If he’s not, we’ll find Alex and tell her we have to go back to the CP. Maybe I’m wrong about Harrison figuring out what we’ve done. Maybe we can just stay mum about this whole thing.”
“But if Walker is there, Logan, we’ve got to call for backup before we go inside. If we handle this wrong, we’re putting Alex and ourselves in danger. And if Walker has the virus, we could set off something more devastating than losing our careers.”
Logan turned on the windshield wipers, but they just smeared the ice across the glass. He adjusted the fan to blast the windshield, and as it warmed up, a portion cleared enough for him to see the road.
“Okay,” he said finally. “I’ll call Harrison and tell him where we are. But if he tells us to turn around, what do we do?”
Monty turned his head and looked out his window. After a few seconds he said, “Okay. Keep going. But as soon as we either find Alex or decide there’s something here that rates backup, we call it in. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
“Then let’s go.” Monty took a deep breath. “This is the craziest thing I’ve ever done. You know we could get stuck out here. Then what?”
Logan grinned at him. “We call a tow truck?”
“Not funny. Really not funny.”
Logan pulled back out onto the road. He drove as slowly and carefully as he could. It wasn’t long before they came to the lake. Although no streetlights were out here, they did see lights along the lake. Really nice homes sat on one side, and their lights made it possible to see the water even though it looked like a puddle of black ink in the darkness.
“There’s a sign,” Monty said.
Logan slowed down. He had to squint to see it through the ice now falling in sheets, but he was certain it said Cabins. Next to the word was an arrow pointing to the right. He consulted the map. Looked like this might lead to Waywind Road.
He held his breath as he turned the car toward whatever lay ahead.