“He’s not drunk.”
Kate and Andy had just joined the rest of the instructors in the kitchen cabin. Camp was quiet, the thick smell of wet ash still drifting through the cold night air. Andy had sat on the steps outside the infirmary cabin while Kate had examined Frances, not comfortable leaving her alone with the belligerent cadet. He’d quieted quickly, though, and a thoughtful Kate emerged forty-five minutes later, saying she’d like to talk to the team.
Now, Andy watched as the team absorbed the information. Zeb clearly didn’t like Kate’s assessment.
“Bullshit,” he said. “I know what a guy who can’t hold his alcohol looks like. I just want to know how he snuck it into camp.”
“I have a pretty good idea what a drunk person looks like also, Zeb,” Kate said pointedly. “My ER’s not that far from the UBC campus, so September is always a blast.” Zeb shook his head, his expression angry. Andy noted the other instructors also seemed somewhat doubtful but would take Kate’s opinion as truth. “More to the point,” Kate continued, “I know how a person with alcohol intoxication acts and Cadet Frances’s behaviour was too erratic for him to be drunk.”
Even Andy wondered about that statement. It didn’t make sense.
Kate sighed and tried again. “Picture someone drunk. Picture them trying to act sober for longer than thirty seconds. No swaying, no slurring, no impairment in their ability to focus, no nonsensical outbursts.” Kate paused and let the instructors make a mental image of this. “It’s not possible, is it? You can’t act through alcohol intoxication. Frances was perfectly fine for long stretches of time then he’d start to feel dizzy again, which is what brought on the nausea. Apparently, he’s been like that all night. He was trying to get back to his cabin to sleep it off when Petit found him in that state and told him he should see me. They fought about it, which is what we all heard, and Frances insisted he was fine and didn’t need medical attention.”
“If it’s not alcohol, then what is it?” Trokof said quietly.
“I really can’t be sure without more tests. It could be something as innocuous as an imbalance of electrolytes from the stomach flu he’s been fighting for almost a week, or it could be a symptom of a much more serious systemic issue.”
“Or it could be drugs,” Les added quietly.
“Yes. I won’t rule out the possibility that what we’re seeing are the effects of a different kind of intoxication.”
“Then test him,” Zeb said, forcefully inserting himself into the conversation again. Andy gave Kate a quick sidewise glance. She was handling Zeb’s anger, so Andy suppressed the instinct to run defense for her.
“And take it where?” Kate said calmly. “It’s after midnight on a Friday, and labs won’t open until eight o’clock Monday morning. By which time the results would likely be invalid anyway.”
Zeb shook his head angrily but said nothing more, roughly digging at a long furrow in the wood table with his thumbnail.
“Is Cadet Frances ill, Dr. Morrison? Does he need to be taken for more tests?” Trokof moved his gaze from Zeb back to Kate, looking like he could give the constable a drill instructor style lecture right about now.
“I’ve let Frances know I will be monitoring him daily for the next little while, and if he refuses the daily physical or misses one appointment, that will go directly to the Chief Training Officer.” Kate stopped and looked around. “Sorry, I should have checked with you first. I didn’t mean to go above your heads—”
Trokof waved this away. “No, you were right to bring Lincoln’s name into this. We may be asked for our opinions, but it is not up to us to decide the fate of the cadets.”
Kate nodded then continued. “I’ll make the judgement on a day to day basis as to whether or not I think the cadet needs additional medical testing. Right now he’s presenting with odd but explainable symptoms. I’ll monitor him over the weekend, and if I think he’s not fit to participate in regular cadet duties on Monday morning, I’ll recommend he’s taken into Kamloops for full testing.”
Kate folded her hands on the table, but Andy noticed the awkward way she held her body, pushing herself slightly back from the table like she was conflicted about her conclusion. She was holding something back. Andy wanted to know, felt the questions pile up in her head. But she forced herself to listen to the conversation as Trokof and Meyers outlined the plans for the weekend, another trip tomorrow into Kamloops for the troop, minus Frances who wasn’t cleared to go.
Kate and Andy stayed at the table as the meeting wrapped up and the instructors left one by one, yawning their goodnights. Andy could read signs of fatigue and weariness, not just from tonight, but an accumulation of a week’s worth of worry and organization and decision-making. Meyers was the last to leave, closing the door quietly behind him. Andy stored the concerns for the instructors and their mental health for the moment. She and Kate were alone, and Andy had a lot of questions.
Kate was silent, though, her hands clasped in front of her, braiding her fingers together in an unconscious motion. Thinking, always thinking.
“Frances said something interesting during his examination. I didn’t share it with the instructors because something is…wrong with the way he said it. And I can’t figure out what it is.” A few more twists of her fingers, then Kate shook them out irritably. “When I was questioning Frances about his symptoms and his recent bout of stomach issues, he mentioned that his dad was being tested for Crohn’s disease.”
“Ulcers?”
Kate made a wavering motion with her hands. “Basically,” she said, clearly having decided that a more medical explanation wasn’t relevant right now.
“Does it explain Frances’s symptoms?”
“It could. His symptoms could absolutely be Crohn’s disease.” She paused, her brow furrowing. “It actually makes more sense for Jacob Frances to be getting tested for Crohn’s now than his father. It usually comes on early.”
“His father was a cop,” Andy reminded Kate with a small smile. “Maybe he was one of those types that decided he never needed medical advice.”
Kate returned the small smile, but she seemed to do it more to humour Andy than anything.
“What am I missing?” Andy said.
“It took Frances a long time to tell me about his father, though I’d asked about family history more than once. And when he did, he got very emotional.” Kate paused, and her voice got quiet. “He cried, Andy.”
“Why did he cry?”
Kate shook her head, obviously perplexed. “Crohn’s can be a painful condition. It requires a change in diet and lifestyle, and it needs to be managed for the rest of the person’s life. But it’s not debilitating, and it’s certainly not a death sentence.”
“Has the topic of his father or his family come up before?”
“The first time he came in to get examined. I read in his chart that he was fourth generation to go through Depot, and I asked him about it. He seemed proud, he seemed nervous. And he changed the subject. I assumed because he’s sick of being asked about it.”
“Could be,” Andy said. “I can ask the other instructors about that, see if they’ve noticed anything around Frances being sensitive about his family’s past. If that’s okay with you.”
“Of course. But am I looking for issues that aren’t even there?” Kate didn’t wait for Andy to answer. “There are so many layers to what’s going on with this troop, so many things that almost but don’t quite make sense. I didn’t share this with the instructors because I wasn’t sure if I was just…making things up.”
Andy gave another small smile. Kate wasn’t afraid to speculate, but she always wanted her speculations to be anchored in fact.
“I’ve wondered the same thing myself,” Andy said. “I keep having to remind myself that I can’t force this. Whatever this is, it’s going to have to surface by itself. And we have to keep watching for it.”
Kate gave a quick nod of agreement. Then she straightened up, massaging a knot in her neck.
“How’d it go with Shandly?” Kate said, shifting gears.
“Fine. We had a good talk, I think. Did Shandly say she wanted to talk to me, or did you point her in my direction?”
“Shandly wanted to talk to you but was too shy to approach you herself. It was the first time someone has come out to me because I’m gay, I think. Or at least,” Kate said, a smile in her eyes, “because Shandly felt like I have some sort of influence over you.”
Andy sat very still for a moment, watching Kate. This was the first time she’d ever heard Kate refer to herself as gay. Andy didn’t want to overreact, but she didn’t want to under-react, either. She wasn’t even sure how she felt about it. Her heart thudded in her chest, a snake of fear tearing up through her stomach. She didn’t want to get this wrong.
Kate saved her. She laughed sympathetically at Andy’s expression before standing up and walking around the table. Andy pulled Kate onto her lap, like she’d wanted to all night, tucking Kate’s small frame into her own body until they fit just right. Until they fit together perfectly.
“I shouldn’t laugh at you,” Kate said, her tone contrite.
“You’re one of the only people who can,” Andy said, lifting Kate’s hand and kissing her fingers as she said it. “I don’t blame you for taking advantage of that fact.”
Kate laughed again, and Andy felt the coldness leave her body. This was Kate. Her Kate. She had nothing to be afraid of. Kate leaned her head against Andy’s shoulder, pressing her warm lips against Andy’s neck. Andy couldn’t suppress the small shiver that went through her body. Kate angled her head so her lips were at Andy’s ear.
“Then should I also take advantage of the fact that we share an extremely small bed together and you somehow have the ability to be very, very quiet?”
Andy ran her left hand up the length of Kate’s whole body, turning Kate’s face so she could kiss her. Their kiss was long and slow, until Andy couldn’t remember what cold felt like. There was only warmth. Only heat.
“Yes,” Andy said to Kate, her voice a whisper. Yes.
*
It rained for the next three days solid. Camp was soggy and dark and dreary, and it did nothing to improve the mood of the instructors. By the end of the third day, Andy wasn’t sure what was going to break down first, the nearly washed-out road from the highway or the now completely strained relationship between Zeb and the rest of the instructors. The young constable was struggling to keep his body under control. He was jumpy and irritable and cabin-fevered without the ability to get outside and burn off any of his excess energy. Andy felt for the guy. She was itching to move too, to stretch out beyond the small cabins, to feel herself moving swiftly through space and the hard impact to her muscles from a long run.
By Monday night, Andy knew she had to do something. She sat at the beat-up table by the window in their cabin, having a static-driven conversation with Kurtz over the radio while Kate sat cross-legged on the bed with a stack of medical journals. Dinner had been a disaster, the cadets burning their potatoes on the hot camp stove and filling the kitchen cabin with acrid smoke.
Zeb had made a comment which Les had taken the wrong way. Meyers had attempted to intervene in his quiet way, but Les and Zeb seemed intent on hashing this out. Finally Trokof had walked around to the two instructors and said something sharply under his breath. Les had closed her eyes briefly before looking up at the cadets who had been watching the exchange with furtive glances. Les and Zeb mended fences, Trokof had left not too long later, and Andy began thinking about what the hell she was going to do to snap Camp Depot out of this.
As worrisome as it was to have the instructors at each other’s throats, even more troubling was that the three days of rain and the distraction of the instructors had allowed Troop 18 to retreat again. They had slowly, imperceptibly, closed ranks again, pulling Frances back into the fold when Kate had given the all-clear that morning. They showed up to class, they made little impression during meal times, and they followed orders without complaint. The flatness was back, the blandness was back. Troop 18 rested comfortably in their camouflage.
Andy wrapped up her conversation with Kurtz, agreeing to meet her in the morning at the highway, regardless of the weather. They would check out the condition of the gravel road and see if any of their ideas for getting the troop out for a day would come together. Andy pushed the radio into its base and cracked her knuckles, a bad habit she’d forced herself to quit years ago. She looked around the cabin. Kate’s things were spread haphazardly on various surfaces, and Andy’s were tucked neatly away. She listened to the muted crack and shift of the fire in the woodstove, the unending rain against the shingled roof. Andy walked to the window and looked out through the blur of rain at the soaked, deserted quad, barely visible through the sheets of water and the thin light from the hydro pole. Nothing moved, just a wavering glow from the porch lights on each cabin.
“So, what’s the plan?” Kate said, and Andy turned away from the window to see Kate sitting up, folding the page over in the journal and tossing it carelessly onto the floor.
“I don’t know yet. Kurtz needed to make a few calls and see what she can come up with. She seemed pretty confident we can find somewhere to take the troop tomorrow.”
“Is the rain supposed to let up at all?” Kate stretched her arms above her head then relaxed with an exaggerated sigh before rubbing the back of her neck. Andy gave a small smile and walked over to Kate. She climbed onto the bed behind Kate and leaned up against the wood walls of the cabin. She pushed Kate’s hair off her shoulder, found the knot in Kate’s neck and worked it gently with the pad of her hand, applying a gentle but firm pressure. Kate gave a soft sigh of happiness, and Andy smiled again before answering her question.
“Rain all week, according to Kurtz, but not nearly as bad as the last few days. Kurtz and I are going to check out the road tomorrow, make sure we still have an escape route out of here.”
They were silent for a long while, Andy continuing to massage the chronic knot in Kate’s neck.
“I miss Jack,” Kate said suddenly.
“He misses you, too,” Andy murmured. “I’m mainly happy we’re back together so Jack can stop pestering me.”
Kate laughed quietly, Andy feeling the vibrations of Kate’s laughter through her fingers.
“I’ll have to take him out for lunch when we get back to Vancouver and thank him for keeping you in one piece while I was gone,” Kate said lightly, leaning back slightly into Andy’s touch. “And he can tell me all about my new supervisor,” she added, almost as an afterthought.
Andy stopped massaging for a moment. “I thought Finns was your supervisor,” Andy said, slightly confused.
“Technically, I report to Staff Sergeant Baird who oversees civilian consultants, same as Jack. But Heath made it clear all my assignments would come through Finns. So really, you and I work for different divisions, Sergeant Wyles. I’m practically fraternizing with the enemy right now.”
Andy poked Kate in the ribs with her free hand, making her laugh. She often forgot that Jack didn’t report to Finns. Sometimes Jack did, too. He referred to Baird as the ‘forms dude,’ someone he sent his stats and vacation requests to. It was a good system, though Andy didn’t envy Finns’s having to supervise someone else’s staff. Still, she appreciated the freedom it allowed. Technically, she and Kate weren’t breaking any rules being together, and they would still be able to work with each other.
“How’s your schedule going to work?” Andy said, trying to figure out how Kate was supposed to work two jobs. Even part time, the workload for either was heavy. Neither had regular schedules, either could mean an emergency response.
“I owe the ER two day shifts and one night shift per week and one weekend per month. They don’t really care when I get the hours in, as long as the schedule isn’t affected, and there are always more hours if I want them. I’m not sure about RCMP yet. I’ve got an hourly rate with minimum and maximum number of hours per week. After my probation is up, Heath said he’d talk to me about a part-time, salaried position.”
Andy finished massaging Kate’s neck, repositioned her shirt, and pushed her hair back over her shoulder. “Sounds stressful,” Andy said, deciding to voice her concerns. She played with Kate’s hair, making loose braids with her red curls.
Kate seemed unconcerned. “Could be. Could turn out to be a really bad career decision. But I feel good about having made a decision. I’m actually pursuing something with some measure of forethought.”
Andy didn’t push. She didn’t even really disagree. But Andy couldn’t help but worry. Until she knew what it looked like, until she could see Kate thriving in the dual roles she’d willingly taken on, Andy was just going to worry.
“Trokof said the RCMP is lucky to have you,” Andy murmured, keeping her other thoughts to herself. She felt Kate smile.
“He’s a sweetheart.”
Andy leaned her head back against the warm wood walls and laughed. Never could Andy have ever imagined any context in which Depot’s drill instructor Sergeant Albert Trokof could be called a sweetheart.
“Do you know the kind of hell that man put me through? Thousands of push-ups, repeating drills until I had blisters, mod-b for having one stray hair out of place or my left sleeve being crooked. He was the devil in an RCMP uniform, Kate,” Andy laughed.
Kate turned her body so she could see Andy’s face. “And do you still think that about him?”
Andy shook her head. “No. But he’s a serious hardass, Sgt. Trokof. I think he’s half the reason Troop 18 is still standing.”
“Camp’s wearing him down, though,” Kate said, her voice thoughtful. “I’m going to keep my eye on him.”
Good, Andy thought, feeling a sense of relief at hearing her own concerns out loud. She felt the weight of worry shift a little, as Kate unknowingly offered to share the burden. Andy pulled Kate in and buried her face in Kate’s chaos of curls. They held each other and listened quietly to the continuous rain drumming against the roof of their cabin.
*
To no one’s surprise, Camp Depot woke to rain the next morning. Light but steady, it pattered against the window with the occasional gusts of wind. Andy woke early, dressed quietly, and kissed Kate lightly on her way out the door, getting only a soft, mumbled acknowledgement in return. In the kitchen cabin, Andy turned on the lights, lit the camp stove so it would be warmed up when the cadets showed up in half an hour or so, and started the industrial-sized canister of coffee. She didn’t have time to wait for a first cup, so she grabbed a granola bar instead and headed out into the rain.
Andy shrugged into her storm coat, feeling the cold air worm its way under the thick fabric. She pulled her watch cap over her ears and tried not to let the weather affect her mood. Andy stepped carefully down the gravel path, swinging the wide beam of her flashlight left and right, checking for rivulets in the road from the rain. She saw a few but none wider than her hand. Fifteen minutes later, Andy saw the headlights of Kurtz’s truck, pulled in just off the highway so she didn’t compromise the road by driving on it.
Andy pulled herself into the warm cab of Kurtz’s truck.
“Morning, Andy. How does the road look?”
“Not bad. The culverts seem to be working for now. Maybe a dozen or so channels over the whole length of the road but nothing too wide.”
Kurtz grunted at the news, seeming satisfied with Andy’s report. She pulled a silver thermos out of the drink holder in the console, twisted off the lid, and poured something hot into a small cup. “Coffee?”
“Thanks,” Andy said gratefully, wrapping her hands around the small cup and taking a sip. It was hot and strong. And spiked. “Jesus, Kurtz, what the hell is in this?”
“A shot of whiskey,” Kurtz said with a grin. “What? Are you going to give an old lady a hard time for wanting to warm her bones in the morning?”
She snorted and took another sip before passing it back. “Old lady…right.”
“Speaking of old lady,” Kurtz said, “how’s Kate?”
Andy couldn’t help grinning. “Kate is good. Kate is perfect.”
“You going soft on me, Andy Wyles?”
Andy shrugged, the gesture probably lost in the dawn darkness. “It’s possible.”
“Good, you could do with a little softening.”
Andy laughed quietly and looked through the windshield into the cold, wet dark of the day. “Any luck with plans for the troop?”
“Yep. Got a good one, you’re going to like it,” Kurtz said with renewed vigour in her voice. Andy had to wonder what it was like to retire, to completely shift your brain from the overload of a staff sergeant job to…well, anything else really. “Put in a cold call to the Sports and Recreation at TRU.” Kurtz had wanted to get the troop down to Thompson River University, just at the edge of Kamloops. “The women’s volleyball team is away this weekend at CIS championships, so he said as long as someone from the RCMP signed an insurance waiver, we could have their gym time. That gives you the gym for three hours, half the pool for one, and the workout room for however long you want it.”
Perfect, Andy thought. It was an ideal space where they could run the troop through scenarios or just work them hard. It wouldn’t be so bad for Zeb, either. In fact, Andy figured she’d just turn the troop over to Zeb for a couple of hours and give the other instructors some free time.
“Yes,” Andy said out loud, mentally working through the logistics of organizing, transporting, and chaperoning the troop. Andy asked a few questions and got some timelines, the name of the director, and directions. “Perfect. I keep saying I owe you. You’re going to have to figure out how I’m paying you back.”
“Stay for a few days after the troop’s gone,” Kurtz said immediately. “You and Kate.”
Andy would love to stay for a few days, visit with Kurtz and Tara, and have some actual alone time with Kate. She also thought about her responsibilities and Kate’s new schedule. She waivered.
“We’ll see,” Andy hedged. “I’d love to, if we can.”
“Settled,” Kurtz said. “But you and Kate can stay in the honeymoon cabin. I don’t need to hear you two up all night.”
Andy shook her head again, laughing as she pulled open the door of the truck. A blast of cold air hit her in the face, instantly cooling her body temperature. With a goodbye to Kurtz, Andy slammed the door, ducked her head, and ran the few kilometres back to camp.
By the time the troop had gotten up, done roll call in the lecture cabin, eaten and cleaned up breakfast, packed a bag, slogged their way down the road to the bus, stopped at Wal-Mart to buy swim suits, and wound their way through Kamloops until they found the compact university and its athletics complex, they ended up just making their noon hour gym time.
Everyone’s mood had shifted. The cadets milled about in small, excited groups, looking like a visiting sports team in their Depot-blue workout wear. Andy signed the four-page document releasing the university from any future lawsuits as a result of the troop using their facility and put down a cash deposit on twenty locks and twenty temporary pass cards.
“Okay, Troop 18,” Andy called out. “You are with Zeb and I for the next three hours in gym two, then you’ll have an hour of optional pool time and exactly one hour after that, we will do roll call here in the foyer.”
The troop gave murmurs of surprise. Andy had basically just given them two free hours in the middle of their week. Trokof had suggested it, and none of the other instructors had disagreed. Work them hard, he’d told Zeb, fitness and hand-to-hand practice and self-defense and drills. Work them hard, give them a chance to breathe, then ship them back to camp.
“I suggest taking advantage of the unlimited supply of hot water,” Andy added just before she released the cadets. The four-minute showers had become something of a joke at camp. It was barely enough time to get clean, let alone warmed through before the hot water started to trickle off into an increasing stream of cold. Now that Kate was with her, it was really the only thing that made Andy the least bit homesick.
Once they’d each received a pass card, the cadets raced off to find the change rooms, jostling and joking down the long, tiled hallway. Andy handed out the pass cards to Zeb, Les, and Kate. Meyers had volunteered to do grocery duty today, and Trokof had asked for an afternoon of solitude. Andy had worried about this request and also saw Kate’s concern, but Trokof had insisted all he needed was a few hours of quiet to re-set, and he’d be fine. Andy had backed off immediately but just before they’d left for the wet hike to the bus, Andy had seen Kate talking quietly to Trokof. Her tone had been low, her face serious, and her gestures a combination of pleading and insisting. Andy wasn’t sure exactly what she had said to the drill instructor but when Kate looked up, a moment of understanding passed between them.
Andy, Les, and Kate walked the long hall to the change rooms. Les and Kate were going to use the treadmills while Andy and Zeb worked the troop. Kate was going only reluctantly, Les having to coax her with pleas of female bonding. It was the chance to watch Food TV while running that had finally won Kate over. Andy changed quickly, tied up the laces on her shoes, and pulled her long hair back into a low ponytail. As she walked down the hallway, she tried to remember how long it had been since she’d set foot in a university gym. She’d spent most of her undergrad at the UBC athletic complex: four nights a week for basketball practice, games every weekend during regular season, travelling between provinces for championships. As she pushed open the doors for gym two, Andy did a quick count to make sure everyone was accounted for. Listening to Zeb’s commands echo around the gym, punctuated by short, sharp whistle blasts, Andy remembered what being part of a team was like—to follow commands, to be critically aware of where your team was on the court, to be able to anticipate your opponent’s next move and see two plays ahead, adjusting and flexing your muscles to choreograph and execute a perfectly timed play. She remembered what it was like to know every single member of your team was working just as hard to achieve the same goal. As the afternoon wore on, Andy felt a new appreciation for Troop 18. She had almost forgotten to see their dedication and commitment to each other as admirable.
As they approached the three hour mark, Zeb giving them time to wind down and cool their muscles, the next group began trickling in. Andy guessed by their tall, lean bodies, their heavily muscled legs and the massive, expensive sneakers, that the university’s men’s basketball team had just arrived.
The troop continued following Zeb’s instructions, but awkwardly now, very aware of the new audience. Andy caught Zeb’s eye, and gave a quick, sharp movement with her hand across her neck, telling him to cut it short and wrap it up. Andy didn’t like the way the newcomers automatically edged in on the court, the aggressiveness of their volume, their display of ownership over the space. Zeb released the cadets, reminding them they had two hours until they were to meet the instructors out front. Andy stood back and watched as they walked past the men’s basketball team. They’d fallen into loose formation, Prewitt-Hayes and Petit at the front, Awad, Foster, Hellman, and Shipman forming an almost evenly spaced barrier between the basketball team and the rest of the troop. But nothing happened, and the two groups gave no acknowledgement of each other.
“Assholes,” Zeb muttered under his breath beside Andy as they followed the troop back into the hallway. Andy could feel him bristling with defensive anger, his eyes darting back and forth from the door to the team behind them. The three hour workout hadn’t seemed to work its magic yet. Zeb seemed more up than down.
“We’re done, the troop’s done. Leave it alone, Zeb.” Andy had been careful to not push Zeb these last two weeks. But she needed Zeb to keep it together, and she knew him well enough by now to recognize when he needed an outlet. “Kate and Les are going to supervise the troop at the pool, so why don’t you take the next few hours off? Meet us back at the bus by five.”
The gym door locked shut with a metallic clang. Zeb glanced through the safety glass window.
“Okay, sure,” he said, running a hand over the short bristles of his shaved head. “See you in two.”
Andy found her way back to the women’s change room and decided to take her own advice of a very long, hot shower. The steady stream loosened the muscles in her shoulders and neck, and the steam worked its way into her lungs, seeming to warm her from the inside out. Andy let herself lose track of time, knowing Kate and Les had the troop for now, giving herself a moment of reprieve from the weight of responsibilities that had become her everyday life at Camp Depot. Reluctantly, Andy turned off the shower, towelled herself dry and pulled on her uniform over her still damp body. She pulled tightly at the belt around her waist, feeling uncomfortably light without the holsters she’d left back at camp. Andy bypassed the hair dryers, knowing from experience that they were useless, instead twisting her wet hair up off her neck before grabbing her bag and heading out.
Andy followed the smell of chlorine to the pool, hearing shouts and shrieks echo off the tall ceilings. She looked through the large observation windows along the corridor and could see most of the troop was playing water polo. A few sat on the side, dangling their legs in the water. Andy craned her neck up to look into the stands and saw Kate and Les with their feet up on the railing, sharing a bag of cheesies from the vending machine. Andy smiled to herself and walked back to the foyer.
Finding a semi-quiet corner near the wall of windows, Andy pulled out her phone and her notebook, looking out into the dark and rainy afternoon. She checked her messages first, prioritizing the six calls from work, circling the two she would follow up with on her own, and underlining the ones she would forward to the sergeant covering her cases back in Vancouver.
Andy paused to watch the sky open up in a torrential downpour, the intense roar only minimally dulled by the layers of glass. Mesmerized, Andy watched the rain and the few unlucky people racing through it until the intensity eventually lessened. She checked the time on her phone. The cadets would be getting out of the pool in about ten minutes. Andy dialled her supervisor’s number and left a message with his secretary. She controlled the urge to drum her fingers on the table while she waited.
Instead she started a list, kicking herself when she realized they should have combined today’s trip with their weekly drug screen. Someone would have to come into town in the next few days for that. With the rain pinning them down at Camp, the other instructors might like the change of scenery to come into town and drop off the samples, even if it meant being responsible for sixteen mini bottles of urine.
The phone vibrated on the table, beeping importantly. Andy checked the display, saw the main line for headquarters, and picked up. Their conversation was short, Staff Sgt. Finns checking in quickly between meetings. She updated the limited information she had on the troop, reassured him that everything was fine, then signed off. Andy spun her phone in her hands. Suddenly it vibrated again and Andy saw that it was headquarters again. Curious about what Finns had forgotten to tell her, Andy pressed at the pick-up button.
“Wylie! It’s me, Jack.”
As if after all these years she needed the reminder. She only allowed one person to call her Wylie.
“Hi, Jack.”
“I heard from Lydia that you just checked in with Finns. How’s it going out there? How’s the troop? How’s Kate?”
Andy didn’t bother asking how he already knew about a conversation with Finns from three minutes ago. Jack heard everything.
“Camp is fine, the troop is fine, and Kate is fine. She says she misses you. What’s up Jack?”
“Okay…well…I hadn’t really done anything with that list you faxed over to me a week ago. You did say it wasn’t a priority,” he added nervously, like he wasn’t sure if Andy was going to give him shit. Not that she ever did. The worst she ever did was glare at him or cut him off when he started to babble or go on a tangent. “Okay, so I decided to do something similar to a Boolean search, using the phraseology of the numbers as opposed to the specific digits. Are you following?”
“No, not at all. Skip to the part where you found something.”
“Okay, the majority of the hits I got were from parenting sites and mom blogs, which I disregarded as irrelevant at first. The second highest number of hits came from horticulture sites, looking at mixtures of nitrogen, potash, and potassium and comparing those to types of growth and areas of coverage.”
Jack stopped to take a loud, fortifying sip of something, probably coffee. Knowing she was in for a long explanation, Andy wished she had her own fortifying substance.
“So I spent way longer on that thread than I should have before I actually went back and looked at the specific numbers in the charts and realized the quantities didn’t make sense for it to be fertilizer.”
“And the context doesn’t really add up either,” Andy said.
“Right, that too,” Jack said, somewhat sheepishly. Andy wasn’t annoyed, though. She appreciated that Jack wasn’t afraid to pursue an avenue that didn’t make any sense at first glance. It had given them valuable leads more often than she could count.
“So you went back to the mom blogs,” Andy said, knowing her partner and the way his mind worked. “What did you find?”
“Right, so two things popped up on the mom blogs. One was basal body temperature charts, daily tracking of women’s temperatures to correspond to their monthly cycles to show peak periods of optimum fertility. These were sometimes then compared to various levels of hormones detected in a blood test.”
“Okay…” Andy said, this explanation forcing her brain to angle off sharply in a direction she wasn’t expecting. She shifted rapidly through the information, adding context, motivation, environment and plenty of her own speculation, waiting to see if something clicked. Nothing. “You said two things popped up. What was the other one?”
“The other one was more simple. It was multiple discussion threads and postings about how much acetaminophen or ibuprophen to give to infants and toddlers, and the question of whether going by age or weight was more appropriate.”
This twigged for Andy. She disregarded the context of the mom sites, the type of meds, and the age. They were back to drugs. “And when you look at the specific numbers from the chart we found?” Andy said.
“This is where I’d need Kate,” Jack said apologetically. “It makes sense one column is looking at days of the month and the second column is weight in kilos. The third column could be dosage, but I don’t have a clue what the dosage could be and I couldn’t put enough parameters in to make my searching find anything more relevant.”
“So I need Kate,” Andy said, scribbling notes so she could fill Kate in on the hypothesis Jack’s search had just outlined.
“Of course you do, Wylie. I’ve known that since the day we met her.”
“Very funny,” Andy said, scanning her notes, making sure she had everything. He wasn’t wrong. Jack had always known what Kate meant to her. He’d been able to see what Andy had been so desperately trying to ignore as she and Kate worked their first case together in Seattle. Sometimes having a partner who could see through you was helpful. Sometimes it was a pain in the ass. “Okay, I’ll have Kate look at the chart with that lens. If we get a chance, we’ll text you before we hit the dead zone near Camp. Anything else comes up, send a message to me through Kurtz, okay?”
“Yep. Got it. Over and out, Wylie.”
Andy rolled her eyes and hit the disconnect button on her phone. She twirled it in her hands again as she scanned the deserted foyer, thinking about her conversation with Jack, eliminating nothing, adding facts as they fit or presented themselves as relevant. She became distracted by a movement in the window, a play of light against the darkness of the day.
She realized it was a reflection from down the hall. Though the image was distorted by light and distance, she had a fairly good view of cadets Greg Shipman and Hawke Foster having what seemed like a heated debate. Shipman was shaking his head, looking left and right, anywhere but at Foster. Foster was leaning in, like he was trying to convince Shipman of something with the intensity of his stance. Shipman raised a placating hand but Foster slapped it away.
Andy half rose out of her chair then stopped herself. She should let them work this out. She could hear them now that she was paying attention. Foster’s voice was sharp and angry, Shipman’s placating. Foster gestured sharply at Shipman, tapping him in the centre of the chest. It was a provoking gesture intended to get a reaction, but it didn’t. Shipman put his hand on Foster’s shoulders, shook him slightly, still shaking his head. Shipman’s whole demeanour screamed an almost casual acceptance of inevitability. Apparently, Foster refused to accept.
Andy’s phone buzzed in her hand, and she looked down quickly. It was a text from Kate, asking where she was. Andy quickly thumbed out ‘foyer’ and was hitting send even as she looked up to see what was going on with Shipman and Foster. A third person showed up, his face puffy and distorted in the reflection so it took a moment for Andy to recognize the cadet. It was Jacob Frances. Both cadets were turned toward him so Andy couldn’t see their expressions or guess how Frances had changed the dynamic of the argument. Frances spoke, checked his watch, shrugged, and then he punched both cadets on the shoulder and walked back the way he had come. Shipman and Foster stood still, then looked quickly at each other and followed their troop mate down the hallway.
Andy debated whether or not she should pursue the cadets. She wished one of the other instructors had seen it, so she had someone else’s opinion to consider. Even Zeb’s seemingly biased view of the cadets would be helpful right now. Andy checked her watch, like Frances had just done a moment ago.
Nineteen minutes until the cadets were due to check in, which meant Foster, Shipman, and Frances had nineteen minutes of freedom left, and Andy couldn’t and shouldn’t follow them. She sighed, checked her notes, scrolled through icons on her phone, and pulled up the picture of the chart she’d taken with her camera phone last week. Andy scanned the numbers, but there was no point. They meant nothing to Andy.
Kate and Les arrived less than a minute later, wandering down the hall, chatting quietly, laughing easily. As they approached the table where Andy was sitting, Kate looked up and smiled, and then she seemed to be scanning Andy’s face, her body language, the way she held her notebook in one hand, her phone in the other. Kate’s ability to read her and know when she was keeping something back had been unnerving for Andy in the beginning. It had rapidly become a lifeline for Andy, though. A necessity more than a convenience. Which was why their two months apart had been hard, of course. Jack was right. Andy needed Kate.
“What is it?” Kate said, sitting across from Andy.
“Jack has a hypothesis regarding that chart we found,” Andy said quietly, aware her voice could easily carry. She quickly outlined the three hits Jack’s search had isolated, allowing both Kate and Les to make their own judgements about the relevance of each. Kate asked to see the chart again and scanned it on the small screen, and then she asked for Andy’s pen and notebook. Andy and Les watched as Kate sketched her own chart, putting the numbers one to thirty-one in the first column and filling in numbers beside that in the second. Reading the chart upside down, Andy figured out she was translating what they suspected was the weights column from kilos into pounds.
“If Jack is right, this column tracks daily weight fluctuations in an individual who weighs at most two hundred and three pounds and at their least, one hundred eighty-seven,” Kate concluded, turning the chart around so Les and Andy could take a look.
“That’s a pretty big fluctuation,” Les said. “Especially since the chart only shows twelve days’ worth of data.
“True. Given the fluctuations as well as the numbers we’re looking at, I’d guess male. Females don’t lose weight that rapidly.”
“Bastards,” Les muttered reflexively. “Who fits that in the troop?”
Kate tilted her head to the side. “Off the top of my head, Foster, Frances, Mancini, Awad…and I’d put Shipman in there, too, but at the heavier end. I’d say he’s minimum of high one-nineties. I can double-check the cadet files when we get back to camp.”
“Could any of the women fit the profile?” Andy said. She would guess no, but wanted to hear the reassurance of another opinion.
“Hellman at her most muscular would just reach into the one-eighty range. So I’d discount that possibility for now unless you get something else to suggest the profile is female rather than male.”
Kate talked like a cop, building on evidence and fact, holding every nuance and suggestion as relevant until it could be definitively disregarded. Her brain naturally worked that way, sorting and isolating and scaffolding information into a cohesive whole.
“Andy…” Les said quietly.
Andy looked up. Cadets Prewitt-Hayes and Shandly had just come around the corner, talking quietly, their hair still wet from the swim and shower. Andy cursed in her head and checked her watch. Only four minutes until the cadets had to report back. Kate folded the piece of paper before slipping it into her coat pocket.
“Later,” Les muttered under her breath. “Let’s get the team together after cadet lights out.”
Kate mumbled an agreement, but Andy was busy observing the cadets. They’d been joined now by Hellman and McCrae, Petit, and Awad. The cadets moved down the hall in twos and threes, and Andy watched them with a sinking feeling in her stomach. She saw forced casualness in the way they spoke to each other and circulated around the foyer in choreographed neutrality. The troop was attempting to pull their camouflaged blind around them, attempting to go unnoticed.
“Shit,” Andy said, drawing Kate and Les’s attention. “They’re hiding something.”
Just then Zeb walked in through the front door. He shook his head and body out like a dog, water spraying out from his jacket as he approached the table where Andy, Kate, and Les were sitting.
“Hey,” Zeb said. He seemed calm and in control. Good. Who knew what the hell Troop 18 was going to try to pull right now?
Andy stood, and Kate and Les followed. “Did you see Frances or Shipman or Foster while you were out there, Constable Zeb?”
“No. But the rain’s so heavy I couldn’t see shit. Should I go back out? Are they missing?”
“No, they have another two minutes.” She watched as more and more of the troop arrived. She lowered her voice until the instructors and Kate had to lean in to hear what she was saying. “I saw Shipman and Foster having a verbal fight about fifteen minutes ago,” Andy said. “Then Frances arrived, said something, and left. Shipman and Foster followed.”
“Andy…look…” Les said.
Shipman walked in through the front doors, hands shoved into his pockets, and went to stand with Petit, Awad, and Prewitt-Hayes. He didn’t look at the rest of the troop or the instructors. He simply held still. While Andy was processing Shipman’s suspicious entrance and body language, Foster arrived from down the hall with a wet jacket balled up under his arm. The troop shifted and made room for Foster. Andy thought of the way the troop had almost unconsciously made a barrier between themselves and the men’s basketball team earlier. Right now though, they seemed to consider Andy, Kate, Les, and Zeb the threat. Andy took a step to the side and just caught the look Foster was giving Shipman. A sharp shake of his head, a warning glare. Shipman gave the smallest of shrugs and looked away.
“It’s five,” Zeb said tightly.
Andy began a head count.
Just as she did, the men’s basketball team arrived, this time moving en masse down the hallway. Their noise and movement filled the already crowded foyer as they headed to the doors with their gym bags slung diagonally across their broad shoulders. Andy felt the tension immediately, and she willed the team to just keep moving. But their momentum slowed and Troop 18 mobilized.
Andy didn’t see it start. She heard a raised voice near the front, a short response, then a challenging question thrown carelessly into the crowd, and a low, threatening statement. Zeb and Andy both started moving, aware of the tight tension, the restless, nervous shift of thirty people in the lobby. As Andy was trying to move her way to the front, the troop suddenly shrank back and then surged forward as a shout rose up. Andy began pulling at cadets, moving them forcefully backward and out of the way.
Behind her, Les called individual names, the warning in her tone sharp and clear. Andy was at the front now, watching Shipman fighting against Petit’s hold on him, cursing and challenging one of the basketball players. He was also being held back by his teammates. By the look on both their faces, the red welt under Shipman’s eye, and the bloody nose of the basketball player, they’d both managed to get a good hit in before being hauled off.
“You fucking asshole!” Shipman yelled across at the other guy, even as he was being hauled farther and farther back by Petit.
“Nice one, douche troop,” the basketball player sneered, pushing his teammates away but standing his ground. It took him just a second to register Andy’s presence. He seemed to calculate her height, her uniform, and her stance, and he settled for a smirk.
“What’s the problem?” Andy said, keeping her eyes on the team in front of her while monitoring the troop in her peripheral vision. Shipman had finally shaken off Petit, but the large man continued to use his bulk as a barrier.
“No problem, no problem,” the basketball player said, disrespect heavy in his tone. He wiped the small trickle of blood under his nose onto his sleeve. “Just a friendly disagreement.”
Andy didn’t ask. It wouldn’t do any good to hash it out in front of everyone. She could see the desk clerk talking on the phone, her eyes wide. Andy hoped this would be done by the time campus security showed up.
“Good, then you can go. All of you,” Andy said, indicating the whole team. Zeb edged his way to the front of the crowd, his body tense. She really hoped he would stay out of this.
Clearly, the player did not like being kicked out of his own gym. His whole demeanour changed from disrespectful indifference to a reckless, seething mass of anger. He puffed out his chest, stretched to his fullest height, and balled his hands into fists at his side. Andy didn’t try to match his postural challenge. She waited him out and stared him down.
“Fuck it,” he finally said, half turning to the rest of his team. “Let’s go.” He picked up his bag and swung it over his head, letting it fall heavily over his shoulder. The smirk was back, not aimed at Andy this time, but over her shoulder. Andy assumed it was meant for Shipman, but she didn’t turn to look. She monitored the progression of the basketball team as they made their way to the front door, a silent hostility hanging between them and the troop at her back.
Just as they reached the large glass doors, Andy saw the guy lean in and say something quietly to Shipman. The cadet surged forward, but the basketball player moved easily out of reach, laughing. Andy moved to intervene but Foster was quicker, placing himself between Shipman and the front doors, pushing Shipman back toward his troop. Zeb suddenly yelled from the opposite end of the foyer, catching even Andy by surprise.
“Troop 18, in formation!” If Andy hadn’t been looking, she would have sworn it was Sgt. Trokof. “Now! I want you in formation now!” His voice echoed around the glassed-in foyer. The cadets fell into line, the command triggering an automatic reaction. Shipman had to be partially dragged, but even he pulled himself into position, breathing hard. The troop had fallen into four neat rows of four. Everyone was accounted for.
After a brief conversation with the instructors, Zeb loaded the now-silent troop on the bus. Shipman avoided eye contact, his normally jovial face a mask devoid of any emotion. Shandly sat beside him and spoke quietly to him under her breath, a constant monologue he didn’t respond to. Andy thumbed out a brief text to Lincoln and Finns in the near darkness of the bus, Kate sitting silently beside her. Heath was going to have a field day with this one.
Shipman was out of chances, she knew that. The thought caused anger and disappointment to war in her stomach. Andy stabbed at the send button on her phone, having to hit it twice in her haste to get it sent before they hit the dead zone back to camp. Kate looked at her silently, her concerned expression coming into sharp focus as they passed a street light then falling into darkness again as they drove up into the mountain. They both knew everything had just changed. Andy felt the spectre of failure rise up out of the darkness. She quashed it with an angry twitch of her body, shoving her phone back into the pocket of her coat. Andy knew Troop 18 could very possibly go down in flames, and she intended to be there every step of the way.