November 3

1 Day Before the Storm

 

 

If my home is indeed being watched, I’m beginning to wonder if the cameras are in fact a deterrent.

Counting Halloween, there’ve been three days without an incident. Not counting Halloween—meaning specifically incidents involving my home—it’s been five. And each passing day rachets up the tension a little more, coiling and coiling. Like when several weeks would pass with Will being charming, not long enough for me to forget but to fear how bad it would get when the storm of his temper hit again.

Sunset is just past five but the heavy clouds rolling across the sky make it darker even earlier. The darkness makes a lot of people sleepy, me included, and we’re done dinner by the time it’s black outside.

The boxes crowding the space remind me that I need to unpack, no matter how it hurts, and I start with one marked as Nick’s...where I find his paper-wrapped sculptures.

Some wood, some limestone. Some abstract, others more realistic. Often modern but sometimes with recognizable Coast Salish touches. I lift and unwrap the first one, but my hand tremors and I set it back down again.

I can’t do this yet.

Just as I move to a different box, the phone alert goes off—this time it’s the camera at the back door.

I freeze, staring down at the alert.

This is not a coyote.

It’s also not Jenni Montgomery, unless she returned and traded in her jacket for something far more practical—a heavy dark parka, the hood pulled up. The camera caught this figure walking around the back of the house, no visible face.

My gaze flicks up to scan the living room.

The shades are all down. I’ve fallen into that habit daily, after thinking about someone watching me with Owen—as soon as dusk hits, the shades go down. Kitchen curtains are pulled as well.

The house alarm is armed, the lights on the control panel warning me as much. I look at Nadia, who is not remotely sleepy, lying on the couch watching the second season of the She-Ra DVD we borrowed from Janelle, and I don’t want to leave her in here alone but nor do I want to sit and wait while someone is skulking around my house.

I head upstairs and text Owen as I go.

Camera caught someone around my house.

I don’t think it’s Montgomery.

Three dots indicate he’s replying, but I beat him to it.

I’m going out to check.

Call me in ten minutes and if I don’t reply, please get Dee.

I’m heading into my bedroom when confirmation comes. He might use this later to indicate I’m not safe here, an excuse not to leave, but I’ve yet to come up with a backup plan—I need to sit down with Janelle, but I’m not there yet.

I pocket my phone and go to my closet. There’s a spare pair of boots, older hiking ones not suitable for deep cold, and I get those on so I don’t have to pause downstairs. I pull a heavy cable-knit sweater on as well, and a spare pair of gloves. There are Maglites in every room now, and I grab one just before I plug in the code for the gun safe. As I’d hoped, I don’t have to think about it, the code scored deep so my fingers move automatically. I methodically load it, fold extra shells in my back pocket—optimistic of me to think I’d get to reload, since realistically if I need to make a shot and the initial ones don’t stop him, I’ll be dead before I can reach them.

I silently move back downstairs, the shotgun out of sight of my daughter—I sweep past the back of the couch, she isn’t looking. Grab my keys from the counter, double check I’m as prepared as I can be, breathing deeply the whole time, each movement careful and methodical. “I have to step outside for a second, Dee,” I call. “I’ll be right back.”

I get a mumbled agreement—She-Ra has her entire focus.

I take a steady breath at the door and find I’m shaking. That won’t do and I’m angry with myself, but I know part of that is just not knowing what is coming. In the heat of the moment, I will act. I will be fine.

Swiftly I disarm the alarm. Disengage all the locks. Open the door. I step outside, closing the door behind me and lifting the shotgun.

Ambient light pushes around the curtained windows and from my bedroom upstairs to light the snow—two inches deep now. I scan the dark trees, see no one immediately, and use that moment to engage one of the rear door deadbolts. Is the front locked? I have a moment of panic and uncertainty because I can’t remember, but it’s become so automatic I tell myself I must’ve done it. I can’t go back in and second guess myself now.

Keys stuffed in my pocket, I flip on the Maglite and hold it in the hand supporting the shotgun. It’s awkward, and fleetingly I think of a flashlight attachment or all the way s I could’ve planned this better—how could I not have practiced doing this with a flashlight? I’d been picturing more barricading myself in Nadia’s room, not traipsing about the woods, but here we are.

There are footprints. He didn’t come right up to the door, but close enough for the camera to trigger. My phone is vibrating in my back pocket with an alert that I’m in front of the camera; I ignore it and focus on the prints.

They move around the back of the house, skirting close to the window at one point before moving on. My stomach twists at the thought of my daughter being watched, at even just the attempt to see her past the blinds. That thought lends a confidence to my steps, a narrowing to my focus.

I trudge after the footprints, the Maglite’s steady strong beam guiding the way.

I’m led farther along the back of the house, and while I expect to go into the trees, instead the prints go around the side.

Where they meet a second set.

I frown at this, mind spinning. Maybe it’s the same set twice...no, there’s enough snow for deep prints that are still recognizable. One set is narrower, a bit smaller.

That camera took a photo not five minutes ago—he, or rather they, still have to be here.

The prints walked together to the front of the house. I follow. My finger’s not on the trigger, as much as it itches to fold over it, but I’ve yet to see someone. I strain to listen past my own steps for the sound of someone else crunching through the snow. Wind shivers the trees’ branches, but all of it is the ambient noise of the woods, not another presence.

I shine the light farther ahead, looking past the fog of white my breath produces, to find the footsteps heading around the front of the house. People circling the place?

I glance over my shoulder on reflex but see no one behind me, so I continue.

My phone buzzes in my pocket again, and I’m guessing it’s another camera alert since I’m at the front of the house, near the front door. The flashlight’s beam reflects on my SUV. While my gaze starts to skirt toward the front door, the footprints don’t go near it and instead head toward my car.

The driveway is clearer—I left the porch light on, better lighting the empty space even with my shadow moving over the ground. It’s clear straight to the road and I haven’t been out since I picked up Nadia from Janelle’s yesterday afternoon, so I can clearly see the prints that came down the driveway to wrap around the house. The ones I’m following now go up the right of my SUV and disappear around the back.

I pause in front of my vehicle and look left—no prints that I can see cutting through the snow on that side, they didn’t round the SUV and head to the woods.

There is a very good chance someone is crouched right this moment at the back of my car.

I sip the air in, bitter against my face and as it enters my lungs. Forward I move, determined, my finger inching closer to the trigger. I give the SUV wide berth, leaving no room to dart around and lunge at me. My shadow is long ahead of me and announces my presence, but no steps signal the intruder has scurried way.

I steel myself as I swing around to look at the back of my vehicle.

Two figures crouch there, and I let out a heavy breath, lowering the gun and flashlight at the sight of a pair of teen girls from the village.

The one with dark curly hair and closest to me is Riley, Dally’s granddaughter—hers is the heavy dark parka I saw on camera. The girl beside her petite with short ash-coloured hair peeking out of her gray toque, and, though I’ve seen her around Red Fox Lake, I don’t know her name. They’re both holding onto one another, deer eyes massive like they can’t blink against the flashlight’s beam. They might be shaking more than I am.

My lips part to ask, then my gaze takes them in fully and I see the spray paint in Riley’s gloved hand.

I shift my head to look back at the house and see two red lines crossing over the wall beneath the kitchen window again, likely about to spell out “killer”. And I realize Owen was right—this bullshit has apparently been vandal kids after all.

“Please don’t tell,” Riley begs just as my phone rings in my back pocket, reminding me Owen is likely ready and willing to come to my rescue.

I shuffle the flashlight under my arm to free up a hand to answer the phone, staring down at the girls.

Riley silently pleads with her eyes.

“Meet me at Dally Carleton’s house,” I say to Owen, and Riley starts to cry.

 

*

 

The girls have bikes hidden down the driveway; I make them retrieve them and put them in the back of my SUV while I ready Nadia. I take deep breaths to calm my anger but I am pissed because as much as I don’t want to be bothered—I want to tell the kids to fuck off while I just barricade myself in my home and stress-cry the exhaustion away—they’ve been terrorizing me for weeks and I am going to ensure their guardians are at least aware of the situation, if not dish out punishment for it.

The gun is locked upstairs once again and then I rush down to prep my daughter for the car.

Nadia whines and sulks because I’m taking her from her TV show, and I can’t think of a single thing to bribe her with. Tamping down on my temper is not easy, and when she starts to cry, I’m afraid it’s my sharp quick movements jerking her into her winter clothes that’s doing it.

I pause. Collect myself. Take a breath and hug her tight. I mold my voice into sweetness, assuring her we’re just going for a little drive. It’s still nowhere near bedtime but the darkness outside is absolute as I lock up the house and carry her out to the SUV where the girls are waiting.

I don’t look at Riley or her friend, just bark at them to get in while I buckle Nadia into her high-backed car seat. The friend sits back there as well while Riley gingerly climbs in next to me.

Not once do I speak on the drive to Dally Carleton’s house in Red Fox Lake, and neither girl utters a word either, not even to apologize. Oh I’m certain they’re sorry they were caught—the few sniffles I hear indicates they’re still quite upset. But I can’t say whether they’re sorry for what they did.

I wonder back if I ever did such a thing as a teenager and can’t recall. My parents wouldn’t have noticed if I did. I have no playbook for this—I already feel like I’m flying blind raising Nadia, especially without Nick’s example, and I realize with startling terror that one day she’ll be a teenager and I might have to navigate this sort of situation regularly.

A smattering of lights in the darkness signify Red Fox Lake on the road ahead. It’s a starkly small town during daylight but more so at night, when the only sign of occupation is a glow from the houses with homeowners still awake. A couple of streetlights run along the main road but the shops are all dark except the windows of the single bar. The Carletons’ home is at the other end of the block from where the General Mart is.

Owen is there, but not parked in the remaining spot in the driveway; his truck idles across the street. He cuts the engine when he sees me pull up but doesn’t get out.

The girls still don’t speak when I stop in front of Riley’s home, but dutifully climb out and retrieve their bikes while I debate bringing Nadia.

She’s finally settled in her seat and I know she’ll be fine for the two minutes I’m in there, considering Owen is watching the car. But lugging my child in might certainly underscore how awful what these kids have done truly is.

I opt to leave her; she’s got books tucked in the pocket behind my seat and I give her those before locking the idling SUV up. Riley and her friend remain with their bikes on the driveway and their shoulders slump as I march up the porch steps. Perhaps they thought I would just leave them, but I’ve had to deal with Dally’s passive aggressive looks and remarks since even before Nick went missing, not to mention this entire goddamn village acting like I’d murdered him.

The end result of all those rumours is these girls thinking it’s okay to vandalize my home and terrorize me. While I will not involve the police for my own sake, I’ll ensure Dally knows what her granddaughter was up to.

I knock. The girls wait behind me. I haven’t heard them say one word to one another, but they’re teen girls who are clearly close—surely they’ve been exchanging looks and gestures only they understand. The temperature is achingly low and it’s a fight not to fidget for warmth while I wait.

Dally answers, already in her nightgown and robe although it’s not even seven at night. Her eyes are startled like buttons in her pinched dried-apple face, and her greying hair is curled in rollers under a shower cap which she’s probably worn every night since the seventies. Behind her the TV is on, light flickering and a laugh track playing; the front door opens into the wood-panelled living room and I glimpse a pea-green thick carpet and a couch that has seen better days. I’m sure George is on a La-Z-Boy recliner somewhere to complete the picture.

“My home’s been vandalized multiple times over the past couple of weeks,” I say coolly and without preamble. “Tonight I caught the culprits in the act.” And I step back to reveal the girls cowering to the side of the porch.

Dally looks out, her eyes getting bigger, and a huge white cloud leaves her lips as she breathes out heavily into the cold air. “Goodness.”

“They have been spray-painting horrible things on my home,” I continue. “They have even broken in.”

“We only went in once when the door was open,” the blonde friend cuts in, her voice falling to a squeak at the end when Dally fixes her gaze on her.

“It’s not breaking in if the door’s already open,” Riley whispers stubbornly, though the tears falling down her reddening cheeks confess she knows damn well it’s trespassing regardless.

“I haven’t called the police,” I direct to Dally, though with a sharp look at the girls, “but I trust this will not happen again.”

Both girls shake their heads. I can no longer see the can of spray paint, but Riley’s coat is bulky enough that she could tuck it in a pocket or even up her sleeve.

“I’m very sorry, Immy,” Dally says softly, and I think I might believe her. Her wrinkled skin’s gone pale and her eyes flit between her granddaughter and me, like she can’t quite look at either of us for long. “I’ll speak to Ashely’s dad as well. They’ll be punished. Girls, get inside now.”

They both scamper in past Dally, not even pausing to take their boots off, and the older woman looks at me apologetically again.

I nod as if I find this acceptable, and then start to turn.

But I think the better of it and swing back just as Dally’s about to close the door.

“Punishing them doesn’t change the fact that they’re responding to rumours about me in this town that no one has stopped in the first place,” I say curtly, and Dally freezes head to toe in the doorway.

The cold is likely getting to her, but she doesn’t say a word in response, nor does she try to finish shutting the door. She shuffles back to face me, her worn slippers scraping the plastic door mat.

“I’ve endured the stares and the whispers and the rumours for a year now—longer if you consider the fact that no one here accepted me to begin with. I have ignored it because I know everyone misses Nick and you have to have someone to blame, but that person is not me. And as much as Nick would want me to keep the peace, he would draw the line at me keeping quiet about local kids writing ‘killer’ on the front of my house for me and my daughter to see.”

Her jaw goes slack and tiny eyes widen. Whatever Dally thinks the girls graffitied, clearly that isn’t it.

“I did not hurt Nick.” My voice frays and breaks at the end, which makes me all the angrier. But steeling myself over and over to these people and their comments, pretending I don’t know they all think the worst of me, has built and built and built and I’m finally cracking. “The voiced opinions of people in this town has led these girls to think it’s okay to harass me. You won’t punish them—you will teach them. And the next time you hear someone whispering about me in your store, you will correct them, in front of Riley and others, so they get the message that this isn’t okay.”

With that I turn and go, because I don’t want to hear more of her sputtering apologies. I do not believe she will take responsibility for her part in this, I don’t believe anything will change. And I wish I could just get in my car and drive and drive until I find a place to start over. Again.

But every time I think that, it presses in on me how trapped I am here, with a house I can’t sell, a husband I can’t bring myself to declare dead. And I feel like I could drive coast to coast but I’d still be followed, like my past clings to me, a ghost I cannot exorcise. Nick was a fairy tale without a happily ever after, and in the end, I am still on my own unable to escape what’s coming.

Because I know these girls were responsible for the graffiti, but that doesn’t explain the newspaper article I’d found left on my porch, or the police officer directing the little boy to speak to me as Chloe. Those are things no one here would know about, which means I’m still being hunted after all.

 

*

 

Owen has waited and he asks me to come to his house for a few minutes; it’s on the outskirts of town, which is just a couple of blocks away. Single-story log bungalow he might very well have built himself, high fence that I’m sure won’t keep any nosy neighbours from spreading rumours as my SUV turns into his driveway, even though I’ve never been here before.

I’m not sure why I told him to meet me at Dally’s. Maybe because I want him to have this assurance that it’s “over”, able to actually see these girls marched up to an authority figure for punishment. Let him have his moment of relief when I acknowledge it was local kids after all.

Regardless, I’m in his living room with Nadia beside me, my phone in her hands where she taps at some bright pink Barbie game. I cleared the camera alerts without glancing at them and silenced notifications so she can focus on the game; it’s muted so I don’t know if she can follow the instructions, but maybe she’s played it before because she hasn’t asked me for help yet.

I decline an offer of a drink and sit perched on the edge of the mission-style sofa, still in my boots because he told me not to take them off and my desire to make this a short visit has stifled any of my usual attempts at politeness.

The inside of Owen’s home is about what I expected: rustic with wood-panelled walls, a forgettable area rug over the hardwood floor. There’s a heavy river-stone hearth with a fire burning, and along the wall by the door is a set of hooks above his two coats with three different baseball hats, all newer and in better shape than the one he’s currently wearing—which he always wears.

“Riley Carleton and her friend are the vandals,” I explain. “This whole time, it’s been local kids.”

He sits in a recliner across from me and rubs a hand over his mouth as he looks away. “Wow.”

“Yeah. So please let me pay you for the security system—”

“Nah.” He bows his head a moment as he shakes it. “I feel better with you having that anyway, especially over the winter.”

My gaze drifts around his living room to the ajar bedroom door across the hall. Though it’s dark, I see the edge of a suitcase near the doorway and an open duffel on the bed through the slice of low light from in here.

“When are you headed south?” I ask at last.

His head bobs up again to meet my eyes, then his gaze skirts away once more. “Not sure if I should. Job is starting middle of next week, but...”

“You should be there,” I tell him, and though there’s a twinge of regret that I’ll no longer have this point of safety relatively nearby, I know it’s the only way this can go. “We’re okay. We have an amazing security system you won’t let me pay for, and I still have Janelle in the city—we’ll get through the winter just fine.”

He’s leaning his elbows on his knees and shuffles a little with discomfort. Or maybe exhaustion. He seems almost as tired as I feel. I’m expecting him to give more denials that he needs to go, more hesitation about it.

Instead he lifts his eyes to mine again, that baseball hat shadowing his face, and says, “What do you think happened to Nick?”

All this time talking about him and we’ve never come around to that. Even Janelle has never asked me so directly, but then she and I have talked so much she already knows my thoughts there.

My mouth hangs open for a moment while I struggle to respond.

The truth is that there is no answer. I’ve looked from every angle and I can’t come up with anything that makes sense.

“I think about that...every day,” I say at last. “Every minute. I...” My mouth snaps closed again, and I swallow thickly then swipe under my eyes as I shake my head. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

I ache straight down to my marrow. I want lie down in the dark and the cold and sleep and not wake up again. So much of my brain has been focused for over a year on Nick—on what possibly could’ve happened, on where he is, on what pieces of his story I’m missing—it feels like I’ve aged a decade, and I still don’t have any answers.

“I think something happened to him,” Owen says quietly. “Maybe...he thought he heard something, someone who needed help, and went into the woods and got lost. Maybe...maybe someone hurt him. But I don’t think he would’ve left you, Immy. Not ever.”

My fingertips press under my eyes as I blink tears away. Janelle has said that over and over but it’s still good to hear someone else believes it. “Thank you.”

Nadia is getting restless, the phone game no longer holding her attention—probably all the ads—so I rise on stiff legs, collect my cell from her, and scoop her up.

“I uh...” He rises as I glance back at him, Nadia heavy in my arms, and he takes his hat off for a moment, both hands bending the peak before he slips it back on again. Colour stains his scruffy cheeks. “While I’m gone, if you need a place to stay...” He shuffles a little past me and pulls keychain with a single key from a hook near the door. “This is a spare. For here, for the house.”

“Thank you, but—”

“Just...” He thrusts it at me like it’s biting him. “So you have another option. While I’m gone. Your security is better, but this is closer to town. You can...you know, bring what you need to. For Dee to be comfortable. I know it was the kids and all, but if you don’t feel safe...”

I take the key and tuck it into my pocket—I can’t see us taking him up on the offer, but it might be something he needs to feel safe enough to go. “Thanks.”

“You going to be okay?” Owen asks as he follows me toward the door. “Storm’s hitting tomorrow afternoon.”

I nod. “I think I might head to Janelle’s tonight. She’s invited me up to wait out the storm if we want.”

That reassures him, and it’s only a half lie. Owen sees us out, and I pack Nadia in again. I do text Janelle to ensure that’s okay. There’s a bag of our clothes in the back with the emergency supplies anyway, as Nick had always warned me how easy it was to get snowed in somewhere, so I don’t need to head back to the house.

Then I drive to Whitehorse as tomorrow’s snow gives a preview, fat flakes striking the SUV and wind howling as we go.