Chapter Eleven

Claire assumed she would be the first one awake when she slipped out of bed at five-thirty. She tucked the blankets tight around Jodie’s shoulders and kissed her forehead.

“Has it been at least four hours?” Jodie murmured.

“Maybe,” Claire said.

Jodie pressed her lips together, either too tired to argue or deciding it was pointless. “Try again tonight.”

“Promise.” She kissed Jodie again and left the bedroom.

She stood on the landing and took a moment to get a feel for the house. She’d never been there before, and it was odd trying to acclimate herself this early in the morning. While she stood there, she heard music coming from a room downstairs. She followed the sound downstairs and took the opportunity to admire the house.

She’d never been in the mayor’s residence, but given its stately position on its own acre of land at the edge of town, she’d expected a mansion. It was large, and some of the furniture was gaudy and ostentatious, but it was easy to tell what had come with the house and what Patricia and Jill actually chose and used. Toys and books were scattered here and there, evidence of the child in residence. She followed the music through the dining room and recognized the string section just before she knocked on the office door.

“Did she have a bad dream?” Patricia asked without looking up.

Claire leaned into the doorway. “Sorry. It’s me.”

“Oh.” She took off her glasses. “I thought you were...”

Patricia looked toward the device which was still playing music next to her laptop. “...ending this dance. If you need to find me, I’m on the road with Lance.”

“Shit, I’m sorry.” She poked quickly at the screen to silence it.

“Don’t be,” Claire said. “It’s a great song. Can I come in?”

“Of course.” Patricia was wearing a T-shirt so faded the words that had once been written on it were impossible to read. Her hair was down and loose on her shoulders as if she’d just jumped out of bed and run downstairs. “I was just dealing with the storm.”

Claire looked past her out the window. The side lawn of the house was a single solid wave of white, and flurries were still swirling.

“Bad?” she asked.

“Everything’s shut down,” Patricia said. “I was seeing if we could get some snowplows out, but it’s not looking very likely until at least this afternoon.”

“Damn.”

Patricia said, “How did things go last night?”

“I learned a lot,” Claire said, “but I wish I didn’t have to wait for the weather to clear before I could move on it. I guess it’s a blessing in disguise, since it means Wyman can’t move the women to the mainland until the ferry is back in service.”

“I hate the idea of these assholes setting up camp on my island. I hate thinking they’ve been here for so long. The number of women who have been held hostage here...” She angrily shook her head, stopping herself before she got carried away.

Claire said, “It happened on my watch, too. Rucker was the only one who knew about it, and he felt powerless to do anything. That’s the whole reason he was stepping aside to let me take over.”

“Whatever you need, as long as this takes, it’s yours.”

“Do you know of anywhere we can keep these guys if I do manage to arrest them? At the moment our only option is splitting them up in the cells, but I don’t like the idea of them being able to talk with each other.”

“Sure. The old isolation cells.”

“That sounds ominous.”

Patricia smiled. “Well, they are in a basement at the end of a dark hallway. It’s in the courthouse. Back in the sixties before there was a separate police station, people were kept there while they awaited trial. Single rooms with reinforced doors. Basically solitary confinement. Right now they’re filled with office equipment, but I can call someone and have it all moved just in case we need them.”

“How secure are the rooms?”

“Very. You could probably keep watch on all the doors with one deputy.”

“About that,” Claire said. “I could use a few more deputies. We have the volunteers, but if we can put them in actual uniforms... It would most likely only be necessary for a little while, until this whole thing blows over...”

Patricia was already nodding. “Like seasonal work. I’ll find it in the budget.”

“Thank you. I was going to thank you for your hospitality by starting breakfast. Anything I should know?”

“Coffeemaker by the oven is for the house. Make yours in that. The one by the sink is for Jill. Don’t touch it.”

“You have two coffeemakers?”

Patricia shrugged, sighed, and slumped back in her chair. “She does weird stuff to it. She explained it to me a dozen times but I finally just decided we should retreat to separate counters. She’ll come down and make it herself. She prefers it that way.”

“She doesn’t mind you being down here at five in the morning?”

“She knows it’s sometimes necessary. And it’s not every day. We keep strange hours. Some nights she’s still up grading papers when I go to bed. And then adhering to whatever schedule Isabel needs us to keep. We make it work.” She smiled. “Jodie knows, Claire. She may get mad at you for running out at all hours, she may yell at you for waking up too early or not getting enough sleep, but she knows you’re doing what needs to be done. She’s just doing her part to keep you grounded.”

“Sometimes I worry I make it too hard on her.”

Patricia shrugged. “So make it easier when you can. And make it up to her when you can’t. I know you do what you can, but there’s no such thing as too much. Showing appreciation goes a really long way.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks, Patricia.”

“Sure. Oh... she also volunteered you for chef duties to pay for your room. Use whatever you find in the pantry.”

Claire laughed and saluted. “Will do. Coffeemaker by the oven...?”

“Yes.”

“Got it.”

Her smile faded as she went through the dark, cold house to the kitchen. The house with Tereza and the other women had a generator, and she’d seen Jesse leave with what looked like a tray of dirty dishes. Hopefully they were warm and being taken care of. If Wyman intended to sell the women, it would be in his best interest to make sure they stayed healthy. It was a disgusting thought, but it was the only thing bringing her any kind of comfort about the situation. If she couldn’t hold onto that, she might be tempted to build a pair of snowshoes and trek up there on foot.

Claire was in the middle of making breakfast when a Tasmanian devil of energy rushed into the kitchen. Isabel, still in her pajamas, stopped short when she realized the woman at the stove wasn’t her mother. Her body went stiff, eyes wide and confused, blinking behind her uncombed bangs.

Fortunately, Jill was right behind her. “Izzy, you remember Sheriff Claire. She’s staying with us.”

“Oh yeah! Jodie! Is she here?”

“She’s still asleep,” Claire said.

“Can--”

“No,” Jill said, interrupting the request. “You’re going to help me make your breakfast. Then you’re going to take a bath, and get dressed, and then we’ll ask Jodie if she wants to play. Okay?”

Isabel agreed to the terms and went into the pantry. Jill joined Claire at the stove.

“Did you sleep okay?”

Claire nodded and gestured at the pan. “Jodie told me about making me your chef. I didn’t know if Isabel had any restrictions...”

Jill shook her head. “No, all of this looks fine. She likes to choose her own banana, though. It can’t be too yellow but it definitely can’t be green. It’s a very delicate dance.” She snuck a glance at her coffeepot next to the sink. “I guess Trish told you I’m a dictator about my coffee.”

“She mentioned something about that pot being off-limits, yeah.”

“She says I do weird stuff to it. I make it good. You can have a cup if you want.”

Claire could tell when an offer was insincere. “Thanks, but I’ve already had a cup of Patricia’s swill. Tastes fine to me.”

“Heathens,” Jill muttered as she began filling her machine.

Isabel came out of the pantry with a not-too-yellow but definitely-not-green banana like a scepter. The adults watched her victory march out of the dining room before they spoke again.

“I told her she can watch cartoons on the iPad with breakfast since we’re snowed in. So! I don’t know, um, what you’re allowed to tell me about an ongoing case. But Patricia implied it was pretty bad. Do we have any reason to worry about the people you’re after coming here?”

Claire shook her head. “I don’t think so. They’d need to know we were here to begin with, and the only people who know that are in this house. And Chief Crawford, but I don’t think she’d tell anyone.”

“Alex is trustworthy,” Jill agreed.

Jodie came into the kitchen, hair tangled and still in her pajamas. “Coffee...?”

Jill poured her a cup. “I’m surprised you were able to escape Isabel. You’re her new favorite thing.”

“I asked if I could get a cup of coffee before I joined her to watch something called Buddy Thunderstruck. Cartoon?”

“Stop motion. Trucks. With a... dog or a rat or something, I’m not sure what he is.”

Jodie raised an eyebrow. “Ooh, okay, I might not hate that.” She smiled at Claire and leaned in to kiss her. “Good morning.”

“Morning, pretty,” Claire said.

To Jill, Jodie said, “I was thinking, if it’s okay with you and Patricia, later today I could take Isabel out into the garage and show her around one of your cars. I won’t take anything apart, but I can show her how the engine works.”

“Oh, boy,” Jill said. “You’d really be her favorite then. As long as it’s not an imposition to you.”

“We’re stuck here anyway,” Jodie said. “I’d be happy to educate her a little. I just wanted to be sure it was okay with you, because she might get a little messy.”

Jill waved her hand. “By all means. We don’t mind a little grease if it adds to her education. Thank you.”

Jodie lifted her coffee to Jill in thanks, kissed Claire’s cheek, and headed out of the kitchen. “I better go see this truck show. Call me when breakfast is ready?”

Claire promised she would.

When they were alone again, Jill said, “I don’t like the idea of these people being on the same island as my little girl. Or my students. Hell, with me. But if they really are as dangerous as you say, maybe it would be better to wait until the weather clears and call in some bigger guns. The feds, or whoever is the next up the ladder.”

Claire didn’t want to tell her about Wyman’s decision to go on the offensive, but she also didn’t want to leave their family unprepared if his goons did show up at the house.

“We can’t wait. They know who I am, and they know most of what I’ve figured out. They’re going to come after me regardless. I have to be ready for whatever they pull next. I’ve already got two of them in custody. Only four left.”

“Yeah, but you have to take them all out to win. They only have to take you out. Those are lousy odds, Claire.”

“I’ve made a life out of beating odds like that,” Claire said. “I escaped from police custody, eluded a federal agent with a personal vendetta against me, then managed to stay free for five years until my innocence was proven. But there is one big difference between all those bad men I stopped when I was on the road and what’s happening now.”

“What’s that?”

“All those times, in Texas or Washington or Nevada, I was the new arrival. I came into town and found a problem waiting to be solved.”

She took a sip of her coffee.

“These guys are on my turf.”

***

“This is an extraordinarily bad plan.”

“Because it will fail?” Claire asked.

Jodie thought for a second. “No, not necessarily. Any plan has the potential to fail, so who knows, but in terms of sheer recklessness... bad plan.”

Claire zipped up the hoodie which made up her first layer of warmth. “We have the home court advantage. We can use that to beat these guys. We can use our knowledge of the island and its people to get the upper hand. Wyman won’t be expecting anyone to show up today, which means he’ll have his guard all the way down.”

“Because he has a whit of common sense,” Jodie muttered.

“This might be our best chance to catch him off-guard. He thinks we’re on the defensive. I’m going to prove him wrong.”

Patricia crossed her arms over her chest. “Run it by me again, please?”

“This is our town,” Claire said, “so we have access to information he doesn’t. Like, for instance, the fact that Joseph Hogan has a snowmobile that can get me up to Spence Alley. As far as they know, it will be impossible for anyone to get out there, so they won’t be on high alert. So I’ll hike over to Hogan’s place--”

“In single-digit cold,” Jodie pointed out, “with the wind blowing twenty miles an hour in your face the whole way.”

“I’ll bundle up,” Claire said. “The main reason I couldn’t stay longer last night is because I wasn’t adequately prepared for the weather. I ran off without a plan. This time I have a plan. Stupid though it may be.”

“Oh it definitely is,” Jodie said.

Patricia looked between them, then looked at Jill. Her wife picked up on the signal.

“Trish, let’s go see if we have warmer gloves for her...”

“Sure, that sounds like a two-person job,” Patricia said, pushing away from the counter.

On their way out of the room, Jill whispered, “Sorry, I couldn’t think of anything else...”

Claire waited until she heard them on the stairs before she spoke. “I can stay. I can call it off, try to forget it until we have a better plan.”

“You’re making me choose between what I want and the safety of five women who are in danger, Claire. Of course I want you to stay. Of course you have to go. I feel like shit for being angry.” She pressed the heel of her hand against her eye. “But that’s not your problem, and it’s wrong of me to take it out on you.”

Claire came closer and pulled Jodie into a hug. “It was easier when I was just running blind into danger. I didn’t have to worry about someone at home.”

“Do you wish it was still like that?”

Claire stepped back and looked at her. “When have you ever known me to prefer the easy way?”

Jodie smiled and pressed a kiss to Claire’s lips. “Please don’t ever get sick of me being upset about shit like this.”

“As long as you don’t ever stop feeling selfish about me,” Claire said.

“Deal.”

Patricia came back into the kitchen, her return suspiciously well-timed to the end of the argument, and presented Claire with a pair of thick gloves and a ski mask.

“Finish going over your plan,” Patricia said. “What do you intend to do once you’re up there?”

“Surveillance. I want to see how they act when they think no one’s around.”

Patricia said, “Won’t they hear your snowmobile coming from a mile away? It’s dead quiet out there, and I imagine the sound travels even better outside of town.”

“One thing I did learn last night is that they have big generators running behind at least two of the houses. I doubt they’ll hear much of anything over that.”

“So you just get up there and stalk them?”

Claire shrugged. “We’ll see what I can do once I’m up there. If I see an opening, I’ll break into the house where the women are being held and get them out. I spoke to someone who lives on the next road over. I’m sure he’d be willing to give them shelter once they’re out. Getting them to safety takes away Wyman’s leverage. Then all bets will be off.”

Patricia said, “I talked to Tobias, who is holding down the fort at City Hall today. We got the isolation rooms emptied out. They’re ready if you want to start filling them up.”

“Good to know.” She touched Jodie’s arm and squeezed. “I should head out. I don’t know for sure how long it’ll take me to walk to Hogan’s house.”

Patricia said, “It’s just under a mile, but given the conditions...”

Claire nodded. “I’ll take it nice and slow.”

She went to the door and finished putting on her armor: a heavy jacket on top of the hoodie, then a North Face jacket on top of that. Gloves, a scarf tucked into the collar of her coat, and the ski mask pulled down over her face and tucked carefully into her shirt. Jodie also gave her a pair of sunglasses that didn’t provide quite as much cover as goggles would, but they would be better than nothing.

“My knight in puffy armor,” Jodie said, patting Claire’s padded shoulders. “Go get ‘em, killer.”

Claire kissed Jodie, which amounted to pressing a layer of cotton against her cheek, and opened the door to head out into the snow.

***

Always listen to your wife, Claire thought as another gale of wind shoved her back a step. Rule one of marriage and you blew it.

The wind was unbelievable. She took a moment at the edge of the mayor’s property to rethink her plan, wondering if it was a suicide mission. Even with all the layers she had on, the cold was stunning. The snow was almost to her knees where it had blown up against the property walls. It would be lower outside, but even then it would be above her ankles. She had made it this far, and she wouldn’t retreat. It was eight-tenths of a mile to Hogan’s house. Once she made it there, the rest of the trip would be simple. Eight-tenths of a mile was nothing. She would have killed for eight-tenths of a mile when she was on house arrest. It was barely considered exercise under normal conditions.

She looked out at the field of white. The snow was thick enough that it was hard to tell the difference between the sidewalk and the road.

“Not exactly normal conditions,” she said, her voice muffled by the mask.

She pushed off and began marching, lifting her knees high to clear the dunes. She put her body on autopilot, one foot in front of the other, and let her mind focus on other things.

“Cabin fever?”

“Sure,” Claire said, pushing away from the window. “That sounds better than house arrest.”

Jodie put down her book and held out one arm to gesture her over. “Want to talk about it?”

Claire joined her on the couch, folding herself so her head was on Jodie’s chest. “I know this is the absolute best-case scenario. I could be in prison right now. And my glorious thousand yard radius is extremely generous. I can get all the way to the corner store if I don’t go to the cooler in the back. But it still sucks.”

“I know, baby.” Jodie kissed her hair. “Just a few more months, and then we can go wherever we want.”

“We,” Claire said. “You’re not stuck here. You can go wherever you want right now.”

Jodie said, “No. That ankle bracelet gives you a thousand yard radius, but I have a two-hundred yard radius from you. Any farther and I start to get all twitchy.”

Claire lifted her head and kissed Jodie’s neck. “You deserve better than being tethered to a woman who can’t even get on a train.”

“Trains are overrated.”

The end of the block seemed like a good place to stop and take a breath. Not too much of a break. If she stopped long enough to sweat, to lose her momentum, she risked just shuddering and giving up. She didn’t know how far she’d come, didn’t want to think about how far she had to go. She grunted and pulled her foot out of the snow, planted it a little farther down the path, and continued her trek.

“I want to be Claire Curran.”

“You tell people to call you Lance. It’s literally the only thing I’ve ever heard some people call you. The woman who lived next to us in Chicago didn’t even know your name was Claire!”

“I know. And now it’s so much more than a name. It feels like it’s not mine anymore. It belongs to that woman on the news, or the woman in the song. It’s a character.”

“It’s you. You’re the woman on the news.”

“Jodie...” She took her girlfriend’s hands, squeezed. “I spent my life as Lance. But that part of my life is done, and I want to start a new chapter. With you. I want people to know who saved me. I want to take your name.”

“To hide?”

“No. Because these days, it feels more like me than Lance does. Claire Curran.”

Jodie smiled. “It does have a certain ring to it... But if you take my name, does that mean we’d be married?”

“Do you want me to do the whole knee thing?”

“Not right now. And I don’t need a ring. But I’d like a little ceremony when the time comes.”

“I’ll see what I can come up with.”

She heard it before she saw it. Up ahead, like a mirage, a snowmobile swept around the corner and buzzed toward her. She stopped and stared as it approached and slowed to a stop right next to her. Joe ‘Hoagie’ Hogan, the second most popular disc-jockey on the island, pushed up his ski goggles and tugged down his mask to reveal a bright smile. His cheeks and the tip of his nose were bright red, and tufts of his shaggy white hair poked out from under his cap.

“Hey, Sheriff!”

“Mr. Hogan, we agreed I’d come to you.”

He slung himself off the snowmobile. “I know what we agreed, but then I got to thinking. Why the hell am I making you come all the way to my place on foot when I could come to you and just have you drop me off at home before you go do whatever you have to do?”

“I...” Claire blinked. “It seemed easier this way.”

Hogan raised an eyebrow. “Really? You want to finish this walk just to avoid a little backtracking?”

“It’s not fair asking you to come out in this weather if I could just--”

He held up a hand. “Look, Mayor Hood-Colby didn’t tell me exactly what’s going on. But we have one sheriff in the ground and the new one is heading out on some top-secret mission in the middle of a blizzard. Whatever’s going on, if my sledge can help, I’m willing to be a little inconvenienced. This is a small town, Sheriff Curran. We help each other.”

Claire nodded slowly, ashamed of herself. “You think I’d have figured that out by now. I was just bragging about how well I knew this place, and I forgot the most important part of it. Thank you, Mr. Hogan.”

“Hoagie. I insist. Now let’s go, it’s colder than shit out here and I want to get home before I freeze off my toes-ies.”

Claire got into the snowmobile and Hoagie climbed on behind her. She was very much not a fan of that, but she had to admit it was better than finishing her walk. Fortunately there were handles to either side of his seat that he could hold onto instead of gripping her waist.

“Why do you even have this, if you don’t mind me asking. Don’t get me wrong, I’m incredibly grateful it’s here.”

“I got some money a few years back. Once I paid off everything that needed paying off and bulked up my savings, I still had a nice chunk left over. So I thought, hey I have space in my garage and sledges are cool.”

Claire nodded slowly, still examining the controls. “Okay. But it’s not like Squire’s Isle gets days like this very often.”

“Three, since I got it. We’ve had three days where the whole town’s been snowed in, and no one could get out. Older people need medicine, kid needs diapers, someone needs something, and I’m there. It’s nice to be useful.”

“Yeah.” Claire smiled. “I get that.”

“You know how to run one of these things, right?” he asked next to her ear.

“Jodie taught me to ride a motorcycle a while back.” She patted the right handlebar. “Gas on the right, release to slow down.” She patted the left handlebar. “Brake.”

Hoagie said, “Sounds good to me. Take it nice and easy.”

Claire started the engine and gave it some gas. The snowmobile lunged, but she managed to get it under control before she and its owner were bucked into the snow.

“If you wreck my sledge, who do I call to arrest you?”

Behind her mask, Claire smiled.