I sat in my chair, told myself to forget everything except my work. Not only did I have deadlines, I needed to get my head back in a better space, and ironically, writing about fictional characters’ terror sometimes helped me forget my own.
For two hours, as rain fell on the tin roof above, I fell into a writing well. I loved writing wells, their rarity making them precious. The days my fingers flew over the keyboard, struggling to keep up with the story playing out in my mind, were few and far between. Those two hours were one of those times.
Of course, I had no way of knowing if the words were any good. I’d have to read them again in a few weeks. I could hope, though.
Just as the well began to run dry, a knock sounded on the door, startling me back to reality, moving my heart rate up again.
“Who’s there?” I said with way too much hostility.
“It’s me, Beth. Open up,” Viola said from the other side.
I stuck the stack of papers I’d filled with potentially good words into a top drawer and locked it with a small key. I put the key into my pocket and went to the door.
I unlocked the door, but as I pulled it open wide and my eyes landed on Viola, something went wrong. Instead of Viola standing there in the rain, her hat drooping on one side like it sometimes did, Travis Walker was there, his generic features slack as he looked at me, his silver earring catching light from somewhere.
I gasped, blinked, and just before I screamed and maybe fainted, the vision disappeared. Popped away. Viola came back into view, hat included.
“What the hell?” Viola said, and pushed her way inside. “You okay?”
My hand was over my mouth. Shit. This wasn’t good. Get a grip. Get a grip. “I’m fine. Sorry, I thought I saw something out there.”
“What?”
“Nothing.” I closed the door and hoped Viola couldn’t hear my heart pounding in my chest. I worked to stabilize my voice. “What’s going on?”
“Some weird shit, let me tell you.”
Oh good. Somebody else’s weird shit. “I’m listening.”
Viola knew where the whiskey was kept. She pulled the bottle and a glass from the bottom desk drawer and poured herself a shot. She didn’t offer me one, which was unusual.
“Ah,” she said after she downed the shot and sat. She grabbed the bottle again but didn’t pour another, just held it on her lap.
I sat in my chair. “You okay?”
“I don’t know. I’m stressed, Beth. What the hell is going on in my town?”
“What’s happened since this morning?”
“Everything, and not nearly enough.”
I nodded. She’d continue.
“The girls,” she finally said after a few moments. “They still aren’t talking, but their father came to get them.”
“What?” I sat up in the chair. “Who’s their father?”
“His name is Tex Southern.”
“Is that his real name?”
“So he says. He had identification.”
“What happened? Clearly, you’re not happy about this.”
“He marched into town looking for Gril. He’d come to report that his girls were missing, said he’d tracked them in this direction. Gril asked him a million questions and then gave him the girls. I wasn’t in on the questions or how Gril determined it was okay for the girls to go with him, but Gril said he’d tell me later.”
“They’re gone?” I said. “What about social services?”
“Social services folks never even left Juneau. Now that Dad is found, they aren’t going to bother.”
“But the girls aren’t talking. They might need help.”
Viola frowned. “I agree, Beth, but that’s not how it’s done.”
“Not how what’s done? Making sure that children are okay? No, I can’t accept that.”
Viola poured another shot into the glass. She looked at me. “You’re going to have to. We’re all going to have to.”
“Wait. He marched into town. Where was he from?”
“He’s a native. He lives in a village not far from here.”
“He’s a Tlingit?” I said.
“Yes.”
I paused. The world was a delicate place. “Viola, I’m only asking this because whatever is the right thing is what needs to happen. Annie is obviously Tlingit. But Mary isn’t. What’s up?”
Viola nodded slowly. “It’s an unavoidable question. Apparently, Gril was okay with however Tex explained it.”
“Is this all legal?”
“If they’re his daughters, it is.”
“Did you see the girls with him?”
“I did. I think they were scared they were in trouble at first, but then they were happy to see him. I witnessed Gril asking them if Tex was their father, and they both nodded.”
“Did Gril ask him why the girls don’t talk?”
“Not in front of me.”
I pondered, and wished I could have seen Tex. “Did he … look okay?”
Viola shrugged. “He’s a big guy.”
“Okay. How does he or Gril think the girls got lost in the woods?”
“The village is on the other side of the mudslide and a narrow river passage. It is thought that the girls got lost while they were out checking traps.”
That got my attention. “Traps?”
“Yeah.”
I told Viola more about what I’d seen at Lane’s house, this time elaborating on the traps and the back room.
She listened intently, her eyes calming even more. Something came clear to me as I spoke, and it was the same something Viola said aloud.
“This is all because of the mudslide,” she said.
“It’s had quite the ripple effect.”
“Yes, but…”
“I know. There’s more. There’s a body. If the girls really are okay, the body is the real problem here.”
Viola sat forward, balancing the whiskey bottle on her knee. “What if the girls saw something out there? What if they know something about the body?”
“I’m sure Gril has considered that.”
“I don’t know,” Viola said. “I just don’t know.”
“You can ask him.”
“I can and I will.” She paused. “But they weren’t hurt. No injuries whatsoever on either of them.”
I thought a long minute and then grabbed the bottle from Viola. I found my own shot glass and poured. I wasn’t much of a drinker, but now seemed like a good time for a shot. And there was that vision of Travis. I pushed it away.
“Am I bothered because one of the girls is white? Am I that kind of a person?” I finally said to Viola.
She shook her head slowly. “I don’t think so, Beth. I wondered the same thing about myself and then I realized I’d feel the same way if he was a white man and he was taking Annie away with him.”
I was embarrassed by another sense of relief washing through me. Yes, I would have been bothered by that, too. I wasn’t racist, but still maybe too race aware.
“Where’s their mother?” I asked.
“Long gone, that’s all Gril said about that.”
“Oh boy, any chance she’s the body?”
“I’m sure Gril is looking at that, too.”
It made sense. In my mind, I’d solved the mysteries. The answers were right there. Well, sort of. We still didn’t know who’d killed the woman, or why. Tex was probably involved, though I couldn’t pinpoint how. So was Lane. And the girls would be able to talk once everything was figured out. There was a happy ending coming, I was sure.
“I bet. I talked to Orin about all of this. He’s searching for something that might help.”
“That’s good. That’s very good. No one better than Orin.”
“Who did he used to be?” I’d asked Viola before, but she’d never answered.
Viola quirked an eyebrow. “If I told you, I’d have to shoot you.” She patted the gun holstered at her hip.
I didn’t think Viola would ever shoot me, but we still hadn’t known each other long enough for me to be one hundred percent sure.
We could go around and around on the details, the facts as we knew them to be, but bottom line, it didn’t matter what I thought, didn’t matter if I’d solved any mystery in my imagination. It was all up to Gril. The girls were presumably safe now; that was the most important thing of all.
Besides, I had my own problems, and I wasn’t going to let Travis Walker become a part of this new life of mine.
I poured myself another shot.