Gril didn’t seem to want to talk as he drove. He was thinking, working, I understood, but I had questions.
“Why didn’t you tell Christine about the girls?” I said.
“Oh. That did seem odd, didn’t it?”
“A little.”
“I’ve contacted the proper authorities about the girls, but I’m not sure I want Christine involved with that part. She’s an ME, but I suspect she would feel a need to get social services from Juneau over here right away. That’s probably going to happen at some point, but I want to give the girls’ family a chance to find them first.”
I nodded. “That makes sense.”
“I appreciate you keeping it to yourself, too.”
“Do you think someone somehow did something to move the earth to hide the body on purpose, and then Mother Nature recently intervened with the mudslide?”
“I don’t know. Hard to pull something like that off, but not impossible,” he said.
There was something about the way he suddenly fell silent that got my attention. “What?” I said.
He shook his head. “A lot happened that summer.”
“Like?”
Gril hesitated again but then shook his head. “A lot, but the mudslide was a big deal.”
“Do people get lost or trapped out here a lot?”
“Shoot, Beth, more than a couple thousand people a year get lost in Alaska. It’s a big place. Stuff happens. Sometimes bodies are found, sometimes not. We once found a skull and the rest of a skeleton near it. We tested them and found out they weren’t originally attached. The skull belonged to one man who’d come to Alaska to hide, the body to a man who’d come to explore. They’d both been killed by bears and their remaining parts somehow dragged to the same spot. And adding to the strangeness of the whole thing, both of their first names were Dave.”
“That is uncanny.”
“It is.”
“More than two thousand people a year go missing out here?” I said.
Gril nodded solemnly and repeated, “It’s a big place.”
“Wow.”
We were silent as Gril maneuvered over some craters in the road.
“Do you think the two girls are somehow involved with the dead woman?” I said as the road leveled again.
“Not sure. I have no evidence that says that yet, so I need to remain open-minded.” He sent me a quick glace before returning his attention to the road. “I didn’t mention them to Christine, but I will. She’s not a criminal investigator, and I also wanted her and her techs to look at the site with no preconceived notions.”
He must have felt guilty about not letting her know about them, but I understood his reasons.
“Do you think the girls were the source of the noise that Randy and I both heard?”
“Maybe, but, again, no evidence of that yet. I didn’t hear a sound come from either of them. You didn’t either, right? Did the girls do something you forgot to mention, something that might tie them to this?”
“No,” I said. “But I did hear the noise.”
“We’ve got two muddy, silent mystery girls and a dead body. It all makes for some real concern.”
I nodded as Gril frowned and looked around and out the windows. The road wasn’t wide enough to travel down in a truck without moving slowly and carefully, but Gril didn’t hesitate as much as I would have. I thought about how safe I felt with him. I trusted him completely, though I couldn’t shake the sense that I’d stepped out of the boundaries I was supposed to stay inside. My stomach wouldn’t settle, couldn’t fill up a hollow feeling growing inside me.
I studied Gril, his determined focus. He was a good cop, a good man. Even if we got lost out here—which we wouldn’t—even if we were attacked by a bear—which was always a possibility—Gril would find a way to save the day. The man who had taken me wasn’t out here. I was still in my safe zone.
I shifted on the seat and cleared my throat. As I looked away from Gril’s profile, something glimmered out in the snowy trees. It was probably just the glass of the snow catching a random ray of sun that had made its way through the clouds.
But it took me someplace else altogether. One second I was with Gril, thinking how safe I felt, and the next I was transported back in time, back to a place I was working so hard to stay away from.
Silver. A silver earring had dangled from my captor’s ear. My mind’s eye could see it shimmer in the light that came through the van’s windshield. It was a silver feather. My captor, still faceless, but with blue eyes that I had, in fact, remembered. He had looked at me and said something, and as I looked over at him, I noticed the flash of light on his ear.
I didn’t answer him.
“No,” I muttered in the here and now.
“Beth?”
As if I’d been in a tunnel, I was sucked back to the present moment.
“What?” Gril asked.
I shook my head, glad for the quick return to real time and not willing to tell even someone I trusted so completely what had just happened. “Sorry. I just hope we figure out who the girls are.”
“We will. Eventually, at least.”
A twinge of pain started marching around my scar. I gritted my teeth. Now was not the time. I couldn’t close my eyes and meditate the pain away while I was in the truck with Gril. I couldn’t talk it out. I swallowed hard and hoped I could stay in the moment.
“Lookee there,” Gril said, no amusement in his tone.
I swung my gaze in the direction Gril was looking, glad to have something to take my mind off … my mind.
There was an obvious opening in the trees. It was only about four feet wide—a truck couldn’t fit through it—but there was no question that it was a purposely made passageway.
Gril turned off the truck and looked in the rearview mirror. Though the road we were on was wide enough for his truck, it was only just wide enough. The only way to go anywhere was either to back up or continue forward and look for a spot where you could do a three-point turn without hitting a tree. It was a tight fit in every direction.
“I have to walk down there,” he said as he looked at the opening in the trees. “Lock yourself in the truck, and hightail it out of here if you see anything that doesn’t look right. If I don’t come back in an hour, get out of here.”
“No,” I said, the pain in the side of my head still on the move. Not now!
“What do you mean, no?”
“I’m not waiting in the truck and I won’t leave without you.”
He looked at me. “You have to follow my orders.”
“No, Gril, I don’t. There’s no way I’m sitting in this truck, not knowing what’s going on. I’m going with you.”
“You said you’d do what I said.”
“Well, not this time.”
“Beth…”
“I don’t care what you think. I really don’t care at all.” I gave him the most level gaze the pain in my head would allow. “Shoot me if you don’t want me to go.”
“Stay out of my way, then,” Gril said angrily as he pulled the door handle and got out of the truck.
“I will,” I muttered to myself as I did the same on my side.
Gril wasn’t young, nor was he trim and fit, but he could move well, and I had to quicken my pace to keep up with him.
He simmered as he continued to look around. I hoped he was more focused on searching for something that would help him solve the mysteries of the two silent girls and the dead, frozen body than on being angry at me. I followed silently.
These woods were much denser than those by the storage shed, more like the Alaska woods I’d become used to, the trees close together, the foliage under our feet thick and difficult to maneuver—though there was less mud here and no real smattering of snow. Gril moved through it better than I did, but I did okay. When he stopped walking and put a hand on the gun holstered at his waist, I was grateful for the rest.
He put his other hand out and told me to stay behind a tree. There were many to choose from, but they were all skinny. I did as he commanded, though, and then peered around a narrow trunk.
A home. A cabin. It wasn’t leaning like the storage shed had been; it looked solid and just big enough to be cozy and comfortable, isolated enough to be disturbing. It was set in a clearing, but the trees hugged a close perimeter around it.
“You don’t know who lives there?” I said, keeping my voice low.
“I have no idea,” Gril said. “I’ve got no record of anyone living out here. This land belongs to the State of Alaska. No one should have built a home on it, but that doesn’t stop folks.”
The building definitely looked lived in. There was even a rocking chair sitting out on the narrow front porch.
“It looks like a nice home,” I said.
“It’s illegal,” Gril said. He turned to me. “Stay here. I mean it, Beth. I’ll shoot you in your leg if you try to come with me. I will signal you if I think it’s okay to join me, but stay here or run back to the truck if things get ugly.” He reached into his coat pocket, pulled his keys out, and handed them to me.
“I will,” I said, taking the keys.
Gril kept his gun holstered as he took a step.
Suddenly, something became very clear. “Gril!” I said in a loud whisper.
He turned around again. “What?”
“I just thought of something. There was a small graveyard near the storage shed. I mean, when I saw it, Stonehenge was the first thing that came to mind. Suddenly, that seems stupid. It was a graveyard, I bet. Did you see it?”
“I did. I think it was a graveyard, too, but I don’t know how many people are buried there.”
“People have just been living out here on their own, burying their dead. How?”
“I’m going to try to find out.” Gril turned again and continued toward the house.
When he stepped out into the clearing, he said, “Hello! Benedict police. I’m Benedict police chief Grilson Samuels. I’m armed, but I haven’t drawn my weapon. Come outside.”
No one came outside, and I held my breath as Gril started walking forward again, repeating the words.
The pain was still in my head, but I was hyperfocused on Gril and hoped nothing bad would happen. Maybe I could somehow move the pain to another spot, a place where I knew it was still there but not a priority.
Please let him be okay, I thought.
He took another step, and then another, and then one more. He kept repeating the words of warning, each time becoming slightly more adamant.
But then all hell broke loose and Gril went down. I forgot my promise of staying put and ran directly to him. I got there just a moment too late.