Until Peter, the parks had been Denise’s salvation. At thirteen she’d gotten drawn out of the bleak misery that was her life to become a junior ranger and never gone back. During college she worked as a summer seasonal. After graduation she got her permanent status as a GS-3 taking fees at the entrance booth. From there she’d moved on and up. Until Peter Barnes had stopped time.
Ranger Castle, that’s who she’d been, who she’d respected, who she showed the world. Ranger Castle was the only persona available to her that she’d ever been able to stomach. Now she was Denise Castle, civilian: no green and gray, no flat-brimmed hat, no badge, no cordovan-colored leather belt or boots.
Denise had quit the NPS, stepped out of her life, away from the things that had once defined her, and it had been easy. So very, very, insultingly easy. It pissed Denise off just remembering it. During the drive to headquarters to start the paperwork for her retirement, she’d wasted brain energy trying to think of plausible answers to the inevitable “Why so sudden? Why now? We’ll need at least two months’ notice. Who can take your place? We’ll need time to hire a replacement. We have to plan a retirement party! You’ll need to stay to train your replacement. If you stay another three years you’ll get blah, blah, blah.”
Nope.
Basically it was “Don’t let the screen door slap your ass on the way out.”
Her whole life, and no gold watch, nothing but a bunch of forms to sign, a couple of brochures, and a teensy wad of cash every month. She’d cleaned out her office in a matter of minutes. The only thing she’d left behind was an oversized model of an outrigger canoe Peter had bought her on a trip to Hawaii. She hated the thing. She’d only taken it because he wanted it. Well, he could have it.
Shitheads. Let them rot. The NPS, potlucks on the lawn, campfire talks, scraping tourists’ automobiles off rocks was not her whole life anymore. Her whole life was ahead of her. Her real life.
Bastards. Pricks. The lot of them.
At least the fact that the NPS was no longer her good buddy lessened the guilt she felt at raiding the evidence room for a couple of rufies—Rohypnol, the date rape drug. They had been taken off, of all people, a gynecologist—Denise would have thought he’d have had his fill of women’s parts—up from Boston, who’d gotten himself arrested in the park a few years back. It had yet to go to trial. Probably never would. The guy was a rich doctor.
Rohypnol, added to a dash of Valium she’d had in the bottom of her medicine cabinet, should work as well as or better than the triazolam. Paulette hadn’t been able to lay her hands on any at Mount Desert Hospital. At least she said she hadn’t. Denise suspected her sister lacked the gumption to steal it.
Or maybe the motivation.
No, Paulette wanted this new life as much as Denise. Maybe she didn’t know it quite yet, but she would. Until then, Denise could do the heavy lifting. She was used to that. Once they had a home, were a family, Paulette would come into her own. Denise was sure of it.
For the second time in as many days, Denise crept up to the shed-become-nursery behind her sister’s house. Her brain fizzed with the plan she’d come up with, loose ends popping like bubbles in a Scotch and soda. Rushing these things was never good. That was when mistakes were made.
No choice, she told herself.
Denise had insisted they meet in the nursery this time. Tapping on the door, she called Paulette’s name softly.
“Come in,” Paulette answered. Denise slipped through the door. Paulette had a single kerosene lamp lit. She was sitting in the low rocking chair. Her clothes were all in dark colors, and she wore lace-up sneakers. Good. Denise had been afraid she’d get here and Paulette would have disobeyed her. Paulette had asked why Denise wanted her to dress all in black, and Denise hadn’t answered. Her plan wasn’t something to be dealt with over the phone.
Denise dumped the heavy sack she was carrying as she folded down onto the hand-hooked rug at her sister’s feet.
The sense that time was running out for them was driving Denise too hard for her to put off what she had to say. “I have been thinking about what you said, Paulette, about Ranger Pigeon being on to the fact we’re twins, and then you finding her snooping around the nursery,” she said without preamble.
“Not exactly around the nursery,” Paulette said. “Just behind the house, really.”
“Oyster out of a shell, that’s how she looked at you. That’s what you said.”
“I guess,” Paulette admitted.
Denise stared at her.
“Yes,” Paulette said in a firmer voice. “I think she’s been around the nursery. I felt it.”
“Right,” Denise approved. “You can see how that makes the death of good old Kurt not as simple as we thought. What had been a perfect murder now has a big fat hairy flaw in the ointment.”
“Fly,” Paulette said.
“Whatever. Anna Pigeon is that fly, that big hairy flaw. She’s an obstacle,” Denise insisted. “A serious stumbling block on the road to our new life.”
“Oh.” Paulette looked away. She stood, crossed to the crib, and picked up the little bear, her back to Denise. “If she’s been back here, I haven’t seen her. She hasn’t tried to talk to me or anything. Maybe she was just, you know, poking around like rangers like to do.” She set the bear down carefully in precisely the same place it had been before.
Why was Paulette being obstinate? “She might not have come back; more likely she did and you didn’t see. The pigeon has all the pieces to you and me and Kurt dead and you at the Acadian. She’s not stupid. She’s an obstacle, and the obstacle has to be removed,” Denise insisted.
Paulette spun around, her hands to her cheeks like a cartoon of “noooooo.” “Do you mean kill her?” Paulette exclaimed. “Miss Pigeon is a ranger, law enforcement, like you. I’ve seen it in every movie. If a cop is killed—probably even a tree cop—the CIA and FBI and everybody start a huge manhunt!”
Denise stifled a sigh. “It’s not like that. I know you’re scared. I’d be, too. But we’re not going to do anything drastic,” she said, forcing a smile and a soothing timbre to her voice. “What I’ve got planned is more like a prank. It’ll be seen like a prank. Ha ha, no big deal. You’ll see. Rangers play pranks on each other all the time. Nobody gets their panties in a wad. We’ll snatch the pigeon—like frat boys snatch each other for a joke. We’ll keep her in here for a couple of days, then, when we’ve finished, we’ll call somebody to let her out. Nobody gets hurt. We get what we deserve.”
“You’re sure?” Paulette asked. Denise’s twin appeared to be growing younger and younger as Denise watched. Years dropping from her voice and face. Denise was growing older. At present she felt they weren’t identical twins at all, that she was the much older sister and had to take care of Paulette.
“I’m sure,” she said warmly. “We need more time, just a few days more to get everything we need. If we can … pull our prank on Anna Pigeon, it will buy us that time. We’ll finish everything on our list, then we’ll buy a nice big car and we’ll go south until it’s spring all year around, and we’ll buy a nice house.”
Paulette smiled wistfully. “It would be wonderful to have a nice new house,” she said. “One that was clean and pretty, where nothing was broken or patched.”
“That’s what we’re going to have,” Denise promised. “Tonight we’ll remove the obstacle. Over the next few days we’ll tidy up, then off we’ll go. An adventure.”
Paulette’s smile firmed up, her age steadied at about fourteen, or so it seemed to Denise. Fourteen would have to do.
“I got water for her,” Denise said, pulling three liter bottles from her canvas sack. Without a word, Paulette gathered them up and carried them to a shelf next to the crib, where she arranged them in a neat row. “I brought these.” Denise dug in her bag. “MREs from the fire cache. The park will never miss them. And these.” She pulled two pairs of handcuffs from her belt. “Anna Pigeon will be fine. Just for a couple of days. I hoped you had an old bucket around somewhere.”
“A bucket? What for?” Paulette asked as she piled the MREs in a tidy stack beside the water bottles.
“No bathroom,” Denise explained.
“Yuck!” Paulette made a face. “Wait.” Dropping to her hands and knees, she felt around under the crib. “If it’s only for a couple days…” She dragged out a pink potty-training toilet. “It’s nicer than a bucket.” For a moment she studied it, then turned to Denise. “It’s awfully small.”
Paulette was so naïve, so sweet, like a little kid untouched by the whole real, nasty, shitty world. At times Denise thought maybe Paulette wasn’t all there, wasn’t quite right in the head. That would mean Denise wasn’t right in the head either. They were identical twins. Being crazy wasn’t a new thought. Things had gotten blurry and odd in the last while, maybe a year, maybe more.
Nerves.
“Anna Pigeon has a skinny butt,” Denise said. “The potty is perfect. We do it tonight.”
“I didn’t get the triazolam,” Paulette confessed. “I can look again tomorrow. We could do it tomorrow, couldn’t we?”
Denise knew Paulette wouldn’t have gotten the drug. Of course she knew. There wasn’t anything she didn’t know about her identical twin. To Paulette this was just talk, just a game. Paulette didn’t think this was going to happen; she didn’t think they deserved a life together. Kurt had beat that out of her.
Denise knew better. This had to happen.
“Not a problem,” Denise assured her. “I got it all worked out. You don’t have to worry about a thing.”
“I did get this,” Paulette said, brightening. “It’s about the legacy. It came to General Delivery this morning.” She held an envelope out to Denise. It had been opened. That irked Denise. The legacy was something they shared—or should share. Paulette should have waited until they could open it together.
Having unfolded the single slip of paper from the envelope, Denise turned it to the lamp so she could read the letters. The woman who put the ad in the paper regarding the twins is very ill at present. I would not want to see her hurt or disappointed. To that end, I would like to meet with you before I share your card with her. There is a legacy, two to be accurate. We can talk about that when we meet. The number of a cell phone followed.
“Sounds like a con,” Denise said. “People run all kinds of con games. This sounds like one of them. Did you call her?” she demanded. Her tone was too rough. Paulette aged a little more, and her mouth turned harder. Ugly, Denise thought.
“I didn’t,” Paulette said. “But I want to. I think it’s real.”
Paulette wanted to get back with their biological mommy, Denise thought bitterly. No matter that Mommy was obviously a heartless tramp. Paulette would probably want to hang around and nurse Mommy back to health, and to hell with her sister, her identical twin sister.
Denise rode a wave of anger until it subsided, leaving her tired and determined. “We’ll do whatever you want,” she said. “First let’s get tonight out of the way, okay? Please?”
“Tonight?”
Denise said nothing, just kept a half smile pasted on her face. Paulette looked at her for long enough that Denise thought she was going to come up with another argument, distraction, or reason to postpone what they had to do.
“Just for a couple days, then we let her go,” Paulette said.
Denise felt a rush of relief as great as the anger had been. “I love having a sister,” she said.
“Me, too,” Paulette said.