Saturday, 11:26 a.m.
It’s your fault.
Though she’d imagined the scent, the note was real. When she held it in her hand, it crinkled.
She crumpled up the plastic, willing the logo to disappear, willing it to be a hallucination, like the body-spray scent she’d imagined. But when she opened her fist, the logo taunted. It brought back the pressure of Grace’s palms on her shoulders. The warmth of Adam’s breath as he whispered in her ear. She’d seen Adam’s writing only a couple of times—on family holiday cards she’d immediately tossed in the garbage, on a note to Grace that her sister had left on her dresser. Still, Leyna was sure he’d used the same blocky script.
Had someone drawn her back on purpose?
Hand trembling, Leyna tossed the wrapper on the ground, then picked it up again and stuffed it in her pocket. The arrow would be too awkward to carry for long, so she left that on the ground and snapped photos of it with her phone.
After she’d crossed to the other side of the ravine, Leyna spotted Goose again. He wasn’t alone. Blocking her path, a tall and broad-shouldered man with gray hair and a dense beard cradled him. In his arms, which were thick and bristling with silver hair, the dog seemed no bigger than a football.
The imagined scent of Adam’s body spray burned her nose. Though she’d headed into the woods intent on talking with Rocky, she took a careful step to the side, away from him and the crack in the earth, her footing suddenly unsteady.
“Hey, Leyna.”
An icy prickle traced her spine. She glanced over her shoulder, marking obstructions, considering her exit. She fought back a shiver, out of place in the heat.
His arms tightened around the dog. Though Goose seemed relaxed enough, Leyna didn’t like the way Rocky held him.
She motioned to the ground. “I can take him back home—unless you’re going that way?”
Rocky stared at her for several seconds, then slowly lowered the dog. “I’m not.”
Leyna knelt beside Goose and patted his haunches, scratched behind his ears.
Rocky studied her for several beats, a dark amusement settling in his eyes, as if he enjoyed making her wait for his information.
“It’s probably good we came along when we did,” he said. “Some creatures aren’t safe out here alone.”
A blast of wind sent her ponytail swishing, and she patted the dog’s head. She stood, reached into her pocket for the snack-cake wrapper, and held it up for his inspection.
“Recognize the writing?”
“What am I, a handwriting expert?”
She noticed he didn’t ask where she’d gotten it. “It looks like Adam’s,” she said.
“You can’t know it’s his.”
Leyna found his response curious. It wasn’t a denial. “So you recognize it too.”
He squinted at the words written on the plastic. “‘It’s your fault’?”
Another nondenial. “I found it pinned to a tree with an arrow.”
“Even if it is Adam’s writing, who knows how long it’s been there. Plastic takes a long time to degrade.”
Those words felt like an admission. So he had recognized the writing.
“Be safe, Leyna,” he said, voice low in his throat. Then he started walking away.
When the dog trotted a few steps in the opposite direction, Leyna bent at the knees and heaved him to her chest. She expected a struggle, but he seemed glad for the lift, leaning against her, drool dripping on her arm.
Before Rocky could disappear into the trees, she called after him. “Did you see that missing Sacramento girl on Thursday?”
He kept walking. Caution kept her rooted for several seconds, but she knew she would follow. She’d come here for answers, and if there was even a chance Rocky had information about Grace or Ellie, Leyna would follow him anywhere.
The wind pushed at Leyna’s back as she trailed Rocky. He paid her no more mind than he did the chattering leaves. Leyna repeated her question—“Did you see that missing Sacramento girl?”—and again, it was met with silence. The dog grew heavier, and her thighs burned with the effort of navigating the slope. She stopped to catch her breath. If she put Goose down, would he follow her or try to run again? She loosened her grip, the lure of the ground getting stronger.
Finally, he said, “Why would you think that?”
“She was in the neighborhood, and Serena Silvestri saw her walking toward this trail. Which leads to your place.”
“I know where I live.”
“So did you see Ellie?”
He turned to face her. In the days following the incident and even now when someone heard her story, people looked at her a certain way. Their eyes softened, their mouths gaped, curiosity hiding in a show of horror. Relief there, too, that it had happened to her and not them. Rocky’s jaw remained tensed, his eyes hard. Leyna would’ve taken comfort in that if she hadn’t believed he knew what happened to Grace. After a few seconds, he shook his head.
“She didn’t knock on your door?”
His posture was relaxed, but his eyes went flat. “Even if she had, I wasn’t there. From what I’ve heard, she was here around noon. I didn’t get back from town until late afternoon.”
She scanned his face for some sign of guilt. She’d seen it enough in her own face to recognize it in others, but Rocky’s expression was nearly serene. “What were you doing in town?”
He started walking again. “I’ve already told the deputy who came asking. Some of the neighbors too. I’m not hiding anything.”
“But you won’t tell me?”
“You can understand why talking with you might give me pause.”
“Because of Adam.”
“Guess you’re a smart girl after all, though obviously not smart enough to know when not to stir up shit. You pissed off a lot of people.”
“I take it you’re one of them?”
“I don’t piss off easily, but yeah. Taking a shot at Adam’s memory will do it. He’s family.”
“The suspects have always been limited. Adam—or you.”
“Me?” He seemed taken aback, then laughed. “That’s the thing about zealots. They fail to see the big picture.”
“I’m not a zealot.”
Rocky’s expression was bland. Deliberately harmless? The truth of the situation hit her. She was alone in the woods with a man who might’ve hurt her sister. The forest had always been her safe place, and because of that she’d been reckless.
“I’m sick of this conversation,” he said. “We’ve been having it for sixteen years. I’ve said everything I’m going to.”
“But now another girl is missing. She was seen here. And I found her bracelet in the Miller house.”
His face relaxed, eyes going flat again. Leyna was starting to recognize the expression. He was hiding something.
“Serena called you the king of Ridgepoint Ranch, and she’s not wrong. You know everything that happens here.”
“Maybe once.” He gestured toward the land surrounding them. “This isn’t mine anymore.”
“You still own the land. You still live here. And seeing as you don’t have a job, you must spend plenty of time in these woods.”
“The land belongs to the banks and the lawyers, and I make a decent living fixing things. And where else would I go? My family’s here.”
Leyna knew he did projects around the county, but she wondered if there were other things Rocky fixed. “So you have no interest in finding a missing girl?”
Rocky’s jaw tensed, his patience obviously waning. “Leave it alone, Leyna.”
“You know I won’t do that.”
“Yeah. I know.”
He turned and began walking, shouting over his shoulder, “See you in another ten years.”
Dog clutched to her chest, she took deep breaths of air, warm and earthy, as she hurried to catch up to him.
“You’re the one who brought it up by saying I didn’t see the big picture. What did you mean by that?”
As if waiting for a response too, the wind ceased, and the forest grew quiet. The wrong kind of quiet. Goose whined, growing agitated.
Leyna looked around, less familiar with this part of the forest, before finding Rocky’s back again. It was as broad as many of the tree trunks they passed. “What do you think happened—”
Rocky stopped suddenly, raising his hand to silence her. She bristled, but the surprise of the gesture and the fact that she’d nearly collided with his back had the desired effect. She stepped up next to him.
He stood as still as the immovable hillside and stared ahead. At what? At nothing.
Goose started wriggling in her arms. She feared he might leap to the ground and break a leg. But instead, he burrowed against her, head butting her chest as if he were trying to find a way inside, like that famous Alien scene played in reverse.
In front of them, the shadows shifted.
Someone watched them.
No—something.
A pair of yellow eyes locked with hers. The dog whimpered low in his throat.
Though Leyna had been told that a pack of gray wolves lived in the hills, she’d never seen one. As far as she knew, no one in the neighborhood had. Wolves generally avoided humans.
So why was this one so close to the houses?
Rocky whispered, “Wolves are crepuscular by nature. More active at dawn and dusk.”
She understood what he was saying: It was an odd hour for a wolf to be roaming.
She kept her voice low. “Then why is this one here?”
Rocky said nothing, but his nostrils flared as he inhaled deeply. “Not sure,” he said, but he looked worried.
In her arms, Goose grew more frantic, and she feared she’d misread his intentions and that he might jump to the ground and charge with unearned confidence or hobble away, spurring the wolf to give chase. While wolves usually left humans alone, they were also opportunists. And they were patient hunters.
The wolf assessed them too, as if deciding if these creatures that walked on two legs were a threat. Did holding Goose, now mewling, make her more of a target?
She held her breath and aggressively petted Goose’s head, trying to quiet him, afraid any sound might convince the wolf to strike.
“Stand your ground,” Rocky whispered. “Don’t run. And shut that dog up.”
After Dixie, Leyna heard stories of wolves turning up at nearby ranches to feast on dead cattle. She held the dog more tightly, and her legs tensed as she dug her sneakers into the earth. Don’t run was worthless advice. She couldn’t have outrun the wolf if she’d tried.
Rocky took another deep breath. For a man who spoke so calmly, his body vibrated with tension. If she could sense it, she was sure the wolf could too.
Her arms strained at the effort of containing the dog. She felt him slipping. She held tighter, but he fought her, and the hand that had been cradling his rump slid to his waist.
Rocky reached out and—slowly, carefully—extracted the dog from her arms. He took one small step and angled his body so it blocked more of hers. Secure in new hands, the dog stopped struggling but continued to whimper.
In front of them, the shadows shifted again, and several additional pairs of yellow almond-shaped eyes blinked into focus. The wolf’s pack.
The wind blew, and with it came a hint of woodsmoke. Fire.
The reason for Rocky’s tension. Likely the reason the wolves were here in the middle of the day. They’d have to move territories, wait the fire out somewhere. In the Sierra Nevadas, there were plenty of burn scars to offer them refuge.
How close was the fire they ran from?
A moment later, a gust scrubbed even that trace of smoke from the air, but Leyna remained on edge as several pairs of yellow eyes pinned hers. Reminding her: The forest is ours.
Then the alpha turned away and trotted with the pack deeper into the forest.