City of the Lost (15 page)

“No, I think you’ll go back to her place and keep talking until the sun comes up. And then neither of you will be in any shape to search tomorrow.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah,
oh
.” Dalton shakes his head and walks back to me. “I’ll get that fireplace going. Come on.”

Dalton gives no outward sign he’s unsettled by what we found in the forest, but I can tell he’s off his game by the simple fact that he forgets he’s supposed to be an asshole. He gets my fire going and shows me how to do it. He explains where to buy wood but advises that I learn to chop instead to save credits—downed trees are hauled into the woodlot, where they’re free to anyone who’ll chop them. Anders might be more comfortable explaining things, but Dalton is a damned fine teacher when he’s in the mood.

Once the fire’s going, I discover he’s somehow transported that bottle of tequila to my house. We go into the kitchen, and it’s there, and he’s pouring me a shot without asking if I want it.

He pours one for himself, too. Then he sniffs it with some suspicion, and I try not to laugh.

“Never had tequila?” I ask.

“Nope.”

“It’s not going to taste good,” I say.

“Then what’s the point?”

I shake my head and down my shot. It burns all the way, that delicious heat that muffles my brain on contact.

He eyes me and then takes his shot. He only gets about two-thirds in before sputtering and coughing. He squeezes his eyes shut, hands resting on the table. A moment’s pause. He opens his eyes. “Not my way, but I get it.” He finishes the shot, slower now.

“Long day, huh?” I say.

“Yeah.” He pauses, glass in hand, before carefully setting it on the table and looking over, meeting my gaze as if preparing some earth-shaking pronouncement.

“It’s not usually like this,” he says. “In Rockton.”

I laugh. I can’t help it. I burst out laughing and he looks at me, as startled as if I’d broken into song. He watches me, that look on his face, the one I’ve come to think of as his dissection look. Like I’m an alien life form he’s trying to understand.

After a moment, he says, “Yeah, I guess that’s obvious. At least, you’d hope so,” and he smiles, and when he does, all I can think is,
Goddamn, sheriff, you should do that more often
. It’s the tequila, of course, and the long night and the long day and feeling like I’ve been walking through a minefield on tiptoes. When he smiles, it is—in an odd way—reassuring, like the ground finally steadies under my feet.
Things aren’t so foreign here. Even Sheriff Dalton can smile
.

It only lasts a moment. He doesn’t wipe it away, as if remembering he’s supposed to be a jerk. It simply fades, and I realize that the “jerk” mode isn’t an act. We all have our different aspects. That’s one of his. So is the quiet, reflective guy who sat on the back deck with me and stared into the forest for two hours. There’s a lot going on in that head, little of it simple or uncomplicated, and most of it weighed down by the responsibility of keeping the lid on this powder keg of a town. Which doesn’t mean Eric Dalton is a nice guy. I don’t think he can be. Not here. This is as nice as he gets, and I appreciate this glimpse, the way I appreciate the smile, and I also appreciate that he doesn’t backtrack to cover it up, to be the asshole again.

I fill our shot glasses halfway. He takes his. We drink them. Not a word exchanged for at least two minutes afterward, until he says, “I’ll come by at ten. Yeah, not a lot of time to sleep…”

“But we have a manhunt to launch. I know.”

He nods and leaves without another word. I lock the door behind him, settle on the couch in front of the blazing fire, and soon fall asleep.

I only get a few hours’ sleep after our manhunt, and I’m awake by the time the sun’s up. I make breakfast before I head out. It’s simple fare: toast and a hard-boiled egg. Well, actually, the toast is just bread with peanut butter after I burned two slices trying to brown them on the wood stove. I planned to have a fried egg, but that seemed to be pushing my luck. Figuring out the French press coffee maker had been tough enough, so I just used the leftover water for boiling my egg.

Fortunately, between what Anders has said and what Dalton explained on the drive, my poor camp-cook skills wouldn’t be a serious drawback in Rockton. There are three restaurants plus a place that does takeout only. That’s not so much a matter of convenience as conservation of resources—you’ll waste less buying a precooked meal for one than cooking for one. The chefs are also more flexible and more skilled at making the substitutions necessary under these conditions.

Anders says the restaurant food is reasonably priced. Just don’t expect the menu to be vast. Or to find the same thing on it from one day to the next. Again, it’s a matter of availability and conservation. Right now, blueberries are just ending their local season, so I have a box on my counter, but in another week the only way I’ll be able to get them is in jam, which the local cooks are madly bottling as the picking expeditions clear all nearby patches.

I finish my breakfast, and I’m at the office before nine. I figure Dalton will put some time in before he picks me up at ten, and I’m like the little girl who chases after her big brothers to prove she can do anything they can. I spent my youth refusing to live up to the standards set by my parents and my sister, and ironically, I spend my adult life chasing my colleagues. At least here I have a chance, so I pursue my goals with a childhood of repressed ambition fuelling my fire.

I’m making coffee when Dalton walks in just past nine. I get a “Fuck” for my efforts.

“I was awake,” I say, “and I figured you’d stop by here and get some work done before you picked me up.”

“When’d you arrive?”

“Ten minutes ago.”

He grunts at that, and maybe he just doesn’t want me overdoing it … or maybe I’m not the only one with a competitive streak. Either way, he carries his coffee out onto the back deck. I pour the rest of the pot into a thermos—there’s no hot plate here to keep it warm. Then I take my mug and follow.

“Can I talk to you?” I ask as he settles into his chair.

“What’s stopping you?”

“When you come out here, you seem to want quiet.”

He shrugs. “You can talk. If I don’t want to listen, I’ll tell you to go away.”

My lips twitch. “Some people might take offence at that.”

“Then let’s hope you aren’t one of them, or you’re going to spend most of your time here being offended.”

I give him a full smile for that, and he tilts his head, as if trying to figure out exactly what prompted it.

“If you’re going to talk, talk,” he says. “Once this mug’s empty, we hit the trails. It’ll be a full day of searching.”

I walk to the railing. I don’t sit in front of him—I have a feeling that’d be a little too close for both of us. But I perch on the corner of the railing, and he looks over, assessing again. I feel as if he processes data like a computer, detecting and analyzing every nuance.
She’s smiling. She’s sitting on the railing instead of the deck. Is that good?

It is. It means I’m relaxing and settling in. Yet there’s a wary look in Dalton’s eyes, as if he accepts nothing at face value, always searching for deeper meaning, potentially negative.

“I took a quick look through the case files this morning—” I begin.

“I thought you just got in.”

“At ten to nine. I started the water and then flipped through the files to check on something. I was looking at the cases of other attacks. Specifically, how close they were to the town and the level of violence involved. The other bodies were found deep in the forest. Powys was barely a kilometre from town, and the level of violence was a huge escalation.”

“Yep.” That’s all he says. Then he drinks more coffee.

“Have there been problems with the, uh, hostiles lately? Could this be a response to a provocation?”

I’m expecting him to snap back that no provocation would justify cutting a man off at the knees—literally. But he says, “No,” and continues drinking.

“Is it possible the death was staged?” I ask. “That someone in town did it and is trying to blame these hostiles?”

“Yes.” The answer comes without hesitation.

“You’ve already considered this,” I say. “Were you going to discuss your thoughts with your new detective?”

“Sure. If you didn’t bring it up. Gonna give you a chance to prove you aren’t an idiot first.”

“Thanks.”

He nods, accepting the gratitude without seeming to catch the sarcasm. He’s draining his coffee, and I’m struggling to pick through my thoughts and choose the best question before my window evaporates, but before I can, he says, “The thing you need to understand about the hostiles is that they’re animalistic.”

“Brutally violent, you mean.”

He swings his gaze my way; a laser beam that slices through me like I’ve misstepped in a high-tech heist.

“Do you know anything about animals, detective? Predators?”

I think fast. “Yes, they … Oh, okay. When you said
animalistic
, I took that colloquially. You mean literally. That they’re like predators. They kill for survival. For food, trespass, threat, and such.”

A grudging nod, and I feel as if the laser has stopped just short of cutting a major artery, but it hasn’t backed up yet.

I continue. “You mean that the hostiles are predatory. Which is what you implied in your notes on the possible cannibalism. To them, it would be about survival. They won’t allow themselves to die of starvation because of a cultural taboo. While they’d certainly kill Hastings if he posed a threat—and might even kill him if they were experiencing a severe food shortage—the actual level of violence inflicted was unnecessary. It’s sadistic. Which is human. Primate, at least. Some apes have been shown to demonstrate … Well, that’s not important.”

He hesitates, as if he’s about to say,
No, explain
. New data for that curious mind. But then he nods abruptly, acknowledging this isn’t the time for digressions, and I put the subject in my back pocket, as something I might be able to pull out later, to engage him in conversation.

“That’s what you meant, right?” I say.

“Yes.”

“Okay.” I sip my coffee, which is cooling quickly in the brisk morning air. “Can I ask you about—”

“Coffee’s done.” He gets to his feet. “Time to head out.”

“Okay, but can we talk about the hostiles as we walk? It’ll help if I better understand—”

“I’m getting Will. Meet me at the stables.”

“Stables?” I say as we walk through the station.

“Your background check said you can ride.”

“From summer camp, when I was twelve.”
How thorough was my background check?

“Stables. Twenty minutes. Saddle up.” He opens the front door. “Don’t take my horse.”

The door is closing. I catch it and call after him. “Which one’s yours?”

“You’re a detective,” he calls back. “Figure it out.”

I grab the coffee thermos, lock up the files, and set out. The stables are on the edge of town. The pasture is encircled by a solid eight-foot barrier to keep predators from thinking the horses look yummy. Dalton mentioned there’s a permanent stable hand living over the barn, but she’s nowhere to be seen. The horses are up and in the pasture, though, and the stalls are mucked out.

I’d hoped Dalton was being sarcastic about figuring out which horse was his—that I’d find his name over its stall. No such luck.

The obvious choice is the black stallion. The biggest, baddest horse for the local hard-ass. But stallions are notoriously temperamental, and Dalton wouldn’t have the patience for that. Nor would he give a damn about riding the most impressive steed.

I assess the options: five horses to choose from. I saddle up three. I’m leading out a big grey gelding when Dalton and Anders come ambling along.

“That’s not my horse,” Dalton says.

“I should hope not,” I say. “Because I’ve put Will’s saddle on her.” I pass the reins over. “Correct?”

Anders smiles. “Correct, detective. And good morning to you, Casey.”

“Good morning. The coffee thermos is inside the barn. I figured the boss might not give you time to make any.”

His smile grows to a grin. “Excellent deduction. I owe you.”

Dalton follows me inside. His saddle is on a roan gelding, a hand or so smaller than Anders’s horse. Nothing fancy, but a good sound steed. He grunts and looks over at my choice—a young black mare. He shakes his head. “Take the grey mare. That one’s not fully broke.”

“The grey mare’s too old. I’m better with spirited than plodding.”

He mutters something that sounds like “Suit yourself,” and continues out.

I do fine with the horse, whose name is Cricket. I hadn’t been trying to show off. I recalled from my riding days that one of the reasons I quit was that my trainer kept putting me on the most docile steeds they had. I was too restless, she said. Too high-strung myself. I needed a patient horse.

I could see her logic, but it was flawed. I did better on the younger horses because my restlessness wasn’t the “race around the barn” type, but a quieter energy that played well off a horse’s spirits, as it does today with the black mare.

We spend the morning searching. At noon we return for lunch and to speak to the militia, who are searching on foot. Then it’s back into the woods to painstakingly work through quadrants, divided but never out of sight. That’s the rule. I swear if I so much as passed beside a large bush, Dalton would snarl, “Butler!” as if I’d made for the hills.

Back to town for dinner. People ask how the search is going. A few mention they’d heard about Powys, but the most we get there was “Helluva thing.” I’m sure they’re curious that rumours are winding through town. But no one expects answers from Dalton. We’re back on the horses until past dark.

I’m supposed to go out with Diana and her new friends this evening. At both the lunch and dinner breaks, I tried to track her down. When I couldn’t, there was a weird moment of panic as I realized there was no easy way to leave her a message. I’ve never considered myself a technophile, but I grew up in a world of e-mail and texts and voice messages, and to have all that stripped away is unsettling.