Tainted Trail (16 page)

To forestall more questions about his relationship with Rennie—which were all too hard to explain—Ukiah said, “The past isn't important. What's important is that he heard that I was shot, and took a plane out of Pittsburgh yesterday. He might be in Pendleton when we get there.”

“He's got a name besides ‘Dad'?”

“I don't call him Dad. He's Rennie. Rennie Shaw.”

“Well, we should check at the hotel before going out to the casino, then; see if he left a message.”

Ukiah doubted Rennie would be that direct. The Pack rarely used normal means of communicating. Hotel employees can be bribed. Phones can be tapped. Then again, Rennie had already put himself on the radar screens by flying out to Portland. He might be waiting at the hotel, having no leads where to find Ukiah otherwise.

Just the thought of an irate Rennie and an unsuspecting Pendleton made Ukiah shudder.

“Sam, Rennie is a dangerous man. We're not calling him in on this; he's just showing up. He's my father, but it doesn't mean we trust him. It doesn't even mean any of us are entirely safe from him. If he thought he had an important enough reason, he'd kill even me.”

“He'd fly out here to see if you're okay, and then kill you?”

He pulled into the Red Lion's parking lot beside Sam's battered motorcycle. “He doesn't think like a regular person would.”

“So you're saying he's insane?”

Ukiah considered it as he killed the engine. Without knowing about the Ontongard trying to take over the world, the alien/wolf mix of Rennie's genetic makeup, or the fact that the Pack leader was born in 1842, Rennie's thinking would appear insane. “Yeah, that would work.”

 

They went up to his hotel room together. Since they were already stopping, Ukiah wanted to change out of his gritty clothes. Sam wanted to hear more about Rennie,
specifically, “What does your homicidal, lunatic father look like?” Ukiah called Max and told him to meet them at the casino. On the way out, they stopped at the desk and asked for messages. As Ukiah expected, there were none.

Sam checked over her motorcycle with a thoroughness that would have pleased Max. “It seems like it's all cosmetic damage. You can follow me out to the casino, just in case it decides to die after a mile or two.”

“Okay,” Ukiah said, gazing across the parking lot where Kraynak had been shot. The damaged vehicles were gone, along with the dark, painful confusion. The parking lot was just an empty slab of asphalt again. “Thanks for taking care of me last night, Sam.”

She laughed, straightening. “I didn't do much.”

“You were there when I needed you.” Ukiah folded her into a hug. “It means a lot to me.”

She stood stiff in his arms a moment, and then hugged him back. “Sure, whatever, you can crash in my bed anytime.” She buried fingers into his long black hair and tugged it gently. “You're a sweet kid—but I wish it had been your partner!”

 

The casino sat out on a lonely expanse of prairie, isolated except for a hotel attached at one side. It was done in what had to be a Native American design, with bright colors and poles sticking out at odd angles, but looked vaguely Scandinavian to Ukiah. It bothered him that he couldn't recognize it as something belonging to his people.

Max waited beside a blue Ford Taurus, chewing on the end of a lit cheroot. Sam tucked into the space between the Taurus and the Blazer. Tension went out of Max's face, replaced by a lazy, pleased smile.

“Hey,” he greeted Sam. “You look great.”

Ukiah had to admit that she did. She wore skintight riding leather pants, and under her leather jacket, a snug, white tank top.

“Hanging with you guys is a little too rough for anything but leather,” Sam said.

“You didn't get too banged up last night?”

“My jeans are shot, but no, I'm fine. How's Kraynak?”

“Bitching about being stuck in bed,” Max said, and patted Ukiah on the shoulder. “I got the planner.” He held up a daily planner identical to Alicia's. “And the inserts. Put them in order once we get to the restaurant, and I'll put them into the planner.”

“I can put them in,” Ukiah offered as they walked up to the casino's doors.

Max ground the cheroot out in a large sand ashtray by the door. “I want to get some food into you first.”

Max took hold of Ukiah's arm, and when they opened the doors, Ukiah realized why. The casino was dark, crowded, smoky, and loud. Rows of video slot machinea blinked bright, complex screens. After the clean emptiness of the parking lot, the confusion hit Ukiah's senses like a fist.

Max caught his elbow as he checked, and murmured, “It's okay. Just follow me.”

They pushed through the crowds to the restaurant beyond the slot machines. Luckily the eating area was nearly empty and quiet. A hostess greeted them at the door and seated them at a table with four place settings.

Max handed Ukiah the packs of inserts. “Here, put them in order, then get some food.”

Ukiah shuffled the inserts into order, starting with the “To Be Done Sheets” and working to “Address/Phone Pages with Alpha Tabs.” Handing the sorted packs to Max, he went up to the buffet.

When he returned, Max was using a fork to start a tear in the shrink-wrap of the last insert. Once open, Max discarded wrap, cardboard stiffener, and title sheet off to one side.

“I don't see the point,” Sam said, as Max threaded the pages onto the six metal rings. “It's a lot of money for blank pages.”

“Ukiah has a photographic memory,” Max said. “He saw Alicia's planner. He can recreate any page he looked at.”

“The Kodak kid.”

Max pulled out a box of yellow pencils, and a small, blue, barrel-shaped pencil sharper. He handed them over to Sam to make herself useful. “Alicia used number-two
pencils. Apparently geologists expect everything to get wet, and ink smears.”

Sam opened the box so it could be reclosed, spilled out the pencils in a neat pile, and began sharpening them. “And it matters if we use the same type of writing implement or not?”

“Who knows?” Max turned the calendar section and leafed through until he hit the first week of August. “Let's start with her leaving Pittsburgh.” He tapped the day. “Then work on through to after she disappeared. Here.”

Max gave Ukiah a small yellow pad of Post-it notes. Sam held out the first sharpened pencil, looking doubtful about the whole experiment. Ukiah shifted his plate over to eat with his left hand, so he could write with his right.

“There didn't seem to be anything of interest during these days.” Ukiah started filling in the day labeled
AUGUST
1,
SUNDAY
, with the normal work hours of a day ticking down the side. Alicia had mostly ignored the hours, the day flowing unscheduled down the page, falling wherever it would fit.

Check tent for leaks. Field notebooks—Pitt bookstore? Laundry soap. Dryer sheets. Imodium. Tums. Neosporin. Check supply of bandages in first-aid kit.
(A check mark beside this.)
Sun block. Bug repellent.
(A doodle of what might have been a dead bug on its back, little x's for eyes, legs curled.)
Ziploc bags—all sizes. See if Rose can drive stick!!!
(This was underlined many times.)
Get duffel bag from Uncle Ray. Check Ukiah weather.

The last was a weird jolt, his name leaping out at him. Ukiah, the town.

Bookstore, coin laundry, supermarket. Nothing of menace. On the otherwise blank opposite page was a Post-it note, stating,
Erotic Laundry. Handsome man's dryer, in hot ghost embrace tumbles, my silk lace panties.
Ukiah flipped to the next day. The page was split in half with a drawn line. Next to the hours, she had written,
Wake up, pack, swap cars, get gas, pick up Rose.
On the other side of the line, was
Tent, duffel bag, shoe bag, books, MAPS, MONEY!!!, phone, CAR RECHARGER—don't forget to transfer to van!!
Alicia's memory had been a joke with her family. Eventually she hoped to be a college professor, which would make her the stereotypical absentminded professor.

“I know it's a long shot, kid.” Max said. “There is a chance that her kidnappers picked her by random. But they did take the planner, so there might be something in it.”

“She had it so stuffed with paper, I could barely get it snapped shut again.” Ukiah flipped to the next page, his fingers moving on automatic. “I tried to glance at every page, figuring that I might want to review it in my head. Still there were lots of things I know I won't be able to recreate.”

“Do the best you can.” Max went to fill his plate from the buffet. Sam finished sharpening the last pencil, and slid it into the box with the others. She followed Max to the buffet. They stood, plates in hand, heads together, talking quietly.

“The hash is good.” Sam scooped some onto her plate. “You know, nothing happened.”

“When?” Max leaned close to get some too, their shoulders brushing.

“Last night. Just because we were in the same bed, doesn't mean anything happened. I don't go for his type.”

Max paused behind her to rub a large pleased smile from his face. “His type? What type is that?”

Sam half-turned to shoot a narrowed look at him, and then intently prodded some helpless scrambled eggs. “Please! He's drop-dead gorgeous. Complete eye candy.”

“So you only like ugly, old guys?”

“Brat,” she muttered. “I like the
GQ
look as much as the next hot-blooded woman. So maybe I drooled a little when he got off the plane. And straight out the shower, he smells good enough to—”

“He's all but engaged to an FBI special agent,” Max said, cutting off her monologue.

“You're kidding!”

“A little pistol on wheels stationed in Pittsburgh. She nailed him two days out of the gate.”

“Cradle robber.”

Max shrugged. “She's one of those focused people. She figures out what she wants and goes after it.”

“You think that's the best way? Want it. Get it.”

“I like to be sure I know what I'm getting. No surprises. But, yes.”

“And what if the thing doesn't want to be gotten?”

Max slanted a look at her beside him, and then focused on the wedges of cantaloupe. “People aren't things. You don't buy them. They never belong to you.”

“Even your partner?”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“He's carrying a pistol, so that means he's at least twenty-one, even though he looks like a college freshman. Yet you order his food. You take care of him like he's a puppy. Being on the outside, looking in, I can't tell who's to blame. Sometimes people are dependent because they can't take care of themselves, and sometimes it's because they're not allowed to take control of their life.”

Max took his turn torturing the eggs, the muscles of his jaws working as he considered and discarded things to say. Finally he tapped a small spoonful of the eggs onto his plate. “Look, what's between Ukiah and me isn't up for discussion. What we were talking about was what happened last night—which was nothing. Nothing happened between you and Ukiah, even though you were in the same bed together.”

“You actually believe that? Or is that sarcasm?”

Max turned to face her, a hint of anger in his eyes. “First off, I don't feel the need to mark my territory and growl like a dog protecting a bitch in heat. If you're interested in me, great. If you want my partner, well, you'll have to work that out with Special Agent Zheng, but that's none of my business. Secondly, I know my partner. I can't explain to you in simple, short sentences, but I know nothing happened last night.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” she asked in a carefully neutral voice. “Simple short sentences? Are you saying I'm stupid?”

“Have you never trusted someone so much that it couldn't be put into words?”

She gazed at Max a minute, and then turned away, looking troubled. They drifted apart, making pretended studies of the containers of food. Separately they returned to the table, and ate without speaking.

“How are you doing?” Max asked Ukiah, breaking the silence.

“Last day,” Ukiah said, writing out Sunday.
Geologist: I am like an ant, crawling over mother earth, biting at her bones.???:Does earth feel pain, as I off my rocks,???

“There was a red flag marking this day, but I think it was just to make the current day easy to find. She kept it closed up and in a Ziploc bag. The days after this were blank. I've put in the Post-it notes. On some pages, they were blocking out text. Mostly it seemed like shopping lists, things to do, really odd things that I think are poems, stuff like that.”

Max commandeered the planner and covertly finger signed “Go, food” to Ukiah, indicating that he should hit the buffet again. When Ukiah returned, Max had made a list on a Post-it note and passed the planner to Sam. She flipped the pages, looking stunned.