Bone Dust White (33 page)

Along with half the officers in the station, they take to the roads of Collier. Feeling useless, Jared sits in front with Macy. Her big baby bump is squeezed up into the steering wheel and her jaw is clenched tight. Sirens screaming and a string of squad cars on her trail, she edges through a narrow gap to cross Main Street before taking a hard right and heading straight into oncoming traffic. Macy doesn’t blink. The approaching vehicles drive onto sidewalks and into center divides, parting from the road like teeth on a zipper.

Jared gestures toward Hayley’s street and yells, “Take a left here.”

He jumps out of the door before the car is fully stopped. Stumbling through the deep snow, he checks the driveway for Brian’s truck before running through the open front door. He’s unprepared for the brightness of the well-lit entrance. Every surface is cleanly polished to the point it shines. Little things catch his eye. Family photos, an overturned chair, a discarded shoe. The house is too quiet. He can’t imagine how someone could draw breath within its walls. Standing as still as a river stone, Jared feels the cold rush of police officers flow around him.

An officer who goes by the name of Henry takes hold of him. “You stay put for now.”

From outside comes the sound of more sirens. There’s an army encamped on Hayley’s street. In his head Jared pieces together what he’s seeing: a child’s backpack and a small suitcase with half its contents spilling onto the floor, a blue-eyed doll, a coloring book, a pink sweatshirt. He tries to think. It’s a weekday. The girls should still be in school.

Macy’s small voice is shriller than the sirens out front. “Jared,” she calls from the back of the house. “Get back here.”

Jared finds Macy in the master bedroom, shouting down the phone. “Please tell me that someone called an ambulance?”

Beyond the unmade bed, an officer is on his knees. Jared catches sight of Hayley’s bare leg. The positioning is odd. He moves forward and the officer makes room. Jared places his fingertips to Hayley’s neck. There’s a pulse and it’s strong. He shouts her name and shakes her as hard as he dares, resting his forehead in the crook of her neck when he gets a response.

Her tears mix with the blood and snot dripping from her broken nose and lips. She tries to sit up and he pushes her back down. “I tried to stop him.” Her eyes dart around the room. “He’s taken them.”

He probes her ribs with his fingertips. “The girls are fine.”

Hayley grimaces and coughs, turning her head to the side. “Don’t lie to me.” She leans her head back, exposing her bruised throat.

Voices and footsteps fill the room. Carson and another paramedic named Paul shove the bed out of the way.

Carson’s voice is calm. “What have we got here?”

Jared goes through a list, his voice breaking off when he sees the phone he’d given Hayley lying on the carpet next to the nightstand. He can’t help but think that he’s failed her one too many times.

Carson rips a dressing from its packaging. “We got this,” he says, glancing over at Paul for confirmation. “Hayley is going to be fine.”

Jared kisses Hayley on the forehead. “I’m going to go see about your girls.” When he gets to the living room, he has to wait for Macy to finish her phone call with the girls’ elementary school.

“Can you give us an exact time?” She writes down a few details on a piece of paper. She calls a colleague over. “Brian Camberwell picked up the girls twenty minutes ago. I need an APB put out on his truck.”

The officer looks confused. “We already did that.”

“Do it again.” She looks up at Jared. “How’s Hayley?”

Jared keeps it clinical. It’s the only way he can respond without breaking down. “She’s got several facial injuries. Fractures to her nose and swelling around her right eye. She’s got a few cracked ribs and her right leg is broken but until we have X-rays we can’t be sure how bad it is.” Jared’s voice trails off. There’s a bootprint on Hayley’s thigh. He can’t get the size of it out of his head.

Macy takes Jared’s arm and steers him deeper into the room. “We need recent photos of her daughters.”

Standing in front of a bookcase they both reach for the same photo.

Macy speaks first. “Why do they have pictures of Grace Adams in their house?”

“That’s not Grace,” he says, feeling ill at ease when he remembers what Hayley told him about Dustin helping her with the girls. “That’s Hayley’s eldest daughter, Isobel.”

“Why didn’t you tell me they look so much alike?”

“I haven’t seen Isobel in nearly a year. I had no idea there was a connection.”

Macy picks up her phone. “Warren, I need you to speak to Pamela. I want you to tell her what’s happened. If this doesn’t get her talking I don’t know what will.”

27

Grace slides open the window and throws her bag into the small backyard before climbing out after it. She sinks up to her waist in the snow that has drifted there. Next door a dog barks in short little bursts. Grace pulls her hat down and runs across the back alley to the garages. Her truck is parked in the one closest to the end. She swings open the door and it bangs against the wall. In her mind it sounds like a sonic boom.

She backs her truck out and sits for a couple of seconds in the alleyway. Ahead of her the road curves to the right toward the front entrance to the complex. She has no idea whether the patrol officer out front will recognize her uncle’s pickup truck. She takes a deep breath and drives. As she turns onto the street, she checks her rearview mirror one last time. The patrol car hasn’t moved.

Grace heads south on a road that runs parallel to Main Street. She wants to hurry but she keeps her speed down. Two blocks on there’s several patrol cars parked halfway down the block to the left. Grace pulls to the side just as an ambulance screams past. She catches sight of the driver but it isn’t anyone she knows.

Just before a bridge that crosses the Flathead River, Grace turns right onto a frontage road and enters the industrial part of town. The gate to the old Harris Mill has been forced open. Grace pulls up close to it and gets out. Other than the wind it is quiet, and the air is so cold it burns her throat. Beyond the gate a single set of tire tracks runs through the snow in a straight line toward the distant buildings. Grace clutches the chain-link fence with her gloves. She doesn’t see anyone. She looks over her shoulder, back toward the main part of town. A helicopter circles the area near Olsen’s Landing.

Grace follows the tracks until she is out of sight of the main road. The old lumber mill stands three stories high and is nearly the size of a football field. She opens her bag and gets out the bundle of money she found in the trailer and holds it in her hands as she stares out the front window. She can’t bring it with her. It’s the one thing he wants. Once he has it he’ll probably kill her. She grabs a flashlight from the glove compartment before stepping out into the cold. The main mill doors are secured with a chain but there’s a big enough gap for her to squeeze through. The beam of her flashlight sweeps across the empty building. Most of the heavy machinery has either been sold or salvaged as scrap metal. The rest is draped with cobwebs so thick they look like cotton candy. There’s a set of stairs leading up to a mezzanine. She kicks at the treads until she discovers a loose one about halfway up. There’s a dark recess underneath. She reaches inside of the bag, pushing her uncle’s gun out of the way to get at the bundle. She puts the money inside and kicks the tread back in place.

Outside, the wind has dropped and tiny snowflakes drift down from the sky. Something catches her eye and Grace turns toward the far side of the mill, which butts up against the Flathead River. A little girl walks in her direction. The child’s head is bent down and her hands are thrust deep in her pockets. Thick black hair hangs across her face. She is dressed fashionably, but her blue coat is far too thin and instead of snow boots, she has sneakers on her feet. It’s only when she gets closer that Grace realizes that this little girl is crying. Grace stands perfectly still, waiting for the moment the girl realizes she is not alone.

The girl stops walking but she does not raise her eyes.

“What are you doing here?” Grace whispers. She’s seen the girl with her grandfather, Toby, a few times but it was always from a distance. She’s never been this close before.

The girl doesn’t respond. Her long black hair falls limp around her face. Grace wants to see this little girl’s eyes. There’s something about the chin and nose that remind her of herself. The girl continues to sob. She uses the sleeve of her jacket to wipe away the mucus and snot that collects on her upper lip.

Grace finds a tissue in her bag and comes close enough to wave it in front of the girl’s face. “Take this.”

The girl is obedient. She does as directed without talking back, but she still doesn’t look up. She mumbles thanks and blows her nose like a boy would—a long elephantine blast. She wads up the used tissue and crams it in her jacket pocket. Grace hands her another when she sees the girl’s shoulders start to tremble again.

Grace leans forward, trying to peer around the girl’s veil of black hair. “Are you Hayley Camberwell’s daughter?”

“My momma says I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.”

Grace notes the fading light. A snowstorm is moving in. She doesn’t understand why the child is out here on her own.

“Where’s your mom?”

The girl wipes her eyes with the backs of her hands. “She’s not well. She had to stay at home.”

Grace pictures Toby Larson’s aging features and sees nothing of herself, but his granddaughter could be her twin. Grace’s heart feels unbalanced in her chest. Hayley Camberwell might be her half sister after all. Grace stares hard at the girl in front of her, trying to figure out whether she should believe they’re related.

“Do you know my momma?” says the little girl, more than once.

“No, but I know your grandfather, Toby Larson.” She holds out her hand. “So we’re not really strangers.”

The extended hand hangs suspended until Grace drops it, unacknowledged. They stay silent for a bit. The light dims further behind thickening clouds and the crows rise and fall in the trees that line the shores of the Flathead River.

The girl looks up at Grace with fierce eyes. “You’re that girl from the news. My grandmother doesn’t like you much.”

“Well, I’m a little different and people don’t always take to that. I’m Grace. What’s your name?”

“Isobel.”

Grace looks up at the darkening sky and decides that she has no choice but to get Isobel out of here. It isn’t safe.

“I need to get you home,” she says, taking hold of Isobel’s arm and opening the door to her pickup truck.

Isobel shakes her head.

“It’s going to be okay. We’ll go find your mother.”

Isobel pulls away. “I can’t leave. I need to get back to my sisters. I promised them I wouldn’t be long.”

Grace glances around the empty mill yard. “Where are they?”

The girl points toward the back of the mill. “They’re with my dad.”

Grace bites her lip. She now knows who killed her mother. “Did he leave you on your own?”

“He got upset and stomped off like he always does. I thought I’d better go for help.”

“Do you think he’s still gone?”

The girl shrugs.

“Get in the truck. I’ll take you to your sisters.”

The light is grainy gray between the buildings that encroach upon the narrow lane that runs toward the back of the mill. Grace keeps the headlights off and creeps forward. They round the corner and Grace comes to a stop about fifty feet before a line of trees. Up ahead a truck sits off to the side, resting on the soft shoulder and facing away from them. The lights are on and the engine is running. Grace leans on the steering wheel, thinking hard. “Seems like your daddy’s come back.”

“You should know my daddy isn’t a nice man.”

They stay there watching the other truck. Grace can see the top of Isobel’s father’s head but nothing more. “I don’t see your sisters.”

Isobel peers over the dashboard, rocking back and forth and squinting her eyes until she’s satisfied. “They’re only little. No way you’d see them from here.”

“What were you doing out here anyway?”

“He said we were going on a trip, but then he got real angry when my little sisters started crying for our momma.”

“You’re scared of your daddy, aren’t you?”

“He says my mom wasn’t well, but I could hear them fighting. I think he hurt her again.”

Grace stares out the windshield for a while. She has no idea what she’s doing.

She reaches into her bag. “Does your daddy have a gun?”

“Yes, ma’am.” She narrows her eyes when she sees Grace’s pistol. “Are you gonna shoot him?”

“Nah, I’m just going to talk to him.”

Isobel turns toward Grace and lowers her voice. “Cause it’s okay with me if you shoot him.”

Grace frowns. The words Isobel has just spoken don’t sit well on her sweet face. “I never knew my daddy.”

“You’re lucky.”

Grace looks at the girl again. “I want you to run up to the road to get help. Flag down a trucker if you have to. Tell them to call the police.” She closes her eyes and hopes she’s right. “And don’t worry, they’re nicer than you think.”

“Doubt that, my daddy drives trucks.”

“Just you wait. Everything will be fine.”

Grace takes off her gloves and puts them on the girl’s hands. They flop over the tops of her slim fingers. She pulls Jared’s cap out of her pocket and slips it over Isobel’s head so it’s covering her ears. Without another word, Isobel slides away, easing the door shut with a soft click.

Grace’s lonely boots crack through a thin crust of snow and sink a few inches into the road. The silent landscape envelops Grace like a dream and her breath escapes bone dust white. A voice inside of her screams at her to turn back, but her breath steams ahead impatiently. She walks through wisps of cloud, thinking about the family she now has—nieces, half sisters, and a father. Looking for comfort, she slips her bare fingers around the cold handle of the gun thumping heavily against her hip. Fresh snow falls hard and icy like darts, stinging her cheeks and painting the air between herself and Brian Camberwell’s truck with broad strokes of white.