Schism (14 page)

“Did you tell Mark?”

“Yeah, when I got home. He went down to the store, but no one was there. The back door was closed and the jar of applesauce had been cleaned up. The freezer was still empty, but its doors were closed.”

“And you have no idea who the third person was?”

Nathan shook his head firmly. “Never seen him before.”

“But what does Mikhail have to do with this? He wasn’t there.”

“I don’t know, but he’s friends with Heath.”

Andy glanced briefly at the room. “What were you doing here anyway?”

He lifted his right pant leg and revealed a bloody bandage on his shin. “It happened when I ran from the store. I thought the bleeding would stop but it hasn’t. I guess Mikhail and Heath followed me.”

Andy bent down to get a better look at the wound. “That’s a nasty cut. Let me take a look at it now.”

After mending his shin, she escorted Nathan out of the hospital. “Do you want me to walk you home?”

He hesitated before nodding sheepishly. “If you don’t mind. I feel like Heath and Mikhail are waiting for me somewhere.”

“Okay,” she replied tenderly as they set off along the snowy road.

***

After safely dropping Nathan off and explaining to his brother what had happened, Andy returned home. Mark was visibly shaken by news of the incident, and his expression was an intense mixture of worry and anger.

As she walked home, Andy couldn’t shake the image of Nathan being pinned against the wall by Heath and Mikhail, each holding charged defibrillator paddles mere inches from the boy’s chest. The last thing she wanted was to disrupt the fragile balance of power that existed in Aspen, even as unfair and absurd as it was. Being banished as winter approached with Morgan more than five months pregnant was not an option. But she didn’t want to sit by while kids like Nathan were being bullied.

Distracted by her thoughts, including how to take better security measures at the hospital, she nearly missed seeing Ben on the street outside their home.

“Didn’t you hear me calling your name?” But upon seeing her face, he immediately recognized that something was wrong. “What is it?”

“I’ll tell everyone inside,” she replied after an exhausted sigh. “Right now, I just want to get warm.”

As they walked up the driveway, Ben put a reassuring arm around her shoulder. Grateful for the gesture, she allowed herself to lean into him all the way to the front door.

Both Brian and Susan were over for dinner, so everyone heard the story. When Andy finished, everyone looked to Brian, whose expression had grown increasingly tense as he listened.

“And he had no idea who the third person was?” was his first question.

“No. Nathan said he never saw him before.”

“Have there been any other robberies or anything like that lately?” Ben asked.

Brian thought for a moment and started to shake his head when Susan stopped him. “Remember back in the spring when Gracie’s sister lost her snowmobile?”

Brian scratched his head, slowly recollecting the memory. “You mean Cathy? Yeah, I remember.”

“Yeah, she kept saying that she didn’t lose it but that someone took it right after the last snow storm. Remember how no one believed her?”

“Yeah, she wanted me to bring it up at the next council meeting, but I didn’t think it was anything serious, especially since it happened to Cathy–she’s a nice girl but she’s pretty spacey and is always losing things.”

“Maybe Cathy was telling the truth?” Morgan suggested.

“I know
she
thinks she was telling the truth. Cathy may be a lot of things, but she’s not a liar,” Brian said.

“Are snowmobiles rare enough in Aspen that people would want to steal them?” Andy asked. “I don’t see that many around.”

“They used to be everywhere. A lot of homes had them, and of course the ski patrol had a ton for the slopes, but most of them either broke down or disappeared the first winter after the virus. That year was pretty rough, and a lot of kids left to go to other towns and took snowmobiles with them.”

“Are you going to say something to Nataliya about her brother?”

He pursed his lips together. “I’m sure she knows whatever Mikhail’s up to, so she probably knows about what happened with Nathan. I’ll say something to her tomorrow.”

“What about Garrett and Heath?” Charlie piped in, angry on Mark’s behalf. “They can’t get away with this. Someone has to say something to them.”

“I’ll say something to them, but only if you say so, Brian. This is your town. We’re just visitors,” Ben said.

The word “visitors” sounded odd to Andy. She didn’t think they were temporary residents anymore, not after nearly four months.

Brian obviously didn’t think so either. “You’re all part of the town now. But let me talk to Garrett and Heath, though I’d be more than happy to have you and Jim back me up.”

“Happily,” Jim said.

“Nathan’s the sweetest boy,” said Morgan with a sad frown, and Jim gave her hand a consoling squeeze. “I can’t believe they would do that to him.”

“I can,” Ben countered. “Look how they treat everyone in broad daylight.”

No one said anything for a moment, and Andy noticed that Brian had become particularly pensive. “What is it?” she asked him, rousing him from his thoughts.

“Nothing,” he began, shaking his head. “But I was just thinking about some things I’ve noticed recently that seemed odd, but now I think they might actually be related to all of this.”

“Like what?”

“Well, at the end of last year we didn’t have any gas in town. I mean
no
one
was driving
anywhere
. Susan and I came into town only once a week, on horseback, to pick up supplies and check on how things were going. It wasn’t until the refinery outside of Denver started producing gas that we were finally able to start using our cars again. But about a month before that, I noticed Garrett driving around in his SUV, and I asked him where he got the gas. He told me he had some stored in his garage at home, but at the council meeting a few days before he was complaining how there was no gas left in town. At the time I just figured he’d traded for some.”

“Remember the liquor at Juniper’s birthday party last spring?” said Susan, referring to one of Nataliya’s friends and another member of the council.

“Oh, yeah, I forgot about that,” he replied before explaining to the others. “Nataliya likes to have birthday parties for her friends, big surprise. And she also likes to have tons of liquor at these parties. Bourbon, scotch, vodka…you name it. Except at Juniper’s birthday party in April, her supply ran out, and so had everyone else’s by then.”

“Nataliya was pissed,” Susan said with a giggle.

Charlie turned to her and asked, “Why did you go to a party for someone you abhor?”

“Are you kidding? I didn’t go, but Brian did,” she replied.

“She invites everyone on the council. I only go because it would create more problems if I didn’t. Anyway, after Juniper’s party, all the liquor in Aspen was supposedly gone.”

“But then June comes, right before you all got here,” Susan continued, “and it’s her sister Sparrow’s birthday. I went to that party, but only because my friend Karen really wanted to go.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Andy thought she saw Ben flinch after Susan spoke, but she ignored it and continued to listen.

“I kept trying to convince her not to, but she’s always trying to make friends with the ‘popular’ people. So I go to the stupid party, and Sparrow, Juniper, and all their close friends were drinking liquor and getting drunk. But this time they weren’t sharing it like they’d always done in the past. Instead they were keeping it for themselves and hiding it from everyone else until they got too drunk to care.”

“So where did it come from?” Charlie asked.

“Who knows?” Brian replied flatly. “The simple explanation is that one of Sparrow’s friends had some liquor in their house that they’d forgotten about, but I doubt it. They must’ve gotten a fresh supply from
somewhere
between April and June.”

“Is liquor something the town tries to resupply when it runs out?” Andy asked. “I gave your friend some whiskey when I pulled that bullet out of his shoulder, but it was a small bottle that I happened to find in some desk drawer at the hospital.”

Brian shook his head. “No, liquor is the least of our priorities. It’s not something we ever worried about when we ran out. And I could care less if Nataliya and her friends have a large stash of liquor. I’m just worried about how they got it.”

Chapter XII

December 2022

I
n the six weeks since the incident at the hospital, little had changed. Work continued as usual, though everyone tended to stay indoors more during the cold, snowy days. Ben spent more time gathering and chopping firewood to keep everyone warm than doing any of his normal work. The electricity, though fairly dependable, was still temperamental, and a day without heat was not uncommon.

Brian spoke with Nataliya the day after Andy saved Nathan. Though she defended her brother and denied involvement in robbing the store or any other nefarious behavior, she knew her comfortable living depended on residents like Brian and his friends, so she promised to confront Mikhail about what happened at the store. Wary of her promises, Brian raised the incident at the council meeting two days later where a full-fledged war of words erupted.

“You have no proof!” Garrett barked at Brian. “Nathan will deny anything that Andy told you.”

“That’s because you’ve made him too scared to talk!”

The meeting spiraled out of control even further, with old feuds resurfacing until they peaked into threats of violence. The only thing that prevented actual blows was Garrett recognizing that he was outnumbered, both physically and numerically. But before storming out of the meeting, he came within inches of Brian’s face and snarled at him, “Get ready to pay for this!”

No one saw much of Brian after that. Susan still came by the house often, but mainly to spend time with Charlie. She told him her brother was making himself scarce until everything blew over. When Charlie asked if anything like this had ever happened before, she shook her head firmly.

Two days before Christmas, Brian finally came over to the house for dinner. It had been two weeks since anyone but Susan had seen him.

“Well, look who’s at the door,” Jim said as he moved aside to let him in.

“Yeah, I know. Sorry,” Brian said.

Everyone couldn’t help but notice how tired he looked, as though he hadn’t slept in weeks.

“Sorry we’re late,” he added as he took off his coat. “It took us a while to get all the cows and horses water. Our pipes froze, so I had to take care of that while Susan melted the snow one bucket at a time.”

“It’s too bad you two can’t just move in here with us,” Andy said as she entered the living room momentarily from the kitchen. “Or at least move your livestock somewhere closer, like Scott’s farm.”

“He and I talked about that,” said Brian. “Unfortunately, his farm isn’t big enough for both his cattle and mine.”

“Well, let us know how we can help.”

“Thanks, I will.”

“How are Daisy and Suzie?” asked Morgan, referring to two of their horses. “I miss seeing them every day.” It had been almost a month since Morgan had stopped working on the farm. Nearly seven months pregnant, her daily routine now consisted of a few hours of teaching in the morning, a long nap in the afternoon, and helping with chores in the house. Still, beneath her sweaters and heavier winter clothing, she barely showed. Few people outside her circle of friends even knew she was pregnant.

“They’re good, but I think they miss you too,” Susan replied as she kicked the snow off the bottom of her boots onto the mat at the front door.

Ben entered the house from the garage where he’d been tinkering with his truck. He headed to the sink to wash his hands, passing Andy who was back in the kitchen cooking dinner on the stove. He gave her a friendly nudge with his elbow. “What’s up?” he muttered as he scrubbed the grease off his fingers.

“Susan and Brian are here,” she replied without turning away from the stove. “You hungry?”

“Always.”

He dried his hands off on a towel and was just about to ask her if she needed any help with getting dinner ready when Brian approached.

“You need any help?” he asked.

“Yeah, thanks. Can you defrost the steak in the microwave and then chop it up into pieces? I’m making fajitas.”

“Wow, sounds great,” he said while reaching for the frozen steak on a plate next to the microwave.

Looking uncertain, Ben backed out of the kitchen and wordlessly moved into the living room where everyone else was sitting. Moments later, they heard Brian cry out, “Jesus!”

Ben rushed into the kitchen first and saw Andy grab a towel. She pressed it firmly against Brian’s hand. He winced in pain as Susan scurried over to him.