been here from the first... Something hurt in her throat as her voice rose. “But the car, the truck, whose was it?”
With care and reverence, he tucked Raven back into his shirt. “I tried to find out. They do a hundred vehicles a week, more in tourist season. The kid’s honest but not that bright. He thinks it might have been a luxury car, like a Buick, leather seats. Maybe an SUV.” He tapped his temple in a “nobody home” gesture.
“That’s not much help.” She shot him a look. “Did you go to the police?”
“Bastards told me their resources were too stretched to expend any energy on a cold case. Years had passed. How did they even know this belonged to her? Others could have owned one. I lost my temper, tossed some papers around, and they threw me out. End of story.”
She gazed out the window to where students trudged back and forth in the quad, burrowing under umbrellas in the pounding rain. Her thoughts running too fast to express in any coherence, she let silence fill the musty room. Gall’s eyes followed her. From contempt or interest? Could she trust this man?
“Something occur to you?” His tone was cautious. As he lit another cigarette, his sleeve moved up his arm, revealing a medical bracelet, which indicated some vulnerability, from mere allergies to serious heart problems.
“Was she wearing it the night she disappeared? That’s the important point.”
He shrugged, reached for a cold cup of coffee. He hadn’t offered her any, but judging from the rime on the cracked cup, that was fortunate. “The last time I saw her, yes. A few days before Calgary.”
Rising slowly, she eyed the pile of letters. “I have to go. Any chance you’ll let me look at those?”
“What the hell for? There’s nothing relevant to her disappearance. You’ll have to believe me.”
“Why should I? I just found out that you exist.”
He grinned. “Funny, but you sound like your mother.” He glanced at the copier. “It might be painful for you. But if you’re sure you can handle it, why not? You’re a big girl.”
He made duplicates of the letters, put them in a brown envelope, and handed it to her. Then he picked up another CD. Women of the World, acoustic music by some of the world’s leading female artists. “Take this. I bought it for her last week. I’m always buying her things, almost forgetting that she’s...gone.” Holly took the gift with thanks. She hadn’t expected to like him, but the gesture was kind. He was exposing his wounds to her. “What do you think happened to my...to Bonnie?”
He took his time replying, as if the process opened deep wounds long scabbed over. “She was headed past Gold River, then up some backroads over to Tahsis on the west coast. Something about setting up an information centre, making contacts, that sort of thing. Helluva wild country, but she’d dare anything with that bloody Bronco. Last she called me was from a motel in Campbell River. The rains were bad that weekend. Even snow at the higher altitudes. It’s possible that she might have run off the road and never been found.”
“As simple as that?” The words were dust in her mouth. Somewhere, if she looked long enough... She couldn’t finish her own thought.
“Despite the notorious clear-cuts and the publicity about Clayoquot Sound, most of this island is still wild and lonely territory. But think about this: If you’re going to help good women get away from bad men, those men aren’t going to love you. They’re substance abusers, and they’re violent. The worst have served time. Their women and children are their only possessions.”
“Anyone come to mind?” How much did he know about Bonnie’s work?
“So many ugly cases over the years. She didn’t discuss names with me. Breach of ethics. And in a small community, I might even know the person.” His eyes were slightly narrowed, as if sizing her up. “So now that you’ve met the ogre in his den, what are your plans?”
“I’m posted to Fossil Bay now, and I have access to records. There’s a chance we might find out what happened to her.” She was conscious of using the word “we”, and suddenly felt traitorous towards her father. But surely they all had the same goal. “I’ll stay in touch if anything turns up.”
He tossed her one last question. Impertinent or frank. “Are you going to show the letters to the old man?”
The Old Man. She supposed he meant in it in the vernacular. Her father would never be old, would he? Mustering her dignity, with an even voice, she answered, “And break his heart? No one could be that cruel.”
At the Kangaroo Road curve that night, she was nearly sideswiped by a logging truck over the line. Her blood pressure spiked, but the Prelude held the road like a cat in gumboots. She thought of her father and that damn tiny car. With the burgeoning population in the Western Communities, the traffic to Victoria was a crapshoot with loaded dice. He avoided rush hour traffic and travelled only three days a week, but she shuddered to think of how that toy might collapse like a billfold.
She mentioned it to him after dinner. “Gas has gone up to 1.295 a litre with hell between us and peak oil, and you think I should get a larger car? My dear girl.” He finished the last crumb of chocolate layer cake and tossed down his serviette. “Follow me. I want you to see something amazing. I did not purchase that vehicle on a whim or because I’m merely...frugal. Give your paterfamilias credit.”
They went upstairs to his computer, where he spent a few minutes clicking on Google, then Videos. Bouncing in his seat like a kid, he turned to her with a grin. “Here we are. Road tests of the Smart Car. It’s made by Mercedes, you know. Precision German mechanics. They lost the war but not the engineering race.” Then he turned up the sound.
She watched in horror as the unpiloted car barrelled down the road cartoon-style, hellbent on its mission, then smashed into a concrete barrier and bounced to a stop. When the dust settled, the cage was intact, the integrity complete. She let out a giant breath. “Whooee. I am so impressed.”
Her father stood back, arms folded in an “I told you so” pose. “Now where am I going to get into an accident like that? Eighty miles per hour. I’m hardly driving over fifty kilometres most of the time. Your mother was the speed demon, remember?”
Later that night, reading in bed, she welcomed Shogun up with her for moral support. Then she started examining the letters. At first they were innocuous enough. Something about missing him, which could have a collegial interpretation. But the last two seemed to support Gall’s scenario. Her mother’s idiosyncratic angular handwriting made time disappear. “I’ll need to think about your proposal,” it read. “But my heart tells me that we have such little time on earth. Holly is on her way, building her own life as it should be.” Then in the final letter, dated the week before she disappeared, she said, “I’ve made up my mind. Leaving will sting Norman, but his career will sustain him. And he’s a good-looking man. It’s possible he’ll find someone else, given time. Next week I’ll contact Richard Mayhue. If he can’t handle the divorce, he’ll know someone who can. This time in a few months, my love, we’ll be together forever. Or as much together as my life can manage.” Something rose in Holly’s throat as lyrics from an inane disco song wormed into her ears. “Together forever, forever, we two.”
Holly moved her legs under the quilt, and Shogun growled and jumped off the bed, looking at her accusingly. Had an event in his past spooked him about certain movements? Had he been kicked off a bed as a pup? She heard a toilet flush and shoved the letters under a pillow. Sometime
