quaky in the heavy silence. His boots slithered again, this time almost taking him down. He steadied himself and swore again. His teeth started to chatter, and to stop the chattering, he gritted them, but the shivers only moved into his shoulders. The light beam he was scoping through the spaces between the trees flickered, came on again strong, then blinked madly. “No, don’t!” he shouted. He banged the torch on his thigh and thought about batteries. How could he forget such a fundamental as putting in fresh ones and packing spares? His heart began to thud.
“No big deal,” he said and was reassured by his own adult voice, low and angry. “Walk back, follow your tracks.”
He turned to head back to where he thought the distant main lights should be, thinking about wolves, and now his heart banged harder because he couldn’t see his own tracks in this dim, wavering light beam. He turned the thing off, in part to conserve what juice was left and in part to make him less of a sitting duck to the nocturnal eyes that watched from the wilderness on all sides. He’d heard the predatory noises, the secretive shifting, the low breathing, the salivating, the circling. The sounds came from here first, then there. He turned, turned again, looked back, looked sideways.
Listening hard, he could now hear nothing but himself existing, the blood coursing through his system, the nylon of his jacket squealing with every shallow breath. Then something else, a distant crunch-crunch climbing toward him. Not a wolf, but maybe worse. He turned with measured speed and breathed out heavily as he saw that it was only her, the local constable, Jayne Spacey, who’d met him on the logging road some hours earlier and given him his instructions. She was following her light beam in his direction, calling out his name. He waved overhead. “Here.”
The light landed on him. She crunch-crunched to a stop before him and cast her beam down so it bounced off the snow and lit her up like an actor before the stage lights, the angel saviour with one eyebrow tilted. She said, “What’re you doing standing in the dark? Been gone so long I thought you froze to death out here.”
“My light’s dying,” he said.
To prove it he raised the torch and clicked the button. Light flared like a small sun, catching her full in the face, making her squint. He shut if off again as fast as his cold fingers would let him, and Spacey said, “Well, lookit that, hey? It’s fixed itself.”
“Sorry about that.”
He tested the light on the snow, the trees, the sky, and she said, “So I guess we’re at a dead end, right?” She was nodding, agreeing with herself. “Yeah, we’re on that thing I like to call the unlikely perimeter.”
“There’s tracks,” Dion said, something he’d almost forgotten. With the light strong now, he found his way back to his only discovery, the mysterious, fairly fresh footprints cutting through a small clearing in a strident way. Spacey leaned to see where they went and then waded through bracken and crouched to inspect the boot prints closer. She smiled back at him and said, “I was hoping they’re yours. That would be really funny. But they don’t match.”
She made her way back, looking at him with new interest, maybe concern. She said, “But we’re just looking for small stuff, not tracks, remember? This area’s been swept. The tracks, they’re just SAR doing their rounds. You okay?”
“Fine. I was just heading back.”
She stood watching him, scanning for some kind of information he couldn’t supply. Her hood was fur-fringed, and the fur was lashing about, along with a stray lock of gold hair. Her cheeks were rosy, her eyes gleaming as she maybe saw through him, saw that he wasn’t fine, that he was cold and confused, just a step away from petrified. “First days are always rough,” she said kindly. “But it’ll get better, promise.”
The words stung, first days, but worse was the sympathy. He nodded and tried to sound grateful. “Good to know.”
She laughed and reached out to knock him playfully on the shoulder, the punch slowed by too many layers of clothing. She said, “It’s getting onto eight thirty. Big meeting at the Catalina Cafe. Did you book accommodations yet? You’re just an hour away, Smithers, right? Most staff just day-trip it, but the boss says there’ll be no commuting on this one right now. Waste of time, she says. And makes no sense moneywise. She gets a deal at the Super 8, cheaper than manpower miles, even with the per diem. If you like, I’ll take you out later, show you the town, all two minutes’ worth of it. You won’t fall in love, but at least you’ll have a map in your mind.”
He’d lost most of what she said, except the time. He angled his flashlight to see the hands of his wristwatch, and she was right, it was only half past eight, nowhere near midnight as he’d thought. “Meeting?” he said.
“Basic briefing, not mandatory for you, but you’d better come along, familiarize yourself with our reign of terror called Renee Giroux. I have to tell you, she’s nothing like that nice white-haired NCO you got running the show at Smithers. He treating you right?”
Spacey’s voice was young but husky, like she’d been a heavy smoker for years. Her speech patterns were snaky and hard to track, almost as bad as Penny McKenzie’s, but she seemed nice, and if he was lucky he’d be shadowing her for however long he was stuck here, three days, four, before they found the missing girl, the singer whose name he’d already forgotten. He almost forgot the name of his NCO too, but it came to him now, as they hiked downslope toward the portable lights. “Willoughby, yeah,” he said. “He’s great.”
Back in the brightly lit clearing, Spacey spoke with some members from the Terrace Ident section who stood by awaiting instructions. There was nothing left to do here tonight, Dion heard. They’d pack up and go, with a reduced crew to return in the morning light. Packing up everything but the crime-scene tape to mark the spot, the team carted out gear bags and went about powering down the lights. The generator grumbled to silence, and the last halogen faded to black. Flashlights came on, and all members prepared to leave the site, leaving only Dion kneeling in the snow, struggling with his designated task, packing a set of mattocks and spades into something like an oversized hockey bag. The task took him longer than it should, because his hands were numb, and the tools had to be laid just so or the zip wouldn’t close.
Finally, he bullied the thing into shape and got it half-closed, then stood with it hoisted over his shoulder and gave the darkened scene a final scan, and it struck him with a wash of horror: they’d all leave, and she’d be left alone, if by some freak chance she remained trapped in some hidden nook or cranny. He imagined her reviving, crawling out into these terrifying woods, crying out, being met by silence.
Strange how he’d seen her in person, just a few months ago, at the Smithers Fall Fair. He pictured her now, the pretty girl dancing about the stage, singing her heart out. Kiera, that was her name. As it turned out, it was Kiera who needed help, not the black-haired girl in the bleachers he’d fixed on so pointlessly. If he’d been looking at the stage, not the crowd, maybe he’d have seen something that would lead to some conclusion now that would save the day.
He snorted at the idea and dug at the trampled snow with the heel of his boot, testing it for give. The ground below was hard as iron, so she couldn’t be buried deep anywhere hereabouts. And the mountainside had been combed by dozens of searchers, so she wasn’t buried shallow either. She’d been taken away then. He knew it. Maybe on foot, but likely in a vehicle. From what he knew, which wasn’t much, he believed she was dead.
Somebody shouted, and he listened, but was distracted by the forest noises, almost voice-like, wordless mutters and whispers, and a low, demented whistling. The flashlight beam guttered again, and distantly, up on the logging road, he heard car doors slam shut and an engine turn over. He could imagine them forgetting to
