Headlights(124)

“I’m sorry, man,” he says. “But it hasn’t been that much time. And you two … Look, I mean, some things just make sense in the world. Some things don’t…” I know he’s thinking about Jack. A wave of pain washes over me, settles deep. “But I just think sometimes this world is a kind place. We can’t give up hope yet.”

I nod.

Tillman studies me a long minute, my badge in his hand. “You don’t have to go,” he says.

“I’m done,” I say. “I’m good.”

“Okay,” he says. “Well, come on then.” He opens his arms and walks toward me.

I groan as he pulls me in for a hug, pats my back.

“’Kay, man, let’s keep it PG.” I pull away, turn and limp for the door. “See you ’round. Maybe get a beer.”

“Maybe two,” he says.

I snort a laugh. “Yeah, maybe two.”





3



Downstairs, I wave at the security guard. It’s my last time walking out of this building.

A relief, such a relief. After all this time.

I take it all in, limp up to the glass doors, ready to walk out into the bright Denver day.

I push the door open to step outside, and it almost hits someone.

“Shit,” I say. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t see—” I turn and …

I stop. Blink.

Here and not here. Glowing. Shadow and light, somehow combined.

His face, calm. Not crying, not miserable. He’s—

Pete Noland is standing in front of me, outside the doors of the Denver FBI branch office.

Pete Noland is—

I stare at him, feeling, breathing. I think I’m breathing. I can’t …

All the guilt. All the shame. The fucking agony of knowing I couldn’t fix it.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m so sorry.” I can feel tears, and I make no move to stop them.

He doesn’t say anything, because they never do. The shadows. The ghosts. But he’s here.

Pete Noland is … okay. Maybe.

We stand that way for a while. Pete Noland and me. In the cold. My breath visible.

And then he slips, fades, and I can only catch a glimmer.

I turn to the parking lot, and …

Thirteen more of them. Some just shadows, some clearer, brighter. All standing around the lot, surrounded by snowpacked ground, watching me.

Ramona Lopez, Ross Thompson, Claire Wright, Jake Evers, all the others.

All of them are here. Is this just my brain trying to reconcile with the guilt? With the fact that I couldn’t save any of them, that all these murders were because something had attached itself to me? Because I couldn’t figure it out fast enough?

Tony Howell waves to me. And Pete Noland is again by my side, just for a moment.

He steps up to me and passes through my body, a chill and a tremor running through me. As if to say, We’re real, asshole.

As if to say, goodbye.





4



The hike up to the cabin is brutal. I don’t know how I could be more pathetic. I try three different days, three different times, before I’m able to make it.

I know she’s not here. Of course she’s not. But I have to try. I’ll go to Aspen next. I’ll go everywhere she ever lived. I’ll climb that fucking mountain in California. If there’s any chance of finding her, any chance of seeing her again.

The sun shines in that Colorado way, the snow-covered path crunching beneath my boots. A bird lands on a branch in front of me. A small black bird with white wings and beak, starting to brown for winter. A lark bunting. We learned about them in school when I was a kid, our state bird.

The wind swaying through the pines and leaves. Icicles hanging down.

When I finally get to the top, finally get to the cabin, Hannah isn’t there. Just a new ranger.

“Did you know her?” he asks, looking me up and down. “Is she family, or…?”

“Yeah,” I say. “I know her.”

He hesitates a moment, then says, “Hold on.” He comes back with a small box. “These were left here. On the wall. I get a little claustrophobic, so I needed a cleaner surface. But … they were so beautiful. I thought it’d be a shame to throw them away.”

I know what’s in the box before he hands it to me. All of Hannah’s sketches, the playing cards. “Thank you,” I say. And I’m not sure if I convey how much I mean it.



* * *



When I get back down the mountain and to my car, the sun is setting over Colorado. The sky full of thick clouds, orange, pink, and yellow, all of it reflected off the white ground. Geese fly in a V over the snowed-over prairie grass. These plains that butt up against the mountains. That stretch across the belly of a nation. Hannah, waiting somewhere nearby in this grass to photograph that fox. Noel and me lighting up the ecosystems in the museum exhibit. This land nothing but itself, nothing but the life it holds in it.

Which of course is everything.

I blink, as I see a herd of ghost bison walk past in the gold light of the sun, shining.

Denver. The place that built me.

I start the car and head back to the city.

I pass a sign stuck in the ground that says KEEP PREDATORS AWAY FROM OUR HOMES, with an image of a wolf on it.