Headlights(21)

Nat fucking Tillman stands outside the front door to the building, staring up at the sky.

Wiry climber build, black hair, a tan from time outdoors. Supremely punchable face.

I forgot that he does this, just stands around and cranes his neck up at the clouds like a stoner, which I actually don’t think he is, which somehow makes it worse. He startles as we approach, as if he were not waiting here for us to arrive. He reluctantly draws his eyes down.

“It’s a clear one,” he says with a smile.

“Tillman,” Jack says, nodding. He catches my eye to say, Be nice, holds the door for us to the building.

“Excited to work with ya, buddy,” Tillman says. “We’ve done a lot since you’ve been gone, and—”

I step past him.

Daphne stands in front of my desk when we arrive. It’s rare to see her outside of the DPD forensics lab or Mama Tried, but I’m happy to. Sometimes in the past she would come over to deliver information to us in person, just to get out for a bit. It’s a strange space to occupy, not knowing what her life has been like. Like Josie. Jack. Everyone. All my fault.

“Doctors still won’t let us in, but we have her medical report,” she says in her gravelly discordant voice. She often liaises with the hospitals, as she grew up in a family of prominent doctors and knows or can pull strings with most everyone, at least in the Denver area.

“Let’s hear it,” Jack says.

“Scattered contusions. No sign of sexual assault. Blunt force trauma to the back of the skull. Could be handle of a knife. Her skin is in bad shape from the tape. She’s lost some of it on her arms and face. Should heal.”

“Okay,” I say. “Anything else?”

“The body of the John Doe was skinned alive, same as the others, but his tongue was also removed.”

“We know,” I say, feeling a little sick again.

“And it was taped inside Hannah Lawrence’s mouth.”

Hannah Lawrence.

My mind catches on her name. Almost like …

I say it out loud, I think. Maybe? I don’t mean to. A chill runs over my arms, my heart racing.

Hannah.

An intense sense of inevitability, déjà vu, maybe. I don’t know.

A shadow moves at the corner of the room.

“Right. Yes. We got an ID. Frazier, your new officer, she just put this here before you walked in. Hannah Lawrence woke up in the hospital, freaked out about being there, nurses had to up her meds.”

Daphne slides another file to me. I open it.

“She’s still conscious?” I ask.

“No. She was. But now … they’ll update us when she’s ready.”

Hannah Lawrence. Twenty-eight, ranger, US Forest Service. She left a psychology PhD program at Colorado State for a yearlong stint in California, then returned and joined the USFS. Born and raised in Durango, parents both dead, last living in Arizona. No siblings, spouse, or children. No criminal record. Frazier stuck a Post-it on top of everything else that says NO SOCIAL MEDIA. She’s stationed at a cabin in the Pike National Forest near the Colorado Trail / Indian Creek Trail junction. There’s a photo of her, in a ranger uniform, serious expression. Athletic, strong. Her eyes slightly upturned at the edges, the color of them a light, almost translucent green. Freckles across her nose, that tattoo of something, just below her sleeve. Dark not-quite-blond hair down her shoulders.

She’s beautiful. Painfully, almost. Not a useful thought. Wildly inappropriate. My chest tightens up, looking at her photo, and I shake my head. Have to stop whatever that is. My heart pounding.

“We send a team to the cabin yet?” I ask Jack and Daphne.

Jack says, “There’s one on their way. Thought you’d need a minute. But you and Tillman can do a double check when you’re ready.”

I nod, look to Daphne.

“From her dehydration level and the motel manifest,” she says, “we think she was in that room for forty-eight to fifty-two hours. No water, no food. She held his tongue in there for two or three days and didn’t bite down and didn’t lose her lunch, so to speak. I think she’s my hero. If it’s appropriate to say.”

“It’s not,” Jack says.

Daphne shrugs.

Hannah. Her name a whisper in the back of my skull. In that same room as my mother. They don’t look alike. But if someone was trying to get to me, trying to make a point … If they didn’t know Rose—she was taller, a couple inches maybe, her skin less freckled, hair bleached, eyes brown—but had seen just a photo maybe, they might think Hannah could be a stand-in.

Hannah Lawrence.

I hand the file to Jack, who hands it to Tillman. I feel relieved, somehow, not seeing her photo anymore. But also a little sick, dizzy. I shake it off, try to catch Daphne’s eye.

“Okay, well, that’s all for now,” Daphne says, not quite meeting mine. “Back to all my dead friends. I’ll get you an ID on the John Doe soon as I can.”

Daphne leaves, and I’m alone with Jack and Tillman.

“Well, then,” Jack says. If he had a thought he doesn’t finish it.

We go over all they’ve compiled while I’ve been gone. Hannah Lawrence there, in the background of everything. I’m anxious to get to the cabin, but I need the rundown on everything else. Tillman’s already interviewed Kimberly Chen, the first Drifter since the hiatus, and the family of her victim, gas station attendant Ross Thompson. Then of course I was there for Pete Noland. “Pete’s victim?” I ask.