Heather(92)

“I’ve gotta get some air,” he says.

There’s a blast of frigid night air as he unzips the tent. She watches the zipper work all the way around the edge. How careful he is to close it up completely, not let any more cold in.

When he comes back he says that he’s tired, wishes her a goodnight but does not touch her. She spends the next hour, two, on her back listening to the noises of the woods. She’s finally about to drift off when she hears a howl, high and clear. A coyote. She puts her hand on Adrian’s arm but he doesn’t stir. The animal howls again, louder, and the noise makes her shiver from within the sleeping bag.



* * *



The next morning things have thawed a little. He kisses her on her cheek when she wakes, a chaste peck, tells her he’s made coffee. They sit in camp chairs by the edge of the water and the silence, if a little fraught, doesn’t feel awkward, or punishing, the way it had the night before. He tells her about the kayak route he has planned. That the last time he took it he saw an eagle’s nest. She tells him that sounds good, but finds herself distracted. She’s thinking of Sabrina’s notebook, wishing she had brought it with her, but she had left it at Jane’s when she stormed out after Jane’s confession, and she can’t bring herself to ask for it back, to talk to Jane just yet. The star drawing had looked so familiar to her, but she can’t place it. A logo? A symbol from a band? Where would she have seen it before?

“Hey,” he says. “You with me?”

“I—no. Sorry. It’s this case.” He turns from her, looks at the river with his hands on his hips. She waits for him to tell her to go. That she knows the way. She can leave the kayak with the car, find a way home.

“Tell me about it.”

“It’s—It’s pretty upsetting. A baby was found dead in the woods. It’s been unsolved for thirty years. Are you sure you want to know?”

“You can give me the basics. If it’s on your mind this much maybe you need to talk about it.” He sets himself in the camp chair again. “So. Let’s talk.”

So she does. She tells him about Jenna disappearing. About the DNA results linking her to Baby Doe. She describes finding Annabelle. The tap on her window. All the things she didn’t get to tell Jane, has been holding close. She’s so tired of secrets, her own and everyone else’s. If he wants to be in her life he deserves to make an honest choice, to know every ugly detail.

“I don’t know how to move forward with this one, how to find Sabrina, without offering up Annabelle. Without blowing her cover. And I don’t want to do that. I thought I did, at first. When she was still an abstraction to me. But now? She’s made a life. Has three kids. What good would come of her being punished? What does justice look like for someone like her? Even if she’s tried and not convicted of anything, the disgrace, the shame … it would ruin her. But I also get the sense that there’s something I’m not seeing about Sabrina. Something glaring and big and I just need a little more time and I could do it all—spare Annabelle, find out what happened to her sister. She’s convinced he killed her. And if he did.… then, I’m the daughter of a murderer. The daughter of a lost mother and a very bad man.”

Adrian is quiet for a long time, and she feels it coming. The same conclusion Jenna’s men always made. That there is too much drama, too much damage, for them to contend with.

Adrian clears his throat. “Shit, Callie. I’m so sorry. And to think you’re letting me sit here going on about eagles.”

“I like hearing about the eagles. I just … I’ve never had this feeling before. Like I don’t know how to do my job. That it’s my job to keep people from finding out the truth. That I don’t want to know the truth.”

“Well, you have time to figure that out, right? It’s not like you need to track someone down before they do it again, some crazy serial killer on the loose. Like you said. She’s a mother. She’s got a life. And as far as finding the father goes … Whoever he is, he’s got nothing to do with you.”

“Aside from fifty percent of my DNA. And I was wrong about my mom. I mean yeah, she suffered, and because of that, I suffered too. But she also survived so much and I never saw that. She had been sober and I just … drove her off the rails. I can’t get away from this idea that I’m like him, whoever he is. I ruin people.”

“You’re not responsible for what happened to your mom. It’s awful, but it’s not your fault. You don’t ruin things. Listen to how much you care about all of these people. You’re loyal and generous to your core. You aren’t bad. You can’t tell yourself that.”

She exhales, leans her head against his chest. He’s right. There’s time. What’s happened to Annabelle has happened. She can try to work out Sabrina’s end of the story. Time to figure out how she’s going to handle this situation with Jane. Time to figure out if she can stay here, knowing what she knows, what her future might look like if she has to resign from the department. Who she might be if she doesn’t have a gun and a badge and a bad guy to chase down.

They paddle all afternoon. They don’t see any eagles, but the river is beautiful, placid and austere. They pass by stands of Atlantic white cedars, ghostly and ethereal, their pale bark silvery in the light, visit a place where the stream pools into a pond shaped by beavers, have the lunch he packed on the sandy banks.