don’t have to be afraid because of who you are! she’d say. She pictured herself laying her cleverness before the vestry—the man responsible caught! And imagine if her role in uncovering Malcolm was recounted in the
With plans cascading through her head, she went back through town on autopilot, just aware enough of her surroundings to avoid rear-ending a tanker trailer whose driver had stopped shy of the Route 117 bridge in order to back into a Stewart’s convenience store. Waiting for a truck to turn would normally have had her drumming her fingers on the steering wheel and glancing at her watch, but at this point in her daydream, her activities and outreach had brought large numbers of new members into St. Alban’s, and she smiled so beatifically at the overflowing pews that the startled truck driver smiled and waved back.
By the time she passed the Stuyvesant Inn, she was being feted by the vestry and acclaimed by the bishop for her fearless dedication to the truth. The little Cobra bounced and jounced up the road to the construction site, clouds of dust roiling up behind her for Russ’s pickup to drive through.
As he had said, the site was closed to work. It would have been obvious even if there had been other vehicles alongside Peggy Landry’s Volvo in the dirt parking area. The excavators and bulldozers rested in exactly the same positions they had been in when Clare visited five days before. The clear plastic tarpaulins on the pallets of brick and Sheetrock were dusted over with a gold-green layer of pollen, giving them the look of tomb relics.
She pulled in a few feet away from Peggy’s sedan and got out. No piney mountain breezes today. The air was thick with humidity and smelled of the rich humus composting on the forest floor all around them. Russ had driven past Peggy’s car and parked the truck farther away, angled sharply, its nose out. So he could pull out and onto the road without having to reverse and turn, she realized. Probably picks the corner seat on a bar, Clare thought, with his back to the wall and his eyes on the door. She leaned on the hood of her car, scuffing the toe of her sneaker through the talc-fine dirt.
Russ walked over. “Well, her car’s here. Let’s try the office.”
But the office door was locked. “Now what?” Clare asked.
“I don’t like this.” Russ looked at the ground, which had been beaten into a formless wash of fine dirt by the constant pounding of feet and machinery. “We’re never going to be able to track her here.” He took his glasses off and polished them with the corner of his polo shirt, squinting at the woods surrounding the site.
“The only car around is hers,” she said. “What if he’s already met her and taken her away?”
“Her purse is still in her car,” Russ replied. “If this guy you heard is really up against the wall, I doubt he’d leave behind her credit cards, cash, and ATM card.”
“Oh. I didn’t see that.”
“Didn’t look, did you?”
She ignored the amusement in his voice and pointed to the edge of the site. “There’s a rough road back there. Just a couple of ruts between the trees, but if I were walking away from here”—she swept her arm around, encompassing the work zone, “I’d use it, instead of bushwhacking through these woods.”
“Do you know where it goes?”
“The foreman took me around. If you head to the left, there’s a helipad.” He looked at her. “Yeah, I know; I thought it was pretty cool myself. In the other direction, it leads to the old quarry. It branches off there and follows the gorge farther up the mountain. The less attractive stuff is going to be up there—their power plant, their laundry, the garage, things like that.”
“How far does it go?”
“I don’t know. We didn’t go there.”
“Okay. Hang on a sec.” Russ returned to his truck, bent the driver’s seat forward, and pulled something from the back. He emerged with a standard-issue gun belt. He buckled it on and drew the gun, inspecting the ammunition clip before returning it to the holster. In his jeans and knit shirt, he looked almost like a tourist playacting at Frontier Town, but the heavy solidity of the belt and holster could never be mistaken for a toy.
“Is that really necessary?” she asked.
“I sure as hell hope not,” he said. “But it’s better to have it and not need it than the other way around.” He paused in front of her. “I don’t suppose I can convince you to get back into your car and go home.”
She shook her head, her braid thumping against her neck.
“Wait for me here?”
She laughed.
“Yeah, I didn’t think so.” He headed for the nearest earthen ramp. She fell in beside him. “Stick close. If we see anything funny, get behind me and let me do the talking. Got it?”
“Sir, yes, sir.”
“And don’t ‘sir’ me. You were the captain. I was just a lowly warrant officer. And I had to work my way up to that from being a dumb grunt.”
“We’re civilians now. Who do you think outranks, the chief of police or the rector?”
“The chief of police does. I’ve got more years on the job and more people I have to worry about.”
“Plus, you’re older than I am. A lot older.”
He shot her a look as they entered the forest track. Unlike the last time she had been here, there was no current of cool air running beneath the trees. The leaves around them hung limp in the humidity, and the smell of rotting vegetation was everywhere. “This way,” she said, pointing toward the quarry.
They trudged through the green tunnel in silence. Clare’s blouse clung to a damp patch at the small of her back. She waved away a mosquito that was attempting to land on her thigh. Russ slapped his forearm and flicked off a tiny corpse. They passed a tree-clinging vine dotted with starry white flowers that gave off a sickly-sweet smell. “Pretty,” she observed.
