The Snow Falcon (13 page)

“There ain’t a Pizza Hut in Little River, for one thing.” Helsinger laughed at his own joke, but Pearce just scowled.

“Listen to them,” Susan said.

“Well, can you really blame them?” Linda said. “I mean, these things do happen, Susan.”

“You mean you agree with them?”

“I’m not saying that. I’m just saying you have to understand how some people might feel.”

“To them anyone different is crazy.”

Linda looked at Susan skeptically and put her hand on her friend’s arm. “You’re thinking about Jamie, aren’t you? This is different, Susan.

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Susan shook her head. “I don’t know. Maybe I am thinking about Jamie. I hear the way people sound sometimes when they talk about him, as if because he doesn’t talk he’s subnormal or something. I worry about him. It’s not just that, though. It just seems unfair the way Michael Somers is getting treated, that’s all.” She shrugged. “Let’s change the subject.”

“Okay. So how’s the good policeman?” Linda grinned.

Susan groaned. “Please, maybe I’ll just have my coffee to go.”

AFTER LUNCH SUSAN went back to the office and spent an hour catching up on the notes she kept of people who mentioned to her that they were thinking about selling or buying. People often sounded her out in some vague manner if she met them on the street or in the store, and long ago she’d gotten herself into the discipline of following up on these random connections. Now and then something came to fruition that otherwise might never have happened. Somebody finally got motivated enough to put months or even years of indecision behind them and put their house on the market.

As she considered people she should call, she came across the name Carol Johnson. On impulse, she picked up the phone right away. Carol’s husband, Jeff, had lost his job a few months back, and when Susan had talked to her one day, Carol had said they were thinking about moving to Kamloops, where Jeff had a brother who ran a printing shop. Susan recalled that a couple of days ago she’d overheard somebody saying that Jeff had gone down there to try it out for a while.

Carol answered on the fourth ring.

“I wondered how things were going with Jeff down there in Kamloops?” Susan said.

“He likes the job,” Carol told her, “and he’s getting on well with his brother. He was worried about that.”

“So, does that mean you’re going, too?”

“I don’t know. Jeff wants us to, but I’m not so sure. Everybody we know lives around here, and there’s family and all.”

Susan understood her reluctance. Carol had two children under four years old, and as long as she was in Little River, she could rely on help from her mother and sister. In Kamloops, she’d be all alone. It was a tough choice, but she guessed that in the end it would come

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down to money, and Kamloops was where Jeff had work. Susan wanted to get the Johnson house as a listing if they were moving, because it was a nice place, a two-story log-cabin-style house that Jeff had largely built himself, and she was sure she could sell it quickly. She always had to be on top of the situation with a place like that, because a good property west of town might end up getting listed with a realtor in Williams Lake if she let it slip by her. A lot of people still had the idea that they might get a better price if they listed with one of the bigger firms, though this was absolutely untrue.

“Listen, why don’t you let me come over and give you a valuation of your house?” Susan suggested. “It might help to make the decision easier.”

Carol was reluctant at first, and Susan guessed she felt that taking that step might make her move irrevocable, but while she hated to pressure her, Susan knew that if she didn’t, then somebody else might. Sometimes people needed a little shove in the right direction anyway, she reasoned. They made an appointment for that afternoon, and Susan left pretty much straightaway. As she went out the door she wondered about asking Linda to meet Jamie at the bus, but checking her watch, she thought she ought to get back in time.

As it turned out, the valuation took longer than Susan had expected. Carol had had second thoughts by the time Susan arrived, and it took half an hour to talk her round.

“Look, at least this way you’ve got the information you need,” Susan said. “It doesn’t commit you to a thing.”

She called Linda and told her she was running late. “If I’m not back, can you meet Jamie?” Linda said she would, and Susan thanked her and hung up the phone.

“So, where shall we start?” she said to Carol.

IT WAS CLOSE to four-thirty by the time Susan got back, and as she pulled up outside the office, Linda came over from the diner. The second Susan saw her friend’s face, she felt the cold grip of intuition.

“What is it? Where’s Jamie?”

“I’m sure he’s okay,” Linda said, though her expression was pinched with worry. “I called Coop right away when Jamie wasn’t there when I went to get him, and he’s looking for him now. He can’t have gone far away.”

“You mean he wasn’t on the bus? Oh my God, I can’t believe I wasn’t here. Did you call the school? I mean, have they seen him?”

“No, he was on the bus. The driver said he definitely remembered him, said he got off in town. I was a few minutes late, and by the time I got there, he’d gone.” Linda shook her head in self-recrimination, tears stinging her eyes. “I’m sorry, Susan. This is all my fault.”

Susan saw that her friend was on the verge of breaking down, and she managed to get hold of herself. That Jamie had definitely been on the bus went a long way to calming her fears. If he’d gotten off in town, then he couldn’t be far away. The sudden overwhelming clutch of fear that had gripped her abated a little.

“It’s okay, Linda. It’s not your fault. I should’ve been here myself. I’m sure he’s okay, he’s just wandered off somewhere.” She heard her own voice as if from a distance, calming Linda’s unjustified guilt. She started sorting through the places where Jamie might have gone. Maybe a friend’s house—only he didn’t really have any friends anymore—or maybe the store. She glanced down the street, half expecting to see him sauntering toward her, unaware of the panic he was causing. It was irrational, she thought. What harm could come to him anyway? She was simply being overprotective, the way she had been ever since the day of the accident. That nightmare image of Jamie soaked in blood forced itself into her mind, and her heartbeat quickened again. At that moment, Coop came around the corner in his cruiser and pulled up. For a moment, Susan’s hopes soared as she peered into the cab beyond him; then she saw he was alone.

“No sign of him here yet?” Coop said. “I’ll take a ride through town. He’s most likely just lost track of the time.”

“I’m coming with you,” she said, moving toward the door.

The radio in his cab crackled, and Coop picked up the microphone and spoke into it. Susan couldn’t make out what was being said through the static, but Coop glanced at her quickly and the look he wore scared the life out of her.

“What is it?”

“That was Ben Miller. A trucker said he saw a kid sounded like Jamie getting into a utility out on Deep Ridge Road, heading out of town.”

“Out of town?” A million ideas went through her mind. She felt numb for a split second, and then all kinds of questions beat against

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her skull. “What kind of utility? I mean, is he sure it was Jamie?” She felt her voice start to break despite herself and covered her mouth with her hand, fighting back tears. Then it struck her what Coop had said. “Deep Ridge Road? That’s the way home.”

COOP FOLLOWED HER as she drove, keeping close enough that every time she looked in the rearview mirror she could make out the shape of his face behind the wheel. His presence there was both comforting and not. She was glad that it was him, but she kept seeing the lights on his cruiser, which somehow deepened her worry.

It was a fifteen-minute drive, but it seemed on this occasion to take forever. She tried to concentrate on the road; she knew she was driving faster than was safe, and there were patches of ice here and there where she felt her Ford slide a little. It would do Jamie no good, she told herself, if she ended up in a ditch. She kept asking herself why he hadn’t waited at the bus stop. He knew she always met him, and that if she couldn’t make it, Linda would. She imagined finding him and later asking him why he hadn’t just gone to the diner or her office when nobody was there at the stop. He’d be unaware of the worry he’d caused, shrugging his shoulders. She knew she should be mad at him for scaring the life out of her, but she also knew she wouldn’t yell at him; instead, she’d hold him tight and tell him he mustn’t ever do that again. Rut even as she was imagining this scene, a part of her mind was thinking she might never see him again. She tried to tell herself that things like that didn’t happen in towns like Little River, and that was part of the reason she’d agreed to come here in the first place, partly why she hadn’t left after David had died—that, and inertia. She kept thinking about what Coop had told her, that some trucker had reported seeing a kid get into a utility. It could have been anyone. It didn’t mean it was Jamie, though when Coop had called back, Miller had confirmed that the driver had said the kid he’d seen was wearing a red-and-blue coat. Just like Jamie’s. Rut it could be coincidence. She bit her lip, her thoughts tripping over themselves in their headlong rush through her mind.

She was five minutes from home before the thought that had sat hunched like a shadow in the dark corners of her mind took shape and she thought of Michael Somers. She rationalized that there was

absolutely no reason to think he had any involvement in this. A flush of heat rose to her face, borne of guilt at thinking about him at all, but his name stayed in her mind. He drove a utility, she’d seen him in it once or twice—a Nissan, she thought. He also had reason to be on Deep Ridge Road, though why Jamie might have been there she had no idea. He could have walked there, it wasn’t that far from the center of town, but why would he? The more she thought about it, the more her unease grew. It was just too much of a coincidence that somebody had seen a boy answering Jamie’s description. Who else could it have been but him? And who else around there would have picked him up without letting her know? Her heart raced, and she put her foot on the gas, clenching the wheel tightly.

When she turned down the track to her house, the back end of the Ford slid sideways in the grit and snow, and then the tires gripped as the vehicle plunged down through the trees. As she stamped on the brakes and threw the truck into neutral as it slid to a halt, she saw the dark-colored utility stopped outside the house, and then she was out the door, running. For a moment she didn’t see anybody, then Michael Somers opened the door of his Nissan and got out from behind the wheel. She stopped dead, her heart still thumping. Behind her, Coop’s truck was coming down the track, at a slower pace than she had driven.

Susan’s eyes fled from Michael’s face, searching for Jamie, half expecting him to get out of the Nissan, but when he didn’t, she looked around in confusion. Just then Bob barked and approached from the back of the house, Jamie just behind him. He stopped when he saw her.

“I came across him on the road,” Michael said. “I think he was walking here, so I persuaded him I could give him a ride. I thought I better wait until somebody got home.”

Relief flooded every cell in Susan’s body, and she felt suddenly weak, as if she were going to collapse, and in her relief she lashed out.

“Are you crazy? Didn’t you think I’d be worried about him? He’s just a child, didn’t it occur to you to call?” She ran to Jamie and fell on her knees, crushing him to her, tears flowing across her face. “Thank God,” she said, pressing his head to her face, smelling his hair.

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Michael looked on, bewildered at first, until he understood what she’d thought, and as he turned away to get back in the Nissan, he felt Coop grab his arm.

“Hold on a second. What’s going on here?”

Michael looked at him. “Like I said. I gave the boy a ride. He was a long way from home.”

“Where’d you pick him up?” Coop said.

“Outside of town.”

“You didn’t think someone might be worried about him when you found nobody home?” Coop nodded in Susan’s direction, and Michael followed his look. She was getting to her feet, wiping her tear-ruined face.

“I decided to wait awhile,” Michael said. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.” He felt Coop’s grip on his arm loosen just a fraction, though the cop’s eyes remained fixed. Coop’s face was weather-beaten, his eyes pale. “Am I under arrest here or what?” Michael asked.

For a moment Coop said nothing, but Michael could feel his thoughts like waves of hostility.

“Coop.”

They looked around at the appeal in Susan’s voice, and saw her watching them uncertainly. Then Coop let go of Michael’s arm.

Susan started to speak. “I’m sorry about what I said before. … I mean, I was … I didn’t know what to think.”

Michael didn’t say anything, just got in the Nissan and backed around. He looked in the mirror as he drove up the track: They were watching him go. His mouth compressed in a thin line.

THE FALCON HAD SPENT THE NIGHT HIGH ON A rock face, hugging close into the back of the ledge where she stood. She had slept with her feathers ruffled so that warm air was trapped against her body. With one leg raised, the foot clenched and tucked into her breast, she resembled some sleepy children’s toy, puffed up and rounded like a portly owl.

As the sky lightened, the first faint streaks of yellow and amber suffusing into the inky blue darkness at the horizon, she opened her eyes and stood square on both feet. Her plumage settled sleek against her body; her eyes, bright and intent, surveyed the landscape below. The transformation was instant. She became again the efficient predator, her lines sculpted and streamlined, her shape honed to perfection.