The Pages of Her Life Read online

  Billy turned, eyes cold. “Yeah?”

  “I’d like to grab some ammo before the moon comes out.” Parker tried to smile, but it probably came out more as a grimace.

  “That right? Well, I’d like to finish my conversation with my friend here.”

  Parker nodded and stepped back a pace.

  “So as I was saying, it’s a new tent. I got a new pack—well, not completely new—but the guy said it was only used twice, didn’t even look like it was used once, so I made a good offer on it and the guy takes it, so I’m trying out all this new gear, and should be a good trip.”

  “Excuse me, Bo? Is it possible for you to grab me some ammo while you’re talking to Billy?”

  “You got a problem, pal? Maybe somethin’ you wanna say to me?” Billy shuffled into Parker’s private space.

  “Me? No.” He narrowed his eyes. “You. Yes. You want to tell me you’re going to give me a minute to buy my ammo and get out of here.”

  “Really, you want to tell me more about that?”

  Billy’s breath stank.

  Parker started to speak when his dad’s voice barked into his mind. “A true man knows how to hold his frustration in. A true man is patient. A true man doesn’t fight petty battles. Instead, he fights the ones that change the course of the world. A true man . . .”

  Parker stood up to his full height and moved forward an inch. Bumped the toes of his boots into Billy’s feet.

  “I asked you a question, pal,” Billy said.

  The distance between their noses was now less than three inches. The guy was taller than Parker by an inch, maybe two, but Parker was thicker, and the thickness had grown into solid muscle over the past six months. Billy? His thickness wasn’t from muscle.

  “I was thinking about asking if you wanted to step out . . .”

  “A true man . . .”

  “No, let me back up. I wanted to say something else.” Parker clenched his teeth.

  Shut up, Dad.

  “Yeah, wanna tell me what it is? Sounded like you were ’bout to invite me to a party outside. That about right, cowboy? I love parties.” Billy grinned as he twirled his toothpick and winked at the kid behind the counter.

  “A true man . . .”

  Parker slid his right boot back half an inch. Then his left boot joined the right.

  “My name is Parker,” he said as he forced his tone to mellow. “I haven’t been much beyond my property and a couple of miles around it, and I’m looking to expand a bit. Wondering if you could suggest a good spot for me to do a little light hunting. Where I’m not going to disturb any of the locals.”

  Billy stared at him for at least five seconds, his countenance moving from ticked off to puzzled to playful.

  “Sure, friend. I can let you know where to go.” He thumbed toward the kid behind the counter. “You mind if I finish up with Bo here first?”

  “Not at all. Take all the time you need.”

  Parker moved away and perused the fishing poles along the wall to his left. Five minutes later Billy the hunter strolled up to him.

  “Billy Culver.”

  Parker took Billy’s extended hand. “Parker Moore. Pleasure.”

  “Agree.”

  For the next fifteen minutes Billy described the best places to hunt, to hike, to fish, to explore.

  “Thanks for all that, Billy. I appreciate it.”

  Billy nodded and said, “What kept you from taking a poke at me a few minutes back?”

  “My dad. Heard a few of his sayings ringing in my ears.”

  “Yeah.” Billy chuckled. “Dads can do that to ya. The good, the bad, and sometimes the brutally ugly.”

  Billy sauntered off but turned before he’d made it five yards. “Would’ve been a heck of a fight, Parker. But ya woulda lost.” Then he grinned, turned, and kept going.

  Parker meandered back to the counter.

  “I need to grab some nine millimeter ammo from you and some targets.”

  “No problem.” Bo still moved like an ice-encased slug. But it was okay. At least for today.

  After a stop for groceries, Parker headed to his cabin. Thirty-five minutes later he reached the edge of his property and parked his ATV under a small lean-to he’d built in a cluster of aspen trees to shelter the four-wheeler from the harsh winter he’d heard would visit him in the late fall. He’d walk the rest of the way. As soon as his cabin came into view, Parker moved to the right, behind a cluster of trees and thick bushes, and slowly circled his home. He stopped as he peered into each window, looking for movement. This was his routine. Stupid? Probably. But to learn to think like a cop, he needed to learn to think like a crook, and this was how they’d approach a break-in. The good ones anyway. At least according to what his dad used to say, and his dad would have known.

  Parker finished the circle and made his way to the back door. Another part of his routine. “Never go through the front door. That’s a good way to get killed.” He listened for a moment, then pushed through. He never locked it. Few even knew his place existed. And there wasn’t much to steal. His laptop maybe. That was about it. If his imagined criminal wanted in, they’d get in, locked or not.

  He shoved his groceries into the fridge, then pulled the ammo out of its sack and headed back out the door. He wandered back and forth at the edge of his property where the trees kissed the small meadow, till he reached the ten-feet-tall and ten-feet-wide hay bales he’d stacked. Parker secured a paper target at chest height and marched off the distance once, then turned around and marched it off again, to be sure. The precise distance used at the academy. He pressed the toe of his boot into the dirt and drew a line. He set his feet, clicked off the safety, and pointed the gun. Gaze down the target. Forget that a kick was coming. Relax. Deep breath. Ease the trigger back. Boom!

  Parker grabbed the binoculars that hung on his belt and lifted them to his eyes. First shot. Almost perfect. Almost dead center. Parker looked skyward.

  “How was that shot, Dad? Huh?”

  Half-second pause, then pull the trigger again. Boom! Boom!

  Another two shots dead center.

  “Those two, Dad? What about them? Will that work for you?”

  Three more, all within an inch of each other.

  “Good enough? Want me to step back? Yeah? How far? Three feet? Five? How far? Just let me know.”

  Parker reloaded and took aim. Dusk began to settle and Parker exhaled his breath slowly. Glanced at his watch. Two hours. Enough practice for today. He slogged over the bumpy ground, slowed as he approached the target. A jagged circle of holes ringed the center of the target. Not good enough. All had to be inside. Then he’d step back five paces. Then another five. Just fifteen feet more till he reached his brother’s distance.

  As Parker made his way back to his cabin, he studied the sky. Only a hint of clouds. Bright star hovering. Probably not a star, probably Venus or Mars looking down on him, telling him it would be all right tonight.

  Parker tacked the target to the wall above his kitchen table and stared at it. Then fixed his gaze on the target next to it, the one he’d fixed in place the day before. And the day, and day, and day before that.

  He turned one of the stove’s three burners to high, filled a pot with water, and set it on the burner. Nothing fancy tonight. Nothing fancy any night. Simple and filling was fine with him. He took a package of deer meat from one of his three kills out of the fridge and set it on the counter. He’d whip up some noodles to go with it and be done.

  While he waited for the water to boil, Parker strode out the front door and over to a small detached shed he’d built. But not for tools. For training. The walls were mirrored, the floor padded. There were three grappling dummies, a punching bag, even a wooden muk yan jong sparring post he’d built from one of the trees he felled for the cabin. Free weights lined one wall. Training bands and ropes and a variety of handcuffs lined another.

  Parker marched up to the muk yan jong and sparred with the inanimate post he imagi
ned was real. Five minutes later sweat poured down his back, and his forearms and legs ached from the punishment. Time to throw noodles in the pot, meat in the oven.

  He patted his stomach. Getting stronger. Felt his upper arms. Little fat left on those prime cuts of meat. Guns. For the first time in his life, he could call his arms guns. He’d earned it. Twenty-four pounds lighter since getting here five months back. Ten more pounds to go to hit his goal weight. Dad would be so proud.

  Yeah. Sure he would be.

  After dinner and cleanup, he went to his makeshift desk and picked up the notepad and pen that sat in the center. Maybe he’d write Allison another note. It gave him a way of talking without having to talk. She must have gotten the first one by now. Maybe she’d write back. Maybe someday she’d come see him. He needed that more than he wanted to admit.

  Allison found her mom in the kitchen making guacamole on Friday evening.

  “Can we talk, Mom?”

  “Of course we can. Anytime.”

  “I need to take a little trip tomorrow and want to see if that’s okay with you. If you’ll be all right without me for a day or two.”

  “My ankle is doing great. You can see how I’m getting around. I’m fine, so go. Go.”

  Her mom opened a bag of chips, poured half of them into a bowl, and brought the guacamole to the table.

  “If Parker were here I’d have to double that amount.”

  “True.” Allison slid Parker’s note out of her pocket. “Speaking of Parker . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “He’s doing well.”

  Her mom’s eyes went wide. “You talked to him?”

  Allison slid his note across the table. “He wrote to us.”

  Her mom opened the note and read for a few seconds. “It looks like he wrote to you, not us.”

  “Read the note, Mom.”

  When she finished, tears spilled onto her cheeks.

  “He loves you, Mom.”

  “I know. I know he does.” She wiped her cheeks. “I’d just like to see him every once in a while.”

  “You keep forgetting he’s a guy.” She reached over and squeezed her mom’s hand. “They process things differently. He’s going to be okay.”

  “That’s where you’re going, isn’t it?” Her mom blinked back more tears and sat up straight. “To see Parker.”

  “Yes,” Allison said. “He needs to know about what’s going on with us, and I want to ask him about the journal.”

  “Do you have to tell him about your father?”

  “Yes, Mom. I do.”

  eighteen

  ALLISON LEFT HOME THE NEXT morning at ten, and by eleven fifteen was taking exit 149 off I-90 to head north over Blewitt Pass. Though still early enough in the year for the threat of snow at the top, the only thing she encountered was intermittent drizzle.

  She was pushing midafternoon by the time she reached Highway 2 and passed Rocky Reach Dam on the Columbia River. Mazama was still two hours away, and based on her brother’s description of how to get to his hideout, she would have at least an hour on foot. So be it. The light wouldn’t fade for a few more hours, and she had her iPhone’s flashlight.

  Allison pulled into Mazama just over two hours later, spotted the sign Parker had mentioned, then took a road off to the right a few yards past it. His directions said to stay on that road for three miles. She glanced at her odometer and 2.9 miles later slowed her Honda to a crawl, then stopped.

  What was the next part of the directions? She glanced at her phone. No service. Wouldn’t have helped anyway. Parker hadn’t given her a physical address, just a series of directions that sounded like they came out of a board game. She grabbed the sheet of paper he’d mailed to her and studied it.

  Take highway 20 into Mazama. When you hit the sign that says Deer Skinning for Free, take a right. Check your odometer. Three miles later, take a right at the huge woodpile. That road will go from paved to dirt after six miles. Keep going till you get to a wooden sign nailed to a tree about ten feet up that says, “If you don’t know exactly what you’re doing here, turn around.” You’ll see a gate with a combo lock on it. The combination is 9–36–29. Stay on that road for 2.7 miles. It will get narrow. Keep going. When you see a wide spot, park there.

  Put a sign on your car that says your name and that you’re my sister. Make it big. Stay on the road for 0.7 miles. Take a left on the trail you’ll see right next to the stream. It’s wide enough for a small car, but nothing but a quad is going to make it, so don’t think about trying to drive it. Stay on the trail for half a mile. You’ll find me at the end.

  Allison spotted the woodpile, took a right, and reached the “If you don’t know . . .” sign twenty minutes later. After another ten minutes of navigating a track that was a road in name only, she found the wide spot and parked, then put the sign she’d made in her windshield.

  Allison glanced at her watch as she locked her car. She wouldn’t beat sunset by much, but she’d make it. She slung her daypack over her shoulder and headed toward the trail that would take her to her brother.

  They’d always been close. At least growing up. Maybe they were still close, but the fact he’d left without a word and been out here for five months without letting her or their mom know where he was—that was not cool.

  She and Parker hadn’t seen each other much during college. Out-of-state school for her, Parker working insane hours getting his moving company going . . . Their schedules didn’t line up. During holidays, yes, but that was about it. Then the summer after her junior year of college, she’d decided to take a year off school. She’d broken up with a boyfriend and announced her plan to hike the Pacific Crest Trail from southern Oregon to southern Washington. Parker joined her, and they grew closer than ever. But now? He’d checked out. Gone off the grid. Found someplace off in the middle of nowhere and gone silent.

  Allison trudged on, hand shoved in the pocket of her jeans, hat pulled down low over her face. She checked her pocket odometer. Getting close. Another fifteen minutes and she should be there. There had been no one else on the road in and no one on the trail. Parker had wanted to get away from it all? Mission accomplished.

  Sixty feet farther up the trail, Allison spotted a No Trespassing sign nailed to a tree on the right. Twenty feet more, another one on her left. Then a Private Property sign. They were weathered but not much.

  A trail leading off to the right at a forty-five-degree angle made Allison hesitate. Parker hadn’t mentioned it in his letter, so the logical choice was to stay the course. She trekked on in silence till a sound out of place in the forest stopped her cold. Then movement to her left. A second later a man stepped out from between two small trees and pointed a shotgun at Allison’s chest.

  “Stop moving, little lady. Unless you want a hole in your chest the size of a beach ball.”

  nineteen

  SWEAT BROKE OUT ON ALLISON’S forehead as the man slowly trudged toward her.

  “You blind?” The voice sounded like it hadn’t been used in months.

  Allison raised her trembling hands and gave a tiny shake of her head.

  “I think you gotta be blind.” The man cocked his head, eyes narrowed.

  “I don’t—”

  “Blind people don’t see signs that say No Trespassing. But people who can see, they spot those signs. And they turn around. Or maybe you can’t read. That it?”

  Allison pressed her lips together, glanced to her right and left.

  “What’re you looking at?” The man slid a half step closer. “You keep your eyes locked in on me. Got it? Yeah?”

  “I get it.” Her voice quivered. “Yes.”

  Fear swept through her as the look in the man’s eyes switched from crazed to mischievous back to crazed.

  “So what is it? Can’t see or can’t read? Gotta be one of the two.”

  “I saw the signs, but—”

  “Then why’d you ignore them and keep coming?” He winked. “Huh?”

  “I’m
—”

  “Shut up.”

  The man was over six feet, dark baseball cap, blue eyes that looked highly intelligent. Short dark hair. He circled Allison slowly, his steady breathing the only sound. When he finished his circle, he lowered the gun a few inches and Allison started to lower her hands.

  “Nope. Let’s keep those up for a bit longer, okay?” The man motioned with his gun. “And by the way, if you try to run, I will shoot you. No hesitation. I don’t like threatening a woman, but that’s just the way it is out here. We understand each other?”

  Allison nodded and raised her hands back up.

  “You have a gun?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Yes.”

  “Well, well.” The man cocked his head and gave a couple of small nods. “Where?”

  Without lowering her hand, Allison pointed to her hip.

  “Then let’s keep those hands up nice and high, eh?”

  Allison didn’t respond.

  “So you’re out here stomping around, miles from the nearest real road, breaking the law, trespassing on my land, pissing me off, making me have to call the sheriff.”

  “I’m not staying long.”

  “Wha’d you say? Not living long?” The man grinned, obviously pleased with his joke.

  As Allison’s heart rate slid down closer to a normal amount of beats per second, she studied the man. If she was betting, she’d say not crazy.

  “I’m here to see my brother.”

  “Oh, is that so?”

  Allison nodded.

  “Not sure I believe you. Ain’t no one out here for a ten-mile radius ’cept me.”

  “He moved out here recently. Five months ago. He told me he’s at the end of this road.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Parker.”

  “Does he know you’re coming?” The man squinted.

  “No.”

  “In other words, you do want to get shot.”

  “No.” Allison took a half step back.

  “Then you’re just stupid.”

  Deep inside, something stirred. Her fear shifted to something more powerful. A fire began to build. A fire she liked. A fire she didn’t embrace nearly often enough.