"You go," Rory said, hanging back. "I got to get to bed."
"No." Anna felt panic rise. "Please," she said. "I won't wake up Joan. We've got to talk. Just let me get a drink."
"You'll wake her," Rory said. "It won't do you any good."
"No, I won't," Anna promised. The last thing she wanted was to wake Joan Rand and force Rory to play his hand. "My day pack. It's just inside the door. I've got water in it. Just let me grab it. I won't be a second. I won't even go inside."
Indecision worked across Rory's face. Revulsion was there too, though whether for her or for himself, Anna couldn't be sure. "Please," she pleaded. "Please. We need to talk."
"I won't change my mind," Rory said.
Anna took that as permission and dashed lightly up the concrete steps. Careful not to vanish from Rory's line of sight, she opened the door and leaned in. Her pack was behind the Barcalounger where she'd dumped it. Having rummaged briefly through its innards she emerged again into the night, pack in one hand, water bottle in the other.
"Here," Anna said and led him to the garage door. "We can talk here. Joan's room is at the other end of the house. She won't hear us."
"What if somebody sees us?" Rory asked.
He was getting skittish. Anna had to work fast. "Wouldn't that suit your purposes to a T?" she asked acidly. The sudden change in the emotional weather put him off balance.
"I guess," he faltered.
"Sit down," Anna commanded, the pleases and the pleadings gone from her voice. "If you're to blackmail me you better damn well get the terms straight."
Rory didn't sit but he hunkered down on his heels. Close enough.
"I don't see the point-" he began.
"The point is you don't want me, personally, asking questions about Les, that right, Rory?"
"Yeah. That's right."
"And let me get this straight, you kind of caught me off guard back there. If I don't stop investigating your dad, you're going to accuse me of sexually harassing you? Even though I never laid a hand on you or spoke to you in a sexual way ever?"
"I'm sorry," Rory said for the third time.
"That's what you've threatened to do, isn't it?" Anna pressed. He was fidgeting, looking over his shoulder. Any second he would spring to his feet and she would have lost what might be her only chance.
"That's it," Rory said. "And I'll do it, too."
Anna almost breathed a sigh of relief but stopped herself in time. "Even though I never behaved toward you improperly in any way," she pushed for good measure.
"Even so. I'll do it," Rory declared firmly.
Anna had what she needed. She relaxed back against the garage door, the day pack tucked protectively under one arm and at long last took a drink of the water she'd made such a fuss about needing.
"What's your dad got to hide that you'd sell your immortal soul to the devil to keep me from finding?" she asked seriously.
Rory sensed that something had changed but he didn't know what. Pushing himself to his feet, he glanced around as if expecting the neatly trimmed shrubs to be suddenly bristling with policemen. Nothing stirred.
"You're not afraid I'll find out Les killed his wife are you?" Anna asked sharply. "Or not just that. What is it?"
"I've got to go," Rory said. "I'll do what I said I'd do. Leave it alone." With that he loped off into the street toward the dorm he shared with a couple of other boys.
Anna stayed where she was and watched until he ran around a corner and a house swallowed him from sight. After that, she listened. For half a minute she could hear footfalls as he ran, then that was gone and the eerie stillness of the Glacier summer night reclaimed the neighborhood. Opening the pack, she located her pocket-sized tape recorder by its red running light. Without taking it out of the protective canvas pack, she pressed Rewind for several seconds, then Play.
"Even so. I'll do it,"Rory's voice came out of the small machine. The batteries were okay.
Chapter 11
The night had been "early," as the chief ranger suggested, but way too short, the middle bitten out of it by Rory Van Slyke's blackmail plans. Anna'd slept the remainder of it with the cassette beneath her pillow, stowed in a plastic box taped shut. It was all she had to protect herself against untold mental cruelty. She would have no peace until she'd made several copies and cached them in safe places.
Between the fragmented naps that passed for sleep and, more productively, during the long hot shower she took before Joan woke up, Anna pondered what to do with her blackmailer. It hurt her to admit it, but on a very basic level she did not trust the National Park Service. This was nothing personal; she didn't trust any operation that was run by committee and few that were not.
Despite the fact that she had a tape with what amounted to a confession on it, she didn't want to go to Ruick with her story of Rory's threatened accusation. The tenor of the country was that of growing paranoia. Americans were happily forfeiting their freedom of choice for imagined increases in security. Mandatory sentencing hobbled judges, taking the intelligence and humanity from their jobs. Zero-tolerance policies for weapons in schools was forcing teachers to suspend children of seven, eight and nine for bringing butter knives to spread their lunchtime peanut butter. Taking away parole and time off for good behavior undermined the incentive system in prisons.
People as individuals were giving up their decision-making power because they did not want the responsibility. Society as a whole chose to believe one-size-fit all so they would not be troubled by the inexact science of justice.
The park service was no exception. The merest hint of litigation sent the brass scurrying. The threat of a sexual harassment suit rendered them virtually impotent. Even the discovery of a plot to make an unfounded accusation would land Anna in a prison of red tape and hushed conversations.
Before she subjected herself to that particular form of slow torture, she had two options: to find out whatever Rory wanted to keep hidden before he knew what she was up to and made good on his threat, or to use the tape for counter-blackmail.
She intended to do both.
Once Rory's secret-or more precisely, Lester's secret- was brought to light and broadcast, there would be little reason for Rory to carry out his plan. Revenge was the only one Anna could think of, and he didn't strike her as a vengeful person. Presenting him with the truth in one hand and the tape in the other would, she hoped, end the matter.
Setting out for the resource management office she crossed her fingers as she'd done when she was a girl and hoped Rory Van Slyke, like most adolescents, would sleep past noon.
Anna had been loaned a vacant desk and computer in the main room of the resource management office. Like most buildings of similar vintage it was painted green inside and out. Within the draping, needle-laden branches of the gracious old pines that surrounded it, Anna had a pleasant sensation of being hidden away in a forest bower.
Settling down in front of the computer, she studied the bulletin board above. It was full of eight-by-ten glossy color photographs of Ursus horribilislooking not in the least horribilis. A hidden camera on a motion sensor had caught the great bears in the act of frolicking. In photo after photo their magnificent play was frozen: bears rolling in the blood lure, tossing the scent-soaked wood high in the air, lying on their backs hugging their treasures like sea otters hugging abalone.
She forced herself away from this delightful display to the dreary gray and black of the monitor and took a deep breath. The ineffable odor of government saturated the air: an indefinable smell containing years of burnt coffee, spilled copy fluid and antique cigarette smoke, with a unique overlay of dusty file folders.