I held my breath.
“I believe the reason he saw the darkness surrounding you was because you’re the only one to make this right. But you’ll need to return to that dark place it took you so long to get out of, takoja. Don’t let the blackness swallow you up again.”
My skin became a mass of goose bumps.
Then Sophie was on her feet, shuffling away.
John-John spoke to her before heading toward me.
I stood and waited, my head so fucked that I felt I’d drifted to another plane of existence.
“Unci doesn’t blame you, but I do.”
And… I crash-landed right back down to earth.
“She didn’t have the vision. I did. I won’t put a rosy spin on it.”
“I will figure out who did this to your mother. Not because I need to prove that your vision painting me the big, bad monster is wrong. You seem to have forgotten I’m the good guy. Go ahead and use your anger, John-John. You’re entitled to it. But don’t direct your anger toward me. And keep one thing in mind.”
“What?”
“This may not be the end to your family troubles, but the beginning. You might not like what I turn up when I really start to dig.”
“Don’t get dirt on my grandmother. Stay away from her. Don’t call her. Don’t stop by. Don’t send her flowers. Don’t bring her food. Don’t do nothing. Leave her be. It’s my job to protect her. Even from you. Maybe especially from you.” His trench coat made a dismissive flapping sound when he whirled around.
Took a long minute before I could move. Before I could breathe.
Ironically, I found my cool detachment in his heated words.
For the first time I noticed the crowd.
Gawkers were a part of crime scenes, something I hadn’t really paid attention to or understood until I took a psych-ops class at Quantico. The crowd was a comfort of sorts. It allowed humans to connect after a tragedy, letting them show sympathy while at the same time allowing for the thank-God-it-wasn’t-me sense of relief. But all too often with a violent crime, the orchestrator of said crime came to the scene and fed off that shock and horror.
I took a more in-depth look at the dozen and a half people milling about. The crime-scene photographer discreetly snapped photos of the crowd. Probably wouldn’t mean much as far as comparing this case to the other two, since this scene was public while the others had been off the grid.
Another round of sorrow rolled through me as Penny’s body was loaded into a black bag and lifted into the ambulance.
Shay ended his phone call and ambled toward me.
“That was Director Shenker. Given your close association with so many members of the family-”
“He’s pulling me off the case?”
“No. Take a deep breath, Gunderson. We think it’d be best if Carsten and I handled the family interviews this afternoon. Shenker’s requiring you to take the remainder of the day off, but he expects you at the VS offices on Eagle River tomorrow at the usual time.”
• • •
I went home.
Dawson was working.
Lex was at Doug’s house doing yet another school project.
I went for a ten-mile run. I could’ve run another ten.
Sweaty, cranky, and carrying an armload of mail, I didn’t hide my annoyance when Jake pulled up next to me as I walked down the driveway.
He rolled down the window. “You busy?”
“Yes.”
He shook his head. “Nice try. Come on, you need to clear your head. You ain’t been out and about on the ranch since you got back from Virginia.”
I squinted at him. “Did Hope send you over here?”
“Yep. When we heard about Penny… Hope knew you had to deal with it, since that’s your job, and she wanted me to make sure you were okay.”
My sister’s concern touched me. So I hopped into the passenger’s side of the truck… and hopped back out when we reached the first gate. We bumped along the existing truck tracks. I opened three more gates. Just as I began to get annoyed, Jake stopped at the top of the rise and parked instead of cutting to the left and following the ridge down to the closest pasture.
I climbed out and avoided stepping on a clump of cactus. The soil was sandy and dry enough to support that type of vegetation. I didn’t understand how those flat and barrel-shaped succulents survived the winter months, when the wind on this plateau blew a million miles an hour and a heavy crust of snow covered everything.
The cactus would be here long after I was gone.
I skirted a pile of scat-it appeared rabbits enjoyed the view here, too-and stood on the remaining chunk of a butterscotch-colored rock. Most of it had cracked and tumbled away down the steep incline, leaving a chalky white trail of sun-bleached shale.
Wrapping my arms around myself, I faced the wind. Not bitterly cold like this morning, but with enough bite to remind me night would be approaching soon. I gazed across the expanse of the valley. Skeletal trees followed the path of a dry creek bed.
The right side of the ridged plateau curved sharply, appearing flat until it fell away into nothingness. Stand too close to the edge in springtime and I would feel the earth’s pull, the ground shifting beneath my feet. Wanting me to tumble down the hillside like the hunks of red dirt and jagged rocks scattered and broken before me.
I’d walked this ridge more times than I could count. Always marveling at the topographical variances, from summertime lush grazing areas down by the creek to the wooded section that rimmed the bowl on the left. Everything I could see from this vantage point was Gunderson land. My father had said it often enough, with pride, that I’d loved coming here as a kid to look and lord over my domain. Knowing it’d be mine someday. And wanting that ownership in the worst way.
Now the vastness humbled me. As did the responsibility of being steward to this land for as long as it owned me.
Jake walked up and stood beside me. I wondered if he saw this the same way I did. Or was his view more calculating? Hoping, come springtime, the creek would run high, the grass would grow tall, and Mother Nature wouldn’t be the bitch, trying to test a human’s resilience.
He handed me a can of beer.
I looked at him and managed a smile. “Thanks.”
He cracked open a Coors, and we drank in silence. Not rushed. Not uncomfortable. Not pregnant with words that needed to be said but that neither of us wanted to speak.
Despite our past issues, Jake and I understood each other.
At least today.
That thought made me smile.
We each finished our cans of beer, but neither of us made a move to leave.
After a bit, Jake said, “Not everyone in my family believes John-John’s visions are gospel, Mercy.”
His comment surprised me. “Why do I think the Red Leaf family was… I don’t know if supportive is the right word, but maybe… accepting of his talents?”
“It ain’t like we got much choice, to be real honest.” He sighed. “Unci is hurtin’ about Penny. That don’t give John-John and Devlin the right to take their pain out on you. Sophie ain’t happy about that.”
“You talked to her?”
“Of course. She’s… this whole thing rips me up inside, mostly for her. For all her faults, loving too much ain’t one of them. With all that’s gone on in the past few weeks, and since you were gone for months… I know you’re questioning your place with her, Mercy. Don’t. She does consider you her family. Both you and Hope.”
A shard of pain lanced my heart that the woman who’d been a surrogate mother to me was emotionally eviscerated and I wasn’t allowed to comfort her.