“That’s my point.”
She stands and brushes the dust from her hands. “You done? Mom wants to see you. It’s rude to keep her waiting.”
I rise too. “Don’t you have cameras out here?”
“Closed circuit, feeds to an old DVR back behind the bar.”
“Did it record?”
A shadow crosses her face, dragging the edges of her mouth down in disapproval. “It recorded.”
“But something’s wrong?”
“It recorded Kai shutting off the camera.”
“I don’t understand.”
“There’s some audio. You can hear him talking, but it’s mostly incomprehensible. Then he comes into the frame, looks right at the camera.” She rubs her hands up and down her arms. “I hear Caleb scream, and then . . .” She exhales and fixes me with a stare. “And then Kai come back on, clear as fucking day. Reaches up and shuts off the feed.”
There’s a beat of silence between us when I have no idea what to say. “Are you sure?” I finally manage.
She shakes her head. “You can see for yourself. I kept the tape.”
No wonder Rissa’s so angry, and no wonder she thinks looking at footprints is a waste of time. She’s already convinced Kai is responsible for hurting Caleb.
“Anything else?” she asks.
“I just want to . . . If you give me a minute . . .” I walk away from Rissa’s accusing glare. Head outside the gate, where there are more prints. There is a series of crisscrossing tire tracks here, but with all the traffic that comes and goes from Grace’s All-American, that doesn’t mean much.
Rissa joins me. “We’ve been closed since it happened. Those are the last prints anyone made.” They’re tire tracks, wide tread and off-road, which isn’t unusual for Dinétah.
“So, this is the vehicle that took them. You’re sure.”
“I’m not one hundred percent sure, but I’m pretty sure.”
“When did it happen?”
“Day before yesterday.”
Almost seventy-two hours. So why wait to come to me? One look at Rissa’s stormy face and I don’t have to ask. I was a last resort. If she’d had any other options, I would never have found out that Kai was even missing.
“Those two would come out here together for morning duty,” she continues. “I mean, usually there’s nothing to worry about. We’re a bar, mostly. There’s deliveries sometimes, but otherwise not a lot of traffic during daylight hours. But they liked to sit together and have coffee. Caleb really liked Kai.” She smiles a little. “Like a puppy the way he took to him.”
“A lot of people do that. Kai’s charming.”
He faces darkens with suspicion. “Doesn’t he have some clan power that makes him like that?”
“He does,” I say carefully. Rissa’s made it clear she’s not a fan of clan powers. “But a lot of his charm is just the way he is. Clan powers don’t work like that. They only come when you’re in some sort of life-threatening situation, and they’re exhausting. It’s not like you go around using them all the time, and he wouldn’t use them on Caleb unless he felt threatened.” I don’t mention Kai’s superhealing, which allows him to use his clan powers more often than other people might. And I definitely don’t mention Ben’s seeming ability to use hers at will. I’m sure Caleb and Kai’s friendship had nothing to do with Bit’ąą’nii.
She shrugs. “Well, whatever. They were friends.”
Which makes this even worse in her mind. I get it.
“Nothing different about that morning?”
“If there was, I don’t remember it now.”
“When did you notice they were gone?”
“Clive noticed. Maybe around dusk. He usually goes out for guard duty around then. Me or him, and it was his turn. I was working the door at the bar. Anyway, Caleb’s usually inside, complaining that he’s starving or whatever, but he didn’t come back. So, finally, Clive went to look, and . . .” She trails off. Glances back at the gatehouse with the bloodstain.
“Did you go after them?”
She glares at me. “Of course we went after them. But the trail faded out in Tse Bonito and no one in town had seen a thing, and by that time it was dark anyway. There was nothing we could do.”
“And day two?”
“We went back. Asked more questions. Got shit-all. And that’s when Mom said we should . . .” Her whole face seems to bunch up in distaste.
“Grace said to come find me.” I know I’m going to have to deal with this enmity between Rissa and me. I know it’s left over from Black Mesa, and Caleb’s disappearance has just compounded it. Maybe we can hash it out over a bottle of whiskey, or maybe we’ll end up meeting at dawn and drawing down OK Corral style. Whatever it takes. But it’s going to have to wait. “I’d like to get a look at that closed-circuit recording.”
She slaps a hand against her leather pants. “Suit yourself. You’re not going to see anything.”
“Humor me. That’s why I’m here, isn’t it? Another set of eyes? Someone who might see something you missed.”
She starts to answer me but cuts herself off. Turns on a heel and heads back to the bar, leaving me to follow. Or not. Because I have to fight the urge to curse her name and go the opposite direction, head out the fence and leave Rissa and her hostility behind. I don’t need the Goodacres. I’m perfectly capable of finding Kai on my own.
But I don’t leave. Too many people are involved now. Clive and Grace. Tah. Even Ben, in a way. So I swallow my choice words and jog a little to catch up.
“There was one weird thing about that tape,” Rissa admits reluctantly, once we’re walking side by side again.
“What’s that?”
“It doesn’t make a lot of sense. At first I thought it was just Caleb, but we listened to it half a dozen times. It’s definitely not my brother.”
“What is it?”
“Right before Kai shuts off the tape.”
“Yeah?”
“I swear you can hear someone singing.”
Chapter 13
I sit at the bar while Rissa queues up the video recording. The All-American looks much the same as last time I was here. One big room, cloaked in perpetual dive-bar twilight. A wooden dance floor bordered by a smattering of low round wagon-wheel tables and squat matching chairs. Walls a dull gray-washed wood paneling that match the dull gray-washed wood-paneled exterior, decorated with a half dozen now-dark neon signs of beer makers long dead in the Big Water. Advertisements for St. Louis and Lynchburg and Milwaukee and a handful of other places that no longer exist. A long wooden bar stretches the length of the front wall, and above the bar, attached to the wall and leaning slightly toward the line of barstools, are three wide flat-paneled televisions.
Back before the Big Water, the TVs piped in the weekend football games, local teams from Dallas and Phoenix the big draws. But now there’s no satellite, no networks either. The TVs are hooked to a closed-circuit feed that can show old DVD movies or pick up the feed from the security cameras Grace has around the place.
Rissa clicks a button and the whole wall of TVs comes alive at once, a grainy rain of static. She sets the remote control on the bar in front of where I’ve taken a seat. She turns to leave. Hesitates. “You want a drink or something?”
“Hmm?” I say, surprised she’s offering.
“From the bar.” Her gesture encompasses the smoky glass bottles of hooch, the double tap for Grace’s homebrewed beer.
“I’m good.”
She grunts, sounding dubious. “Well, if you change your mind, you know . . . after you watch it. The good whiskey is under the bar, glasses on the shelf.”
“Is it that bad?”
She doesn’t say anything. Just gives me a long look that could pretty much mean anything, but I think may be actual sympathy. It really is that bad.