“Get out the cones, Deputy,” said Jacobs.
Dutifully, Justin went to the back of the car and popped the trunk. A stack of orange cones appeared in his arms, which he then set up around the perimeter of the wreckage like dominoes.
Patrick said, “All right, then. Are you men ready for the hunt?”
Sheriff Jacobs gave a terse nod. “We don’t want critters dragging that head away into the underbrush. If that happens, we might never find it. One thing, though, Pat, before we go.” He and Patrick leaned close, murmuring something Cameryn could not hear. She stood, watching, unsure of her next move, unaware Justin had come to her side. “What’s up?” he asked softly. “You seem pretty… intense.”
“Nothing.”
“I know that look, Cameryn. I had it myself when I was your age.”
In spite of herself, she felt a smile tug at the corner of her mouth. “You aren’t that much older than me. You’re twenty-one and I’m almost eighteen. Do the math.”
“Ah, but I remember the good old days of teen angst. Come on, you seem upset. And by the way, where have you been? It’s like you vanished from Silverton. Although it seems impossible that anyone could disappear in a town of seven hundred.”
She shrugged. “I’ve been spending a lot of time with my mom. Plus getting ready for college and schoolwork and my other job and-”
“You don’t need to explain,” he told her. “I just wanted to make sure you’re all right.” His eyes had narrowed. “Are you?”
“ Crowley!” the sheriff barked. “You coming or what?”
Justin looked over the top of Cameryn’s head as the sun lit a tiny scar, like a silver thread, on his chin. “On my way, sir.” Then, to Cameryn, “I’ve got to go.”
She gave his retreating figure a halfhearted wave as the three men disappeared into the woods. Alone with the wreckage, she tried not to listen to the garbled holiday tunes that thrummed from the radio. As quickly as she could, she turned it off, gingerly reaching past Benjamin’s blood-soaked chest.
But she wasn’t able to concentrate. Her motions, done by rote, couldn’t silence the words that played through her in an endless loop. Hannah promised to stay away and I promised to stay quiet. What had her father meant? The question spun through her mind as she photographed, bagged, sealed, and signed, collecting bits of life, bits of death. Another car, this one with a woman behind the wheel, slowed on the Million Dollar Highway. Cameryn, in a perfect reflection of her father, waved the woman on with her own gloved hand, glad she’d already draped Benjamin’s body, propping the cloth as much as she could to keep the blood from seeping through.
She was just finishing up when she heard her father’s cry, less than a hundred yards away.
“I got it. Good Lord, I almost stepped on the thing. John, Justin, over here!”
Sheriff Jacobs darted through the trees with Justin close behind, the branches snapping underfoot. Straining to see, Cameryn stood on her toes, but the limbs were too thick. She heard the sheriff say, “You got the bag, Deputy?”
“Yeah, I got it.”
Her father replied, “Let’s do this right.”
Cautious, she crept between the pines, careful to keep her body low. No one looked her way. She watched as her father gently lifted Benjamin’s severed head by the ears to place it inside a garbage bag Sheriff Jacobs held taut between his hands. Benjamin’s skin was milk-white and the mouth gaped, and even from her distance she could make out the eyes, wide and scared. A ring of snow, soaked with blood and tissue, encircled the base of his neck like a red chain.
“Careful, Pat,” the sheriff warned. “We don’t want to lose anything.”
“Don’t worry, I got it,” he replied. “The trick is to ease it in.”
After tying the plastic yellow handles into a bow, Patrick placed the head in a green athletic bag and zipped it shut. For a moment no one said a word. Then, as if by silent agreement, the three men kicked at the bloody snow with their boots until the red lay buried beneath a mound of white.
Unseen, she slipped back to her post and her clipboard, dutifully inventorying the rest of Benjamin’s items until her father returned to announce that she should go home-he had to take the body to Durango and make a call to the victim’s family, and he wanted to do it alone. She didn’t argue.
Glad she’d driven her own Jeep to the scene, she’d climbed in and left. In her rearview mirror she’d watched her father, Justin, and the sheriff as they strapped the remains to the gurney.
Now, sitting in the driveway of her own home, Cameryn once again touched the smudge on her palm. Threads led from the center all the way to the edge of her hand, the blood like tiny filaments connecting her to the dead. She saw a truth in that stain. If the face indeed revealed the soul, then Benjamin’s spirit had not been ready to leave its body. In that last split second-had she imagined it?-his face had contorted in shock at his own demise. Whatever he had left undone on earth would stay undone, with no do-overs, no reprieves. Unanswered questions would stay that way forever.
She looked at her green-shingled house, lit from within. Her mammaw was inside, waiting, but it took only a moment for Cameryn to decide. She put her car into reverse and pulled out into her street, her tires slipping in snow as she shifted into drive.
It was time to see her mother.
Chapter Two
“JUST ASK HER,” Lyric instructed. “Tell her you want to know about Jayne. See what she says.”
Cameryn pressed her new BlackBerry to her ear. “You’re kidding, right? You want me to tell Hannah she’s got to come clean or the ‘deal’ is off?”
“No,” Lyric replied patiently. “Of course you’ll have to soften it. The weird part is that I was ready to hang your mom out to dry before I met her, but I have to admit, Hannah’s actually pretty amazing. She’s a true artist with a lot of soul.”
Cameryn smiled. Lyric, loud and large, was an artist herself. Given her penchant for all things mystic and a personality bigger than Silverton itself, a stranger would never have paired the science-loving Cameryn with the new-age Lyric. While Cameryn favored jeans and basic blue, Lyric’s clothes had been recycled from the sixties. Psychedelic patterns, fringed jackets, and plastic jewelry the size of dinnerware were Lyric’s staples. She changed her hair color as often as her shoes. Yet the roots of their friendship ran deep, stretching all the way back to fifth grade. Laughter was the cord that bound them.
“A word of advice,” Lyric said. “You have to remember that your dad’s opinion of Hannah is biased. I love him to death, but this is a competition. You’re the prize.”
“Some prize. I’m so messed up I can’t think straight.”
“Science-heads such as yourself are sort of messed up by definition.”
“Excuse me, science-heads deal in facts. This woo-woo-touchy-feely stuff is your domain, which is exactly why I needed you to tell me how to do this thing with Hannah. How do you make someone talk?”
“You say, ‘I know this is hard, but understanding what happened in my past is important to me.’ And did you just call me ’woo-woo’? ”
“Your hair is purple. I think you qualify.” From the front seat of her Jeep Cameryn scanned the upper floor of the Wingate, the bed-and-breakfast where her mother had set up house. Leaning forward, she peered over the steering wheel so that she could see the top of the home. Beneath a gable she saw her mother’s window, lit from within. With a start, Cameryn realized Hannah’s outline was clearly visible, a dark space against the light.
“She’s watching me, right now! ” Cameryn cried. “Hannah knows I’m here.”