They tracked the creek for a few hundred yards, their footfalls remarkably loud in the still of the forest.
Jenkins slipped and fell to one knee in the creek, cursing, then laughing. “Damn. We’re never going to sneak up on anyone like this.”
“Whoa,” Takei said. Jess felt her heart lurch as she saw what he was looking at: a slice of blue farther ahead.
“Oh, my god,” she said. Not only blue but man-made blue, like a tarp, or a tent, a startling sight after so many hours of green upon green. They reached for their firearms and rifles. Takei held the AR-15 at his side, staying in the lead.
“How far away are the others?” Jess asked in a low voice, but no one replied. They hadn’t heard them since they turned up the smaller creek. Jess reached for the radio on her shoulder. “Villareal to Everett. Come in.”
It occurred to her that this must be what it felt like to be a foot soldier in a war, trudging through a foreign land, wondering at every turn whether someone was hiding in the underbrush—someone more familiar with the territory than you and not wanting you there, fingers on their own triggers.
They proceeded toward the object, scanning the surrounding woods with each step. The earth around them suddenly became hard-packed and clear of growth—smooth to the point of seeming swept of loose dirt. Jess wondered if the others could hear the blood slamming through her veins, if they felt as frightened as she did. The clearing widened, and indeed a blue tarp covered a large woodpile. Fir boughs had been laid across the top to camouflage it, but the tarp had slipped a stubborn few inches below.
They stopped. All around them were signs of human habitation. Jess tightened her grip on the shotgun. To their left, the tiny stream had been diverted by a short wall of rocks into two pools: one shallow, one deeper.
“Look,” Jess said. The shallow pool held a plastic gallon container of milk, plastic bags of carrots and apples. A tub of the same canola oil margarine she used. She tried to swallow and couldn’t.
Jenkins called out, “Police! Everyone out here in front of us, now, hands in the air!” They waited, then proceeded uphill on the hard-packed ground, passing a raised vegetable garden with an enviable crop of chard and spinach, a few broccoli and cauliflower plants beside the thick stems of those that had already been cut, rambling pea vines, tall flowering onions.
At the far-right edge of the site, between the clearing and the forest, a crude lean-to covered a hole in the ground.
“What’s that?” Jenkins asked.
“Latrine,” Takei said.
“Oh.” Jenkins nodded. “Yeah.”
They climbed a short set of log steps, and Jess stopped. “Look, a tire swing,” she said. The dirt beneath it, and the dirt in front of them, was smooth and untracked. The only footprints were theirs. It felt as if they were caught in a spell, bewitched by whoever lived in this place. Jess could feel them there, somehow, even though they were no doubt long gone.
“This is freaky,” she said, then called out, “Columbia Police! Anybody here?”
Takei walked ahead, then called back to them, “There’s a camp kitchen up here. Pretty well stocked. They’ve been here a while.”
“I’ll try Everett again,” Jess said.
“Hey,” Jenkins said, “look up there. A tree fort.” He sounded like a kid, and swung his shotgun back on its sling to climb the tree. Jess had seen him this way at barbecues and holiday parties, but never on the job.
“Nice move, Jenkins,” Takei said, walking back down the hill. “You’re not even covered.” He raised his rifle and peered through the sight. “Go ahead.”
“Villareal to Everett,” Jess said into the radio clipped to her shoulder. “We’ve found a camp. Over.”
She watched Jenkins climb, ringing his arms around the big trunk, using knots as footholds, then pulling himself onto a large limb to rest. He grinned down at them.
Jess felt queasy. “Villareal to Everett. Come in.”
Jenkins stood on the limb, reached up to the platform with both hands and scrambled until he was on his knees in the structure, probably a good fifteen feet off the ground. “Man, you should see all the books,” he said, and then screamed as something large and white flew out past him, streaking like a comet out and down over Takei’s head, then into the woods.
“Ellis, are you okay?” Jess gasped. Takei had begun to laugh. “Why are you laughing?” Jess yelled at him. “What the hell was that?”
Jenkins still had his arms over his head as he turned to face them. “I don’t know but it was fucking huge! Motherfucker!”
“Owl,” Takei said, grinning, the most animated Jess had ever seen him. “It was just an owl. And you screamed like a little girl.”
“Where the hell did you wander off to? What’s going on? What’s that noise?” Everett’s voice crackled from Jess’s radio. She must have tensed her hand on the TALK button when Jenkins screamed, held down the button, a reflex.
“Um, that would be Officer Jenkins screaming like a girl, sir,” she said into the radio, smiling at Takei, who smiled back. It seemed they had all become enchanted in this forest.
Jenkins yelled, “Hey now!” then shook his head and threw down a ladder made of rope and wood dowels.
“What? Why the hell is he screaming?” Everett growled. “What’s going on? Where are you?”
“We found a camp, no inhabitants, but looks like they’ve been here recently.” She did her best to direct them to where they were and signed off, swinging her shotgun back on its sling.
“Can I come up?” she called to Jenkins, walking to the tree. “Will it hold both of us?”
“Yeah. Whoever built this thing wasn’t fooling around. It’s rock solid.” He jumped twice, heavy boots hitting the platform with firm thuds. “That ladder looks tricky, though. Be careful.”
“I’m not a complete klutz,” Jess muttered, grabbing the side ropes, putting a boot tentatively on the first rung, then her weight. She swung in toward the tree and almost lost her footing. Clutching tighter, she stepped onto the next rung, swung back out, then the next rung. Halfway up she looked down, closing her eyes for a moment before continuing. At the top, Jenkins offered a hand to help her, but she hoisted herself, her duty belt, her shotgun, and her butt up onto the platform.
“Check it out, V,” Jenkins said.
She turned to look behind her, then scrambled to her feet. Two sleeping platforms edged the small space, empty except for yellowed foam pads, separated by a makeshift shelf filled with old books and encyclopedias. Above the shelf, clothes hung from a series of hooks: men’s flannel shirts, a pair of army fatigues to the right, a girl’s rose-colored sweater and assorted tops and jeans to the left. Beneath the sleeping platform on that side, a pair of white Reeboks with purple hearts peeked out.
“Nina wore those years ago,” Jess said. “That exact shoe. She loved those things.” Her throat almost closed in on itself. “We scared them away,” she said. “Damn it.”
“Look at this,” Jenkins said. “Goddamn owl.”
Another thick dowel protruded from the timber wall toward the front, a bird perch. Beneath it sat a newspaper-lined box with a few droppings and puffy white feathers.
“It must be a pet,” Jess said, sighing.
“Pretty weird pet.”
Jess smiled. “You should have seen yourself,” she teased. “You looked like you saw a ghost.”
“That thing was worse than a damn ghost, if ghosts even existed.”
“I don’t know, Ellis. Maybe this place is haunted,” she teased, trying to make the mood light, but everything felt heavy. Not only her duty belt, or her shotgun, or her body. The air was heavy, the ever-graying light around them. Were they capable of handling this? What would her father have done if he’d been in this situation?
Jess breathed in deeply, holding the stillness of the moment as long as she could. She wanted to find this girl. She had to. The thought that she had been so close and now was gone felt like punishment, somehow. This could have been her own worst nightmare: Nina could have been abducted like this if Jess hadn’t been so careful.
She shook her head. It didn’t matter who you were; it could happen to anyone. Nina was lost to her now anyway; all Jess’s efforts to protect her had failed.
After Jess made Rick move out, Nina had just hated her—angry, tearful accusations were their only communication for months. Even though just nine years old, Nina had a surprising capacity for fury. Where Jess had stuffed her emotions after her father’s death, Nina practically vomited them.
As Nina entered puberty, Jess’s sense of protection went on hyperalert; she could admit this now. Sure, she’d probably been overzealous, but she’d wanted Nina to be safe. Whole and complete.
But Nina couldn’t stand how protective Jess was. As a young teen, she started to lie about where she was going, to sneak out to see certain friends Jess thought inappropriate. She came home later in the afternoons from school, and Jess wondered if she’d been smoking pot or drinking beer. When Jess tried to clamp down on her, restrict her, ground her, Nina pulled farther away, ignoring Jess’s demands. It was tough being a working single parent. She could only keep an eye on her daughter so much, and Clara was hopeless when watching Nina.
It all came to an end on an autumn day when Nina was sixteen. In retrospect, Jess now realized Nina had wanted it to happen. They shared the only bathroom in the house, and Jess couldn’t have missed the Clear Blue Easy package Nina left in the wastebasket.
“It’s none of your business,” Nina had snapped when Jess confronted her after school, and pushed past Jess toward her bedroom.
“Then why did you leave it where I would find it?” Jess demanded, following Nina to her room, holding out her arm to fend off the slamming door. “You’re not getting off that easy. What was the result, Nina?”
Her daughter would not look at her, would not even face her. She flung her school bag into the far corner of the room, wrestled off her long black sweatshirt and threw it on top. She stood with her back to Jess, knees against the edge of the bed, slim arms wrapped around her torso, looking out the window as if she’d like to fly right through it and away for good.
“Nina Marie, after all the talks we’ve had. You know how difficult my life was. That’s why I told you about my own experience, so you wouldn’t—”
“So I wouldn’t have sex?” Her daughter’s voice was acid. “You did.”
“So you wouldn’t get
pregnant
.” Jess heard her own tone. It was just as harsh, just as angry, but goddamn it, she’d done everything she could so this wouldn’t happen. She’d talked openly about sex and the risks of disease and pregnancy from the time Nina had first asked about it: how to say no, how to get away from sexual predators. She’d brought home books, pamphlets from the doctor’s office. She’d even offered to take Nina to the doctor for birth control when she got serious about her first boyfriend the year before. Nina had refused, and wouldn’t even talk with her about anything related to the topic, saying that Jess was invading her privacy. Nina never wanted to talk with her about anything. Jess didn’t even know when she had her first big breakup until Rick mentioned something on the phone, asking how Nina was dealing with being dumped.
“How far along are you?” Jess asked.
Nina’s back softened from rigid to slumping, her shoulders shaking. Jess walked up behind her, tried to embrace her, but Nina jerked away.
Jess sighed. Surely it wasn’t that far along. “Honey, there are choices. You don’t have to go through with this. One of the doctors I know through work is very good at this sort of thing, and she’s very nice. It’s not that big of a deal anymore, just a simple medical procedure.”
“What?” Nina whirled around, hair whipping, eyes fiery, angry fists grazing Jess’s abdomen and hip. “You want me to get rid of it? Because that’s what you wanted to do with me? Why didn’t you, then? Why didn’t you just kill me before I could ever come out?”
Jess tried to draw a breath, but it felt as though her lungs were deflating. She groped her way toward the bed and sat on it before her legs could give out. Nina was still looking at her that way, that horrible, hateful way.
How could she have said such a thing?
How could her own daughter despise her so much?
Jess’s breath came back, then her voice, words measured and precise: “I—did—
everything
—for—you.”
Nina yelled, her mouth red and wounded, her eyes narrowed and searing, but Jess didn’t hear her, only her own words, growing louder and angrier.
“I carried you inside me for ten months, Nina, not nine. I gave long, hard birth to you, forty hours with no drugs, so you wouldn’t start life with chemicals in your system. I sat up every night with you when you were colicky, when you were sick, when you were afraid of the tree outside your window that whole year when you were six. Even when your dad still lived here, it was always me, Nina. Always. I went to school around your schedule. I was always home to wake up with you and to be there after school. I put my needs aside and bought you clothes I couldn’t afford, sent you on school trips I had to take out loans for. Why would I do these things?”
Nina had stopped yelling, her mouth agape, but Jess couldn’t stop this ugly lament. Something had opened up inside her, and it wouldn’t go away until she was cleared out.
“I protected you. I tried to keep you safe from bad people, from bad situations. And nothing bad has ever happened to you except that your parents got divorced. Well, forgive me, Nina, but I married a man who was a spoiled, selfish child, and I did that for you, too. Goddamn it, I gave up my whole fucking life for you. How dare you say I would do anything less?”
Nina started to sob. Jess would normally have stopped herself long before it got to this point, calmed down, and tried to hug her daughter at the sight and sound of her crying, but she couldn’t. Not until this was straightened out. Not until she got Nina to understand. It was too important.