Part 5
Jack passed the notebook sideways to Reed. Pike reached after it, then stopped when Reed tucked it inside his coat.
“You’re being recorded,” Reed said. “And I’ve already reported where we are.”
Pike glanced at the phone. Its screen had dimmed in the cold; the signal bars were gone. Reed slipped it into his inside pocket with the microphone above the zipper and kept his hand there.
“I keep people working in this town,” Pike said. “You think those boats run on good intentions? People pay for close pictures. They want to see something for their money.”
“That’s what the cages are for?” Reed asked.
Pike looked toward Ash. “They’re manageable until somebody turns them loose.”
Jack felt his jaw tighten. He watched the flare gun rather than Pike’s face, keeping his breathing slow enough that he could hear what was happening around them. Snow hissed against the metal roof. Behind his boot, Ash moved.
She backed into the passage, put her nose into a low gap between the rear boards, and worked her shoulders through. Her body disappeared into the dark beyond it. A moment later Jack saw her through a break in the wall, standing on a narrow strip of ground that ran toward the seaward rocks.
He touched Reed’s sleeve. Reed followed his glance, checked the gap, and moved one step back.
“Don’t be stupid,” Pike said.
Jack stepped between him and the opening. He did it slowly, giving Pike no sudden movement to answer, and held his hands where they could be seen. Reed ducked through behind him with the notebook inside his coat.
Pike started forward. Jack stayed in his way.
For several seconds the only movement was snow crossing the headlights. Jack could feel his bad knee trembling, and he set more weight on the other leg. Then he heard Reed call from beyond the wall.
“Come on.”
Jack backed through the gap. Ash was already farther along the sheltered ledge; he followed Reed between the rock and the building, keeping a hand against the wall. At the corner Reed took his phone out just long enough to send their position. He had found a thin signal above the obstruction.
They heard engines from the road before they saw the approaching lights. Pike heard them too. By the time Jack and Reed reached open ground, the flare gun had disappeared below the second man’s coat and Pike was standing beside his machine with both hands raised in irritation.
Reed went toward the arriving troopers. Jack stayed back, watching until he saw that Ash had taken the uphill trail. He wanted to follow immediately, but Reed needed his account of the notebook and the wire, and Jack made himself give it without rushing.
Ash reached the cottage first. Mae heard claws on the porch while Evelyn was bent over the smallest pup, whose breathing had become uneven again. Mae opened the door, and the mother passed her without looking up.
She lay beside the litter and touched the small dark-marked head with her nose. The pup stretched, gave a thin intake of breath, and moved his mouth against her fur. Evelyn kept her hand near him, watching through several more breaths before she shifted the folded cloth away.
Mae sat down hard on the nearest chair. She had been holding a small prayer card so tightly that one corner had bent into her palm. She put it on the table and asked Evelyn whether the kettle needed filling.
“In a minute,” Evelyn said. “Just stay still a minute.”
An hour later Jack came in with Reed. He saw the wolf, the four pups, and Evelyn looking up from the floor. She nodded once when his eyes went to the smallest.
“He’s still having a rough time. But he’s nursing.”
Jack unfastened his coat. Only then did he notice that the back of his shirt was wet from lying against the station wall. He could not remember feeling cold on the walk home.
Reed secured the notebook with the other material, then moved into the kitchen to call his supervisor. The photographs and recorded threat would go with his report. Pike had been stopped for questioning, though the investigation was only beginning.
Mae stood beside the table with a cassette in her hand. Jack recognized Nathan’s handwriting on the paper label and looked away before she could speak.
“I found his notebook,” she said. “Paul got the player working.”
Jack pulled at the cuff of his wet sleeve. The sleeve caught on his watch, and he worked it free with more attention than it needed.
“He wrote that you went to the antenna. It’s on the tape too. I heard you.”
Jack sat on the bench against the wall. Eight years had passed since he had tried to make her listen to that account, and now he could not think of a sentence he wanted her to hear. Nathan was still below the rocks in his memory. Sean still stopped answering. His wife still turned her face toward him on the hospital pillow.
“I didn’t get it working in time,” he said.
Mae held the cassette with both hands. “I said you didn’t try.”
He looked at her then. She did not soften it, and he was grateful for the plainness, even while it hurt.
“You told me,” she added. “I made you say it over and over. Then I went on telling people the other version.”
Across the room Evelyn adjusted her position to give Ash more space. One of the stronger pups had found the edge of the blanket and was trying to crawl over it. The ordinary struggle kept Jack from having to answer immediately.
Mae sat at the other end of the bench. She placed the cassette between them, leaving him to decide whether to take it. After a while he set one finger on its cracked plastic case.
“Did he sound like himself?”
“Annoyed with the radio.” She rubbed the side of her nose. “You know how he got.”
Jack nodded. They sat there while Reed talked quietly in the kitchen, and for once Mae did not leave when there was nothing more to say.
Near midnight Reed came back with the arrangements for the following day. Investigators would reach town if the plow opened the pass. A place had been assigned for the wolf family while the case was sorted out.
Evelyn asked for the name. When he told her, she put down the thermometer she had been cleaning.
“That compound transports animals for Pike.”
Reed nodded. “I’ve asked them to review it.”
“Before they send a truck?”
He did not answer quickly enough.
To read the rest of the story – CLICK the NEXT button 👇👇👇