Page 65 of Silent Ridge

She can tell by the look on my face I’m not kidding.

“You know you can trust me.” She already knows some things that I haven’t told anyone else. She saw me basically assassinate the guy last month who had shot me and was going to rape her. I shot his balls off while he was still alive. He was a rapist and a murderer. He got what he gave.

“Okay, I trust you,” I lie. “I knew Monique Delmont. I had more of a friendship with her than I let on. I’ve been in her house before.”

Ronnie gives me a hurt look. I lied to her.

“I haven’t talked to her for several years and I didn’t know she had any idea I worked here.” That much is the truth.

“The picture of you coming from the Sheriff’s Office,” Ronnie says. “It makes sense now.”

“I don’t think Monique snapped that picture,” I say. “I think the killer wants me to know he knows where I was.” This doesn’t explain why I would think Gabrielle is in danger, so I say, “I never met her daughter but I figure the killer is crazy and killing people even remotely connected with her. And me.”

“Why would the killer be afteryou, Megan?”

Yeah. Damn it. I improvise and hope she doesn’t see through the lie.

“Maybe the killer’s not specifically after me. Maybe it’s all about Monique. Dan showed me the picture that Sheriff Gray found at the scene. That’s what we argued about. He said it was left at his store and he wanted to know what was going on. He knows we’re working on this murder and wanted to know if the picture was connected. He wanted to know why the killer would send him one. I couldn’t tell him.”

“I wish I had told him something. Anything. He could have gone somewhere and stayed out of the way, like Gabrielle, until this is over.”

But I couldn’t chance him finding out about my past. Now he’s basically missing and maybe I’ll lose him.

“You did what you thought was best, Megan. I know you and you wouldn’t put anyone in danger. I don’t know why you want to keep this so secret, but whatever. I’m in.”

I could hug her. But I don’t really like people touching me. And that goes both ways.

“We need to take another little ride,” I say.

“Dan lives over in Snow Creek, doesn’t he?”

I put the car in gear and carefully pull into traffic. “Can you keep trying his phone?”

She does.

I check with Dispatch. The patrol keeping an eye on Dan’s business haven’t seen him. I take State Route 20 to Discovery Bay, where I turn south on Highway 101 until it circles back north toward National Forest Service Road 2850. On a map it looks like an unnecessarily circuitous route, but it’s the quickest way to cover the almost twenty-five miles to Dan’s place.

Ronnie’s GPS navigates until I tell her to turn it off. I know the way and the female voice on the iPhone is starting to get on my last nerve. I know with the GPS off Ronnie will have to fill the silence, and she doesn’t disappoint.

I tune her out. I have my own thoughts and worries. I berate myself for not sharing my concern with Dan last night. I could have insisted he stay in a motel out of town. Or even at my place. Somehow I can’t see Dan on the run. He’s not like me. Especially if he thought I was in danger. I don’t know him that well, but I believe he’d protect me with his life. I would do the same for him. I can’t say that about many people.

Snow Creek Road is just ahead and I look north toward the area where several people had secluded cabins and even a farm or two. They are all separated by almost a mile, and hundreds of yards from the road on winding hard-packed earth tracks. They have almost complete privacy. I remember the last time I was here, a teenage daughter had murdered her entire family. Another woman had kept the desiccated corpse of her girlfriend in her cabin for years for company. Maybe total seclusion drives you mad. Feelings of being alone turn to imaginings and that turns to fear. The only way to work off their mania is on each other.

Another downside of the seclusion is that no one would hear you if you were in trouble. Dan works on his chainsaw carvings here, but you can’t hear the noise until you get close.

I reach the turnoff to his house and smell smoke. I can see the fog of it settling in the trees but it isn’t unusual for people to burn garbage out here.

“Someone has a campfire,” Ronnie says. “I hope they’re being safe. I don’t want to be in the middle of a wildfire.”

I don’t, either, but I’d drive through it to see if Dan is okay. “Get on the phone and tell Dispatch we’ve got heavy smoke here. See if they have reports yet.”

Ronnie is on the phone with Dispatch as I hurry down the dirt lane. I can see Dan’s house dead ahead. It isn’t on fire, but the smoke is heavier here.

“They say they don’t have anything, but they’re sending a chopper up to check the area out and they’re notifying Fire.”

I pull in the drive and immediately see the source of the smoke. “Call them back and tell them to send a pumper.”

Someone has made a huge bonfire of Dan’s wood carvings. There must be over a dozen pieces piled almost six feet high. Flames are shooting three times that high. Dan’s truck is parked twenty feet from the bonfire and I worry about it catching fire or exploding.

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