Page 16 of Silver Linings

They shook hands, even as Ben found himself wondering what the guy was doing in Silver Hollow. The town’s history had included logging, of course, just like hundreds of other places in the Pacific Northwest, but the community now seemed to focus mainly on tourism and conservation work to preserve the precious forests that surrounded it so they could be enjoyed for generations to come.

“Here on business?” he asked politely, and at once, Victor shook his head.

“No, this is one of my favorite getaway spots. I like to come here whenever I can carve out a little time for some peace and quiet. I got lucky this time, since the weather has been nice enough that I’ve been able to put the top down on my car.”

Ah, so he was the one with the exquisitely restored vintage MG. Well, since the guy was an executive with a lumber company, he could probably afford whatever the restoration had cost.

“The green MG?” Ben asked, and Victor nodded.

“So you noticed it.”

It would have been kind of hard not to, considering it had been the only other vehicle in the B&B’s parking lot when Ben arrived.

“Beautiful car,” he commented.

Victor looked pleased. “Are you a car enthusiast?”

Ben thought of his old Nissan truck with the oxidized spots on its roof and hood, and did his best to hold back a smile. “I wouldn’t go that far. But it’s always nice to see a car that someone’s taken the the time to restore properly. I suppose it’s sort of like admiring an old house with just the right amount of updates, like this one.”

They chatted for a few minutes about Mabel’s B&B — Victor seemed fairly knowledgeable on the subject, saying that she’d been running the place for nearly forty years now, ever since she and her husband bought the rundown house in the eighties and then worked hard on restoring it to its former glory. He had passed away a while back, but Mabel would never give up her pride and joy.

After their conversation began to wind down, though, Ben excused himself to go upstairs to his room and drop off his haul from his shopping expedition earlier today. While he’d told himself all those purchases were necessary, he still couldn’t help giving an inward wince as he totaled the damage he’d done to his credit card. Once upon a time, he’d harbored dreams of paying the thing off and living a debt-free life, but that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.

Well, not unless his YouTube views doubled overnight.

As he was putting away his new shirts and cargo pants and hiking boots, an idea struck him. What if he did his own real-life version of all those Reddit conversations about the disappearance of Sidney’s mother and grandmother? He could go out into the woods, talk about the sighting of the strange white horse, speculate that maybe something very strange was happening in the forests that surrounded Silver Hollow. People ate up that true-crime stuff, and if he could link it to something supernatural….

Almost at once, though, he shot down the notion. Sidney was obviously suffering as she dealt with the aftermath of losing the two most important people in her life, and exploiting that pain merely for clicks and views seemed like an awful way to make some extra money. He’d started the YouTube channel as a way of supplementing his income, sure, but he still didn’t think of himself as an internet personality.

No, he was just a trained archaeologist whose career had taken a severe left turn a while back.

However, that didn’t mean he couldn’t film some footage while out in the wild, so to speak. He knew he’d need to be deliberately vague, just because he didn’t want hordes of cryptozoology enthusiasts descending on the forest unless there was some damn good evidence to prove something very strange was going on here. But honestly, didn’t one patch of deep forest in the Pacific Northwest look pretty much like any other?

Satisfied with that plan, he finished unpacking and then got out his phone so he could decide where to go for dinner later. He was still pretty full from his late lunch, but he knew he’d need to eat something eventually.

What he was really looking forward to, though, was getting into the woods tomorrow morning.

He couldn’t wait to see what he might find there.

As it turned out, a whole lot of nothing. Oh, sure, it was beautiful here, lush in a way that the forests in Southern California could never be, but still, he’d been wandering in the woods for almost two hours and hadn’t seen anything of note except a cute little owl that had perched on a branch not too far from the trail he was following and had given him a curious look.

Well, there was a lot of forest to cover, so Ben knew he probably shouldn’t get discouraged after just a couple of hours. He’d woken up early and showered, and had been downstairs right at seven-thirty as Mabel Whitaker was putting out a bowl of scrambled eggs and a tray of perfectly crisped bacon.

Everything had been wonderful, but he knew he hadn’t given the food the respect it deserved, not when he was itching to get out in the forest to see what he could find. No sign of Victor Maplehurst that morning, and Ben guessed the lumber executive wasn’t an early riser when he didn’t need to be.

Fair enough. But Ben knew he wasn’t on vacation, even if he’d done his best to give that impression to everyone he’d met in town.

No, he was here to see if he could find something that might give his career a much-needed boost.

After breakfast, he’d followed the hiking trail that led away from Mabel’s property and into the forest. He supposed he could have driven his rented SUV to a more well-known trailhead, but he liked the idea of doing the whole thing with his own two feet. Altogether, it would be a hike of more than five miles, not counting whatever wandering around he did in the woods, but he’d done more than that in a day when he was feeling ambitious.

It would be as good a way as any other to break in his new hiking boots.

At least they were comfortable right off the bat, and he could tell he wouldn’t have to worry about any blisters or chafed spots. He’d brought along some chamois to pad the boots just in case, but it seemed clear he wouldn’t need the stuff.

While at the outdoor shop, he’d bought a map of the various trails in the area, although he planned to rely mainly on the AllTrails app on his phone. It was designed to load all the necessary information before you even set out on a hike, so loss of the cell signal wouldn’t be a problem.

Good thing, too, because when he pulled the phone out of his pack to check on the time, all the bars had disappeared. True, he’d been able to barely squeak out two in Silver Hollow proper, although that was still enough to do what he needed to do.

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