Page 46 of Lily's Eagle

“But haven’t you investigated? I mean the tribal police?”

“They did what they could, but there’s a huge lack of them and they have a lot of other things to take care of,” she says. “Frank spoke about maybe hiring a private detective at one point, but I don’t know if he ever really did. There’s a bunch of theories flying around. I guess you heard Ariana’s today, that her brother is responsible.”

“Or his son and me,” I say bitingly. “But that’s just ridiculous. And what are some other theories?”

“A serial killer, that’s one of them,” she says. “Or some kind of a forced prostitution ring.”

This whole conversation is sending chills down my spine that won’t stop, and it’s making me slightly nauseous.

“Up in Canada they have the Highway of Tears and down here we have Despair Junction,” she says and chuckles darkly.

“I never heard of that,” I admit.

“I made it up,” she says. “For a time I was obsessed with the cases, mostly because I had to walk for miles from school to home, and in the winter it was mostly in the dark.”

She points up ahead. “Take the next right, we’re almost there.”

I turn on the blinker so Eagle will know to follow and look at her. “But did you learn anything?”

She shakes her head. “A couple of girls claimed they’d been grabbed on the road, in the middle of nowhere by a guy in black with his face covered. He tried to stuff them into a van, but they managed to escape. But since it was in the middle of nowhere, no one else saw anything. Either way, it didn’t tell us much more than we already knew. None of them got a good look at the man or the van.”

The road we’re on now is unpaved and so bumpy the whole truck bounces up and down.

“You gotta take it at speed,” she tells me after I bump my head on the top of the side door for the second time.

The board, cans of paint and piping we have loaded in the back are already making so much noise I’m sure something’s getting destroyed back there, but I speed up anyway.

And a few moments later, a bend in the road and a slight decline takes us to a spot almost right on the banks of a river, which is shining gold in the afternoon sunlight. Land, untouched and gorgeous, covered by gently swaying light green grass and peppered by a few trees is stretching out in all directions, and the wide golden river flows thought it all, calm and timeless. Something about the vista speaks to me deep in my soul, reminding me that I’ve seen it before, even though I know I haven’t. An ancient memory handed down by ancestors? It must be.

There’s a badly weathered sign at the entrance to the campground, or Happy Place Camp as it was once called, way back in the last century, judging by the style of the sign.

There are a couple of small trailer homes parked in the wide clearing that’s mostly free of grass. They used to be white, but are dark grey with grime now. The clearing is dominated by a single floor, l-shaped house made of dark wood with a covered wraparound porch. The remains of a basketball court are just beyond it, the paved flooring of it overrun with grass growing through the cracks, and the nets on the hoops gone, but that’s nothing a little loving care can’t fix. I can’t wait to get started.

But even that excitement can’t chase away the dark thoughts the start of this day and the conversation I just had with Tina brought.

I dream of a man in black trying to stuff me into a car. I have no recollection of it happening in real life, but what if it did? Or am I tuning into some other poor woman’s experience?

Maybe Tina can help me make sense of it. But not right now. Right now it’s time to get to work, and salvage what we can from this day that’s only gone wrong so far.

* * *

EAGLE

I’d been seething all the way from the reservation to the hardware store, sullen and trying to keep my bad mood in while we loaded up the truck, and surly as we agreed that I’d follow them to the campground on my bike. I didn’t want to say the wrong thing.

Like taking back my suggestion that we relocate to the camp. We should be going home. It’s the only place she’ll really be safe.

My father a serial abductor of women?

That’s fucking not possible.

But that shaking woman—his sister and my aunt—sounded pretty damn sure about it. So sure I’d begun to doubt what I know.

The thick grey clouds started growing lighter about half an hour into our ride and soon the sun started peeking though. Nothing but pristine grassland bordered the empty road and the air went from clear to clearer with every mile we covered.

Perfection.

This is what countryside rides should be.

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