Crossing the Wallooskee River, she drove through farm country until the highway started winding into the foothills toward its ultimate destination, the old logging town of Mist. After another ten minutes, she came to the Elk Preserve.
People who wanted a lot of privacy and very few visitors had homes near the preserve, well hidden in the forest. The foothills of the Coast Range had been logged at least twice in the last century, and some of the more recently clear-cut areas resembled pastures full of nothing but dead stumps—stump farms, the locals called them. The older cuts, which had happened before logging companies had been obliged to replant, had grown stands of mixed, native forest as nature had intended.
Chuck Branson had eighty acres of older forest, up a now-defunct logging road on the southeast edge of the preserve. He'd moved out there after Desert Storm, buying the land out of the money he'd earned fishing in Alaska. For the first two years, he'd lived in an army tent while he, Gary, and Ken had built his cabin from the trees on his land. The sign at the entrance to his property read, if i don't know you, you shouldn't be here.
He meant it.
His gate was chained shut with the kind of padlock that would take C-4 to breach, so Kaz parked her SUV in front of it and climbed over.
The woods glistened in the morning light, and a tiny winter wren warbled shrilly from a nearby bush. Up ahead, a doe and her yearling browsed. As Kaz passed by, they watched curiously but didn't bolt into the brush.
Sounds traveled oddly in the woods, muffled on level ground, yet amplified up ravines through the trees and underbrush. From his front porch, Chuck could hear a twig snap a thousand feet away. He wasn't fond of surprises—it hadn't been serendipity that had led him to build his cabin at the top of the ravine. And he had, Kaz was certain, been tracking her since she'd crossed onto his property.
Although she hadn't heard him, the hairs on the back of her neck had already been standing up when Chuck suddenly materialized beside her, halting her before she was even halfway to his cabin.
His Chicago Cubs sweatshirt had seen better days, and was matched by worn, baggy army fatigues and battered combat boots. In his left hand, he balanced the gleaming stock of a shotgun so that its barrel leaned against his shoulder. Chuck had always had chiseled, blunt features, and he rarely made the effort to soften them by smiling. His pale brown hair, shaved close to his skull, heightened the sense of danger that he exuded.
"War games?" she asked lightly, nodding at his weapon.
"Patrolling the perimeter."
"Why? Worried that someone will find out Gary's here?"
He took his time answering, pulling out a hand-rolled cigarette and lighting it. "That's none of your business," he said gently.
"He's my brother."
Chuck shrugged. "He doesn't want your help."
"Tough." She lifted her chin, ignoring the hurt his comment caused. "He's got it anyway."
Chuck didn't respond, waiting with an eerie kind of stillness he'd perfected in the military.
"I saw you at the fire last night," she persisted, hoping to get an explanation of the message he'd been trying to send.
He drew on his cigarette, then removed a bit of tobacco from the tip of his tongue with two blunt fingertips. "You could've been hurt, going onto the boat like that."
She shrugged. "I'm still in one piece. Unfortunately, the same can't be said for Ken."
"He was a good man, but he made mistakes."
"Are you saying that Ken was killed because he was in some kind of trouble?" But Chuck merely shook his head. She hugged herself, trying to shake off her unease. "Where did you go after you left the tavern last night? I wanted to talk to you."
He looked amused. "Checking on my alibi, Kaz?"
She ignored that. "What were you and Gary arguing about?"
"I believe we told you to butt out." He took another drag on the cigarette, then looked off into the distance. "Had a date with the lovely barmaid Sandra."
Kaz hadn't noticed Sandra in Chapman's photos, and she certainly hadn't heard Sandra and Chuck were an item. Chuck didn't form attachments easily—Gary and Ken being the only exceptions she knew of. That made his explanation improbable at best.
"Lucy told me Gary argued with Ken before I got to the tavern. Do you know anything about that?"
"It was nothing."
"Not according to Lucy. She says Gary was pretty angry." Kaz waited, but he didn't comment further. Her frustration ratcheted higher. "Chuck, I have to talk to Gary."
"He'll contact you when he needs to."
"So you do know where he is."
"Didn't say that."
"Oh, for…quit being such a damn spook!" she snapped.
He smiled slightly, a hint of affection showing in his hazel eyes. "But I'm so good at it."
Well, he was right about that. Her breath expelled on a half laugh, but she quickly sobered. "Look. I get that you're loyal to Gary—that you feel you owe him. But have you considered that you might not be doing him a favor this time? If I'm going to help him, I need to find out what he knows."
"You know better than to think Gary had anything to do with Ken's death."
"Of course I don't," she quickly assured him, "but the cops are on a mission to pin this on Gary."
This bit of news had Chuck frowning. "Then Gary would be right to lay low, in my opinion."
"Is that what he's doing—laying low?"
"Not necessarily."
She controlled the urge to scream. "The cops won't give up, you know that. This is too big—Sykes can make a name for himself by bringing down Ken's murderer. Show that he's dedicated to keeping the community safe."
Chuck fieldstripped his cigarette, rubbing the bits of tobacco between his thumb and index finger, his expression contemplative. "Gary doesn't need or want your help," he said finally. "He wants you to stay out of it. You could be in danger."
Angry, she made a chopping motion with one hand. "That's not important right now."
"Yes, it is." Chuck suddenly focused his intense gaze on her, and she had to work hard not to show her uneasiness. Sometimes he seemed to look right into her soul, as if he knew things about her even she didn't know.
She'd never understood Chuck, not even back in high school. He was a ghost, a shadow on the perimeter of her life, always waiting, always watching. "So you've talked to Gary," she tried one more time.
"I talk to Gary all the time, you know that."
"Since the fire last night," she clarified impatiently.
"I didn't mean to imply that."
She threw up her hands. "Fine. At least tell me that he's all right, that he's not in danger."
"He's fine. Gary can take care of himself."
His answer gave her some measure of relief. Taking a shot in the dark, she asked, "Do you know how many days of supplies he had with him? What area he headed into?"
Chuck gazed at her, his expression giving away nothing. "If he wants to get seriously lost up there, you won't find him. I couldn't even find him."
That much was true. Gary had training in wilderness survival and evasion. And he knew the foothills of the Coast Range intimately.
She paced the small clearing in which they were standing, earning herself a scolding from a stellar jay in a nearby alder tree. "The new fire chief thinks Gary killed Ken and then set the fire to hide the crime."
"That's ridiculous, and you know it." Chuck shifted the butt of the shotgun to the soft cushion of leaves at his feet. "Gary renounced violence after the war. He wouldn't hurt anyone, not even a cockroach. He was protecting Ken six months ago when he punched out Svensen."
"Well regardless, Gary's the prime suspect. I've got to talk to him, find out what he knows, and figure out a way to prove he didn't do it." She continued to pace, feeling like she was jumping out of her skin. Perhaps she'd needed to back off on the caffeine.