“She’ll turn up,” Luke said, his voice a little loose with alcohol. “She always does.”
When Sheri came in they’d finished off two pitchers and were ordering a third. Whatever tension Drake had felt between Gary and Patrick at the trailhead was now gone. The two of them telling stories that Drake barely recalled from when he was a child. Gary doing most of the talking as Patrick nodded his head and filled in all the little details Gary had skipped over.
Sheri pulled a chair to the end of the table and sat with her purse in her lap, the strap still on her shoulder, ready to go.
“You want a glass?” Drake asked, raising his hand to signal Jack.
When the next pitcher came Sheri said she’d just share with Drake. The guys crowded up around the table as the logger at the end of the bar started in on some Zeppelin. Nobody left in the place and Jack—with his arms crossed over his chest and a distant look in his eye—kept watch over the logger at the opposite end of the bar.
“You want to get out of here soon?” Sheri asked quietly.
Drake turned and looked at the three other men and nodded. Luke halfway through the story about a young bear that had gotten itself stuck in an outhouse the summer before last.
“If I leave,” Drake said to his father, “you think you’ll be fine to get home on your own?”
“You’re going to trust me?” his father said, a smile half cocked on his lips.
“It’s fine,” Drake said, feeling a little loose with the alcohol. “You know the way home. We’ll leave the door open for you.”
Drake was tired, too, and they left the three men talking over their beers, saying good-bye to Jack and giving the logger a wide berth as they went by. The man singing along to the music now and Drake wondering how much more Jack was willing to take.
A LITTLE PAST one A.M. Drake got up to answer the door. It was about the time he estimated that his father would have been kicked out of the bar, give or take fifteen minutes for the walk home. The door had been left unlocked so that Patrick might let himself in. But Drake got up anyway, figuring maybe his father was drunk and hadn’t even tried the doorknob yet.
Drake came into the living room a little fuzzy from the pitchers they’d drunk, leaning his weight on the handle and pulling back on the door. He was dressed in a T-shirt and a pair of his old basketball warm-ups, planning to go right back to bed as soon as he let his father in.
Agent Driscoll stood on the porch when Drake opened the door. He pushed through and came into the living room, giving the room a quick once-over and then coming back to Drake. “Is he here?” Driscoll asked.
Drake studied the Impala parked in their drive for a quick second, looking to see if anyone else was inside before he closed the door. Driscoll was standing in the middle of the living room, the hallway light on behind him. His suit jacket crumpled at the armpits and along the sleeves.
“Your father?” Driscoll said.
“No,” Drake said. “Not that I know of.” Drake walked by Driscoll and went down the hallway to his father’s room. He opened the door and flipped on the lights. No one there and the sheets looking just as they had earlier in the day when Drake and Patrick had sat talking.
Drake came out of the room and went into the bathroom, throwing on the lights. He even went as far as to pull the curtains back on the shower and look in on the tub.
Driscoll was there in the bathroom doorway when Drake turned around. “I lost him about thirty minutes ago,” Driscoll said.
“You’ve been following him?” Drake came out of the bathroom and looked down the hallway toward his own bedroom. There was a light on under the doorway.
“You thought because I told you to keep an eye on him, I’d just hand it off?”
Drake led Driscoll back into the living room. He spread his fingers up into his hair and brought them down across his eyes. “He didn’t do it, Driscoll. He’s not the guy you’re looking for.”
“You told him?”
Drake turned and looked at Driscoll, the man waiting on a response. “What did you think I was going to do?”
“I thought you’d remember your duty as a law officer.”
“He’s my father, Driscoll.”
“Christ.”
“He didn’t do it.”
“Two years ago, when we first met, you were ready to throw away the key. Now you’re acting like he never put you in this position.”
At the far end of the hallway Drake saw the bedroom door open and Sheri come out wearing her robe. She was looking at Drake, but her eyes darted toward Driscoll for a moment and Drake saw the surprise in them, followed quickly by disgust. The last time they’d had a full conversation together Driscoll had said something about not wasting taxpayer money on repeat offenders, preferring instead if they just got offed beforehand. Drake liked to think that Driscoll had been joking. Sheri had never seen the comedy in it.
“Long time no see,” Driscoll said to Sheri as she took a seat on the sofa and kept a steady watch on Drake.
“What’s this about?” she asked Drake.
Drake shrugged, wishing his father would walk in and they could all just go back to bed.
“Your father-in-law has disappeared,” Driscoll said.
“What do you mean disappeared?” Sheri asked.
“He’s missing. Gone. Vanished off the face of this earth,” Driscoll said. “Though I think the better definition of what happened is he’s on the run.” Driscoll had his arms crossed and each of his hands buried in his armpits. He was bouncing slightly on the heels of his feet.
“What is this man doing here?” Sheri asked Drake.
Drake didn’t have an answer for her that would make the situation any better and he asked Sheri if she would stay up and wait to see if Patrick came home, and if he did to call Drake straightaway. Drake led Driscoll out onto the porch and closed the door.
“She still doesn’t like me very much,” Driscoll said.
“It’s late,” Drake said. “She’s tired.”
“I don’t know about all that,” Driscoll said, “but thanks for trying.”
“So what happened, Driscoll?”
“I was waiting on your father when he came out of the bar and halfway home he goes running into the woods.”
“Did he see you?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“Then why did he run?”
“I was walking behind him, two or three hundred feet back. I don’t know how he would have noticed me.”
“You didn’t try to go after him?”
“Of course I chased after him. I was shining my light around. It’s a fucking funhouse in there, everything looks exactly the same: tree trunk, fern, tree trunk, fern… you want me to go on?”
“I get it,” Drake said. “He really took off running?”
“I’ve called in a favor with some of my guys from Seattle, but they won’t be here for a couple more hours.”
“You don’t need to do that,” Drake said. “I’m here. I can help you find him.”
Driscoll looked to be thinking that over. “Fine,” he said. “It would take them too much time to get here as it is.”
“What channel are you using on your radio?”
Driscoll told him the channel and where Patrick had gone off the road.
“I’m going to take my cruiser out,” Drake said. “I want to shine the spot around a bit and see what I can see,” Drake said.
“I know he’s your father but I want you to be careful, Drake. Don’t do anything stupid and get yourself hurt. I want you to call me on the radio if you see anything. Even if it’s just a flicker of something, you’ll let me know first.”
“I know,” Drake said. He was watching the forest beyond the fall of the house lights. The gravel shining white under the reach of the exterior lights, and the dark forest all around, circling them in. “Maybe he saw you, Driscoll. Maybe he just spooked? He’d been drinking a lot at the bar. This could all be one big mistake.”