They were still walking when they came up over a small rise and Patrick saw where the fence sat in a line along the hill. “It’s going to be okay,” Patrick said, speaking over his shoulder to Gary. The thought that they’d soon stop and then there wouldn’t be another chance to talk for a very long while. “No accidents,” Patrick said again. “I didn’t do all this to watch it all fall apart in front of me. You’re going to have to take care of Sheri and Bobby now. They’re going to need you.”
SHERI RODE SHOTGUN and Gary drove. It was past midnight and they’d left Morgan’s cabin an hour before. Neither of them had said much to the other since they’d left, Sheri only telling Gary what roads to take and where to turn. She was reading the directions off an app on Gary’s phone and the display gave the front seat of Drake’s cruiser an intimate closed-off feeling that Sheri could only avoid by opening her window. The night air blew by at sixty miles per hour. The far lights of farms the only thing to be picked off the Eastern Washington prairie.
The turn for Silver Lake was a few miles ahead and she put the window up. The heaters had been turned on full and she switched them down and then flicked on the phone. The small blue icon that was them and nothing else around for thirty miles.
“How far?” Gary asked.
“Two miles.” She put a hand to the dash and messed with the heater for a while, trying the various settings. Though she knew them almost as well as her own car. Just doing what she could to pass the time, all the while studying Gary from the corner of her eye.
Gary wet his lips and then glanced her way. “I’m proud of Bobby.”
“I’m proud of him, too,” Sheri said. She didn’t know where this was going but she’d been the one to suggest it. She’d been the one to tell Drake she didn’t mind going back to Silver Lake with Gary.
“Not a lot of people would have given up the money like that.”
They rode in silence for a long time after that. Gary took the turn and the road began to wind into the mountains. Silver Lake another hour away. The smell of the evergreens growing as they went and the air turned crisp and cold. High up on the peaks she saw the snow in the mountains. This place was her home, though it had not always been. And she tried to imagine where she would go or what she would do if she ever left.
After a time, she said, “Patrick wasn’t alone when he took the money, was he, Gary?”
“No,” Gary said. He glanced her way and then returned his eyes to the road.
“All this time,” she said.
“I know.”
She waited, listening to the wind pass by outside the window. “You’ve been the sheriff as long as I’ve lived in Silver Lake.”
“I know that, too,” he said.
She watched the high, blue mountains and when she turned back she asked, “Should I be scared of you?” She was watching him but he wouldn’t turn to look at her.
“No,” he said. And then after a while he asked, “Should I be scared of you?”
She didn’t know how to answer that. All the years they’d known each other, all the help Gary had given them over the years. None of it fit.
She looked his way. “Tonight could have gone a lot different,” she said. “I don’t know if this is the right way to say it but I guess I think you did the right thing back there.”
“How’s that?”
“Bobby gave up the money but I think in some way you did, too.”
THE FIRST LIGHT chased them up the mountains and they drove now in the western shadows just beyond. Drake sat with the green tackle box between his feet on the floor. Patrick, with his hands cuffed, was asleep in the back and Driscoll drove. For a long time Drake sat and watched the undergrowth pass by his window and then when he tired of it he turned and looked to the back, where Patrick slumped against one of the doors, his head bent to the window and his eyes closed.
“You know what they say about a guilty man,” Driscoll said.
Drake nodded. “I know.”
Driscoll raised his eyes on the rearview mirror and then brought them back to the road ahead. “When we come into Bellingham I’ll drop you at the hotel and then take Patrick in for holding.”
“I’ll go in with you.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I want to,” Drake said. He didn’t know how to feel about it. He never thought he’d be the one to take his own father in, but he was.
“I’m going to take the money in as well. I’ll be handing it over in Bellingham. It’s their case still.”
“I understand.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to go by the hotel first? The guys in Bellingham are going to want to talk with Patrick. It might be a while.”
“I’ll go with you,” Drake said. “They’ll want to talk with me as well.”
“We don’t have to rush anything.”
Drake thought that over. He didn’t say anything more and Driscoll didn’t try to talk him out of it.
They drove in silence and by the time they came out of the mountains Drake was asleep, only waking when Driscoll pulled the Impala to the front of the Bellingham Police Department and turned the engine off.
Patrick was up, and Drake wondered how long his father had been sitting there, his eyes on both of them while Driscoll drove and Drake slept.
Driscoll asked for the money, and then, when Drake handed it over, he ran his eyes between father and son and then went on inside the department.
“He’s wondering if I’m going to let you loose,” Drake said, speaking over his shoulder to Patrick.
Patrick didn’t respond. Out on the street a school bus had stopped and the doors slid open. A group of elementary students waiting with their parents and then when the doors slid closed again Drake and Patrick watched the parents walk away, some talking to each other for a time before splitting and going on again toward their individual houses.
Patrick cleared his throat. “We’d both be in Monroe if you let me loose.”
“I’m sorry about the way this turned out,” Drake said.
“There’s nothing to be sorry about. I just wish I could have seen your grandfather, you know?”
“I feel responsible.” Drake had his head down, his eyes on the place the money used to be. Morgan was dead and in some way Drake was a part of that.
Patrick shook his head. “You know you’re not responsible for any of this. Drug smuggling, the money, the deaths of those two men, or your grandfather. I know you want to believe you are. I know that’s why you became a deputy but it’s just not your fault. I’ve wanted you to know that for a long time and I’ve wanted to say that to you for just as long and I guess now I have. You understand? You’re not responsible for my mistakes.”
Drake sat looking out on the front of the department. Driscoll would be back soon and Drake didn’t know when he’d see his father again.
Patrick leaned forward and Drake could feel him close behind. “Say something.”
There wasn’t anything Drake could say. The emotions were spinning around inside of him like a tornado. Nothing ever settling. He knew his father wanted him to let it go but he just couldn’t.
SHERI GOT THE PHONE on the second ring and listened to what Drake had to say. By then it was afternoon and Drake had already given his statement to the Bellingham police. He’d slept a few hours at the hotel and one of the detectives had told him he’d give Drake a ride home in an hour or so.
Sheri hung up without saying more than ten words and when she walked to the front window she saw Luke out there in his cruiser, watching over her. It was Gary who’d insisted on it. With Drake not home yet it was just a precaution, Gary had said. Bean out there somewhere still.
She turned and walked away from the window. Everything was the same as it had been when Bean and John Wesley had taken her from the house. Even the cereal bowl was still there in the kitchen sink. She looked this over and then after a minute she cleaned the bowl and spoon and set them on the rack to dry.