With all that rolling around in my head, it took until morning light, well, mid-morning light, to conclude I would stay and play it by ear. Maxine might be right when she said I might be the only person who could help Shane. However, attracted to him or not, kiss or not, I owed him for taking care of Emma.
I heard Maxine approaching as I gazed out the window, daydreaming once again about Shane, and I turned toward her voice as she entered the kitchen. She was on the phone, not paying attention to her surroundings, just talking away.
“Workin’ on it, but he isn’t takin’ the bait like Maximilian did. He’s stubborn to the core. Pigheaded. If I were his mother, I’d be damn proud, too . . . Yes, I know I can’t force these things, Martha. Do I look like I was born yesterday? . . . Jesus, don’t answer that, it was a rhetorical question,” she replied as she filled her coffee mug. “We stick to the plan. You make that call first since I can’t, then call around and keep me up to date on his location. Got it? Right. Check in with you later,” she ended then hung up and turned toward me, gasping when she found me at her kitchen table.
“Don’t sneak up on me like that. I . . . I have a heart condition.”
“I’m sorry,” I tried to appease. “Sounds like you’re having trouble with someone?”
“Uh, yeah, with, uh, with Cowboy,” she replied.
“You’re having trouble with a cowboy?”
“No, with a bear.”
“With a bear?”
“Exactly.”
“I’m confused.”
“You’re confused?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Well, we don’t have time for that. We gotta get to the grocery store, the lumberyard, the post office, Last Call, find you a job, and then head to any other place I can think of while I’m out. Oh, and we need to stop by the police station so you can talk with Chester.”
“You have to go to all those places today?”
“And any other place I can think of while I’m out.”
“Wow. Well, I don’t want to hold you up, so I can head to the police station on my own and look around for a job.”
“NO!”
“No?”
“That’s what I said.”
“I’m confused again.”
“Maybe you need some bran in your diet?” she offered.
“For confusion?”
“Yeah, it helps clear you out so you can think. Now, jump to it, missy. Daylight’s a wastin’.”
“Maxine, there are close to twenty hours of daylight this time of year. How is it wasting?”
“Did you not hear how long my list was?” she argued, folding her arms across her chest.
“Point taken. I’ll get my bag,” I answered.
Maxine was nuts. My kind of crazy, but crazy nonetheless. I was still confused when we left, though, and I wasn’t sure what about.
We made it to town ten minutes later. But when I say ‘we made it to town,’ I mean we got there and drove in circles.
Maybe she has Alzheimer’s?
“Um, Maxine?”
“Mm.”
“Did you forget where you were going?”
“I’m planning my day accordingly. I don’t wanna waste my time running from one end of town to the other, do I? That’s just time-consuming.”
Trails End was a quaint town. Almost picturesque in a Norman Rockwell sort of way. Most of the businesses were right on Main Street, housed in log cabin styled buildings with green metal roofs. One end of town backed up to a crystal-clear lake—aptly named Crystal Lake—and the whole area was nestled in between two great mountains. It was picture postcard perfect, but what it wasn’t, was huge. If she traveled from one end to the other several times in her busy schedule, she’d add ten minutes to her day.
“Tell me about your family, Sage. Are your parents back in Fairbanks? What does your father have to say about all this foolishness with the cops?”
My heart began to race. The topic of my stepfather always caused a small amount of anxiety because Emma, Momma, and I had spent fifteen years locked in hell with a man who was untouchable.
Detective Richard Heller came along when my mother was still mourning our father. He insinuated himself into our lives, obsessed with my mother, and married her within six months. The first few years were good until he started drinking to alleviate the stress of his job. Then it wasn’t so good. He was possessive of my mother’s love and hated that she doted on my sister and me.
The first time he lost control and hit her, she tried to leave with Emma Jane and me. He caught her, and in a fit of rage that terrified us all, he threatened to hunt her down and kill her if she tried to leave him again. She believed him, and I was old enough at that point that I believed him as well, so we stayed and the cycle continued. We never knew when he would binge drink and lose his temper, so we walked around on eggshells when he was around. He could go months without an incident, then something at the department wouldn’t go his way and the Hyde side of his personality would appear.