Snowbound

THIRTY-FOUR

Will gave Devlin her physical therapy and left her half-asleep in front of the TV. He took the stairs up to the next floor, knocked softly on the door of room 617. Kalyn answered in a tank top and running shorts that accentuated her long-muscled arms and legs.

“Can we talk?” Will asked.

They sat on the king-size bed, everything quiet save for the whisper of the central-heating unit blowing warm air out from under the window. Kalyn’s curls were uncurling and the shower had nearly stripped the black dye from her hair, returning it to her natural brown, now pinned up off her shoulders.

“What are you thinking of doing?” he asked.

“Same thing you are.”

“There’s no telling what we’ll find out there, and Devi’s been through a lot already.”

“I can protect you both,” Kalyn said.

Will smiled. “Aren’t I supposed to say that? You’re challenging my fragile ego.”

“Look, you don’t have to go. Head home if you want.”

“But you’re going to the Wolverine Hills.”

“There’s nothing else for me to do.”

“What if that guy was lying? He was dying, Kalyn. What’d he have to lose?”

“Guess I’ll find out.”

“Or we could call the police now. Let them take it from here.”

“Same sort of folks who never found Rachael to begin with, but accused you of her death? No thanks, Will. I’ve sacrificed too much to hand them the ball on first and goal. Watch them fuck it up.”

Will leaned back against the headboard, glanced toward the window at the lights of downtown Fairbanks.

“Suppose we do find out what happened to my wife. Your sister. Then what? They’ll still be gone. We’ll still be missing them.”

“Won’t it help you move on?”

“I don’t know. Rachael’s been gone five years, but you know, I still remember the night she didn’t come home, and the following day, when everyone came to my house to hold vigil, like it just happened. I feel stuck in that moment.”

“I’m well acquainted with that feeling.”

“What do you want, Kalyn? What do you expect to gain from all this?”

“Peace. I think. And to know exactly what happened to my sister. You don’t understand. Before Lucy disappeared, my life was on this perfect trajectory. I’d made special agent. I was doing well, advancing at the Bureau. Doing exactly what I wanted to do. Making the friends and the connections I wanted to make. I loved my place in the world, but I was also thinking ten years down the road, fifteen. Had it all planned out. Stint with the FBI, then prosecutor. Maybe a run for office. But after Lucy . . .”

“You derailed.”

“Yeah.”

“You can still do anything you want. You know that, right?”

“Actually, I can’t. I was fired from the FBI. A Bureau psychologist wrote terrible things in my file that’ll always be there. ‘Emotionally unstable.’ ‘Clinical depression.’ That part of my life, those dreams . . . they’re dead.” She said it with no emotion, no resentment. For the first time, Will noticed the long blanched lines down Kalyn’s wrists.

He touched them, traced a finger along the scars.

“Last year,” she said, her voice just a whisper, “was rough. I was just so tired, you know? I couldn’t breathe. You ever think about doing something like that?” He nodded. “But you had Devlin.”

“Without her, I don’t know that I’d still be here.”

“You ever feel just . . . broken?”

Will looked up from the bedspread into Kalyn’s eyes, realized he’d never really seen her before. “You’re one of the most extraordinary people I’ve ever met,” he said. “That’s the truth.”

Kalyn scooted toward him.

It was a soft and effortless melding of energies, long pent-up electrical currents with someplace finally to go. They came apart breathless and a little stunned, Will’s heart going like mad, the cool smoothness of Kalyn’s leg against his arm practically unbearable and the taste of her humming in the corners of his mouth.

“I can’t do this,” he said, and he climbed off the bed and left the room.