One Step Too Far Read online

  “Nemeth told me to strap the knife to my person.” I unsheathe the tactical blade, holding it up for her inspection.

  “Holy shit. I carry a basic wilderness knife, but it’s half this size and not nearly so serious.” She takes Josh’s knife, the overhead light of the motel room winking off the wicked-looking serrated edge. “I’d put this up there with an assault weapon. Something a special ops team might carry.”

  “Is that a good thing?”

  “I don’t know. Guess it means Josh has serious tastes in knives.”

  There’s something in her voice, however, a slight hesitation, that leaves me unsettled. In my line of work, it’s not what people tell you but what they don’t that is often more important.

  “Okay, back to Wilderness One-oh-one.” Luciana returns her attention to my pile of gear. “When it comes to basic survival, you want to remember the rule of threes: You can go three minutes without air, three hours without shelter, three days without water, and three weeks without food. Prioritize accordingly.”

  I’m already skeptical. “I can last longer than three hours without shelter.”

  “Assumes adverse conditions—say, a blizzard or torrential downpour or absurdly hot temps. Hyperthermia is a bigger killer than you might think.”

  Now I get it. “The rule of threes is about prioritizing. My first job is to get air. Then shelter, then water. Don’t worry so much about food.”

  “Exactly. This one-dollar lighter”—she holds up the Bic—“represents fire. Which will assist with shelter—keeping you warm at night—and boiling drinkable water. This magnificent if slightly terrifying survival knife can assist with building a shelter as well as creating kindling to start a fire. These two items alone can go a long way toward keeping you alive.”

  “Hence I should carry them on my person.”

  “See, you’re a natural. Now, the emergency whistle.”

  “I have a whistle!” I’m genuinely excited. “I carry it around tough neighborhoods all the time.”

  “Your idea of self-defense in an urban environment is a whistle? Are you trying to die?”

  I do not answer that question.

  “Whistles are too bulky for pants pockets. I recommend this instead.” Luciana throws a thickly corded bracelet in my direction. I catch it in midair, finger the camo-colored weave.

  “I’ve seen these. Some kind of nylon rope, braided into fashion gear.” I unclip the plastic buckle and discover a stainless steel tongue of surprising strength.

  “Notice the slightly serrated edge?” Luciana points at the metal tongue. “That can serve as a small blade. Now blow in the other half of the buckle.”

  I give her a look but obediently purse my lips for a short puff. A faint whistle emerges from the hollow plastic. I try again, with more force, and am rewarded by a sharper sound. “It’s a whistle!”

  “A whistle you can wear on your wrist that also provides a small razor and utility ropes.” Luciana beams proudly.

  I don’t blame her. I’m slightly in love with the bracelet. Reminds me of my five-dollar utility hair clips that include serrated edges on one side and tool options in the middle. I wouldn’t go so far as to say they’ll save me in the wild, but they have come in handy for some basic breaking and entering.

  “So butane lighter in one pocket. Knife at your waist. Paracord bracelet on your wrist,” Luciana summarizes. “Final item, that small pencil flashlight, which you can tuck into one of the pant-leg pockets. You don’t want to be wandering around the woods in the dark, and not just because you’ll most likely kill yourself, but because other creatures will regard you as food and do the honors for you.”

  “Do you really think a grizzly bear cares about a bobbing flashlight?”

  “I’m hoping to never find out.”

  “Do you carry a gun?” I ask curiously.

  “No. I don’t like them and I’m not sure I could bring myself to shoot another life form, even a charging bear.”

  “What if the bear went after Daisy?”

  “Then I’d kill the grizzly with my bare hands and the gun would be redundant.”

  I don’t doubt her for a second.

  “Nemeth has a rifle,” she adds now. “It’s part of his responsibility as the guide. I have bear repellent in my kit. The size of our party will be our most useful weapon, however. Wildlife is shy. They don’t want to take on eight people and a dog. Just don’t wander too far from the campfire at night. Pick the closest bush, squat, pee, and get back.”

  “There’s no toilet paper in my pack.”

  Luciana rolls her eyes. “Seriously, woman, by the end of this week, you’re not going to recognize yourself.”

  I pick up one of the few items scattered on the carpet that she hasn’t mentioned yet. “Why does a guy have a maxi pad in his wilderness kit?”

  “Field first aid. Perfect for stopping heavy bleeding. Press against the wound, secure in place with bandages. Tampons work, too.”

  I rub the relatively new scar on my shoulder absently, then start picking up each item and reloading them into my pack.

  On the other side of the room, Luciana does the same. I notice she rolls each item of clothing, allowing her to cram more in. I follow her example and this time manage to zip the pack closed when I’m done.

  I heft it up. The weight is real, but better than Josh’s original load.

  I can do this, I tell myself. Butane lighters, wicking fabrics, rule of threes. Nothing here I can’t handle.

  Then I bolt into the bathroom so Luciana can’t see the panic on my face.

  * * *

  —

  Ten thirty. Lights out. Luciana and Daisy already sound asleep in one bed. Myself, totally awake in the other.

  Daisy snores. A slight woofing exhale. It’s rhythmic and soothing. I try to focus on that. Mostly, I wonder what would happen if I called Lotham right now. Two-hour time difference, making it after midnight in Boston.

  He’s probably asleep. Or working a major case. Either way, would he take my call? The number of times I’ve flipped open my cheap Tracfone, finger hovering over the buttons. Then closed the phone. Put it away.

  The number of times I have thought of him, and forced myself to move on.

  Now I order myself to let go. Be in this moment. Honor Timothy O’Day and the task I have undertaken. Sleep. Tomorrow will be hard enough.

  But I don’t drift off.

  I remain wide-awake, staring up at the ceiling, wanting things I can’t have. Missing a man I chose to leave behind.

  Eventually I roll onto my side. I picture Patrice O’Day, waiting for her son to come home. I imagine the lines easing in her face when her husband finally returns with their son’s body. I visualize the bachelor party friends sagging in collective relief and setting down the weight of their guilt.

  A loved one recovered. A mission accomplished.

  It will be good, I tell myself. It will be enough.

  And that lie gets me through to morning.

  CHAPTER 7

  No one speaks when the alarm shrieks morning wake-up. Luciana rolls out of bed the second it sounds and is on her feet, pulling on clothes, tending to Daisy. I follow in a fog of sleep deprivation. In my world, five a.m. is for going to bed, not getting get out of it.

  No small talk, no breakfast. Just get dressed, gather up personal possessions, and move. Then we are outside, where two white-paneled vans are idling and Nemeth is standing in the middle of the parking lot like an air traffic controller, motioning half of us here, half of us there. I end up in the same vehicle as Luciana, Daisy, Bob, and Nemeth. Martin and his son’s friends ride in the other.

  Separate, I think again, as the sun just starts to break over the horizon. Tim’s college friends and his father equal one pod; we are another. I should follow that thought, but the hour is too early, my mind too fuz
zy. I lean my head against the cold side window and close my eyes instead.

  Then, just like that, the van stops and the door slides open. Nemeth steps out.

  “Leave your extra luggage in the van. Marge will keep it safe for the rest of the week.”

  Which is when I realize our older female driver in full camo regalia is also the diner owner. Nemeth places a light hand on her shoulder, which would seem collegial for a normal person, but I’m guessing in Nemeth’s understated world is a public declaration of intimacy. Marge doesn’t even look at him but regards us with a cool, assessing stare.

  I’m pretty sure they’re soul mates. On the other hand, dear God, where is the coffee?

  Bob is moving. Luciana and Daisy, too. They seem to know what they’re doing, so I follow their lead, stepping out of the van, dumping my gear on the ground, then, belatedly, digging out the insect repellent. The others are spraying it on heavily. Even Daisy is subject to some minty-smelling, canine-friendly mosquito napalm. Once that’s completed, everyone pulls on their packs. Again, Daisy fits right in, adorned in a red vest with bulging pouches and a single water bottle.

  If a dog can do this, I tell myself, then I can, too.

  Of course, the dog has had way more training.

  Marge nods once at Nemeth. Some kind of all-set signal. I’m still trying to figure out how she got all of her bouffant curls tucked under her khaki-green hat, when he nods back, and that is apparently that. No lingering kiss as they part for the next week, not even a peck on the cheek. She heads back to the van; he turns toward us.

  I’m thinking that this might be the most romantic thing I’ve ever witnessed, when Nemeth pauses before me, inspects my gear, then tightens straps here and there. With a final nod, he steps back.

  “Today is about hiking into our target area,” he announces. “First eight miles aren’t so bad, but don’t let them fool you. The altitude we don’t gain then we gotta make up the second half. I won’t lie. Final mile is a bitch.”

  So much for a pep talk.

  “Remember, slow is smooth, smooth is fast. We got a week of hard work ahead of us. No need to be stupid day one. Luciana, Daisy”—Nemeth nods in their direction—“you set the pace. Of all of us, Daisy has the hardest job. What she needs, we will accommodate.”

  I notice that Daisy’s red hiking vest is not the official harness most SAR dogs wear when on task. Which makes sense if today is just about hiking into our search destination. Scenting is hard work. No point in exhausting the most valuable member of our party before we must.

  “Here’s the deal,” Nemeth continues, his voice totally commanding. “When I say stop, you stop. When I say drink, you drink. When I say snack break, eat a snack. I don’t give a rat’s ass if you want to or not. We’re a group. I’m the leader. What I say goes.”

  I wake up a little more, stand a little straighter. Damn, this guy is good—and not just because he has a rifle slung over his shoulder.

  “Any foot discomfort”—he pauses, repeats—“any foot discomfort, you will speak up. We will stop, you will adjust your boot, change your socks, apply moleskin, do whatever it is you need to do. Number one cause of expedition failure isn’t grizzly bears or falling off ledges or breaking a leg; it’s blisters. There will be no blisters. Got it?”

  We nod obediently. Martin and the young men appear less impressed, having no doubt sat through this lecture before. I’m mentally cataloguing every inch of my feet and informing them they will be healthy and happy because Nemeth says so. I want to believe my feet are impressed.

  “Your back starts to ache, your shoulders get sore, you will speak up. We will stop, I will personally adjust your pack.” Nemeth stares at me. “When everyone feels comfortable, we will resume our pace. But again, seven days. What bothers you now might kill you later. There will be no dying on this trek.”

  I’m totally and completely convinced. Whatever this man says, I’m on board. Maybe I should’ve tried boot camp when I was younger, because I’m actually a little turned on right now. Soon enough, I know, I will hate him, as I have a long and troubled history with authority figures. But at this precise moment, I’m drinking the Kool-Aid and hoping for another glass.

  “You get tired, speak up. You get thirsty, speak up. You need to take a break for whatever reason: Speak. Up.”

  We nod as a single unit.

  “Final rule: Pay attention to the body in front of you. We’re starting off on an established trail, but soon enough we’ll be in the backcountry, where markings are few and far between. By the end, we won’t be following an official path at all, just trekking up through the magnificence that is the Popo Agie Wilderness. Unless you’ve been here before, or are really good at navigating your way through the middle of nowhere, don’t get separated from our party. We got enough to do without having to waste time dealing with stupid.”

  He stares at me again. I’m tempted to stick out my tongue at him. But I’m also scared of what he might do to me next.

  When no one else asks questions, talks backs, or engages in childish insults, Nemeth nods once, claps his hands.

  “Gear up. Fall out.” He gives us about sixty seconds to finish adjusting equipment, clothing, boots, then without another word, he turns and heads up the trail, Martin already at his heels.

  I find myself glancing around. One last look at civilization? Bob nudges my shoulder, then smiles encouragingly, as if he can read my thoughts. He gestures for me to go first, the giant Bigfoot hunter clearly intending to bring up the rear. I don’t have time to consider the matter, as the fellow members of my party are rapidly hiking away and Nemeth’s words of warning are fresh in my mind. I don’t know where I am or how to navigate forests. City streets, yes. Rows of trees, no.

  I scamper to fall in line. And just like that we’re off and running.

  Ready or not, Timothy O’Day, here we come.

  * * *

  —

  How do you find a missing person?

  I don’t have any real training or even a codified approach. Not being a cop, I don’t utilize forensics, though generally by the time I’ve gotten involved, anything significant in terms of physical evidence has been collected, analyzed, and crossed off as useless by local authorities. I’m not a computer hacker, so there’s no diving into the dark ocean of the internet to discover the victim’s sordid secrets, which led to their escape to a whole new life. To be honest, I’ve yet to encounter a situation where the missing person staged the whole thing or left of their own accord.

  Sometimes the cases have garnered a certain level of police interest, meaning the obvious possibilities have already been pursued without yielding results. Other times—especially in underserved communities—the local authorities never bothered to open an active case file. Those situations make me the angriest: an entire life, written off without a single question asked. But even then, months or years later someone has done some basic digging. A loved one, a troubled friend, a concerned neighbor.

  Generally, the first step of my involvement in any case is to review the work, whether it be rigorous or cursory, that happened before me. Sometimes, that results in a whole new line of questioning: Wait, no one ever asked about the new guy who moved in upstairs? Other times it leaves me scratching my head and knowing this case is going to be a doozy.

  Which brings me to my highly unscientific second step: Show up. Walk around the community. Ask questions of anyone and everyone. No focus, no direction, just start picking up random stones and flipping them over. You never know.

  Police will tell you they don’t have the time for such a scattershot approach. Family members will tell you they’re often too embarrassed.

  This is where it’s good to be me: I have neither concern. I work one case at a time to obsessive resolution, versus even the most dedicated detective, who has dozens at a time. I have no personal connection, meaning there’s no quest
ion I won’t ask, no boundary I won’t cross.

  How to translate all of this to a one-week expedition to recover skeletal remains? As I huff along the hiking trail, comfortable enough with the pace, delighted by the fresh mountain air, smiling at Daisy’s sheer joy over . . . everything . . . I struggle with this answer. I’m here to help. I promised I would. But how?

  I have no neighbors to question, no city streets to walk, no base motives to consider. Tim set out to get help for his friend in the middle of the night. Honorable. What happened after that. Terrible. And given the circumstances, too much area to search, zero witnesses to question, no thread to tease or bread crumbs to follow.

  Nemeth is the expert on the topography—where Tim might have veered off the trail. Martin is the expert on his son’s problem-solving skills—once Tim went off course, what decisions he might have made next.

  How the hell do I add to that? Another pair of eyes? Even I don’t believe that; if we find anything, it will be thanks to Daisy’s extraordinary nose, not our highly limited human vision.

  Not that that makes me the only semi-useless member of this party. Tim’s groomsmen, according to their witness statements, have no idea what happened after Tim left the campsite. Scott, who initiated this tragic chain of events by vanishing first, doesn’t even remember how he disappeared. And none of them were known for being outdoor enthusiasts—camping was Tim’s passion. They were merely humoring him.

  Yet here we are, tramping through the woods, halting when Nemeth tells us to halt, force-feeding protein bars when he orders us to snack. I find it fascinating how the three guys keep to themselves: Scott, Neil, and Miggy.

  They introduced themselves this morning, their manners perfunctory. I haven’t heard them speak since, though our party of eight has quickly broken into a series of separate groupings. Nemeth and Martin are in the front, a twin pair of leaders, with Nemeth hiking ahead with the rifle, then passing it off to Martin to do the same.