Wild At Heart (Wild 2)

Toby chuckles.

“Anyway, I’m looking forward to getting my license so I can get to the gym again. I just wish it wasn’t a half hour away.”

His gaze roams the stone fireplace. He doesn’t seem in any hurry to get back home to his engine.

“Did you come here a lot before?”

“A few times. Mainly to fix problems on Phil’s plane.” He wanders over to the bookshelf where I’ve lined up framed family pictures—the ones from Jonah’s place and a few of my own. “My mom and Colette were pretty close. She’d call me over to help, especially in the last few years, with Phil not able to handle so much.”

“So, why are you working on small engines when you know how to fix planes?” I ask curiously. Jonah and Toby really need to meet, and soon.

He shrugs. “Not a good setup for workin’ on planes at the resort. I’ve helped out a bit at Sid Kesslar’s, over at Mile 68 off the highway, but between you and me, he rips off his customers. I can’t stand the guy. Anyway, it wasn’t really part of the plan, me bein’ back here.”

“Why’d you come back, then?”

“Shit happened.” He picks up the picture of Diana and me. “Your sister?”

I’m momentarily distracted. “Best friend. I’m an only child.” Though there was about five minutes last summer when I had convinced myself that my father had a secret daughter—Mabel. “What about you? Any sisters or brothers?”

“One brother. Deacon.”

I recall that framed hunting photo on the wall in the Ale House. “Older? Younger?”

“Younger. By two years.”

“Does he help run the resort, too?” If he does, I haven’t seen him around.

“He used to,” Toby says, setting the picture back. “Before he disappeared.”

I frown, replaying that in my head in case I heard it incorrectly. “Disappeared, like, he moved to Miami and you guys don’t talk anymore?”

Toby’s gray eyes flash to me, a hint of grim amusement in them. “Like he went out hunting one day five years ago and never came back.”

A chilling feeling washes over me. “Oh my God. Is he … I mean … do you think he might still be out there, somewhere?”

“Nah. Not alive, anyway. We spent months looking for him. State troopers, local Search and Rescue, volunteers.”

My stomach has sunk to my feet. I feel like I’m prying—I don’t really know Toby—but I can’t help myself. “What happened?”

“Well …” He perches against the arm of the couch, folding his arms over his chest, as if settling in for a story. “Him and two of his buddies drove up to a spot outside Fairbanks for the hunt. I tore up my MCL earlier that year and was recovering from surgery, or I would have gone with him. Anyway, the weather was shit and they weren’t having any luck. The other guys wanted to head back to camp early but Deacon, that stubborn ass, stayed out, alone. Said he’d be back to camp within a few hours and call them over the walkie-talkie if he bagged anything, so they could come out and help him dress it.”

I assume “bagged” and “dress” are hunting terminology for killing and cleaning, but I don’t interrupt to ask questions, too engrossed in the tale.

“When he didn’t come back after dark and he wasn’t answering his radio, they went out to look for him. Found his ATV right where he’d left it. They tried hiking in, but it was a good mile and a half off the trail, and dark. That’s when they reported him missing. They went out again at daybreak, but they couldn’t find him.”

“They found nothing at all?”

“No, they found his radio, lying on the ground. And footprints.” His brow furrows as he studies me. He hesitates. “His and a brown bear’s.”

A sinking feeling stirs in the pit of my stomach.

“There were some empty casings lying around. It looked like he fired a few rounds before he took off. They followed both sets of prints all the way to the river where they stopped.”

“And then?” I dread the answer.

Toby shakes his head. “They combed the area but never found Deacon or the bear. The way the ground looked, they figure he stumbled down the embankment and fell into the river, got carried away. That, or the bear caught up to him while he was trying to cross. There’s usually a body when that happens, though.”

“When that happens?” I echo, my voice a touch shrill.