What She Found in the Woods

I’ve been waiting for Bo for over an hour.

I got there early. I woke when it was still dark and set out barely past dawn. I brought my blanket this time and spread it out, but I didn’t take anything else out of my pack.

I’m just sitting here. I still don’t know what to say, but I can’t pretend that Dr Goodnight doesn’t exist any more. And I can’t pretend that every new detail I learn doesn’t point directly at Bo’s father.

Mr Tanis said Dr Goodnight likes things clean. It’s difficult to keep things clean in the middle of a temperate rainforest that’s brimming with living things and seeping water.

But Bo’s dad has a clean room, right here in the middle of the woods. It was miraculously spotless.

I need to be sure that Ray is Dr Goodnight. If he is, there’s no way Bo doesn’t know something about it. The only play I have is to get Bo to say something that he shouldn’t know – like the fact that one of my friends is missing – and then I can go back home, march right into Officer Longmire’s station and tell him that I can lead him and the nearest SWAT team to the killers.

But how? Bo and I have never spoken about Mila. Except that one time I told him that my friend Mila kissed me. Was saying her name enough for him to be able to find her? Was saying she kissed me enough for him to want to kill her? I know someone from his family takes a monthly trip into town for mail and news. I don’t know if one of them took that trip yesterday and heard about Mila’s disappearance, or if they would know Mila is missing because Ray has her tied up in that shed where he makes his drugs.

I don’t know Bo.

But I don’t know how much I don’t know him, and that’s why I’m just sitting here, combing through every conversation I’ve ever had with him. Searching for a way to either trap him or trust him. But I’ve got nothing. There’s no web of lies I can entangle him in. No easy key that unlocks the box and lets the demons out.

I always thought I was smarter than everyone else. Well, I’m not. I still haven’t figured out what changed. Why did Dr Goodnight go from the clean death of sleep to the gory messes that he’s been leavin

g lately?

Unless it’s not the same killer.

That’s a stretch. One killer is hard enough to buy into, but two killers occupying the same area of forest? If Dr Goodnight is real, he wouldn’t allow someone to come into his territory and start killing people in a way that would draw the attention of the FBI. That could bring him down. Unless Dr Goodnight knows the killer, and either can’t or won’t stop the fledgling psychopath from poaching his prey.

Dr Goodnight had a son. He had a fledgling.

‘You’re here early,’ I hear Bo say before I hear his footsteps.

He breaks through the brush, his cheeks flushed and his eyes sparkling. He’s rushing towards me with all the certainty and warmth of the rising sun.

What the hell am I thinking? There’s no darkness in Bo. No gruesome secret. I know liars. I know when I’m being manipulated. Bo is certainly not a murderer, and if Ray is Dr Goodnight, then Bo doesn’t know. Even the thought is ludicrous.

Bo stops at the edge of my blanket. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asks, his face mirroring my tortured expression.

‘My friend is missing,’ I say, and I burst out crying. I cry over everything, now that I’m not on my meds. No, actually, that’s not true. I only cry when Bo is with me.

He sits down next to me gingerly. He doesn’t crowd me or try to hug me. ‘Was she out hiking?’ he asks. I nod, and his face brightens. ‘How long? When did she go missing?’

‘The day before yesterday, right after we worked together at the shelter,’ I answer while I sniff and wipe my face on the back of my hands. ‘We went out for ice cream, and then she must have gone home and got her hiking gear . . .’

Bo interrupts. ‘What time was that?’ he asks urgently.

‘After four.’

‘Did she bring a tent? Camping gear? Does she hike a regular path?’ He’s standing up now and helping me to my feet as he speaks. ‘Think, Lena! We could still find her. Show me where she started from, and I can track her.’

I’m shaking my head. I don’t know if it’s because I don’t dare get my hopes up or because I’m so surprised by his reaction. But I shouldn’t be surprised. Bo is good through and through, and I can’t believe I was such a fool to think what I did.

‘Can you really track her?’ I ask.

‘You said she went missing after four, the day before yesterday. It hasn’t rained since noon, the day before yesterday,’ he says. His voice is deep and sure. ‘I can find her. Just show me where she started from.’

I start to gather up my things, but Bo stops me. He hefts my pack. ‘Too much weight,’ he says, and he starts emptying it out.

He removes everything that isn’t survival gear, including my journal. I almost stop him, and then I don’t. I don’t need my journal. Not any more.

‘I’ll show you where she lives,’ I say, shouldering my nearly weightless pack.