City of the Lost (Rockton 1)

We talk for a few minutes. Then Dalton comes out with a sandwich in each hand. He holds one out to me. When I try to refuse, he pushes it into my hand with, "Take. Eat. That's an order."

"Yes, sir."

"Now, when you're done that, go upstairs, get in bed, and stay there until I'm back."

"Yes, sir."

Anders shakes his head. "Damn, that never works for me."

"It's all in how you say it," Dalton replies.

I laugh, tell them goodbye, and then take my duffle and my sandwich back into the living room to enjoy the fire while I eat.

As I eat, I take Mick's file and start reading the page Isabel added on him. Dalton said Mick got caught up in dirty cop business and tried to play it straight. That, it seems, is not the whole story. While it is true Mick had to get the hell out of Dodge--or, in this case, Vancouver--when he refused to play ball with guys on his task force, it seems the trouble went a few steps further. Mick's partner had also refused the payoffs. The drug guys had caught up with him and killed him. Then Mick tracked them down and killed them.

So Mick wasn't just a cop. He was a cop with a taste for vigilante justice. And two of our victims are in his files, as killers who escaped justice by buying their way into Rockton.

Isabel thought he'd been keeping notes for Dalton. She's partly right. These are Dalton's notes--the same ones I read in his journal. But there's no way Dalton let Mick in on his secret crusade, and he certainly wouldn't have allowed Mick to keep a copy of his notes.

Mick must have found out about the journal when he'd been working under Dalton and known where he kept it. They're a little out of date, and he's added extra notations, as if he'd been investigating on his own. Bartending is exactly the kind of job that makes it easy to learn other people's secrets.

I work methodically, reading each page. Dalton will be in the forest for hours. I'm in no rush, the fire is blazing, his couch is comfortable, and I've made a hot chocolate chaser for my sandwich.

The last page in Mick's file is for a guy named Calvin James. He's the only one Dalton didn't have in his book, which means this must be Mick's own detective work. James was a soldier who walked into his commanding officer's bedroom and shot him dead while he slept. Then he walked out ... and shot and wounded two other men. He disappeared while being transferred to a military jail stateside.

I read that page three times. Then I set it aside, and I stare at the fire, and I tell myself that I should be ashamed of the conclusions I'm drawing.

Mine was in the military. Killed someone who didn't deserve to die.

When the door flies open, I'm still staring into that fire. I keep staring as footsteps pound across the floor, even as I hear Anders say, "Casey?"

I turn, and I look at him, and that's all I can do. I look, and I tell myself I'm wrong. I must be wrong, but I can't stop thinking it.

"Casey?"

It takes a moment to rise out of my thoughts, and when I do, I see Anders--really see him--sweat streaming down his face, his eyes round.

"It's Eric," he says. "I lost him. We were out there, and we were sticking together, and then--I don't even know how it happened. I stepped away for a second to take a piss, and I barely even turned my back and--"

"And he's gone," I say, and my voice is an odd monotone. "You lost him."

His brow furrows. "Right. Did ... did you take something? For the pain?"

"Yes," I say, in that same hollow voice.

He exhales hard. "Okay, okay. So you're a little out of it. But I need you to come with me. Can you do that?"

"Go into the forest with you."

"Right."

"To look for Eric."

He swears under his breath. "Shit, you're really out of it."

"Just take me to him."

"I don't know where--"