This Deep Panic Read online

  “I don’t know. Can I complain that you didn’t arrest me?” Sharon put her hands on the steering wheel and stared straight ahead, not looking at the deputy. She didn’t want to see sympathy, kindness, compassion. She didn’t want to see acknowledgement. Proof that she needed any of those caring emotions.

  “You can complain, ma’am,” the deputy said. He caught the seat belt and tugged it forward, holding it for her.

  Sharon looked down at it, this synthetic material, this symbol of safety, of a future, and could only shake her head.

  After a moment, the deputy let go and the belt once again retracted. He put a hand on her shoulder and she felt the warmth, the solidness, the reality of contact.

  “There’s always hope, ma’am.” He took his hand away and pulled out a business card. “You can call me if you need to. And don’t pull out on this highway without that seatbelt fastened.”

  Sharon watched the man go back to his truck, get in, and head west toward Monroe. She put the BMW in gear. When the light turned green she started forward, only to hear the long blare of horn again as the kid used the center turn lane to pass her. His tires sprayed her windshield with muddy water.

  She could follow him. Pull him out of the car when he stopped. Beat him to a pulp. Make someone else suffer.

  Instead she turned the windshield wipers on.

  Get her affairs in order, the doctor had said. Make a will. Prepare for the worst, even though, with all the treatments they had planned, she had a fifty percent chance of survival.

  Talk about what was making her angry, the deputy said. Sharon gasped on something that might have been a sob trying to escape.

  Chemotherapy. Radiation. Baldness. For fifty percent. The doctors acted like that was a good thing. But really, fifty percent sucked.

  The deep panic unfurled into something like rage. Sharon gripped the steering wheel so tight her knuckles deadened.

  If she was going to suffer and die soon, she sure as hell wasn’t going out leashed to oxygen and machines. Her body had betrayed her. Life had betrayed her.

  So life had to pay.

  She was going to die on her terms, not on the terms of microscopic fucking cells invading her breasts, spreading to her armpits.

  Eating her.

  6

  Curtis emerged out of the Hole for a lunch break, peeking first to make sure Henry wasn’t around. He was startled to see clouds had thickened and were now entwined in the branches of old evergreens, misting heavily on everything. He pulled his hat down over his ears and jogged to the car.

  That morning he had driven the narrow track, bouncing over rough ground to the Hole, where he negotiated a several-point turn in order to back up as close to the door as possible. It was his daily routine. Just like in the afternoons when he sat in the locked car with the engine running so he could have heat and drink his still-warm soup.

  And just like at the end of the workday when he came back out and it would be pitch black. Anyone who had ever been alone at night in the mountains knew that deep darkness. Knew that sense of being watched. Realized that humans might be welcome during the day, but that the night belonged to the wilderness. That was one of the fears he faced every evening. Which was why, by the light of his flashlight, he would scurry to the car, jump in, lock the door, and turn the headlights on as fast as his trembling hands allowed.

  But for now it was afternoon and he was safe in his car. He felt the heater kick in and reached for his soup. He gave himself half an hour for lunch. It was plenty of time to warm up, work on his mystery novel, and get a mental break from the cold solitude of the granite hole.

  Calibrations were going well. And there had been only one minor, very normal 2.4 tremor. Nothing out of the ordinary for mountains crosshatched with faults and pushed into existence by still-active plate tectonics. He looked forward to telling Henry that. He’d already formulated several responses, all of them clever. He knew the next time he got cornered by Henry he’d have forgotten those clever responses, but he enjoyed playing the scenes in his imagination.

  No, his only concern for the day came from a fellow university professor who had sent him a text right before his break.

  “Just confirmed. Hole has highest level of radon gas on whole planet. In granite though, not air you’re breathing. That tests fine.”

  Curtis decided he better apply for cancer insurance. Even if the air tested fine. And maybe he should take more breaks outside the Hole.

  Technically Curtis wasn’t supposed to leave during his shift. The studies on the Fifth Force required more than just the mass of granite he worked within. They required him to start a pendulum in motion and record its crossings at two points every eight-and-a-half minutes, for one hour. Then he had to calculate the precise distance to the next test point, move the gold-plated pendulum manually, and start recording again. He did this, alone in the cold and damp under the mountain, for fourteen hours a day.

  He figured science could sacrifice the time he took on breaks. Though he’d probably get fired if anyone ever found out.

  His watch beeped at him. Sighing heavily, he finished the last of the soup, turned the engine off, and got out into the drizzle.

  At the entrance to the Hole, there was a loud rustling in the ferns. He spun around, gripping his keys. With his heart racing and almost hyperventilating, he scanned the woods.

  Nothing.

  The safety of the car was too far away. The safety of the Hole was right behind his back. He fumbled the door open, jumped inside, and heaved the heavy door shut behind him. A small flush of shame filled him as he bolted the door with shaking hands. It was probably just a raccoon or something. Henry would know. But if Henry had been there, he would have laughed at him.

  That was okay. Curtis was used to being laughed at. The only time he was without fear was when he was deep in science and studies and teaching. Then he was confident and sure.

  But only then.

  7

  It was finally the end of the workday and Curtis turned on his flashlight, trying as always to ignore the flutter in his knees as he shut the Hole door behind him. Even though winter was over, the days were only negligibly longer, and by the time he was done with work it was pitch black outside. He locked the door, hitched up his pack, and turned, standing for a moment with his back to the granite.

  There had been three more shivers of the earth, tremors in the two and three-point range on the Richter scale. Not that big of a deal typically, but Henry’s concerns niggled at him.

  Mist collected in the trees and dripped around him. Wind rustled leaves and tree branches. His Volkswagen sat alone, scattered with fir needles, the metal glinting in the shaking flashlight beam.

  Curtis always needed a couple seconds to raise his courage as he went from the safety of the Hole to the safety of the car. He felt the solid mountain behind him, an ancient presence that gave the illusion of safety.

  But then, so did the car. And it had very bright headlights. And locking doors.

  And since he backed right up to the door, it was only a couple feet away. He gripped his keys and braved crossing those few feet.

  The flashlight, only slightly wobbly, illuminated the keyhole. Curtis jammed in the key and twisted. Yanking open the door, he threw in his pack and quickly followed, not quite slamming the door behind him. He hit the lock and then finally drew in a deep breath.

  The trusty engine started easily and Curtis flipped on the headlights and depressed the clutch. But something was there on the hood of the car, in the mix of fallen fir needles and collected drops of mist. He squinted. What was it? A small lump. A bird?

  Well, it would fly off when he started down the logging road.

  But what if it was dead, or worse, injured? And what was it doing out at night? His foot remained on the brake, clutch still depressed.

  What was he going to do if it was injured? Put it in a pocket and take it home? And then what, into a shoebox where he could watch it die a slow death?
/>   He lifted his foot off the brake, started to release the clutch, and the Bug lurched forward a little. His boot came back down on the brake.

  The need to see for sure what was there, where nothing should be, overcame his fear of the dark. He pulled the emergency brake on, grabbed his trusty flashlight, and, feeling brave, got out on his rescue mission.

  He left the car door open though. Just in case he had to make a run for it.

  At the front of the car, he bent, peering at what was clearly not a poor, sweet, injured bird.

  A bloody piece of raw meat.

  His breath stuttered for a second as his heart fluttered. He stepped back, hand coming to his mouth to hold back the sudden queasiness.

  It couldn’t be meat. But that’s what it looked like.

  “Vultures,” he whispered, nodding to himself.

  There were turkey vultures in the area. One probably caught a mole or something and then dropped it as it flew overhead.

  That’s what had happened.

  Drawing in breath and taking a firmer grip on his flashlight, Curtis leaned forward to get a closer look at what animal the vulture had caught.

  Several tufts of long gray hairs were attached to the piece of meat.

  Curtis stumbled sideways, falling against the door of his car. He lost his grip on the flashlight and it hit the ground with a crack. With fumbling hands, he scrabbled his way into the car, slammed the door and locked it. Then had to shove it back open to throw up. Wiping his sleeve across his mouth, he enclosed himself again and sat, gripping the steering wheel to control the shaking of his hands, the racing of his heart, the shortness of his breath.

  Police. The police would want to see that. Test it or something. Those gray hairs. Henry. What else could it be?

  There was no way he was getting out of the car again to retrieve the gruesome hunk. Instead he put the car in gear and drove into the dark mountain night, easing very slowly down the logging road in order to keep from jarring off those gray hairs. He gagged again, but pressed the back of one hand against his mouth and managed to swallow down the horror.

  Once he hit pavement and got to where cell service worked, he would call 911.

  Though they’d probably think he was insane when he told the dispatcher there was a piece of an old man on the hood of his car.

  8

  Curtis stood bathed in the red light of the neon ‘closed’ sign hanging in the window of the Index General Store. He’d called 911 as soon as he had cell service. Snohomish County Sheriff’s Deputy Max Douglass had, luckily, been responding to a call about a bear in town. The two of them now stood under the store’s wide eaves as rain splattered on the asphalt of the parking area.

  The deputy wasn’t as convinced as Curtis that the only thing remaining of Henry was a small chunk stuck and congealing on the hood of the Volkswagen Bug. Curtis had pulled in under the eaves so Henry wouldn’t get washed off. Sure, the deputy said Henry wasn’t home, but it didn’t help that Henry was known for going bushwhacking into the mountains for days at a time and never telling anyone.

  Until now Curtis had never realized how easy it was for someone who lived a solitary life to not be missed. It made him wonder how long it would take someone to notice if he disappeared. It saddened him to think there was only one person who might notice.

  “I need to call my mother,” Curtis said.

  Deputy Douglass raised an eyebrow as he carefully packaged Henry.

  “She’s in Anacortes. Likes the ocean better than the mountains. I should call her more often.”

  The deputy didn’t ask what caused the sudden spate of information he didn’t need. Maybe he recognized that Curtis was simply thinking out loud.

  Curtis was actually thinking that he needed to start calling his mother every evening. Not only so she’d miss him if something happened, but also, he suddenly realized, so he’d know if something happened to her.

  Curtis blew out a breath, returning his focus to the here and now. “What will you do with Henry there?”

  “Get it tested. See if it’s human or not. First though, I’ll take a quick run up to the Hole and poke around. Just in case. It might be days before we get any results and by then Henry might even be back. It hasn’t been twenty-four hours since you saw him so legally he’s not missing.”

  “I suppose it’s possible the vulture grabbed some of his hair for a nest.” Curtis’s vivid imagination took over. “He might be camping out there right now with a headache and missing piece of scalp!”

  The deputy shrugged. “Maybe. You are a scientist, right?”

  “Sure. Why do you ask?”

  “Just checking.”

  Curtis shuffled his feet as the deputy wrote down Curtis’s contact information. “So there was a bear in town, huh?”

  “The Smith family heard their garbage cans go over and said the bear actually tried to get in their house.”

  “What?”

  Deputy Douglass shrugged. “That’s what they said. They heard it breathing heavy, heard it outside the door. Probably was a bear. There were long scratches in the wood. And they’d been having breakfast for dinner. You know, lots of bacon. Though I only found big dog prints. But then I’m not a tracker.”

  “But still,” Curtis said, peering into the darkness around them. “That seems weird behavior for a bear.”

  “I contacted Fish and Wildlife. Might be a tagged bear. Accustomed to people. They’re coming next week to set up bear cages around town.” Deputy Douglass closed his notebook. “Can you come by East County Precinct tomorrow to sign the statement?”

  “Sure,” Curtis said. “I’ll stop in on my way up to work.”

  The deputy simply nodded and headed back to his truck.

  Curtis drooped, exhaustion seeping through him. By now he was typically at home, writing up his notes from the day, checking email, finishing his solitary dinner.

  Solitary, suddenly, didn’t sound appealing. As he ducked against the rain and got back in his car he decided he’d stop at the Agate Cafe in Gold Bar. Comfort food and bright fluorescent lights.

  As he drove over the bridge out of town he couldn’t help glancing in his rear view mirror at the quiet street behind him. Index always had a few bears come through, especially this time of year when hibernation was done but berries weren’t ripe yet. After all, Index nestled in bear country. But a bear trying to get into someone’s house? That was just odd.

  ~Day 2~

  1

  Snohomish County Sheriff’s Deputy Max Douglass pulled into the tiny parking lot of the Espresso Chalet and parked next to Deputy Casey Richards. He lowered the window of his whale. The black and white truck took ten points to turn and ten minutes to gain enough speed for a pursuit. He loathed it.

  Casey’s window was already down. She wiped raindrops off the edge before they dripped inside and shook her fingers. “Heard you had a road rage call in Sultan yesterday. What did the guy do?”

  “Woman,” Max said. “She lost it on this kid. Got out of her car at a stoplight and threatened to kick his ass.”

  “Really? Write a ticket?”

  “No.” Max thought a minute. “Something going on there. Looked like she’d just found out a loved one died. Know what I mean?”

  “She was taking her grief out on the guy?” Casey asked.

  “Maybe. Think we’re going to see her again.”

  Casey smoothed her short black hair and put on a baseball cap with the Sheriff’s logo. “As long as it’s not suicide by cop. Ready for your coffee?”

  “Always. You ready for your wimpy hot chocolate?” Max raised his window and got out of the truck. “I’ve never understood how anyone originally from Canada doesn’t drink tea. You should drink tea. Isn’t that a Canadian thing?”

  “Tea, eh? Can’t stand it. Plus, it’s a British thing, not a Canadian thing.” Casey looked up at him, who, at over six feet tall, rarely had anyone look down on him. “And, hey, isn’t it your turn to buy the drinks?”

&nbs
p; “Nope.”

  He followed Casey past a towering carved totem of Bigfoot. The legendary Sasquatch, as the creature was called locally in the Pacific Northwest, had a perpetually worried expression on its etched face. Today, in the drizzle, someone had placed a knitted orange and yellow cap with a big pompom on its head. The espresso stand was a quarter-mile east of Index, and the location where an old movie about Bigfoot had been filmed. It was also the location of the best espresso in the whole Skykomish Valley.

  “You heard from the ex?” Casey asked.

  Max ran a hand over his head, slaking rainwater off his short hair and wishing he’d grabbed his hat. “Nope. Out east somewhere is all I know.”

  He used to rub the palm of his hand over the pain in his heart every time he thought of his ex-wife. But not anymore. She’d left him over two years ago, saying she couldn’t be married to a cop anymore. He’d realized that she’d never been able to separate the man from the job. Thank god they hadn’t had kids.

  “That slacker you live with got a job yet?” Max actually liked Casey’s boyfriend, Shep, who had recently been laid off from Boeing. Though Shep wasn’t good enough for her. And lately he got a sense things weren’t working out any better for her than it had for him. Romance and law enforcement were difficult bedmates.

  “Who you calling a slacker?” Casey raised her fist and thumped his bicep. “Shep’s in Snohomish today, applying at Soundair Aviation. It will be good again once he’s back to work.”

  Max hoped the guy got the job. He didn’t like hearing stress in Casey’s voice.

  Sandy was working the espresso machine and when they stepped up to the window of the tiny trailer, she was already pouring shots. Max nodded in greeting and then took his cardboard container of caffeine with a deep, contented sigh.

  She called the drink a Lift Ticket. Four shots of espresso and four shots of heavy cream. He called it Priority Number One.

  Casey paid for both their drinks, chatted briefly with Sandy, and then picked up her hot chocolate. Max shook his head as he always did, and they walked beside each other back to the trucks. But as he reached for the door handle, his cell phone rang.