Page 27 of I'll Be There
“I thought that was just something you were telling the girls.”
“What did you think we had on the agenda? A strip club?”
Micah laughed. “Hardly. But maybe skeet shooting, or, I dunno, skydiving.”
“We jump out of planes for a living,” Reuben said from the back seat. “Although, I wouldn’t mind a jump right about now. Space.” He had his arms tucked in, his body wedged next to the door.
The highway north of the border into Thunder Bay ran through lush pine and balsam forest before it thinned out. They passed a cheese farm, a winery, and finally came into the city, following the signs onto Broadway, then into the old fort, carved out of a thick swath of forest on a strut of land encircled by the Kaministiquia River. Conner parked, and the occupants all but fell out.
The sun hung high and Conner checked his watch.
They’d lost an hour, moving ahead in time. Nearly noon already.
He glanced at Pete. “Keep an eye on Romeo.” He ignored Pete’s frown and jogged up to the information building.
Micah kept up with him. “Okay, what’s up? I’ve never seen you this excited to visit ahistorical monument. Really want to watch a guy hammer a wheel into shape, do you?”
Conner held open the door, glanced back. Reuben and Pete were a good twenty feet behind them.
He scuttled inside and motioned Micah to the vestibule. “I’m here to meet someone—a girl—”
“What?”
Conner held up his hand. “It’s a contact. Someone who says she has information about my brother’s murder.”
Micah just blinked at him, but Conner saw the gauges turning. “Someone from the Sons of Freedom?”
“Apparently. She had my brother’s burner phone, and when Liza sent that global text, she answered it. Said someone was after her—”
“Seriously?Conner.Who is this person?”
“Her name is Harmony Blue. She was supposedly his partner. I called my brother’s case investigator to ask about her, but I only got through to his voicemail.”
They moved aside as a group of kids came through the doors, tickets in hand. Some wore coonskin caps, in character for the trading post.
Micah glanced at them, then at Reuben, Pete, and Romeo, now reaching the sidewalk. “Do they know?”
“Except for Romeo.”
“No wonder you didn’t want him to join us. Okay, so I guess I’ll hang back, keep an eye out.”
See, this was how God showed up—he sent Jim Micah to watch his back.
“I don’t know what she looks like. Maybe a biker chick?”
“Where is she meeting you—hey guys.” Micah stepped away from him as Romeo and the guys came in, but Conner answered him fast in a shrug.
Micah caught it, gave him an almost imperceptible nod, and somehow it loosened the knot in Conner’s gut. Just a little.
They bought tickets and walked up the path to the gate. Conner had grabbed a brochure, studied the layout, the map. It seemed a strange place to meet, with the wide-open spaces, the fence that circled the stockade. Forty-two buildings, a small farm, and an Ojibwa village made up the grounds. Although a reconstruction of the original fort, Conner still stepped back in time as he walked through the fort gates, past timber-framed buildings labeled antiquated names like the Apothecary and the Wintering House. He stood for a moment in the middle of a row of buildings—the corn stores—not sure what to do next.
Groups of tourists—families with children in hand, a cluster of women wearing fanny packs, a few young couples—milled about the area, talking to the era-attired blacksmiths, coopers, tinsmiths, furriers, and beaded Ojibwa actors.
“Um, so, do we...spread out?” Pete said, glancing at him.
“I dunno. I think...yeah. Let’s just wander around.” He glanced at Reuben. “Maybe you stay here, near the entrance, in case—”
Reuben nodded. Good, because Conner hadn’t a clue how he might finish that sentence.
