Page 4 of The Last Grift
Another hour, give or take, and he would be there. Wherever there was.
In general, Gabriel had managed not to think much about his mother’s recent death. Today, however, the contents of the letter in his pocket replayed in his head as he drove.
Chance,you may wonder why I chose not to tell you this while I was living. I can’t say, really. Except that the older I got, the harder it was to tease out the stories from the truth. Most likely you will be angry with me—but when have you not been? I can’t say our relationship has been easy. And, I suppose, I am to blame for that too.
I met your father when I was twenty and all that means. He charmed me. I thought I was in love. Me! A Karne! Can you imagine it?
That line was a kicker.Heidi Karne had always claimed that she didn’t know who his father was, that she’d had a one-night stand and had never learned his name. And she was right, he was angry with her.
Love or not,by the time I found out I was pregnant, it was too late to do anything about it.
Nice,Mom. But honestly, Gabriel wasn’t surprised that Heidi hadn’t wanted the burden of a child. He supposed he’d always been able to tell. The subject was just one of many they never broached.
I should have known better.Your father was a handsome charmer, but he had no substance. You look a lot like him. He spent most of his time with me bragging about the other women he’d been with, and I thought it meant I mattered most. I wouldn’t be surprised if you have brothers and sisters out there somewhere. He’s dead anyway, died in the late ’90s, so you don’t need to worry about having to meet him.
There’s something else for you. I’ve been paying a small fee to have someone I used to know keep an eye on it for you. Think of it as your inheritance from your father. The car is also yours, of course.
An addressand a name he’d never heard of, Elton Cox, had followed. A quick internet search had revealed nothing about either of them, only that the location existed and wasn’t that far from Seattle except for the pesky Salish Sea being in the way. As for the man, Gabriel had no other information.
Was Elton Cox his father? Would Heidi have been so cruel? Gabe couldn’t answer that.
But whoever this Cox person was, he maintained a general level of anonymity that Gabriel was intensely envious of.
You probably wantme to apologize for my life choices and how I raised you, but—Gabriel could almost see his mother lift one skinny shoulder in a careless shrug—I did what I thoughtwas best. You always had a roof over your head and you were never hungry.
The factthat Heidi was literally justifying a lifetime of emotional neglect from the grave would be laughable if it wasn’t exactly on brand for her.
I do hopeyou find real happiness someday, although I have no idea what that would look like for you. You always have been a bit of an odd duck. The car is in the storage unit, the keys were sent to your post office box. Everything else has been donated.
She’d sighed it HK, like she always had.
He was fine. Everything was fine. It would be fine.
Fine.
FOUR
CASEY
Tuesday
The truck’sengine rumbled and roared as Ranger Casey Lundin kept his foot pressed against the gas pedal and gunned it up the mountainside. The road cut up and through the heavily forested area that started at the highway below and ended near Hurricane Ridge. Of course, thousands of acres of timber also flowed down the west-facing side of the Olympic Range all the way to the Pacific, but where Casey was driving now was generally known as The Valley.
It was a ragged patchwork of private and public lands. Some of the public acreage was state-owned and some was federal, while a great deal of the private lands had been bought up by citizens and companies—which complicated things even more. The two-lane road he was driving on would narrow to a single lane in a few miles and continue up into the high elevations. There the road turned to gravel and dirt, with huge rocks every few feet, and potholes big enough a small child could fall intoone and rescuers would have to be called in. But Casey wasn’t headed that far today.
Once a week or so, up until the rain and snow made it impossible to navigate the unpaved section, Casey drove up and back, keeping an eye out for things that didn’t belong. The Department of Natural Resources—his ultimate boss—and the Twana County Sheriff’s Office had a patchwork jurisdiction across the region. Unfortunately, most of the homesteaders in The Valley regarded law enforcement with suspicion no matter who they worked for.
In his experience, the Sheriff’s Office only showed up when a 9-1-1 call was made, which was rare. The folks up The Valley wanted to be left alone and that included by Sheriff Eli Rizzi and his posse of assholes. Casey could relate—humans sucked—but being left to their own devices did not mean encroaching on federal land unless they had a permit or a lease.
He passed an incongruous and large wooden sign on the side of the road exclaiming,Welcome to your future home! Snowcap Estates, lots available, building soon.The notice had been up since last spring, but Casey hadn’t seen anything more than sticks with plastic tape tied to them, indicating a land survey had been ordered.
Every few years an investor-developer-type person got all excited to build up there. But so far, all had fallen through. As well as the environmental hurdles, builders would have to get the county and state to agree to maintain the road and get approval from the current residents, who were not interested in New People moving in. The far side of that acreage had access to Lace Lake, which had great fishing and was generally gorgeous. Overall, it was a prime location, and Casey figured that this time the trees would come down and new fancy houses would eventually go up in their place. Growth was inevitable but he didn’t have to like it.
“Dammit,”Casey muttered. Ahead, a familiar, and offensive, pickup came into view, the “rebel” flags attached to the windows fluttering in the breeze. “I should have known they’d be up here,” Casey told Bowie, his three-year-old cattle dog Labrador mix with heterochromia. Bowie snorted in reply.
Pulling to the side of the road, Casey parked behind the monster truck, noting its owner, Calvin Perkins, had added new bumper stickers since their last run-in. Which, Casey quickly calculated, had been only a few weeks ago.
The newest sticker proclaimedWe’re Watching Youwith the Eye of Providence underneath the words. Creepy, but so were the Perkinses. Lovely to know that some of the most disreputable people in the county had joined the volunteer watch. Then Casey snorted because next to that wasFix the Economy, Legalize Marijuana.The third wasForks Bites, with an image of bloody vampire teeth. Calvin probably thought he was telling the world he hated the small town of Forks.
