Watcher in the Woods (Rockton #4)
Kelley Armstrong
For Jeff
ONE
I have not seen my sister, April, in two years. Nine months ago, I called her before I fled to a hidden town in the Yukon, where people like me go to disappear. I didn’t tell her where I was going. I only said that I had to leave, and she might not hear from me for a few years. Maybe I’m imagining it, but I thought I heard relief in her voice.
After our parents died, I would call before April’s birthday, before Thanksgiving, before Christmas, and I’d suggest getting together. For the first year, she made excuses. Then she stopped bothering, and I stopped calling. I worked through every holiday and pretended it didn’t matter. Of course it mattered.
Late last night, I called from a pay phone in Dawson City and told April that I needed her help, that a man’s life depended on it. She hung up on me.
Now I’m outside the Vancouver hospital where she works. She’s a neuroscientist, but also has her medical degree and consults on neurosurgery. According to her assistant, she’s been here all night on an emergency call and should be leaving at any moment.
I’m standing by the parking garage. I’ve confirmed her car is inside. Now it’s just a matter of waiting.
“Looks like good weather today,” says a voice beside me.
I slant my gaze to a guy about four feet away. He’s six feet tall, with light brown hair in a buzz cut. He’s got a few days’ worth of beard scruff, and he’s wearing a ball cap, T-shirt and shades. His leans against the building, paperback novel in hand.
“Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to speak to strangers?” I say.
“Nah. She told strangers not to speak to me. And I won’t be a stranger after you come back to my hotel room tonight.”
I laugh. “Does that line ever work?”
“Never tried it.” He lifts the shades. “I can offer further incentives, if you’d like.”
“Like a room-service dinner?”
“Sure . . . eventually.”
I slide over and lean my head against his shoulder before putting space between us again. Eric Dalton, the sheriff in Rockton, that hidden town where I’ve been living. Also the guy I’ve been living with. April doesn’t know Dalton, so we’re keeping that distance until I introduce him. Dalton can be a tad intimidating when he wants to be. And given the run-around I’m getting from April, he really wants to be.
“You could just wait at her place,” he says.
“That would require knowing her address,” I say. “She moved here a few years ago, and I only realized it when my birthday gift for her bounced back.”
“Bitch.”
I shrug. “Maybe I did something to piss her off.”
“Yeah. It’s was definitely you, Casey. You’re such a pain in the ass.” He lifts his glasses again, so I don’t miss his eye roll. “Your sister is a bitch, and if this wasn’t Kenny’s best chance, I’d say fuck it. If she doesn’t want to know you, that’s her loss.”
I smile. “Thank you.”
He starts to answer and then quickly lifts his book and murmurs, “I’m gonna guess that’s her coming out now.”
I look up. Dalton has never seen a photo of April, and if asked, I wouldn’t have said there isn’t much of a resemblance between us. Our mother was Filipino and Chinese; our father Scottish. April can pass for white where I cannot, and to me that has always meant that we look very different. She’s a few inches taller than my five-two. Her skin is lighter. Her eyes are blue, their shape more Caucasian.
But we have the same straight dark hair, the same heart-shaped face, the same cheek bones and nose, all inherited from our mother. When I see April through Dalton’s eyes, the similarities outweigh the differences. It’s just that the differences have always loomed larger in my mind, wedged in by every acquaintance who met my sister and commented on the fact she “looked white.”
It always seemed like one more way we were different. One more way that she was “better,” and I feel a flare of outrage thinking that now. I am proud of my heritage. I wouldn’t want to be able to “pass” for anything but what I am. Yet I cannot deny that when I was young, looking like April seemed better. Easier.
April spots me and slows. Her lips compress, and I am flung back to my childhood, seeing that same look from every time I careened or bounced into a room. A moue of distaste for the wayward little sister who was always causing trouble, always disrupting April’s orderly life. I’m only five years younger, but that gap always felt huge. Insurmountable.
“No,” she says as she walks straight past me.
“I just want to talk.”
“Did I say no last night?” April doesn’t even glance over her shoulder. “Go back to . . .” She flutters a hand over her shoulder. “Wherever you went.”
Dalton surges forward, but I stop him as I follow her into the garage. “I need your help, April.”
“If you’ve frittered away your inheritance, I’m not lending you money.”
If anyone else said this, I’d snap back a response. We both inherited seven figures from our parents, and mine has done nothing but grow since their death. Anyone who knows me—at all—wouldn’t be surprised by this. Yet the person who should know me best is the one thinking I’d blow through a million bucks and come to her for a handout.