Snowbound - Blake Crouch [43]
While waiting for the elevator, Kalyn spotted the unoccupied business center.
“No, let’s look in the morning,” Will said. “I’m worthless now.”
“Come on, only take a minute.”
They gathered around the computer, Kalyn at the keyboard, Will and Devlin looking over her shoulder.
She pulled up the Google home page and typed “Wolverine Hills” and “Alaska” into the query box.
The search results were unimpressive, not a single Web site devoted to the Wolverine Hills, and they were mentioned just two times in passing: under a place-name listing titled “Minor Ranges of the Alaskan Interior” and in a three-year-old forum posting—an outdoorsman inquiring if anyone had ever hunted caribou in the Wolverines.
“Okay, here’s something,” Kalyn said. “Says they’re a small grouping of hills ranging between two and four thousand feet. Oriented east to west. Thirty miles long, ten wide. Two hundred miles north of Denali National Park. Two hundred west of Fairbanks.”
“I’m guessing you can’t drive there,” Will said.
Kalyn had already accessed MapQuest and was executing a search of the area west of Fairbanks.
“Alaska Three goes south to Anchorage. Looks like there are some unpaved roads that head north and west, but none of those come within a hundred and fifty miles of the Wolverines.”
“Hence the floatplane.”
Devlin said, “So this guy is flying women out there, into those hills?”
“Looks that way,” Kalyn said.
“Why would he do that?”
“I don’t know, baby. Part of me doesn’t want to know.”
THIRTY-FOUR
Will gave Devlin her physical therapy and left her half-asleep in front of the TV. He took the stairs up to the next floor, knocked softly on the door of room 617. Kalyn answered in a tank top and running shorts that accentuated her long-muscled arms and legs.
“Can we talk?” Will asked.
They sat on the king-size bed, everything quiet save for the whisper of the central-heating unit blowing warm air out from under the window. Kalyn’s curls were uncurling and the shower had nearly stripped the black dye from her hair, returning it to her natural brown, now pinned up off her shoulders.
“What are you thinking of doing?” he asked.
“Same thing you are.”
“There’s no telling what we’ll find out there, and Devi’s been through a lot already.”
“I can protect you both,” Kalyn said.
Will smiled. “Aren’t I supposed to say that? You’re challenging my fragile ego.”
“Look, you don’t have to go. Head home if you want.”
“But you’re going to the Wolverine Hills.”
“There’s nothing else for me to do.”
“What if that guy was lying? He was dying, Kalyn. What’d he have to lose?”
“Guess I’ll find out.”
“Or we could call the police now. Let them take it from here.”
“Same sort of folks who never found Rachael to begin with, but accused you of her death? No thanks, Will. I’ve sacrificed too much to hand them the ball on first and goal. Watch them fuck it up.”
Will leaned back against the headboard, glanced toward the window at the lights of downtown Fairbanks.
“Suppose we do find out what happened to my wife. Your sister. Then what? They’ll still be gone. We’ll still be missing them.”
“Won’t it help you move on?”
“I don’t know. Rachael’s been gone five years, but you know, I still remember the night she didn’t come home, and the following day, when everyone came to my house to hold vigil, like it just happened. I feel stuck in that moment.”
“I’m well acquainted with that feeling.”
“What do you want, Kalyn? What do you expect to gain from all this?”
“Peace. I think. And to know exactly what happened to my sister. You don’t understand. Before Lucy disappeared, my life was on this perfect trajectory. I’d made special agent. I was doing well, advancing at the Bureau. Doing exactly what I wanted to do. Making the friends and the connections I wanted to make. I loved my place in the world, but I was also thinking ten years down the road, fifteen. Had it all planned out. Stint with the FBI, then prosecutor. Maybe a run for office. But after Lucy . . .”
“You derailed.”
“Yeah.”
“You can still do anything you want. You know that, right?