Chapter 13
Dane Amleth His phone buzzed. Dane tapped on the message from Harmony: You're lucky. Clawsons at office. Sheriff is on his way to lodge. You've maybe 20 minutes before Clawson arrives. I'll try to stall him. He swallowed. He'd only just managed to avoid having to talk to Ryan and George--they'd knocked and tried to peek into the house for a good five minutes before finally leaving--and the emotional peaks and valleys of his conversation with Gwen still rattled him. But Harmony was right: He had to get a move on. Stall as long as you can, he tapped back, then sent the message off. Move. He had to move. But where? Dane wandered the Lodge as he thought. The logical place to go was Clawson's office, of course, but Dane hesitated going there. If the GoPro--or, maybe, what was left of it--was there, he hadn't hidden it in the most secure place. Then again, the man couldn't be bothered to keep the key to the gun safe secured, so perhaps he wasn't being as careful? Then again again, the GoPro might contain some incriminating evidence. A man like Clawson wouldn't think that a gun was as dangerous as that information. Thinking in that vein made Dane despair of finding anything. If he had that kind of evidence, the last thing he'd do was keep it nearby. He'd destroy it immediately. But where would-- And then it came to him. The Barn. GoPros were notoriously hard to break--he'd seen a video on YouTube of someone parachuting with one that fell off, and it survived the entire trip down. If it was a matter of breaking into the thing, the tools he'd need would be in the workshop section of the Barn. He needed to head that way. Dane's thoughts severed as lights flickered through the bay windows. Someone was here. He pulled out his phone, but there was no new message. Besides, it had only been a couple of minutes since Harmony's text: It couldn't possibly be Clawson…could it? Hesitating almost too long, Dane slipped into the closest room--Clawson's office, as it turned out--just as the kitchen door opened up from the garage. From his position next to the door, he could see the lights flick on in the kitchen. The loud rustle of bags drifted toward him, followed by the distinct clicking of his mother's shoes. "Hello?" The light in the hallway clicked on. "Dane are you--" She stopped. Dane couldn't see anything from this angle, but he could guess why she wasn't calling out anymore. "What the--" Click, click, click, as she approached. "What happened?" She was hunkered over the vase, he was sure of it. A moment later, he heard her stand up, return to the kitchen, and thump around. She walked past the slightly ajar door, and Dane saw she held a broom and dustpan in one hand. Moving as softly as he could, he stepped out behind her and scurried to the kitchen. The back door led out to the patio, and was the most direct path to the Barn. A moment later and he was outside in the bracing air, gently closing the kitchen door. He turned and toward the Barn, easily avoiding the dust-covered lawn furniture and clumps of browned leaves, sticking instead to the stepping-stone pathway that led to his destination. The door, of course, was unlocked, but when he flicked on the overhead fluorescent lights, he couldn't see anything untoward. There were the winterized water toys, covered in tarps and waiting for the next time the Amleths could haul them out to Huntington Reservoir; ATVs, including the ones he'd used with Harmony the other day; an assortment of basketballs, footballs, soccer balls, and other sports equipment, most of it languishing in the dust; and other miscellany that brought back fond memories of when his family was normal. The thought of what he'd lost, of the relationship he'd had with his father, tugged at him. Dane Sr. was not always the best of men, but he'd been a great father. He hadn't deserved what Clawson did to him. Steeling his resolve, Dane scanned the large room again. Where would Clawson put something like that? He drifted past the storage area to the workshop, which was in an open-roofed backroom. Workbenches, toolboxes, and other ranch-upkeep-related items surrounded him. Clicking on the hanging fluorescent lights, he stared at the main worktable in the center of the shop. Globs of paint had dried on it, as well as deep scars from rogue handsaws or power drills. Papa Dane had always liked solving problems with his hands--this workshop felt like an extension of him. More than any other time since the funeral, Dane felt like he was seeing the ghost of his father, and it took the form of this room. Dad's laugh, his barking orders, his intensity when working on a project…the phantom smell of sawdust and wood glue hung in his memories. A wave of sadness and pity swept through him. It was as though the dam of his misery had at last cracked and the sorrow that he should have felt, the mourning that had failed to truly touch him, shoved past all of the carefully constructed justifications of his feelings and Dane, for the second time that night, openly wept. The difference, however, was that he wept for his father, this time. Sitting on the workbench, he cradled his head in his hands, rested his elbows on the table, and let the tears flow. The cascade of emotions travelled from the top of his head and worked its way down through to his soles. His body heaved with the expression of his grief. How long he staid there, letting the feelings of loss express themselves, he didn't know. What pulled him out, however, was the familiar buzz of his phone in his pocket. Sniffing loudly, he looked at his phone with tear-blurred eyes. It took a moment before he could process what he read. He's headed your way from my house. I tried to stall him, but it was no use. You have about ten minutes. Make them count. Wiping his eyes on the sleeve of his shirt, he stood up and took a deep breath. He wasn't sure what Harmony had done to give him this time, but it would be ungrateful of him to waste it. And, unsurprisingly, Harmony was right in getting him back on track--a surprising feat, considering the fact that she was miles away. He drew in a cleansing breath, wiped his eyes one more time, then cast about the workroom. There was nothing there. The place was clean--even the debris of the last job was still in the trashcan… He paused. "He couldn't be that stupid," he said to himself, walking over to the bin and peering in. For a long moment, Dane stared, unmoving. He couldn't believe his luck, the fact that Clawson could be so thoughtless--but, the longer he stared at the shattered pieces of a GoPro camera in the folds of a black garbage bag, the less surprising it was. After all, Clawson was like most people Dane knew: Throwing it into the garbage meant the thing ceased to exist. Fingers trembling, he reached in and pulled out the plastic shards. The device looked like it had been pulverized by a sledgehammer--which was probably what had happened. The plastic case in which it would have been strapped onto Papa Dane's body lay next to it, scuffed and chipped but otherwise intact. Though he had no reason to assume that this was what happened, he imagined that Clawson had spent an inordinate amount of time trying to crack open the carrying case before finally looking up a YouTube tutorial on how to remove it. He knew it was dumb--Clawson had his own GoPro that he'd used, after all--but it was a gratifying mental image nevertheless. The camera was indeed ruined, but it wasn't the camera that had him curious: It was the SD card. Holding his breath, he used a fingernail to try to pop open the covering. No good. Glancing at his smartwatch, he realized that if Harmony was right about Clawson's timing, Dane only had minutes left--two or three, probably. Two quick strides took him to the plastic drawers that lined one side of the walled room. Pulling open one, then another, then a third, he cast about for longer than he cared to think until at last finding the drawer containing the needle-nosed pliers. He pulled them out, steadied his hand, and began to pry. A moment later, the SD card came out. Throat dry, he fumbled for his phone and popped out the SD card/SIM card carrying chassis. Substituting his own for the one from the camera, he held his breath as he reassembled his phone and tapped his way to the settings menu. New SD card found. Format? He glanced at the door. Clawson was due any minute now. Heading toward the exit and clicking off the lights as he went, Dane left the Barn, still fixated on his phone. He tapped the No option, keeping his mental fingers crossed that there wouldn't be corruption of the device. The phone thought for a long time, a spiraling circle the only indication that anything was happening. He was almost back to the house when the settings menu returned. He tapped on the card's icon, then went to the video section. Multiple videos were available, but a quick sorting of most recent entries brought up the one that Dane wanted. He heard the thunder of the garage door opening. He was out of time. |