The Silent Places Read online

  She looks a lot like me, though she inherited her father’s eyes. When she’s older I wonder if they’ll be heavy and piercing, but for now she radiates warmth and that comforts me.

  She hops off the couch to get her backpack from Janelle—she knows the routine, even at this age unpacking her things without complaint. It’s good preparation for when she goes to school. Lunchbox on the counter by the sink, and she’ll take her Barbies upstairs. The bag she sets just so to the side of the kitchen cabinets and trundles off for the stairs.

  Her room is one of the only finished spaces. I can live with a lot in disarray, but she shouldn’t have to—she’s got all her furniture set up, secured to the walls, as well as all her toys unboxed and in their appropriate spots. Paint on the walls to match her bedspread, teal and grey—she picked it out, and while I’d winced at the price, the room is beautiful and she’s so happy with it the cost was worth it. The likelihood is that she’ll get right into playing with her Barbies when she goes to put the dolls away, and now I’m glad for it. I rise stiffly—not sure why, other than a bone-aching weariness that seems to have flared up this late afternoon—and head for the kitchen to unpack the groceries.

  “What’s up?” Janelle leans next to the counter, studying me.

  She’s very pretty. Medium brown skin, natural tight dark curls with the bottom two inches dyed red. Subdued style, the kind that looks effortless and professional when she’d tell you she just threw some random thing on. Her only piercing, a silver barbell in her left eyebrow, glints in the kitchen light.

  Nadia and I are very lucky to have Janelle and all her boys in our lives. There is literally no one else out here I trust now that Nick’s gone.

  Not just out here, really—no one in the whole world.

  “I was basically accosted outside the General Mart,” I say as I get the refrigerated items put away first. There’s not a lot in the fridge—I need to stock up better come winter. More non-perishables in case we get snowed in. Five years in the Yukon and I’m still not ready for the cold snaps.

  “Accosted?”

  “About Nick.”

  “Hmm. Owen?”

  It’s a good guess. Owen McKenzie is the closest Nick has to family now in Red Fox Lake. They were friends as kids, grew apart, and then reconnected. He’s avoided me in the year since Nick has been gone, but last month he tried to approach me twice in town before backing off without saying a word, which I’d told Janelle about.

  It was him watching my exchange with Montgomery in the bar.

  I shake my head. “A...reporter, sort of. I guess she calls herself a journalist. She currently works with a network trying to find missing persons.”

  Janelle already has out her phone. “Name?”

  “Jenni Montgomery—Jenni with an ‘i’—but it’s the Lost Ones Advocacy Network you want to look up.”

  She does so while I finish with the groceries and fold up the paper bag. It could be recycled but Nadia has a strong artistic streak—she’ll want it for something, I’m sure.

  Janelle lets out a low whistle as I turned to face her, my hip against the counter and arms crossed against my abdomen. My bulky cable-knit sweater is warm, too warm, but I don’t know if I’m sweating because of the churning in my gut or because the house feels unusually warm.

  At last she looks up. “What do you mean accosted you?”

  “Just strolled up wanting to interview me. I sat with her at the bar for ten, maybe fifteen, and it was all innocuous—then she starts asking if I knew about Nick’s ‘depression’.”

  Silence settles between us. Janelle knew Nick well before me—that’s why I even have her in my life, their long-time friendship establishing enough goodwill that she welcomed Nadia and me like old friends—and I already know the answer she’s about to give since the comment didn’t surprise her. Still...I brace for the confirmation.

  “It’s been a lot of years since he had issues,” she says at last.

  “So you knew?” There’s no accusation in my voice. No hurt, either. Because I trust Janelle enough to know she would’ve spoken up if she’d suspected that was why he went missing.

  She nods. “When his parents died, he went to a real dark place. I put him in touch with a colleague. He went for about six or eight months.”

  Janelle is a grief counsellor. This is the other reason why I knew she’d speak up. She knows warning signs, behavioural patterns. She knew Nick as well as I did. And while I know sometimes folks hide a lot when going through something, there wasn’t a single sign. He slept well. He ate and drank well. He didn’t say strange things, he didn’t act out of character, he didn’t give away possessions, he didn’t suddenly get his affairs in order. He was stressed about the house, but also excited.

  Nick did not kill himself and, facing Janelle, I realize she’s helped quash the slowly sprouting doubt Montgomery had placed in me just an hour ago.

  “He didn’t have a history of depression prior to that,” she continues. “It was grief-related. Even then, I don’t suspect he reached a point of suicide ideation. He wouldn’t tell me, but I think he would’ve spoken to Easton. And Easton would’ve come to me—and he would’ve said something when Nick went missing. But that’s the problem with mental health—once it’s in your file, even that you were seeking help, suddenly it casts a shadow on everything else.” She’s fuming even though I can see her trying to tamp down on it.

  It’s a subject she’s passionate about, to say the least. Especially out here where the winters are so dark and so long, depression is a disease that rears up often enough in our communities.

  “No one’s ever made such a suggestion to me,” I say. “Not even the RCMP and they asked a lot of questions and posed a lot of theories. Montgomery said she was writing an article coming out in December about missing people in the north, but it felt too coincidental that she’d be here right before the anniversary. That was before I looked her up.”

  “She didn’t mention this Lost Ones thing.”

  I shake my head. “Not a word. The main publication she mentioned to me is a podcast that’s on hiatus, nothing about her other work. And if this Lost One’s group such a big advocacy thing for families, why wouldn’t she lead with that?”

  “So she’s somehow on Nick’s case, all the way in Red Fox Lake just before winter, accosting you, and apparently either had access to Nick’s confidential medical information or someone who knew that about him told her already.”

  I chew at the inside of my mouth, an old habit I hadn’t done in years. “Apparently.”

  “I don’t like this either,” she murmurs.

  She’d tell me if I was being paranoid, and I don’t know if I’m relieved or not that she doesn’t. But the sick feeling in my gut just intensifies, because I know something’s coming even if I can’t see it yet.

  I taste blood.

  October 21

  14 Days Before the Storm

  I had a fitful night of sleep and I’m grateful for the fact that I work from home as a typesetter because at least I don’t have to spend a day worrying in an office or a store. I can do it in the privacy of my own home. The terrible WiFi signal out here, however, means I usually have to drive into Whitehorse twice a week to send files to clients, and that’s what I should be doing, but instead I focus on the house.

  There’s an issue with the plumbing in the upstairs bathroom, so I’ve been up since seven to let the contractors in to do their thing, manage Nadia, try fitfully to work on my laptop, and then finally settle on home tasks.

  The drywall is up—I helped hang it—and I’m doing the last skim job down here myself. I helped with the upstairs so I do know what I’m doing and it’s very calming work that takes my focus. I sweep up everything I’ve sanded as I go so my daughter doesn’t get into anything, but we’ve got the TV on so she’s on the couch with a snack while I work through the morning. The plumbing guys tell me everything’s good and head on their way by noon.

  I stare at the walls while Nadia has her lunch and debate what colours to paint. Nick and I had waffled on possibilities and were going to decide later. And he’s dead—I know he has to be, someone doesn’t go missing in a -20C blizzard out here and survive. The storm had lasted three days, and we didn’t get another warm spell. His outerwear was warm but not enough to protect from long-term exposure, and the emergency bag in the trunk hadn’t been touched.

  I know all these things, but I still think about what he’d want. Like there’s this impossible future where he’s alive and, of all things, concerned about the living room wall colour.

  I might put off the decision, just pick up some neutrals to cover the drywall. Not that hard to repaint later when I settle on something.

  I need to do more unpacking. The rest of our stuff will be delivered from storage in a couple of weeks—some packed away from when we left Whitehorse and couldn’t fit it all in our Red Fox Lake one-bedroom, other items non-necessities that could wait until the house was mostly completed.

  Except for Nick’s boxes of clothes and personal items.

  I couldn’t put those in storage even if I knew he probably wasn’t going to reappear any time soon. Everything of his from our apartment is boxed and stacked in the master bedroom here, and I haven’t been able to bring myself to open them...because that will mean deciding what to do.

  Do I hang his clothes up in the closet where they’ll wait for his magical return, and every day I’ll have to shuffle them aside to get dressed? Do I give them to a second-hand store? What is the appropriate amount of time to wait? Truthfully I don’t want to give up anything of Nick’s—everything of his seems to fit here, in this house that he built much of with his own hands. Nick is engrained in the very foundation of my life and home. His clothes belong more
than mine do.

  There’s a knock at the door just as Nadia goes down for her nap. I’m standing in her doorway watching her slumber, not sure how long I’ve been there. The knock is what jars me to awareness and I give her a fleeting look before easing the door shut and stepping lightly downstairs.

  The front door is huge and heavy—it has to be to withstand the weather here. There are slim double panels of frosted glass on either side of it and all I can see is a tall dark figure shifting uneasily on the front step.

  I’m not expecting anyone. I stop to check my cell phone on the kitchen island but there’s no message there—Janelle would’ve texted—so I slip it in my back pocket and head cautiously for the door.

  When I haul the heavy dark door open, his back is to me and he’s taking a step off the stoop—then he twists and looks back as if I’ve startled him.

  Owen McKenzie. Stepping down the stoop lessens his height a little, but when he steps back up, he looms over me. His shoulders hunch inward in his sherpa-lined tan trucker coat, as if that can make him smaller. The logo on the dark navy baseball hat is beat-up but I know without looking at it that it’s the Edmonton Oilers. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him take it off.

  He stops when he’s facing me, two feet away, and I wait in the doorway while the chill works its way deeper in me the longer I stand there.

  “Hey, Immy,” he says carefully.

  This man was friends with my husband, but I don’t know him except in passing. He drives to Alberta for work every few months—flies, sometimes, when he can afford the fare—and lives there for at least several weeks a time, however long his contract is, before returning to Red Fox Lake. We all had dinner two or three times before Nick went missing and since then he hasn’t exchanged a single word with me. Right up until last month, he even seemed to go out of his way not to talk to me.

  And now he’s on my doorstep.

  “Hi,” I say at last. I stifle an awkward “um” and stand there for a moment before continuing. “Did you...want something?” He’s looking at me expectantly, so I figure that’s it. “Come in?”

  “If you have a few minutes...?”

  You’re going to show up at my door and expect to come in without giving me a hint as to why? But I quash that unkind thought, reminding myself that he’s Nick’s friend, and I should Be Nice.

  I dislike being nice, even though I know it’s required of me. Or maybe because it feels required of me.

  “Sure.” I step back to let him in, my anxiety rising as I do. Other than Janelle and the contractors, I don’t let people into my home. It’s not just that Nick’s gone—I like my privacy and I’m a touch territorial.

  I look around for weapons as he comes inside, just out of habit. Catalogue the space, calculate how long it would take to reach things. There isn’t much at this point—four steps to the kitchen there’s a barstool, a little farther and a half-cup of cold tea waits on the counter—because so little is unpacked.

  Not that I think he’s a threat, but it’s second nature enough I can’t stop myself—and immediately feel more secure afterward when I identify what can be used for defense, how easily I can make it upstairs to my daughter behind the brief safety of a barricaded room.

  “Coffee?” I offer as he stands awkwardly a little inside the door.

  He nods and slips his boots off. Unzips his coat but then pauses, and seems to decide to leave it on since there’s nowhere currently to hang it.

  He takes his hat off as he sits at the kitchen island, sets it aside, and his mop of dark hair clings to his head as if still confined. He hunches his shoulders and seems uncomfortable.

  There is a coffeemaker on the counter, along with a microwave. Despite measuring three times, the stove didn’t fit, so it’s still pending, but the refrigerator is there with fresh cream in it that I picked up yesterday. I set the half-and-half on the counter, then reach for the sugar jar but it’s empty. I don’t drink sugar in my coffee so I haven’t picked any up. That mental list I never remember.

  So I make the coffee and we say nothing while it’s brewing. I busy myself pulling out mugs, looking everywhere but at my guest.

  “The house is looking really good,” he says at last.

  “It’s coming.”

  “Upstairs?”

  “Mostly done.”

  “Floors?”

  “Hardwood, next week.”

  I pour two cups of coffee and turn to find him nodding and looking at the living room. I add cream to mine and leave his in front of him.

  “No garage,” he says.

  Why is he asking so much about my house? “It was going to be detached with a workshop loft, but he hadn’t settled on the plans before... Before.” I’ve got those partial plans still, but I’ll probably opt for a carport for the winter—much cheaper and easier to have constructed at this point.

  I don’t sit but lean on the island across from him, the expanse of dark marble counter cold and heavy as it stretches between us. It’s only when I see him staring at my hands that I realize I’ve been absently twirling my white-gold wedding ring on my finger; I fold my hands instead to quell any outward sign of my discomfort.

  “Yesterday,” he starts, his hands wrapped around the mug he hasn’t had a drink from yet. “At the bar, the woman?”

  “Jenni Montgomery. Writing about missing people apparently.”

  “She ambushed you.”

  I nod even though he’s staring into the steam from the coffee instead of looking at me.

  “I...I was the one who contacted them.”

  My heartrate increases sharply, and I suck in a breath. “The Lost Ones thing?”

  “Yeah.” His gaze flashes to mine briefly, deep-set hazel eyes seeming bigger than usual, before dropping again. “I heard they reopen cases. I thought they might look for Nick.”

  “His case isn’t closed.”

  “Not officially, but...”

  “And you didn’t think to warn me?”

  That gets him to look up suddenly. “I didn’t know that would happen. I wanted to talk to you before I asked them but I didn’t know... Wasn’t sure you’d want to bring it up.”

  Wasn’t sure I’d want to get help finding my missing husband—right.

  “They said they wanted to talk to next of kin,” he continues and scrubs a hand across his prickly jaw. “Friends and family. I gave them a list. They said they’d be making arrangements for meetings. I didn’t have your email, but I figured they could, y’know...”

  “She accosted me outside the General Mart.”

  He tenses, shoulders bunching a little more. “I’m sorry. I was trying to help.”

  This whole conversation is weird. Okay, he admitted he didn’t have another way to contact me, so where I would’ve texted or called someone to tell them myself, the only way he knew to get a hold of me—other than watching around town—would be to come to my home to tell me this. But I still find it weird. Janelle and her family had known Nick for well over a decade; surely Owen could’ve contacted her.

  “Has she spoken to you since she got here?”

  He nods. “Three days ago. I thought she was talking to you right afterward, but I guess she went to Whitehorse to speak to the RCMP first.”

  I’m not sure if that’s strange or not—I can’t pretend to know what the proper protocol would be. Owen was their initial point of contact, so I could see them come to him first, but if it was me, I’d want to talk to next of kin immediately. And I’m the only person Nick has left. There was always the possibility for follow-up, as well—visit the family, the friends, then speak to the police, then come back to the family.

  But it’s almost like she wanted something to come at me with before we spoke.

  Of course, everyone in Red Fox Lake does think I killed my husband. I wonder where Owen stands on that.

  “What did you tell her?” I ask. “About Nick? About...theories as to what happened to him?”

  The way he skirts my gaze makes me think he believes I killed Nick and told this Lost Ones group as much. But would he be here in my home apologizing if that was the case?