Brian Freeman - Thief River Falls

“I don’t think there’s anything confidential about it at this point. I imagine she’s sort of a celebrity up there. It was the writer, Lisa Power.”

“Ah.” Something in the man’s voice changed. “Yes, we all know Lisa.”

“Well, her call was a little strange. I just want to make sure she’s okay.”

“That’s kind of you, but I don’t think you’ve got any reason to be concerned.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, I don’t know anything about these manhunt rumors, but I do know the police already talked to Lisa this afternoon. The county attorney actually knows her quite well, and he sent two sheriff’s deputies to follow up with her. If there were any kind of problem, I’d have heard about it. As you say, she’s pretty well known in these parts.”

“Well, that’s good to hear,” Will replied. “I’m glad the locals have things under control. If I can help from my end, don’t hesitate to get me involved.”

“I’ll pass that along to my boss.”

“Thank you,” Will said. “By the way, I hate to admit this, but could you remind me who the county attorney in Pennington County actually is? I don’t remember the name off the top of my head.”

Will heard a smile in the voice on the other end. Rural counties probably got that query all the time.

“He’s been the county attorney here for almost thirty years,” the man replied. “That makes him kind of a legend in Thief River Falls. His name is Denis Farrell.”

Lisa stood under the overhang outside the terminal building at the Thief River Falls airport. In front of her, rain poured off the flat roof like a waterfall. Purdue sat on a bench next to her, his legs crossed, peering at the sky. There were a handful of cars in the parking lot opposite the building, mostly airport employees. Almost no one came and went in the evening October storm, but Lisa looked down and let her hair fall across her face, hoping not to be recognized.

Being here, so close to her past, she felt her stress level increase a hundred times over.

Curtis emerged from inside the terminal with his backpack over his shoulder. He shook his head and scowled at the rain, as if his fickle friend Mother Nature were playing another trick on him. According to the weather forecast, the rain wouldn’t be stopping anytime soon. Overnight, as the temperatures fell, it would turn to ice and then finally to snow.

“I can hangar the plane here until morning,” he told Lisa. “We can try to get out then.”

“Okay.”

But it wasn’t okay. Twelve hours until morning felt like a lifetime away, and anything could happen between now and then. Wherever she went in this area, people would know her, and word would spread. It was impossible for Lisa to hide in Thief River Falls.

“You can go back home tonight if you want,” Lisa told Curtis. “I’ll pay to get you a rental car.”

“What about you?”

“I don’t think it’s safe for me to be at your house.” She stared into the rain, which blew across the asphalt like an invading army. “I’m not sure it’s safe to be anywhere.”

“Well, wherever you go, I go. Laurel made it very clear I wasn’t to leave you alone. Not for a second.”

Lisa smiled, because she could hear those words coming out of her friend’s mouth. “Thank you, Curtis.”

“What would you like to do? Get a couple of motel rooms? There are places not too far from the airport. If it would make you feel better, I can go inside and get the rooms myself. Nobody has to see you. I can bring back some takeout for us, too.”

Lisa thought about it. “That might work.”

“I see a cab over there,” Curtis said, pointing across the parking lot. “Let me check if it’s waiting for somebody or whether we can hop in.”

She watched Curtis walk into the rain, not even flinching as the downpour soaked him. Most people would cover their heads or hunch over and shove their hands in their pockets. Not a farmer like Curtis. He trudged across the parking lot in his work boots as if the sun were shining and tapped on the driver’s window of the taxi.

It wasn’t really much of a taxi. The car was a 1990s-era Caprice Classic, painted burgundy, with patches of orange rust on the trunk and a bumper that was attached to the rest of the car with duct tape. A big handwritten sign in the corner of the rear window said, “TAXI.” Next to the sign was an oversize photograph of a Roswell alien taped to the glass, along with bumper stickers about ghosts, cats, marijuana, and guns.

Curtis waved at her from the car. He opened the back door and waited, and Lisa headed for the taxi, with Purdue trailing behind her. She let the boy slide inside first, and Curtis followed them and shut the door. He had to try it three times to get the door latch to click.

The interior of the cab matched the exterior. Foam spilled out of tears in the two-tone seat cushions, and cigarette smoke lingered in the shut-up space. The backs of the front seats were taped over with Halloween decorations. A plastic skeleton in a noose dangled from the rearview mirror.

Lisa saw the driver’s face in profile. She was young, not even thirty, with spiky blond hair that was streaked with purple and sat up like a bristle brush on her head. Two Celtic knots had been carefully shaved into the side of her skull. She was attractive, with high cheekbones, a ski-slope nose adorned with three rhinestone studs, and a slightly jutting chin. Her top was made of black mesh, and she had a long neck. When their eyes met in the car’s mirror, Lisa saw that the woman had black eye shadow painted above glimmering blue eyes.

As soon as the driver saw Lisa, she exclaimed in a breathy voice, “Oh! Oh my God, it’s you! I can’t believe it!”

The woman threw open the driver’s door and raced around the front of the Caprice. With rain drenching her, she yanked open the back door, thrust her body across Purdue as if the boy wasn’t even there at all, and gathered up Lisa into a bear hug that practically lifted her out of the seat.

“It’s me, Lisa! It’s Shyla. Shyla Dunn.”

Lisa had met thousands of readers over the past decade, and after a while, the names and faces began to blur. And yet as she stared at Shyla’s distinctive punk/New Age look, she recognized something familiar in her features from years ago, long before she became an author. She knew this woman, but it had nothing to do with her books. Their relationship went back to when Lisa was a nurse and Shyla was no more than eighteen years old.

“The hospital,” Lisa murmured. “You were a patient.”

“Yes! You stood up for me when I was just a kid. My boyfriend assaulted me, and the police didn’t care. They acted like it was my fault. You shamed them into doing something, and they put the son of a bitch in prison. That was all you, Lisa. The county attorney wouldn’t listen to me, but he listened to you.”

“Well, I didn’t give him much of a choice. That’s the only reason he got involved. Believe me, Denis Farrell has never been a fan of mine.”

Shyla hugged her again. “I’m just so happy to run into you! I moved away after all that shit went down, and I only came back to town a few months ago. So I never had a chance to thank you properly. What you did was such a big thing to me.”

Lisa found herself tearing up at Shyla’s gratitude. She was proud of being a writer, but sometimes she wondered if writing books was just her way of keeping reality at bay. She could sit in her little room and make up stories, and that meant she didn’t have to go out and face the world anymore. It had been different when she was a nurse and had to deal with reality every day.

The young woman gave Lisa another smile, with an innocence that belied the toughness of her physical appearance. Soaking wet, she returned to the driver’s seat of the cab and twisted around to stare at Lisa in the back seat. “Look at me going on and taking up all your time when you have somewhere to be. Where do you want to go? Free ride, anywhere you want.”