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“And your mother?”

I shook my head. “Left a long time before that. We’ve never had any contact.”

Amelia nodded, making a note on the pad in front of her. “You two grew up here?”

My eyes settled on hers, trying to read the look of them again. She had to know the answer to that question. So why was she askingit?

“That’s right,” I answered.

“When about did you leave Six Rivers?”

“About twenty years ago? When I left for school.”

She tapped the end of her pen against the paper. “Twenty years ago. That would have been right around the time that kid died, right? Griffin Walker?”

I kept my hands clasped in my lap, fingers strangling one another. “What?”

She smiled, letting out a breath. “Sorry, my head’s been in all this paperwork, like I said. Reviewing old files and cases, trying to get a handle on the history of this place. That must have been a difficult time.”

“It was,” I managed, looking for any possible exit from where the conversation was headed. I’d gone to great lengths to erase that time from my life. And I didn’t like to think about what anyone following that trail would find. “Was there anything else?”

“No, I just want to be sure I have all the contact information for any other next of kin, in case more details or questions come up.”

“It’s just me,” I said, trying to look more relaxed.

She set down the pen, squaring it with the edge of the notepad. “Look, I know I’m an outsider here,” she said. “It’s not exactly easy coming into a tight-knit community like this, especially when you’re here to enforce rules and regulations. But if you need anything while you’re here, or if you come across anything that might be helpful in regard to Johnny, I hope you’ll reach out.”

She was right that Six Rivers didn’t exactly welcome strangers. Timothy Branson had learned that almost as soon as he’d taken the position. He’d been under the impression that the posting would be a simple one. But between the hunters, the semi-transient loggers, and the overly protective town residents, he’d gotten more than he’d bargained for. It didn’t matter how long he was here or how entrenched in the town he became, he’d never been one of us, and that had made it difficult for him to do his job when Griffin Walker died.

“Anyway,” Amelia said, “the real reason I asked you to come in is because I wanted to be sure you got these.”

She pushed back from the desk and stood, going to one of the cabinets. A hand lifted the keys from her belt, and I watched as she unlocked the one closest to the wall and pulled a bag from the shelf inside. Through the clear plastic, I could see the dark blue checkered fabric of Johnny’s jacket, and immediately, that seasick feeling returned to the center of my gut. Within seconds, he was there, filling the space of the small office like slowly rising water. I was already getting to my feet, as if preparing to try and keep my head above the surface.

Amelia handled the bag with care, holding it out to me slowly. “These are his things we recovered from the scene.”

The scene.

There wasn’t a single moment of each day that I wasn’t thinking about the fact that Johnny was gone, but hearing those words forced me to actually imagine it. Johnny, laying in the forest, that blue jacket just barely visible in the thick green ferns.

My hands felt numb as I took the bag from her, fingers curling around the soft shape of the jacket inside. Amelia was still speaking, but I couldn’t hear her anymore. The sound of her voice bled into a kind of white noise as I stared at that blue-and-black pattern. The jacket had belonged to Dad and was one of the things he’d left behind when he went to Oregon. After that, it became Johnny’s.

I nodded in an attempted answer to whatever Amelia was saying, tucking the plastic bag beneath my arm and turning for the door.

“James?”

My name was too loud in my ears, my face flashing hot with the tears I was desperately trying to swallow down. I looked back, one hand clutched tightly to the metal knob on the door.

“One more thing.” Amelia paused. “Johnny’s ashes. They’re still being held at the morgue in Sacramento. Should I have them sent now?”

The tightness in my chest twisted. Ashes. There was no way I couldbegin to conceive of that. How was it possible that Johnny, everything he was, every memory he had, every thought and feeling, was now just…dust? How could that be when he was stillhere,alive in the air around me?

“I’m not sure how long I’ll be here exactly,” I said, voice strained as I searched for some kind of excuse. I didn’t want them. I couldn’t bear to think they even existed.

Amelia gave me a sympathetic nod. “Of course. Maybe I could have them sent to Micah then?”

I stared at her, caught off guard by the mention of Micah’s name.

“I just mean, I know you all are practically family, and he’s been the one dealing with things up to now,” she added, by way of explanation.