Page 17 of So Far Gone

“At first it was a relief,” Kinnick said, “being alone in the woods. I worked. Took walks. Wrote. Read. Concentrated on fixing

things around my little house. I’d feel this sense of accomplishment from the smallest things. Putting in a new pump for the

well. Rebuilding the front porch. Learning to use generators and batteries. For a few years, it was great. But the last couple

of years, I’ve felt something was missing.”

Kinnick took and released a deep breath. “Then, yesterday, my grandkids showed up on my front porch. And for just a minute,

I didn’t know who they were. I find out my ex-wife is dead, my daughter has disappeared, my shithead son-in-law has gone off

the deep end... and it was like I could see myself, not from inside my own head, where I’ve been the last seven years, but from the outside, where these cute children were standing on my porch,

waiting for their broken-down old grandpa to step up and do something.”

“Jesus.” Chuck shook his head. “Damn.” He looked over. “Listen to me, Rhys. We are going to get your grandkids back. Don’t

you worry. We’ll find your daughter and her kids, and we will set things right again.”

Chuck’s cell phone had been buzzing during all of this. “No. Don’t you worry.” The ex-cop thumbed through information while

he drove, eyes darting up to the road, down to the screen, up, then back down. “Good, Shel, yes, good, good, good,” he muttered.

Kinnick watched the big cop’s cell phone with envy. He really needed to get himself one of those things.

“Here we go,” Chuck said, “looks like we got an address for your daughter and Shane. We’re in business.”

They drove to a stucco apartment complex near the Northtown Mall, where Shane and Bethany had most recently lived. Their first-floor

unit had a small patio, with a barbecue and two bicycles chained to the metal railing. The smaller bike still had training

wheels. Ah, poor, clumsy Asher. Kinnick felt his chest tighten with guilt. So much time he’d missed.

“Nobody’s home,” Chuck said, arching his hands to look through the patio window. “Place looks well-kept, though. That’s a

good sign.”

“Of what?” Kinnick asked.

But Chuck had moved on, climbing the stairs two at a time to a second-floor apartment, a place with planters and deck chairs

on the balcony. “Let’s see what the neighbor has to say.”

They rang Anna Gaines’s bell. She answered in workout clothes, started to smile, then gasped when she saw Kinnick’s face.

“Oh, my God. What happened?”

“I took Asher to his chess tournament and a couple of Shane’s friends showed up and took the kids away. I got this for my

trouble.” He pointed to his black eye and swollen cheek.

“Was it the men who came here? Two big guys in a black pickup?”

“That’s them.”

“I’m so sorry! I’m the one who told them where you were going. They said Shane was looking for his kids or else I never would’ve

said anything.”

“It’s not your fault,” Kinnick said. “I’m just glad they didn’t give you too much trouble.” He turned and introduced Chuck

Littlefield. “Chuck’s a former police detective. He’s helping me find Bethany and the kids.”

Chuck opened his little notebook, suddenly all-business. “When was the last time you saw Shane and Bethany, Mrs. Gaines?”

“Let’s see. I saw Bethany five days ago. We chatted out by the mail boxes. And I saw Shane a couple of days ago, walking to his truck. Then Leah came over yesterday morning with that note and said that her mom was gone, and that Shane had gone off to find her.”

“Did Bethany give you any indication where she might be going?”

“No. I mean... not really. I’ve known she was unhappy. Obviously, she thinks this new church is a little intense. She talked

about moving back to Grants Pass, where they had friends. And I do know she had reconnected with someone in Portland recently?

An ex-boyfriend?”

“Not Sluggish Doug,” Kinnick said.

“Yeah, Doug! I think that was the name.”

For the hundredth time, Kinnick thought: Christ, Bethany’s taste in men.

Chuck turned to Kinnick. “Do you know this Doug’s last name?”

Rhys nodded.

Chuck turned back to Anna. “Did Bethany ever say that she felt physically threatened, that she worried Shane might harm her?”

“No, no.” Anna shook her head. “Nothing like that. She always said he was a good father, and a good husband, and, honestly,

I think he adores her. He just keeps getting deeper and deeper into this church, into conspiracies. Guns. I think all Bethany

wants is to go back to Oregon, get the kids back in school, and try to get Shane to ease up on the crazy. I suspect that’s

why she wanted Mr. Kinnick to watch them while she got some things in order.”

Kinnick’s head slumped in defeat. One job and he couldn’t even do that.

“Did she have her own car?”

“No,” Anna said. “That’s one of the issues. They just had the pickup, and Shane has that. Maybe she took the bus somewhere?”

Or someone picked her up , Kinnick thought. Or— He thought again of Asher’s terrifying comment.

Chuck asked: “Does she have any other friends we might call?”

“I’m sure she does, but I wouldn’t know.

They just moved here a few months ago. We’d see each other around the apartment complex, and we just started talking, especially after her mother died.

We talked about our marriages, jobs she might find around here, about our moms. She was becoming increasingly unhappy, I think.

She talked about these panic attacks she’d been having. ”

Each detail stung Kinnick. He should’ve been here for his daughter.

Chuck handed over his little pocket notebook. “I assume you have Bethany’s phone number. Can I get you to write that down

for me?”

Another sting: Kinnick didn’t even know his own daughter’s phone number.

“Sure,” Anna said. She pulled up the number on her phone. “I’ve tried calling a bunch of times. Goes straight to voicemail.

Like her phone is turned off.” She handed the pocket notebook back to Chuck. Kinnick looked over the ex-cop’s shoulder, as

if seeing his daughter’s number now might make up for his absence.

Chuck wrote his own phone number on a piece of paper, passed it over, and said to call if she saw or heard anything . Anna reached out and squeezed Rhys’s hand. “Good luck, Mr. Kinnick,” she said. “Those kids are so smart and sweet. It’s

like they’re from another time, you know?”

Kinnick did know. He swallowed and nodded.

“I hope you get them back.”

They walked quietly back to the truck, Chuck tapping Bethany’s phone number into his own phone, and handing it to Kinnick.

Immediately: “You’ve reached Bethany Collins...” Her voice another lump in his throat.

“Straight to voicemail,” Kinnick said, and he handed the phone back to Chuck, who opened his email and read the latest information

his office had sent over.

“No shit,” he said. “Oh man! I know where this is!”

He looked up from his phone to Kinnick.

“What?” Kinnick asked.

“Your guy Dean Burris is living at this pastor’s compound in Idaho. Real Deliverance vibes up there. They call it the Rampart.”

“My grandkids talked about that.”

“House, chapel, bunkhouse for ten guys, broken-down cars and farm equipment. I had to serve some legal papers up there for

one of our lawyers once. A land dispute. Up in the woods where these half-assed militia nuts train. I said, ‘What are you

training for? Is douchebaggery a sport in the Olympics now?’ Nah, if this Burris took your grandkids up there, that’s fucked-up.”

Chuck looked over. “You got the letter your daughter sent?”

Kinnick patted his pants pocket. “Yeah.”

Chuck made a humming noise. Then he chewed his lip again. “It might take a week to track your daughter down. Find this old

boyfriend in Portland, see what he knows. And then we’d still need lawyers to draw up papers. Might take weeks.

“Or...” Chuck stuck out his lower lip. “You know what? What if we say ‘fuck it.’ I know a guy who knows the sheriff up

there. What if we just drive there now. Put our cards on the table and see if those assholes fold. You in?” He put his fist

out.

There would be no Epictetus quotes this time. Kinnick simply nodded and bumped Chuck’s fist. “Let’s do it.”

***

They drove for almost two hours through forested foothills and river valleys, up the Idaho panhandle to a town nearly on the

Canadian border, where a retired Tustin, California, police officer stood up from behind a bare oak desk and introduced himself

as “Sheriff Glen Campbell.” Kinnick glanced over at Chuck Littlefield, but he had no reaction to the name.

Glen Campbell wore a cowboy hat and an epauletted uniform shirt that strained to contain his broad chest and broader belly.

Badge over heart, hand-mic clipped to shoulder, he spoke out of the left side of his mouth, like he had a chaw on the other side.

And even though he’d apparently lived in Anaheim for forty years before moving up to the muzzle of Idaho, he had a north-country twang that Kinnick recognized as more cultural than regional.

“So,” he said to Chuck, “I hear you played softball with that worthless ol’ fat-ass Dunham. ”

“He said you might call him that,” said Chuck.

“Well, he is a worthless ol’ fat-ass. I can’t imagine that tub-a-lard gets down the line too fast.”

“No—”

“Don’t see him beating out a lot of infield hits.”

“He ain’t exactly what you’d call a base-stealing threat.”

They talked this way for a few minutes, about their mutual cop friend, another retiree from Southern California, who apparently

was a “hilarious son of a bitch,” “a complete asshat,” and “a drunken shit-monkey most days,” leaving Kinnick to wonder how

they’d talk about someone they didn’t like .

Finally, Chuck got down to telling Kinnick’s story.

“Sounds domestic,” Sheriff Glen said when Chuck was finished. “I’m sorry for your trouble,” he said to Rhys, “but that appears

to be family court business, and not my concern.”