Free Unsound (A Lei Crime Companion Novel) by Toby Neal Page A

waistcoat, they were barred in black and cream with pearly gray breasts.
    I unlatched the belt and the backpack loosened, and I took my arms out of it. I was here, where I would be for the next four days.
    I unlaced the boots, rubbed my wounded toes in the verdant grass, which looked mowed—and I saw why as the nene went back to grazing, plucking blades of grass and eating them with the delicacy of dandies.
    I walked barefoot to the water and ran it, clear and icy, over my red, hot, sore feet. When they were sufficiently numb, I padded over to the door of the cabin and plugged the code the rangers had given me into the key box and went inside.
    One large room, framed in by walls lined in triple bunks, was bisected by a long wooden table notched with graffiti and scorch marks. The kitchen, off to the left, sported a stove, a sink, and a gas grill. Mismatched melamine plates, glasses, and pots were piled in a drainer on the sideboard. A paned window over the sink looked out at the breathtaking view as the sunset flamed along the ridge of a nearby cinder cone.
    I hauled the backpack inside. I didn’t have to pee, which I knew wasn’t a good sign, but I was too tired to do anything but drink the rest of the water I’d carried, take several Advil and a Tylenol, and crawl into my sleeping bag on the lowest bunk of one of the tiers.
     
    I woke sometime in the night.
    It was dark, so dark I couldn’t see anything with my hand held up to my face.
    I finally had to pee, and I had the shakes—maybe from withdrawal, maybe from the chill that slid over my feet like cold oatmeal as I put them outside the chemical-smelling, brand-new sleeping bag.
    I felt around for the backpack and found the thick socks that hadn’t worked for hiking. I put them on and came across the tiny flashlight the woman at Sports Authority had stuck in my cart.
    The flash blasted the darkness away with a high-powered white beam that made me blink with its ferocity. I had spotted the outhouse near the main cabin, so I padded to the door and opened it.
    Stars flamed fiercely across the nearby sky.
    Wow , Constance said. I remembered how she’d always loved the night sky, taking the side in our bedroom against the window and making sure her bed was right underneath it. She’d fall asleep looking out the window every night.
    It was her idea to reach my hand up, feeling in that velvet darkness for the diamonds that were so close—but of course my fingers just got cold. I pushed my heavy, sore, leaden legs to walk to the outhouse. I went inside its tiny musty space, applying my bare rear to the chill plastic rim of the hole with a little hiss of breath.
    I did my business and remembered I had not brought TP and had to pack out my waste. I shone the flashlight around inside the enclosure and discovered a small stash of paper napkins held down by a rock. I tore a square off, used it, and feeling rebellious, dropped it into the hole. I wasn’t ready to carry that back to the cabin and figure out how to dispose of it.
    Back in the cabin, I felt a thirst begin, my tissues crying out for water and more—but I’d used up all the clean water I had. I took a measured hit of vodka and immediately felt myself relaxing. I got into the sleeping bag and fell back into the dark.

Chapter 8
     
     
    I woke with the cottony lip-cracking of dehydration, the gray wash of dawn rendering everything in the cabin the colors of angst. I got out of the sleeping bag reluctantly, feeling every screaming overused muscle from yesterday’s hike. I tried not to think about it. Now was the time to “get ’er done,” as my mom used to say.
    I’d had a lot of “get ’er done” when I was younger, propelling me through college and grad school while working as a waitress. There hadn’t been extra money after my parents’ divorce. I hadn’t had the silver spoon the ex had—a good thing since silver spoons are dated and not a part of my future.
    A closet off the kitchen turned out to