Free City of the Lost by Kelley Armstrong Page B

departure, but when I rise at seven, it’s still dark out. We’re far enough north that the days are getting short fast.
    I go down for breakfast and Dalton’s there, staring out the front window at the empty street. It’s an equally empty room, and I wonder if he’ll want to enjoy his meal in peace, but he waves me over.
    I chat with the owner, who’s from Switzerland and brings a plate of cold cuts, cheese, yogurt, and amazing freshly baked bread. Dalton continues staring silently out the window at the dark morning. Then, as I’m polishing off another slice of bread, he plunks my cellphone between us.
    “You said you don’t have ties. Just a sister, and you aren’t close.” He gestures at the phone. “You forgot your boyfriend.”
    “I said—”
    “You told us the guy who got shot is someone you were hooking up with. That”—he gestures at the phone—“is not a hookup.”
    Following instructions, I’d shut my phone off as soon as I left home and removed the SIM card shortly after. Once here, I turned it over to Dalton for safe disposal.
    I turn on the phone. There’s a message that must have come in just before I removed the card, and I’d been too distracted to check.
    Got your note. It means a lot. Means a fucking lot, Casey. You’re right, and I’m going to stop pissing around and step up. But I want you to do the same. Wherever you go, start over and do it right. Get a life, as the saying goes. Even if you don’t think you want one. You deserve it. I know you said I won’t see you again, but if I do, I want to see you happy.
    I sit there, holding the phone, staring at that message.
    “I need to send—” I begin.
    “No.”
    “But—”
    “No.” Dalton leans forward. “Is this a problem, detective?”
    My hands shake a little. I clench the phone to stop them, but he plucks it from my hands. He’s right. I’ve missed my chance to reply, and that’s my fault for not checking. Any message I send now could be traced to Dawson City.
    “I’ll—I’ll get my things,” I say.
    I push back my chair and hurry off.

THIRTEEN
    When I realize we’re heading to the local airport—not a private runway—I ask Dalton how we’re going to leave without giving a flight plan. At first, he only says it’s been taken care of. Then he relents and says that flying from a private strip would only be more suspicious, and it’s better to stick close to the law as much as they can. As far as the airport authorities know, he works for a group of miners, flying people and supplies in and out of the bush. Given their occupation, they’re a little cagey about where exactly they’re working, so his flight plan is approximate.
    It might also help that this is the smallest commercial airport I’ve ever seen. The terminal is one room with a ticket counter and a few chairs. There’s a hatch in the wall labelled Baggage. Apparently, that’s the luggage carousel.
    I presumed the car was a rental, but the terminal doesn’t have a rental agency. When I ask, Dalton says that someone will pick it up. There are no rentals in Dawson City. At all.
    Inside, he takes a bottle of water from his bag along with a tiny pill envelope. “From the doc. She’s on the selection committee, so she sees the files, real names redacted. Given your background, she thought you might need those.”
    I look at him, uncomprehending.
    “They’re for flight anxiety or whatever.”
    I keep staring, and he says, “Your parents?”
    My cheeks flame as I realize he means because I’m about to get into a small plane, not unlike the one my parents died in. I didn’t even think of that. I suppose that’s because it happened so quickly. Another couple—fellow doctors—owned the plane, and the four of them had been heading to Arizona for a golf weekend. I hadn’t even known they were going.
    I don’t need the pills. Even as I think now of how my parents died, I don’t fear the same will happen to me. Should I? Is that proper empathy?