The boys confirmed their contact information, promised to stay reachable tomorrow, strapped on their helmets, and cycled off. Once they were safely out of earshot, Leith exclaimed, “Werewolves? Yetis? Some mad survivalist in a fur coat is what they saw. You’re not seriously thinking of biking up there to look for this guy?”
Dion put in his own objection. “I can tell you what you’ll find. More trees, more skunk cabbage, more mud.”
“What we’ll find,” Montgomery corrected him. “Guys, where’s your sense of adventure? I believe these boys really saw something. If somebody’s hanging around in the woods playing monster and scaring kids, even if it’s got nothing to do with John Doe, we’ve got to check it out. Right? And it happens I’m a pretty badass off-roader myself.” He was grinning at Dion. “Looks like it’s you and me, Cal.”
“I don’t have a bike,” Dion said again, but less loud and clear, knocked off guard by this stranger’s friendliness.
“I’ve got a spare.”
“It’s been a while.”
“C’mon. It’s like riding a bike.”
With record-breaking speed, Dion was starting to like Corporal Montgomery. Montgomery’s friendliness seemed real, nothing put-on about it. His stare was direct and full of positive energy. His grin turned his face into a thousand creases and made Dion feel like grinning right back at him.
Montgomery reached out to shake on it, seal the deal. “You and me, Cal.”
Dion reached and shook. The wind was beginning to buffet them all, and the trees were shushing ominously. Leith pulled cigarettes from his coat pocket and gave Dion a hard-to-read stare, maybe a warning. Leith didn’t like Dion, didn’t trust him, and was probably expecting trouble, but Dion was feeling too pleased with himself to care. There was nothing to worry about. It was just a field trip with a superior he admired. It was a break from routine.
Montgomery handed him a note he had scribbled out, an address and phone number. “Meet me at my place tomorrow, eleven a.m. No, make it ten thirty. We’ll have coffee, exchange war stories, and you can meet Lady Victoria.”
Leith exhaled a gust of smoke and turned to squint at Montgomery. “Meet who?”
“My fiancée, Tori.” Montgomery was not so much answering Leith as informing Dion. “She’s a real doll,” he said, with a cheery wink. “You’re gonna love her.”
Seven
SHADOWLAND
Corporal Michelin Montgomery had a nice house in the nice neighbourhood of Seymour Heights. Dion left his car in the driveway and followed the footpath to the front door. He wore cold-weather joggers, runners, a grey hoodie over a T-shirt, and his rainproof RCMP jacket. His optimism of last night had waned. He was anxious about this meeting, but resigned. Randall had volunteered his services, and what was done was done. He took a deep breath and rang the bell.
Corporal Montgomery welcomed him in with the same big grin as last night. Dion could sense the presence of a woman in the home instantly as he walked in. It was the look of the place, boldly decorated, but floral, with a sweetness in the air. And the music, which was too loud for comfort. Big-band kind of stuff.
“How’re you doing?” Montgomery said.
“Good.”
“You look nervous. Don’t be. I won’t bite.”
“I’m not nervous.” He followed Montgomery down a level into a living room space, where the music got louder. In the middle of the room a twiggy girl waited. Or not a girl, but a woman Dion guessed to be in her mid-twenties. Her cheeks were flushed, and her short blonde hair was coiled by wetness. Workout sweat, judging by her spandex joggers and damp T-shirt. The T-shirt seemed a couple sizes too small. She wore nothing on her feet.
“Tori, meet Cal,” Montgomery said.
Her smile was generous, but her handshake was so limp and brief that Dion wondered if she was sick, maybe in a serious way. “So pleased to meet you,” she said, and without a break, she went on nattering at him. She apologized for stinking, but she had just gotten back from a run, then she mentioned this awful weather, her tennis elbow, the sunroom she wanted installed to replace the open back deck, and somehow that led to a new pastry shop she had discovered that was run by Ukrainians and made excellent poppyseed rolls. Which reminded her of the snacks she had prepared — oh my god, what kind of a hostess was she?
She ran off, promising to be back soon, don’t go away.
No, she wasn’t sick at all.
“Isn’t she great?” Montgomery said.
“She’s, wow, yes, great.”
They sat in armchairs and talked. Montgomery told Dion about his years in Surrey and his future overseas. “Hate to leave this place,” he said. “Love the North Shore. Love the team here. Great people.” Heading to the Middle East was a complication, but exciting, he said. The house, he explained, was a lease deal. All of his and Tori’s things would have to go into long-term storage. The drawbacks of an exciting career. “But I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”
Dion asked how he and Tori had met, and Montgomery exclaimed, “I know, she’s way too good looking for this ugly mug. We met at a fashion show fundraiser in Surrey. She’s a model and was doing the runway bit for the cause, sashaying along in those filmy long sleeves, legs to here. But it was her smile that did it for me. Well, I fell head over heels in love, of course. Hell knows why she looked at me twice. But she did.”
Tori was back with a loaded coffee tray. She set it down and sat herself on the sofa next to Montgomery. She had changed into skinny black slacks with flared cuffs, platform shoes, and a tiny sweater that looked even more shrunken than the T-shirt. Dion thought he had seen her somewhere, maybe on posters in a mall. He was going to ask her, but she was back in natter mode. “I just had a shower,” she told him, explaining her hair, wet now in a clean way — he caught the sweet strawberry scent from where he sat. “I run every day,” she said, “if only for the endorphins, which have become an absolute addiction. Excuse this gross thing, by the way. Just what I need, right? Cold sore barely hours before a big shoot. It’s slathered in meds right now, because it has absolutely got to be gone by tomorrow. Do you run, too?”
He couldn’t see the cold sore she was pointing to at the side of her mouth, nor any slathering of medication. She said, “I like to try out the different trails. You could live here all your life and run on a different trail every day. I love the canyon. There’s the Baden-Powell, of course, which is about a million miles long. The Headwaters are great, too. I can’t get enough of this place. Have you lived on the North Shore long? It’s not really new to me, as I used to live across the water. I grew up in Surrey, mostly. That’s where I met Monty. ”
“My lucky day.” Monty grinned.
“But I’m glad we’re here now. It’s such an awesome city,” she said. “So diverse. And just steps away, you’re in the middle of nowhere, where it’s like you’re the only person on the planet. You’re in the middle of this amazing primeval forest. I keep thinking I’ll run into a dinosaur around the bend. And the air! It’s so therapeutic. You can just breathe it in, just kind of let go, give yourself to nature. Absorb its power, bring it inside, you know?”
Dion said he knew what a great place this was, though he was starting to wish he was anywhere but here. The music was skittering wildly, like the orchestra was on drugs. It went loud, louder, loudest, then crashed into silence. Tori cried, “Hoo-wee! Don’t you love this? It’s Gershwin. Incredibly complex, really. Multi-faceted. He’s my latest discovery, and I’m playing him to death, as Monty can attest. Poor Monty. D’you like him, Gershwin?”
Dion didn’t worry about answering. He had figured out