Forever Never

Between looking over her shoulder, obsessively checking her phone for any messages from Camille, and ignoring a certain burly bartending police officer, Remi officially debuted Mackinac Visits with a motley crew of thirty-plus volunteers and a roster of residents looking forward to their first visit.

At this point in the long, bleak winter, most everyone was feeling a little stir-crazy, which had led to a bigger influx of both volunteers and visit requests than any of them had expected.

Remi signed up to take the Kleckners, an adorable elderly couple who lived in a little ranch house tucked away in the woods mid-island.

Lois was a retired school teacher who’d worked with Remi’s father. Ben had worked as an engineer on the mainland for forty years before dementia complicated things. Remi hadn’t seen either of them in well over a year, but she did vividly remember Ben’s sweet tooth.

She opened the doll-sized oven and sniffed. Molasses cookies were neatly taking shape on the baking tray. She’d had to get creative, baking only a dozen at a time.

Her baking skills radically improved as her creative talents withered and rotted on the vine.

She pulled the tray from the oven and set it on the cooling rack, then surveyed the kitchen mess. This was her fourth dozen. The first was going to the landlord across the street who would remain nameless. She’d avoided exchanging a single word with the man for an entire week now. A feat considering she spent so much time staring at blank canvases in his house and meeting up with old friends for drinks at his bar.

If Remi Ford had a superpower, it was nurturing a good grudge. And Brick was feeling it. The average person wouldn’t know it just by looking at him, but she knew that beneath that stoic surface, her freeze-out was slowly killing him.

She was proud of the effort. At least she was doing something. And something, no matter how immature, was better than nothing.

Remi bagged up two dozen cookies and put on actual pants. However, thanks to her bulky sweater, rebelliously skipped a bra.

She ran a brush through her hair, slicked on some mascara and Chapstick, then realized she looked fourteen and spent another minute or two on real makeup. If she wanted the island to realize she was more than a teenage troublemaker, she had to look the part. But she still wasn’t putting on a bra.

It was a damp, gray day. Snow was in the forecast because it was winter in Michigan. Still, she decided to walk instead of borrowing her parents’ snowmobile. She needed to move and breathe. To do something with this pent-up energy. Even if it was only nineteen degrees outside.

She bundled up in her new parka that didn’t have Spencer’s head wound blood all over it. She’d gone with a bright yellow this time. Yellow like the sun. Yellow like the notes in the Caribbean steel drum album she’d been listening to as the world outside froze.

Hat, coat, gloves, keys, cookies. She took inventory of her pockets and body like a responsible adult. Oh, yeah. Phone. After a frantic search, she found it under a book she’d pretended to read on the couch. Her mind was too full of worry for Camille and what it meant to go home.

With a final glare at the Blackmail Cabinet in the kitchen, Remi stepped out into the winter not-so-wonderland.

She headed up Mahoney Avenue and hung a left on Cadotte. The Grand Hotel’s historic charm came into view as she puffed up the hill. It sat on the rise, dignified and distinguished, overlooking the Straits of Mackinac like some grand dame presiding over the island and lake. In the winter, the place sat shuttered and empty except for a few property caretakers.

As a kid, Remi recalled fantasizing about sneaking into the hotel in the winter and hiding herself away in one of the luxurious suites. Pretending she was rich and famous. A butler to bring her hot chocolate. A collection of scrunchies in every color of the rainbow. An entire closet full of her favorite candy that never ran out. Ahh, the dreams of an eight-year-old.

Here she was, thirty, with enough money in the bank to make those little girl dreams come true. But the reality was, money didn’t buy you the things you really wanted. Including safety.

To save herself an unnecessarily frost-bitten face, she cut across the road and hopped on a cart path that circled the snowy Jewel Golf Course. It was a shortcut that only existed in the winter without thousands of tourists birdieing holes or sunning themselves on emerald green lawns.

The Kleckner house was a one-story ranch with a wishing well in the front yard and a flock of fake flamingos in the flower beds. Given the fresh snow, the pink metal birds were up to their bellies and looked like they were swimming on a lake of white.

Smoke puffed cheerfully from the chimney, promising a toasty reception inside.

Remi knocked on the yellow door.

“Coming!”

A minute later, Mrs. Kleckner, in a Wolverines sweatshirt and jeans, opened the door. She was a weathered seventy-five with a short cap of silver hair. Her face was softly lined, something she attributed to raising three kids and a few decades of Mackinac winters.

“Remi Ford,” she said. “It’s good to see you, kiddo. Come on in. I was just making a pot of coffee.”

“That’ll go perfectly with fresh molasses cookies,” Remi said, holding up the bag.

Lois slapped a hand to her chest. “A girl after my own heart. Come on in, and I’ll check to see if Ben’s up from his nap yet.”

Remi shed her winter layers at the front door and followed her nose toward the coffee. The kitchen was outdated but spotless. The appliances were white, yet they looked as though they’d never been used. That was due to Lois’s obsessive cleaning routine. The woman vacuumed the carpet in the living room and hallway every single day.

It was a miracle she and Ben had stayed married for fifty years considering the man trended more toward slob. Remi noted the coffee mugs already neatly set out on the counter, the little dessert plates, and the neatly cut pieces of coffee cake.

Lois rushed back into the room, her face ashen.

“Ben’s not in bed,” she said, bringing trembling fingers to her mouth.

It was a small house. If Lois hadn’t passed him from living room to bedroom, Ben wasn’t inside.

“Okay,” Remi said, putting the cookies on the counter. “Where does he keep his coat?”

Lois pointed toward the door off the kitchen. “Mud room.”

Together, they made a beeline through the door. There were two winter jackets, one bright blue and one orange, hanging on hooks. But there was only one pair of boots on the drying tray beneath them.

“Oh my God. If he went out there without a coat…”

She didn’t have to finish the sentence. It was a warm day by Mackinac standards, but for a man without proper gear who might be wandering in confusion…Well, Remi didn’t want to dwell on the possibilities.

She opened the back door and stared at the fresh tracks in the snow that led up the hill toward the woods in a meandering path.

Lois made a move for her coat. “I have to get out there and find him.” Her voice shook.

The woman was unflappable. Permanently prepared for whatever chaos life had thrown at her. But Remi could only imagine the toll that watching her life partner slowly disappear behind the fog of disease had taken.

“How long was he napping, Lois?”

“I don’t know. An hour, I guess?”

“Were you inside the whole time?”

She pushed a hand through her hair. “I went out to shovel the walk. Maybe a half hour ago? I didn’t want to start too early in case the snow started again.”

“Do you still have your old snowmobile?” Remi asked.

“Yeah. It’s next to the lean-to in the back,” Lois said. “I need to get out there and start looking.”

“You need to stay here and call the police,” Remi insisted.

“I can’t just leave him out there. We walk in the woods every morning together. What if he went there and wandered off the trail?”

Remi took both of Lois’s hands in hers. “You’re going to call the station and tell them everything you just told me. In the meantime, I’m going to go look for him.” When Lois started to argue, she held up a hand. “You have to stay here in case he comes back. My mom will want to get all the details from you. You need to be here.”

The woman let out a shaky breath. “I can’t believe I let this happen.”

“You didn’t let anything happen. You are doing a damn good job given the shitty circumstances,” Remi insisted. “This is not your fault. We’re going to find him and bring him home and have coffee cake and cookies. Okay?”

Lois was wide-eyed but nodding. “Okay,” she repeated. “Okay.”

Remi ran for the front of the house and pulled on her gear. She spotted Lois’s phone sitting on the counter and grabbed it. “Here,” she said when she returned to the mud room. “Call dispatch. They’ll be here in five minutes, and with any luck, I’ll have already found him. I have my phone on me, and you have my number.”

Lois nodded again, looking numb and terrified.

Remi grabbed the blue parka and a fleece blanket that had been folded neatly on top of the dryer. She snatched the keys that said Arctic Cat off the hook by the back door.

Lois’s hands shook as she dialed her phone. “Thank you, Remi. Be safe, and you call me the second you find him.”

Remi nodded grimly and bolted through the back door. Her adrenaline surged as she trudged through knee-deep snow, making the air seem warmer than it actually was. She pulled out her phone and, after a hesitation, dialed.

Voicemail.

Shit.

“Hey, Mom. It’s Remi. I’m at the Kleckners. Ben wandered off about half an hour ago without a coat. Lois is calling dispatch. I’m taking their snowmobile and following his tracks. It looks like he might have headed toward the woods.”

There. See? She didn’t need to call Brick for every little thing. In fact, she was going to be the hero this time. Ben Kleckner was not going to stay missing. She’d find him and deliver him back to Lois before the cops had even assembled.

Remi found the ancient snowmobile under a tarp next to a garden shed.

She stuffed the coat and blanket into the bin on the back and climbed astride. Even the keys looked rusty.

It coughed to life on the third try. The vibrations from the engine shook her bones, but the gas tank was full.

She managed to shift the machine into drive and, after a few necessary seconds getting a feel for the accelerator and suspension, she gunned it.

She followed the tracks away from the house, away from the worried Lois. The wind, on one of the higher points of the island, was bitter and brisk, already erasing parts of Ben’s trail. Her tracks would be easier for the search team to follow.

The woods loomed in front of her, beautiful and brutal. Snow clung to naked branches and sharp needles. The sky melted into the horizon of the hill. White on white. Thick clouds bringing the promise of more snow soon.

“Couldn’t have picked a nice warm summer day to wander off,” Remi said to herself over the whine of the engine. Glancing over her shoulder, she noted the cloud of blue smoke. She was definitely going to have to make sure Lois had this beast serviced when she got back.

When she got back with Ben.

The trail was wide and thankfully neatly groomed. She wished she would have asked Lois what her husband had been wearing. Hopefully it wasn’t white or brown like every damn thing in front of her.

Trees speared toward the white sky above. Boulders and brush shot up out of the snow from below.

The trail crested the hill and opened into a small pasture. The airport was just to the north. But the forest thickened ahead. The tracks were getting fainter, and she urged the engine to go just a little faster. She couldn’t afford to lose the tracks.

Wincing, she spotted an empty indentation in the snow. He’d fallen. Or sat down. Then got back up. In another spot, his tracks circled themselves before continuing on.

She had to be getting close. Another gust of wind hit her from the side, stealing the breath from her lungs.

She heard the faint wail of sirens in the distance. The island was small enough that residents always knew when there was an honest to goodness emergency.

“Thank god,” she whispered. The trail dipped down and to the right around an outcropping of rock. She followed it another twenty feet before the tracks stopped.

“Damn it.” She stood on the back of the snowmobile and scanned in all directions. Had he turned around? Had he followed his own footprints back and then veered off the trail?

“Ben!” she shouted into the icy wind. “Ben Kleckner!”

She paused but couldn’t hear anything over the ticking of the engine. She shut it off and repeated the call.

“Ben!”

Silence.

“Ben Kleckner! I have cookies!”

Her body tensed before her ears even registered the sound. It was faint and far away. Carried by the wind. It sounded like “help.”

“Ben!” she bellowed. “Where are you?”

There was no response that she could hear.

“Damn it,” she muttered.

She zeroed in on the direction she thought the sound had come from and started the engine again. Down the trail, she went another fifty feet before turning the engine off and repeating her calls. The wind was picking up, and the flakes in the air looked suspiciously like new snowfall, not white stuff tumbling off branches.

Another fifty feet. “Ben!”

“Help!”

This time she heard the cry more clearly. Her heart pounded in her chest as her teeth started to chatter. “I’m coming! Where are you?”

“Help me.” The plea was feeble, and Remi realized she hadn’t thought about what condition she might find him in.

“I’m coming, Ben. If you can move, head toward the sound of the engine!” she shouted. Her throat was raw. The cold stripped the air from her lungs, burning them. She did not have time for an asthma attack right now.

Breathe. In. Out.

The engine coughed but wouldn’t turn over. Finally, on the fourth try, it choked to life. She followed the direction of Ben’s voice and veered off the path into the woods, heading downhill.

She wanted to fly through the trees and rocks to get to him, but running the man down with his own machine wouldn’t exactly constitute a rescue. So she kept her momentum slow, even as her heart pounded in her chest. Go. Go. Go.

A few seconds later, she spotted an opening in the trees and an indentation in the snow. More footprints. She was on the right track.

“Halle-freaking-lujah,” she whispered. When she coasted out of the tree line, she spotted something bright red against the snow across the clearing.

“Ben!” she shouted over the engine.

There, tucked between a boulder and the trunk of a huge pine, Ben Kleckner raised an arm in the air, and she gunned the accelerator and flew toward him. The machine zipped across the snow, rattling hard. And for a second, she thought everything was going to end just fine. But the rattling got worse, and just as she eased back on the accelerator, the suspension disengaged from the right ski.

“What the f—”

She didn’t get to finish her thought before the ski wrenched off in the absolute worst position, tipping the snowmobile and Remi over. It threw her, sending her skidding across the snow a good ten feet over sharp, hidden rocks and very not soft tree roots before she finally came to rest on her back.

Surprise. Shock. Pain. They all coursed through her. Her breath came in short pants, and she realized it was too late to prevent the attack. She was already in it.

“Damn it,” she wheezed. This is how people got hurt. Her luck with snowmobiles was 0 for 2 this winter.

She heard muffled applause and, after making sure she wasn’t actually dead, lifted her head.

“Sure know how to make an entrance,” Ben said through blue lips.

She really needed a cookie now. And that coffee.

Patting her pockets, she dug for her phone only to come up empty. Damn it. Her mom was going to murder her. And when Chief Ford was done murdering her, Brick was going to get in line.