LITMIR.BIZ

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curved metal plate hung between two trees, an exotic bronze art piece catching the sun, with a clapper strung next to it. Dan struck it and the gong reverberated through the forest, rich and low, holding its tone long after they’d passed through the gate.

      Trevor scrambled down a rocky ledge to the shore. Tidepool sculpin darted in the pooling water while birds with flecked wings flitted in the branches above. He jumped up onto a rock and crouched there like a garden gnome. “I never heard the rest of your story. You mentioned you’re here on business.”

      “Yes. Thanks for reminding me.”

      “So I shouldn’t hold out hope that you’ve come to live with me forever?”

      Dan sighed. “You’re welcome to try to convince me. But no, I’ve come on business. And I can’t forget I’ve got a family back home.” He paused. “Actually, I’m in B.C. to look for Thom’s father.”

      Trevor looked at him with a quirky smile. “Thom Killingworth? You’re looking for my Uncle Craig? I didn’t know he was in B.C.”

      “I’m not sure he is, but the trail leads here.”

      “So, why…?”

      “Someone hired me to look into his disappearance.”

      “Who? If I can ask.”

      Dan shrugged. “It’s odd, but I don’t know who the client is.”

      Trevor licked his lips and nodded. “Is that why you came to see me? You think I can tell you something?” Dan started to speak, but Trevor cut him off. “It’s all right — I understand if you did. I’m still grateful that you’re here.”

      “I said that’s why I came to B.C. I came to Mayne Island to see you.”

      Trevor admitted a slight smile.

      They stood on the upper deck of the ferry heading to Vancouver Island. It had rained for an hour that morning, as it had nearly every morning since Dan’s arrival, then the sky cleared and turned blue by the time they reached the terminal. Dan left Trevor outside the public gardens in Victoria.

      “You sure you’ll be all right? You won’t get bored?”

      “It’s my favourite place to shop,” Trevor said. “I might even have High Tea at the Empress Hotel.”

      “I’ll see you back here at three then.”

      “Say hi to my uncle if you find him.”

      Dan followed the highway north out of town. At an intersection outside Ladysmith a dirt road hesitantly joined the highway. Dan found the bank of mailboxes just past a ridge. He looked down the rows of numbers till he came across 37 and the name Magnus Ferguson in a tight script. It had been that easy. Then he reminded himself that he’d found a man’s name on a mailbox, not the man himself.

      Dan’s eyes followed the dirt road where it disappeared around a line of trees half a kilometre ahead. He looked back at the mailbox that held upwards of fifty names. How many of these places would he have to investigate? How many were even down this stretch of road ahead? There were probably a half-dozen others nearby.

      He got his answer at the fourth place he tried. Three German Shepherds ran alongside his car, barking insanely as he drove up the drive. He stopped outside the squat bungalow and waited. Lacy curtains parted and a face appeared in the window. The door opened and a man approached wearing a T-shirt, jeans, and rubber boots. Dark eyes followed him as Dan rolled down the window. “Sorry for the intrusion. I’m looking for Magnus Ferguson.”

      The man scratched his chin and grew pensive. “You’ll find his trailer three, maybe four drives down on the right,” he said. “But I don’t think you’ll find Magnus.”

      Dan’s eyebrows rose.

      “You family?” the man asked.

      “Distant.”

      The man looked concerned. “Well, I don’t think he’s alive any more, I’m sorry to tell you. He went off to the hospital in Vancouver a couple years back. He was looking pretty poorly at the time. The wife heard some time later that he died. Lung cancer, I think it was.”

      Dan nodded. “Can you tell me who looks after the trailer now?”

      The man slumped. “I did for a while, but I stopped about a year ago. I figured he wasn’t coming back.”

      “Do you know who collects his mail? His name’s still on the box out by the road.”

      “Sorry, I don’t. I’d be surprised it he even got any now.”

      Dan looked away. All this way to hit a dead end. Somehow it didn’t seem right. For a moment, he wanted to thank this man for looking after the trailer of a man he never knew.

      “What was he like, if you don’t mind my asking?”

      “Nice guy. Kept to himself mostly, but friendly if you approached him. Always kept a neat garden. I imagine it’s gone to pot now.” The man smiled ruefully. “Not that kind of pot. He even stacked his firewood meticulously.”

      Dan thanked him and drove on to the white-framed twenty-four-footer. The power lines were still attached. The garden surrounding it looked like it had once been something, but now it was overgrown, disappearing into forest, the line between what had been kept in and what kept out impossible to distinguish. He stepped out of the car and knocked on the flimsy door. The sound reverberated through the woods and startled a murder of crows.

      He waited a moment but knew there was no use. He stuck his card in the doorframe and went around back, where a pile of meticulously stacked firewood greeted him. It had grown green with moss around the edges. No one had removed any of the logs for some time.

      He drove back to the main road and stopped beside the mailbox. He wrote a longer note and put it in an envelope, slipping it inside the box.

      The fire burned low in the grate. Dan held Trevor’s hand against his chest. The feeling was warm and richly layered. They might have been a couple, still together after many years, nourishing and measuring what lay between them, amazed by the continuance of life.

      “You never told me what happened between you and Bill.”

      Dan stirred. “Didn’t Thom fill you in?”

      Trevor shook his head. “I’m not really in touch with Thom. In fact, I was surprised when I got the wedding invitation. I think that was Aunt Lucille’s doing. I was always a little scared of cousin Thom, to tell the truth. He was older and knew how to get what he wanted.”

      “Like you?”

      “Like me and a whole lot more. He was always pushy, but after his father left he became downright cruel, especially if you challenged him at anything. I guess he was just reacting to being abandoned. He eased up as he got older.”

      “What about Ted?”

      “Ted was the soft one — self-indulgent, poetic by nature. Not as good-looking as Thom. He always seemed to fail where Thom succeeded.”

      “Has no one tried to stop his drug problem?”

      “Apparently not. He’s always had easy access to drugs, thanks to the family money.”

      Dan ran his fingers through Trevor’s hair, letting them linger along his neck. “Do you remember your uncle at all?”

      “A little. He was my mother’s brother.”

      “Clare,” Dan said.

      Trevor looked at him. “Yes. How did you know?”

      “It’s in the police report.”

      Trevor nodded. “We used to visit when I was a kid, but then we moved out to the coast. There was a scandal before my uncle disappeared, though. My mother and father actually stopped talking to him.”

      “Was it because of the

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