“Just tell me the story.”
She nods. “So they sent two researchers to Rockton. A man and a woman. They arrived acting as if they’d never met, and then they feigned a whirlwind romance and skipped off into the forest together. The Second Settlement fell for their story and welcomed them in. Their purpose, as far as we knew, was to study the long-term effects of the tea, and I was thrilled by that. While I saw nothing in the ingredients that raised concern, there is always the risk of unforeseen side effects. I welcomed their investigations. It eased my conscience.”
“And then?”
“And there the story ends. Or so it appeared. The researchers stayed for a year. While they found no evidence of long-term effects, they also didn’t find what they’d hoped for, in terms of the tea having useful applications. Other drugs did the job more efficiently and cheaper. My husband’s family soon parted ways with the European firm.”
“Okay…”
“Decades pass, and then along comes Rockton’s first detective, who starts doing what she was hired to do. Detecting.” She smiles at me. “Funny how that works, isn’t it? Hire a detective for a town where she might have a case or two a year, which leaves all this extra time, and she finds new things to investigate. Like the wild people living in the forest. The council always dismissed those reports as obvious exaggeration. Clearly, past sheriffs had encountered the wilderness equivalent of the homeless—people suffering from mental illness or other issues. If they didn’t want help, then the only course of action was to stay out of their way. Suggesting they were living in packs? Ludicrous. Residents had seen a few troubled settlers and blown it out of proportion.”
“You thought the same?”
“I did. I’ve been here. I know this wild place preys on the imagination. Every dead tree becomes a bear. Every red-squirrel nest is a wildcat poised overhead. Even the settlers can be both frightening and dangerous.”
“So what changed your mind?”
“As soon as you mentioned Maryanne’s experience, I started to dig. At first, my thoughts paralleled yours. A splinter group from the Second Settlement must have altered the recipe. That made it my fault. I failed at proper scientific procedure. I introduced a new drug, and then I walked away, without monitoring it, without taking responsibility.”
“Then you remembered the European group and decided they were to blame.”
“That isn’t how my mind works, Casey. I don’t go looking for alternate targets. I accept my mistakes, and I strive to fix them. The same way you would, I think.”
I say nothing.
She continues. “My way of fixing it was to support your efforts to resolve the issue. Lobbying for the council to take the problem seriously. Then it seemed as if they were considering a solution. A drastic solution.”
That has Dalton’s head jerking up.
“Attrition,” she says.
I’m still struggling to understand what she means when Dalton says, “They’re shutting us down.”
“What?” I say. “No. They haven’t given any signs of…” I trail off and Dalton murmurs what Émilie just said. Attrition.
I continue, “They’ve all but stopped sending us new residents. And they aren’t extending stays past two years. That’s what Jen was talking about. It’s not just her. They aren’t granting any extensions, and we weren’t thinking much of it because everyone who was denied—including Jen—has other reasons for being turned down.”
Dalton nods. “Our numbers fluctuate all the time. Since I’ve been here, we’ve been as low as one-fifty and as high as two-twenty. Sometimes it’s budget. Other times…” He shrugs. “It’s a natural flow. I wouldn’t have really thought much about it until we dropped low enough to have trouble filling positions.”
“Wait,” I say. “We have a few clashes with hostiles, and we discover that some of them are former Rockton residents—our residents, kidnapped and brainwashed—and this is the council’s solution? Not how can they rescue our people? Not how can they detox the hostiles and see what they want? But shut down the town?”
“Relocate, most likely,” she says.
“It’s an excuse,” Dalton says. “We’ve been inconvenient. Misbehaving. You can sure as hell bet that we aren’t on their hiring list for the new town. None of us will be. This isn’t abandoning the house and moving the people. It’s letting the fire burn it out and starting fresh. They’d tell us Rockton was permanently shutting down, and we’d never know they were starting up elsewhere.”
I look at Émilie.
“I’m not privy to their plans,” she says. “They insist there are no plans. But Eric is, I fear, correct. However, you’re also right, Casey. It’s entirely the wrong reaction. Think of this as a chemical spill.”
I nod. “They’re trying to close shop and move on without cleaning up.”
“Correct. I believed there was more to it, so I began to dig, and that’s when…” She trails off. “More on that in a moment. For now, let’s just say I discovered something that drove my mind back to that collaboration with the European firm. I decided to speak to the two researchers they sent. Bribe them, that was my plan. Make them an offer they couldn’t refuse.”
“They’re dead, aren’t they?”
“No, they never returned from the Yukon.”
“They decided to stay?”