As the baying of the hounds floated up the hillside, Tara pulled up tufts of grass along the road and tried not to worry. But with every bark and bay, she thought the dogs sounded more excited, closer to their prey. The noises weren’t getting any closer to her, so Malcolm must have succeeded in drawing them off. That didn’t reassure her. The troopers shouldn’t do anything to her if they caught her; he was another story.
Around midnight, a single light came around a bend in the road. Thinking it a flashlight at first, Tara eased back into the brush. Malcolm had been using nothing more than moonlight as a guide. Though this ought to be his contact, she wanted to make sure it wasn’t part of the search party before revealing herself.
The light was moving faster than she would expect from someone walking, and it swerved side to side. It must be a bike lamp, she realized, its driver attempting to avoid potholes in the road. Though Seattle had its bicycle police, she had yet to see a state trooper hunting for criminals in anything that wasn’t motorized. This had to be Malcolm’s contact.
The bike slowed down as it neared her location. Tara stepped closer to the road, though she was nervous about calling out to the guy when he had been expecting Malcolm.
“Jason?”
The bicycle halted and a thump sounded as feet hit the ground. “Yeah?”
Tara thought he might shift the handlebars, so the beam pointed at her, but he flipped the light off instead, and darkness bathed the road again. Not before she had a glimpse of that tufted beard Malcolm had mentioned, along with stringy hair that fell to the man’s shoulders. A waft of body odor drifted to her nose as well.
“I’m Tara. I’m with Malcolm. He went back down the hill to... deal with something.” She didn’t know what Malcolm had told this fellow, but he seemed like the type who might be alarmed if he knew the law was around.
“Those dogs?” Jason asked.
“Maybe. Or maybe he left the oven on and went back to turn it off.”
“Uh huh. You got any money?”
Tara took a step back, aware that she was alone in the mountains with a stranger. She had assumed Malcolm wouldn’t have left her to meet with someone dangerous, but running off the dogs hadn’t been a part of his original plan. “For what?” she asked.
“Trade. My information for your money.”
“Malcolm didn’t mention anything about paying you.”
“That’s because we usually trade information, but I figure you don’t know much about the biz. I gotta have something to make riding out here in the middle of the night worth my time.”
Tara had a few dollars, but doubted her latte money would be enough to satisfy this guy. She usually paid for everything with her debit card. “I’m low on funds.” She tried to think of something else she might offer, fearing that he might suggest something sexual if left to his imagination. “How about some wine and good chocolate in trade?”
“Chocolate? You have any of the white kind with those little cookie bits in it?”
Tara wouldn’t have guessed the candy would have been what snagged his interest, but she would go with it. “No, but I have a nice bar of dark with almonds and sea salt. Real good stuff.”
“Yeah? Let’s see the wares.”
Tara handed him the wine bottle, then dug into her purse and held out the last bar. A phone display flared to life. It wasn’t a smartphone, so no flashlight app, but the glow of the screen was enough to illuminate the wrapper.
“Oh, yeah, Theo’s. I had that kind once before at a professor’s house. We got a deal.”
Tara tried to imagine this fellow fitting in at the University of Washington. He might be a more likely candidate for the artsy Evergreen State College. “Good.”
“So, Malcolm was right. There’s a big reward out for agarikon right now.”
“Agarikon? Is that another name for Fomitopsis officinalis?” She said it slowly, though she thought she finally had the pronunciation down.
“Yup. I’ve been keeping my eye out for it. Five thousand dollars for each sample, though you gotta go to their lab to get paid if you bring in more than one strain. They’ll test it to make sure you’re not trying to claim you’ve got multiple samples that are from the same ’shroom.” Jason took a swig of the wine.
“Where is their lab?”
“I’m going to need a sample of your chocolate before sharing that choice information.”
Tara tossed him the whole bar and semi-patiently waited while he tore it open. The crinkle of the wrapper sounded loud in the quiet night. The almost quiet night—she could still hear the hounds baying lower on the mountain.
After a couple of noisy chomps and “Mmm” sounds, Jason said, “Forks.”
“I don’t suppose you have an address?”
“No, but it’s outside of town on the south side. Town’s not very big.”
“Right, thanks,” Tara said. “Do you have any idea why these people are paying so much for the samples?”
“Nope. They don’t tell us that sort of thing. We just bring in the fungus and get paid, that’s it.”
“Have you sold to this outfit before?”
“Not me, but a buddy has. The lab is new. And surprising.”
“How so?” Tara asked.
“I hear it’s got real fancy and modern stuff on the inside. Expensive stuff. Not exactly what you’d expect from Forks. You gotta go to Seattle to see that kind of equipment, and even then, it’s nothing to do with ’shrooms.”
Yeah, Tara couldn’t remember hearing much about Forks, beyond its vampire-fiction fame. Back in the day, it had been a big logging town, but the environmentalists had shut things down. Spotted owls or some such. The last she had heard, its main employers were correctional facilities.
“Anything else you wanna know, lady?” Jason asked.
Tara realized she hadn’t given him her name. Maybe that was a good idea. She was in the process of mulling things over—what other questions might Malcolm have?—when the baying of the hounds changed pitch. They sounded faster, more urgent.
“They treed something,” Jason said.
Tara strode to the edge of the road, toward the sound of those hounds. “They weren’t after something; they were after Malcolm.”
“Huh, hope it works out for him. I gotta run. Can’t get caught by no cops. Thanks for the munchies.”
He was biking off down the road before Tara thought to question him about the way back to civilization—or what passed for it around here. If the troopers caught Malcolm, she would have to find her own way off this hillside, and she would have to hurry, lest they try to charge him with kidnapping her—or worse.
She pulled out her smartphone, relieved when a bar of reception showed up. That ought to be enough to get the GPS to work. Cheers for higher elevations.
“We need to move on.”
Startled, Tara dropped her phone. “Malcolm, what are you doing here?” She squinted into the gloom, trying to pick him out, but the glow of the screen had dulled her night vision.
“I thought it would be polite to return to collect you,” he said in his now-familiar dry tone. “Also, you have the wine.”
“Actually, I don’t. I bartered it to your friend in exchange for information. One of the chocolate bars too.“
“He came? Good. And if we’re out of food, then it’s also good that I stopped by a cache to pick up a few supplies.”
“He said the buyer is paying five grand a sample and has a lab in Forks.”
“Forks?” Malcolm walked closer, his outline distinguishing itself from the tall trees alongside the road. “I didn’t bring that many supplies.”
“I wasn’t thinking of walking there,” Tara said. “Or going at all. I thought we would tell the police and let them handle it.”
“What would they handle? I doubt we could prove these people took the samples from Olympia, and that and a little computer hacking are the only crimes they’ve committed, as far as we know. There’s nothing illegal about paying a high price for mushrooms.”
That was... probably true. “What are you suggesting then?”
“We could wait for your would-be thief to prowl your property again and attempt to catch him,” Malcolm said, “which will be difficult for me, since as soon as I show up around there, I’m going to be arrested. The other alternative is to go to Forks and try to get to the bottom of things. If those people are doing something illegal, and we can shut them down, there won’t be anyone left to pay such a high reward for the officinalis samples. Your trespasser won’t have a reason to sneak about on your property any more, so that should put an end to animal sacrifices.”
“Why does that sound like the sort of thing you risk a lot to accomplish, then never get any sort of credit for?” Tara asked.
“Is credit important? I thought the priority was putting a stop to chicken heads being left on your front porch.”
“I just want to make sure you don’t go to jail for resisting arrest.” And kidnapping me, she added silently.
“If I do, it shouldn’t be for long, as that’s the only thing I’ve done. If we stop your trespasser, Jackson shouldn’t have any more reason to harass me.”
Tara worried that it wouldn’t be that simple, but she sighed and said, “Forks, then.”
“It seems so.”
With the mists swirling up from the water, Tara had grown cold again. She walked closer to Malcolm, hoping he would go back to wrapping his arm around her.
“I’m probably stinky after running from those dogs,” he warned when she leaned against him.
“That’s okay. You weren’t that rosy smelling before either.”
“You didn’t seem to mind.”
“The effects of the wine, no doubt.” Tara eyed the single bar of reception again. “I think I can get us some heat. And a ride.”