Wickerman Cove

Part 19: Human

The Department credit card turned out to be the sum total of all the effort Hitch had put into organising the trip. They didn't have anywhere to stay any more than Steph had somewhere to get a firearm. Thankfully, there was a cute little boarding house called the Ashton-Smith hotel, and they had enough space for Penny and Steph to get adjoining rooms.

The owner was at pains to point out the rainbow flag behind her desk, and asked them three times if they were sure they really wanted separate rooms, because Wickerman Cove was a welcoming town and everybody was safe. She also accepted that Steph had mis-stepped and fallen in the harbour without too much of a fight, although Steph had little doubt that it would be interrogated at some gathering of the hotelier's closest friends.

Two hours later, Steph had turned out to have a clean non-uniform outfit she'd forgotten about, which was now laid out on the bed. Everything else had been consigned to the hotel's laundry service, and a long, hot shower had banished everything except the lingering worry that she was falling into a psychotic disorder.

She got out of the shower to find Penny sitting on the chair next to her bed, with Renard's head in her lap. Thankfully, the hotel had provided a robe, which Steph pulled tight around herself.

The door between their adjoining rooms was open.

"Okay," Steph said. "We are going to talk about boundaries. If you want to come in here, you knock. If I don't answer, you wait."

The sheriff texted, Penny signed, with an expression somewhere between excitement and apology. She says she's found our bleeding trees.

Steph gave her a hard look. Renard caught her eye with a look of doggy contrition.

"Hey," she said, stroking his head, "you didn't do anything wrong. You're not human enough to know it's weird. Penny? Do you hear me? I don't want to come out and find you sitting here when I'm half naked again."

Penny nodded, with an expression of apology that was almost as heartbreaking as Renard's. A thought percolated into Steph's brain.

"One more thing?" Steph said. "When I say 'don't let me', it doesn't mean it's okay so long as you don't get caught. It's 200% not okay to invade my privacy."

I'm sorry, she signed. I was excited that you might not be crazy. Not that I think you're crazy, but if you find something buried where you think it's going to be buried, will you believe me that you're not?

It was a flurry of signs that almost went too fast for Steph to follow. She paused for a moment as she unpacked it.

"I'll think about it," Steph said, ushering them back into their room. "Meet me in the lobby in five minutes."

* * *

After a reunion at the front desk – it actually seemed silly to call it a 'lobby', since it was less than ten feet wide – they followed the sheriff's text message and met her at a place called Bloch Hunting Supplies.

It was a range-come-hunting-supplies-come-gun-store that also sold beer, coke and homemade smoothies. It was hard to guess exactly where the range part was, but you definitely couldn't hear any sign of it from the store itself. Sheriff Mansfield was waiting with a black box.

"Doing some shopping?" Steph asked, as Penny put Renard on a leash.

Mansfield's eyes dropped to the floor. "This is an apology. I know you don't have a sidearm, so it's an out of the box P320. Firing pin is all there, and I sprung for a bag of cartridges."

Steph took the box without too much ceremony. Mansfield put the pouch of bullets on top. "Alright, you've got two magazines in the box, so that'll cover you unless you go to war."