Always Watching

seedpods, probably for opium. I reached out and touched one of the leaves. My body flooded with another new memory.
    I’m down on the ground. Aaron’s hand is wrapped tight in my hair, his breath panting in my ear as he starts undoing my shorts. My hands reach for help, finding only poppies, their sick, sweet scent filling my nostrils. The air’s so hot that I can hear the bark crackling on the arbutus trees as it peels back in the sun. Fragments break off and drift down, spiraling closer like brown butterflies.
    Steve’s voice snapped me out of the memory. “Nadine.”
    I was disorientated, a leaf crumpled in my hand, still caught somewhere between the past and the present. When was I in the field with Aaron? What else had happened?
    Steve spoke again, louder now. “Nadine?”
    I dropped the leaf, brushing its juices from my palms as I turned. “Yes?”
    “Wyatt did a preliminary search, but he’s not alerting anything. We’ll spot-check a few areas, but he’s starting to lose interest.” He noticed my arms tight around my body. “If you want to get going, I can—”
    “I’ll stay.”
    I followed Steve back to the center of the commune, then kept close as Wyatt worked the field in a grid, and along the riverbank, anywhere it might be easy to bury a body. The dog was moving slower now, his tail drooping.
    Finally Ken said, “He’s done for.”
    I walked with them to our vehicles. As Ken put Wyatt back in the truck, I said, “He’s a beautiful animal. My brother has a shepherd, too.”
    “Yeah, they’re good dogs.” Ken reached in and gave Wyatt a scratch.
    Steve gave me a look. “How is Robbie?”
    I startled. “You know my brother?” I wondered why he hadn’t mentioned it the first time I came up.
    “When I was still on the force, I had to break up a fight he was in at the pub.”
    I wrinkled my brow. “What was the fight about?”
    “Don’t know. The other two guys took off. It took a couple of us to settle Robbie down, and he wouldn’t tell us what happened.” He held my gaze. “He had a pretty bad temper.”
    Something about the way he said it felt like a warning, which confused, then angered me. “He was younger. He’s worked through his issues.” I had no idea if that was true or not, but he was my brother.
    Steve nodded, and then smiled. “We’ve all got issues.”
    *   *   *
    I followed the men back to the main road, but they kept going straight to the village, and I turned toward my brother’s. In case it got back to him that I was in town, I wanted him to hear it from me first. I also wanted him to know about Lisa. He’d always had a soft spot for her, and if he’d had any memories of the commune that he wasn’t sharing, he might change his mind knowing she could be at risk.
    He was working in the shop again. Brew gave a woof and bounded over to me, sniffing at my legs for traces of Wyatt. Robbie straightened up from the workbench where he’d been sharpening the blade on a chain saw, the tool still in his hand. He looked over my shoulder, studied the mud on the car. I watched his face, the way his jaw muscles tightened.
    I said, “Hi, I wanted to let you know that Lisa might be at The River of Life Center.”
    He turned back to me, his face confused. “Whatya mean?”
    I told him everything, then added, “If she’s gone there, she could end up staying. So I’m hoping that the center will get shut down. Tammy, the woman I found, she might go to the police, but she’s still struggling with the decision.”
    “Does Aaron know you’re talking to people?”
    “I don’t know, maybe.”
    “He’s not going to like this.”
    I thought about the truck rushing past, the hang-ups, the feeling of being watched, wondered again if it was someone from the commune. “No, you’re right. He won’t, but there’s not much I can do about that.”
    Robbie picked up on my tension. “Has he come after you?”
    “I’ve been getting some strange calls and a couple of drive-bys.”
    “You should just back off and forget—”
    “He’s hurting people, Robbie. You wouldn’t believe the things he’s doing now. He’s got these chambers, where he basically starves people, and—”
    “He’s starving them?” His face was stunned, his mouth open, eyes wide.
    “Yes, in isolation chambers.” I told him everything Tammy had shared.
    Now he was pacing, back and forth, like a boxer in a ring without an opponent.
    “Fuck. I told you—they’re messed