River’s End

over his face. “Noah, do you have any idea how many times we were approached during the two years after Julie’s death? To give interviews, to endorse books, movies, television features?”
    “I can imagine, and I’m aware you refused them all.”
    “All,” Rob agreed. “They offered us obscene amounts of money, promises, threats. The answer was always no. Why do you think I would say yes now, after all these years, to you?”
    “Because I’m not going to offer you money, or make any threats, and I’ll only give you one promise. I’ll tell the truth, and by telling it, I’ll do right by your daughter.”
    “Maybe you will,” Rob said after a moment. “I believe you’ll try to. But Julie’s gone, Noah, and I have to think of the family I have left.”
    “Would it be better for them for this book to be written without their input?”
    “I don’t know. The wound’s not raw anymore, but it still aches from time to time. There have been moments I wanted to have my say. but they passed.” He let out a long sigh. “A part of me, I admit, doesn’t want her to be forgotten. Doesn’t want what happened to her to be forgotten.”
    “I haven’t forgotten.” Noah waited while Rob’s gaze jerked back to his face. “Tell me what you want remembered.”

Eighteen
    The Naturalist Center was Olivia’s baby. It had been her concept, her design and in a very real sense her Holy Grail.
    She’d insisted on using the money she’d inherited from her mother, and at twenty-one, degree fresh and crisp in her hand, she’d reached into her trust fund and built her dream.
    She’d supervised every aspect of the center, from the laying of stone to the arrangement of seats in the small theater where visitors could watch a short documentary on the area’s flora and fauna. She’d chosen every slide and each voice-over in the lobby area personally, had interviewed and hired the staff, commissioned the to-scale model of the Quinault Valley and rain forest and often worked as guide on the hikes the center offered.
    In the year since she’d opened the doors to the public, she’d never been more content.
    She wasn’t going to allow Noah Brady to spoil that carefully structured contentment. With her mind only half on the job, she continued to take her small group of visitors on their indoor tour of the local mammals.
    “The Roosevelt, or Olympic, elk is the biggest of the wapiti. Large herds of Roosevelt elk make their home along the Olympic Peninsula. In a very real way, we owe the preservation of this area to this native animal, as it was to protect their breeding grounds and summer range that President Theodore Roosevelt, during the final days of his administration, issued the proclamation that created Mount Olympus National Monument.”
    She glanced up as the main door opened and instantly felt her nerves fray. Noah gave her a slight nod, a half grin, then began to wander around the main area, leaving a trail of wet behind him. As a matter of pride, Olivia continued her lecture, moving from elk to black-tailed deer, from deer to marten, but when she paused by the Castor canadensis, the beaver, and the memory of sitting on the riverbank with Noah flashed into her mind, she signaled to one of her staff to take over. She wanted to turn around and go lock herself in her office. Paperwork was, always, a viable excuse. But she knew it would look cowardly. Worse, it would feel cowardly. So, instead, she walked over and stood beside him as he examined one of the enlarged slides with apparent fascination.
    “So, that’s a shrew.”
    “A wandering shrew, Sorex vagrans, quite common in this region. We also have the Trowbridge, the masked and the dusky shrew. There are Pacific water shrews, northern water shrews and shrew moles, though the masked shrew is rare.”
    “I guess I’m only acquainted with city shrews.”
    “That’s very lame humor.”
    “Yeah, but you’ve gotta start somewhere. You did a great job here, Liv. I knew you would.”
    “Really? I didn’t realize you’d paid attention to any of my ramblings back then.”
    “I paid attention to everything about you. Everything, Olivia.”
    She shut down, shuttered over. “I’m not going back there. Not now, not ever.”
    “Fine, let’s stay here then.” He wandered over and studied what he decided was a particularly ugly creature called a western big-eared bat. “Want to show me around?”
    “You don’t give a damn about natural science, so why