25. Chaos Theory

Nadia

Iwas shaken awake by Riggs.

I opened my eyes.

It was already full-on sun, but dawn came early this far north in the summer.

However, I could tell it was earlier than normal, since I was an early riser (if Riggs let me go to sleep at a decent hour (not complaining), which he had last night), and I'd still been dead asleep.

So I blinked at Riggs, sitting fully clothed on the bed beside me.

"Is something up?" I asked.

"We're going into town for breakfast. You can go back to bed, but thought you might want plenty of time to get ready. Though, in a couple of hours, gotta ask you to wake Ledger up so he can get showered and be good to go."

I pushed up to an arm. "Are you going somewhere?"

"Gonna check the south side of the lake."

"What? Now?"

"Honey."

That was all he said, but I didn't like the way he said it.

"What?" I whispered.

"Hunters take care not to have anything reflect off them. Not easy to shoot a deer if you warn them you're coming."

Oh shit.

"Are you…going to take your gun?"

"No, I'm gonna take Harry, who's waiting downstairs for me, and he's got his gun. So I gotta go."

"Oh."

"Kiss me."

I pushed up and kissed him, we both used tongues, but it was Riggs who ended it, and he did this too soon.

"Be back in a while," he promised.

I nodded.

He leaned in, kissed the top of my head, then he was gone.

You'd think,the amount of time I spent around children, I'd be good at keeping something from just one.

But perhaps it wasn't that I was bad at it, instead, that Ledger clearly took after his father in more than looks, but also in brain capacity (and I was a professional—I could ask him to take tests, but I already knew he was significantly advanced in far more than reading).

As such, I was about to learn that I sucked at keeping stuff from him.

"Was there another break in at the cabin or something?" he asked. "Is that where Dad's at?"

I was drinking coffee.

So he wouldn't feel left out, I made him a mug of cocoa. Thus, we could be two buds sharing a mug at the kitchen bar waiting for his dad to come home and take us to breakfast.

I thought about how Riggs was with his boy in everything but that he and I were sleeping in the same bed and shared, "I saw something yesterday in the woods. He and Harry are checking it out."

"Oh. Okay," Ledger replied blithely, such was the power of his dad to see to all the mysteries and ills of the world, then he took a sip of his cocoa, leaving a cocoa mustache.

Which…honestly?

His reaction made me feel much better, because I was also finding Doc Riggs had the power to see to quite a number of the mysteries and ills of the world.

When Ledger was done swallowing, he announced grandly, "I wanna say something."

"You can say anything to me," I told him.

"Okay. Then I'll start by saying, I don't want to make you cry or anything, I just want you to know how sorry I am that your mom died."

Official.

I was falling in love with this kid.

"Thank you, sweetheart," I replied.

He nodded and went on, "That makes it hard to say what I gotta say next. But I gotta say it. My mom was being a dick to you the other day, so I'm gonna apologize for her."

I wasn't sure where Riggs stood on the word "dick" coming out of his son's mouth in that capacity.

I was sure Ledger and I had now spent quite a bit of time together, but we still weren't in a place I felt I could admonish him, because I thought nine was too young to use the word "dick."

Not to mention, he was being so earnest and sweet, I didn't want to color the moment.

Thus, I let it lie and focused on the sweet part of what he said.

"That's okay," I replied. "But I appreciate your apology."

"Nah, it isn't okay," he returned. "I miss my brother when I'm with Dad, but Stormy's cool about having me over so we can hang, or bringing Viggo over here."

This was news.

"He's only three, but I know he misses me too," Ledger continued. "But I'm gonna ask Dad, when he leaves again, if I can stay with you or Gramme instead of going back to Mom."

Oh shit.

"Why would you ask for that, sweetheart?" I queried carefully.

"Because Dad taught me, everything you do has consequences. It's called the mosquito effect."

"Sorry, Ledge, I think that's the butterfly effect."

"Oh, that makes more sense," he mumbled.

I wasn't sure how, but I wasn't a budding genius.

"Anyway," he kept at it, "it's like, at recess, you tell a girl she's pretty, and her shirt is green, and she feels good you said she was pretty, and for the whole rest of her life, she loves the color green."

I also wasn't sure that was strictly how the butterfly effect worked, but I wasn't a student of chaos theory.

Regardless, I was interested in something else.

"Is there a girl you think is pretty?"

"Yeah. Madeline Yamada," he threw out casually. "But I'm not talking about her. I'm just saying. Mom's gotta learn that she can't just show at Dad's place and be a dick and it not have an effect. You know?"

I did know.

"You're very smart and mature for your age," I said truthfully.

He sat straighter.

"But I think you need to have a long talk with your dad about this."

"It's not a big deal," he told me. "When I'm off in the summer, he doesn't take super long jobs. His crew likes it like that too. They can go kayaking and camping and stuff like that. They work a lot in the winter, but June through August, they're home most of the time. His next job is only gonna last two weeks. And then he's off for six whole weeks."

Hallelujah!

"So she's gotta feel the consequences for only two weeks," he finished as the door opened.

His math didn't exactly add up, because his dad would then be back, so she'd feel the effect for two months.

I didn't correct him since he was looking toward the door.

I turned that way as well.

Riggs came in first, Harry, out of uniform, came in after him.

"Harry!" Ledger shouted, jumped off his stool and ran down then up to get to Harry on the front landing.

No cool kid here, he threw his arms around the man.

The way Harry smiled when he put his hand on Ledger's head, the other on his shoulder (I already liked the guy and had noted he was handsome, but I liked him a ton more), and with that sweet look on his face as he peered down at Ledger, I thought he was borderline beautiful.

He didn't wear a ring, but I hoped he had a special someone, and I further hoped they had kids.

"How much have you grown since I last saw you? Eight feet?" Harry asked.

Ledger popped back. "You saw me last week."

"Question still stands."

Ledger turned to me. "He's a goof."

"He seems pretty awesome to me," I said, right when Riggs made it to me.

"He does?" Riggs asked under his breath.

I looked up at him. "Third place, after the Riggs Boys."

His lips quirked.

"Everything good?" I asked.

"Talk later," he muttered.

Fantastic.

"I gotta head," Harry announced. "Hey and bye, Nadia. Good to see you again."

"You too, Harry. Hope the plainclothes mean you have the day off."

"I never have a day off," he replied like that didn't bother him. "Doc," he bid and looked down. "Ledge. Later." His lips tipped up. "And you got a chocolate mustache."

Ledger's arm went up immediately to rub it off, and he whirled on me.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he demanded after he dropped his arm.

"We were talking chaos theory, I had to concentrate," I semi-lied.

The truth: I hadn't told him because it was cute.

"I'm out," Harry interrupted this.

Ledger swung back to him.

"Later, Harry," he said.

"Thanks for coming out, man," Riggs said.

Harry left and was barely out the door when Riggs called, "Kid, vamoose. Find something to do outside. Nadia and me will be out in a minute, and we'll hit the Double D for breakfast."

"You find something from the trespassers?" Ledger asked.

Riggs glanced down at me, then to his son, he said, "No. I wanna make out with her."

"Barf!" Ledger yelled and scrammed out the door.

Riggs looked down again at me, and this time, he kept doing it.

"Well, that worked," I remarked.

"Yup."

"Are we gonna make out?"

"Yup."

I grinned.

"But in a minute," he said.

I frowned.

That meant he grinned.

Then I explained, "I told him you were checking on something I saw. I thought that was what you'd do. He didn't seem alarmed."

"It's what I'd do."

"He also told me something, and to keep our growing bond thriving, I'm not going to tell you what it is. And it's not bad. Just that you might want to carve out time to have a chat with him."

"It's not bad?"

"No. He listens to you as well as processes what you say in a deep way that's beyond his years. He's processed something and made a decision about it. He'll bring it up to you anyway, just wanted to give you a warning."

"Right. This have something to do with chaos theory?"

"Yes, actually."

He shook his head with amusement.

"Okay, then, now can we make out?" I queried.

He smiled again. "Not yet."

"Ugh. So, does this delay in making out mean you found something?"

"It took some looking, but yeah. We found a multitude of footprints. Two people. One's either a guy with a small foot and not a lot of weight on him, or a woman. The other, definitely a guy or a female shot putter who's not afraid of getting caught doping."

I started laughing.

He kept talking.

"They came in around where you said, moved around a lot, went back to an old, now unused access road off the main one where they parked their car. No clue what they were doing, but they weren't hunting or camping."

"Is there another reason for someone to be there?"

"Not that I know. I've had to tell folks who come in to chop down trees for firewood to get off my land. Not often, but it's happened a couple of times. One group of them were out-of-towners who thought they could ignore the signs their footprints passed right by to chop down a Christmas tree."

"Losers," I muttered.

"Agreed. I do get hunters. Trappers too, but that isn't much anymore, 'cause I spring those fuckers, confiscate them and melt them down to use in my work, and some of that shit can be expensive."

"I take it you aren't a hunter."

"My dad was a hunter."

"Ah."

"I grew up here, so I get how it's part of tradition and even a way of life."

"I sense that's not the entirety of your opinion about it," I remarked.

This time he smirked.

It was hot.

"You sense right," he confirmed. "It boils down to the fact that we've managed to discover ways to sensitively raise and slaughter animals for consumption, and I can't wrap my head around stalking a living thing through its natural habitat for the purpose of killing it. I know a number of things that are challenging and prove you've got mettle that don't include taking the life of a living creature. If it poses an immediate threat to you, okay. If you go out for the purpose of ending its life so you can hang its head on your wall, absolutely not."

I very much agreed.

But he wasn't done.

"And I don't buy the argument that I eat meat so I can't be against hunting. I don't work in an abattoir or on a ranch, and neither do the vast majority of hunters. I don't grow my own vegetables either, and I eat those. I don't mix my own shampoo, and I use that shit. Seemed the animals had a way of controlling their own population when humans weren't around. It's humans that invaded their patch who didn't like them killing their chickens or cattle. To keep their investment safe from predators, it'd cost money. People like to keep their money. My take, that's a price you pay for being in that business. Sure, that price would be passed onto the consumer, which might drive them to eating more vegetables, and they can't have that. So it's down to greed. You don't eradicate the wolves and mountain lions so you got so much deer they starve in the winter so you gotta open a hunting season for greed."

"I fear you've missed your calling as an anti-hunting lobbyist."

Another smirk, then, "On the other hand, until the majority of American citizens decide hunting is abhorrent, it's a lawful activity, so even though that's my opinion, and I don't understand why someone hunts, they might not understand why I occasionally enjoy a joint. They keep out of my business, I keep out of theirs, we both carry on in a lawful manner, it's got nothing to do with me. Unless you do it on my land. That's where my law comes in."

"I like your law. Can it be Doc Riggs's law to trap humans who trespass on your land?"

His body moved with laughter, but it wasn't audible, though his one word shook with it.

"No."

"Pity."

He kept laughing a beat before he got serious. "I got a lot of acreage to cover, but neither Harry nor me liked those tracks. We couldn't get a lock on why they were there, though it seemed like they were looking for something. And they definitely made sure their car wasn't visible on the main road, which is suspicious. This means, gotta spend some time doing some wandering and having a look around to see if it's just someone fucking around, or if I got an issue."

"I can walk with you," I offered.

"That'd be good," he said.

"Can we make out now?" I asked.

His smile to that was wide. "Not yet. Got something to tell you that Harry shared with me."

I leaned into him and begged, "Please tell me you buried the lead, and they found the wine burglar."

"No. That's still an open case. And he's talked with Bubbles three times, and the asshole is sticking with the I-took-a-trip-to-Sonoma story when it comes to what he's sharing with Harry. So no movement on that."

"Bluh," I uttered, sitting back.

"Remember I told you he was going to have a look at the Whitaker case file?"

I leaned back into him and made my eyes big.

Another smile and, "He also called the station in Seattle that handled the finding and processing of Lincoln Whitaker's body."

This was unexpected.

"And?"

"And, when Harry got the detective on the line who was called to that scene, and Harry told him why he was calling, the man's first words were, ‘Finally, someone is lookin' into this shit.'"

I slapped a hand lightly on his chest. "What?"

He nodded.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because this Seattle cop has always thought something was hinky with that. He's of the mind, to this day, that Lincoln Whitaker was murdered."

Oh.

My.

God.