Chapter Two: Searching
Live in my head for just one day
I see myself and look away
The road is showing now on my face
Soon I’ll disappear with,
I'll disappear without a fucking trace
~Staind
Denali National Park
200 miles north of Anchorage
Two days after meeting with Xavier and Doctor McTaggert in Scotland, Logan found himself in the bitter north. He couldn’t remember ever being this close to the top of the world. Canada was the only place he could recall with any clarity and even that was several hundred miles to the south.
Armed with a recent photograph of the woman he searched for, the long arm of Xavier, and his own tenacity, he had thought long and hard about how he would locate the missing mutant. Ororo hadn’t been easy to find for he and Hank a year ago, but they hadn’t thought to look anywhere other than Africa and Asia.
He checked into a small, cozy hunting lodge in an even smaller village called “Henry”. Logan immediately knew why Ororo had chosen this particular spot. She was still human and still surrounded herself with the familiar. A place named for her favorite person was an ironic quirk worthy of her.
According to the records Chuck had given him “ which contained all bank accounts, job applications, and recent pay stubs under Munroe’s name “ she lived alone. She worked as a freelance pilot out of a family-owned hangar.
Locating her cottage wouldn’t be too hard. Ororo was still someone who connected with society, so he was certain he would find it just off the main roads. Without unpacking, Logan made his way out of the tiny chalet he’d been given and headed for the dining hall.
It was February, leaving the exterior temperatures of Henry, Alaska well below freezing. He knew there would be more darkness than light here, at least for a while longer. Just now, he could see the swirling lights above in a shimmering rainbow of blue and violet. Even someone so gruff as he could admit it was an awe-inspiring sight.
What had brought her to the ass-end of the world? Freezing temperatures, snow, lights and isolation. Logan figured the last one was probably the key. He had over heard her telling Hank just days before her sudden withdrawal from the X-Men that she wanted to be alone. Wholly alone.
She’d gotten her wish, for a while.
Entering the crowded lounge, Logan swept his keen eyes over the entire room, searching for something out of place. The air was thick with the scent of cooking meat and spicy side dishes. A few men in hunting gear looked well on their way through several pints of beer while they made passes at the pretty Inuit waitress. Several of the other vinyl covered booths were filled with families and groups, many of them paying no heed to the stranger so suddenly in their midst.
“Can I help you?”
The pretty waitress had come over to him, her exotic face affixed into an easy smile. Her long, glossy black hair was pulled back from her face and Logan could see a fine sheen on her skin from sweat.
“Yeah,” Logan nodded, fishing into his shirt pocket for the photograph. “Ya know this girl?”
The young woman’s smile faded as she touched the photo tenderly. Immediately, Logan knew this woman would be a key in his search. That kind of barely-covered pain could only mean that the waitress knew Ororo well enough to worry.
“Ororo,” she said in that slightly accented voice.
She looked back up at him, suspicion instantly creasing her face. “Who are you?”
“Name’s Logan,” he answered. “I’m a friend of hers. I heard she went missin’, came to see what I could do.”
“Logan.” The girl raised one ebony brow, her lips twitching as though she wanted to smile. “She mentioned you once or twice.”
“Did she?” He tried to hide his surprise, glancing around to ensure no one else was listening in. “I haven’t seen her in a while.”
“I’m Mary,” the girl said, sticking her hand out for him to shake. He could feel calluses and patches of dry skin that betrayed her as a woman who worked for everything she got. It wasn’t a surprise that she hit it off with Ororo.
“Nice to meet ya,” Logan flashed her a quick smile. “Think ya’ve got a few to have a cup of coffee? I’d like to find out who I talk to bout our friend.”
Mary’s obsidian eyes seemed suddenly sad, but she nodded curtly. “I’ll get you some stew, and the coffee’s fresh. Let me tell Yvonne that I’m taking a break. I can call Sheriff Tasser too, if you want.”
Appreciating her thoughtfulness, Logan took a seat at an empty booth. The room was still noisy, but not to the point that it hurt his sensitive ears. Running a hand over his head, he spotted an enormous stuffed moose mounted to the wall behind him and frowned. She really hadn’t wanted to be found. He would have never pegged her to live in a place like this.
Fatigue from a long few days had begun to settle in, but it would not subdue his restlessness. Every minute he spent just sitting around was one minute Ororo might be in more danger. He wanted to find her, make sure she was all right. Logan refused to even entertain the thought that she was already dead. Though no ransom demand had been made, he would not give up on her.
He couldn’t really explain why this became his mission so easily. Ororo and Logan were never what someone would call close…so why was he so hell bent on retrieving her? He thought, maybe, that it was Jean’s memory that pushed him so hard. It could all be because he wanted to do right by the woman he had killed in the name of a greater good he still didn’t really understand.
Maybe for Hank, once Ororo’s closest friend. In the months since she had gone AWOL, Logan and Henry had drifted closer together. They ran Xavier’s school as a duo, fought whatever mutant menace they could defeat on their own. Between the two of them, they had recruited more for the fight and were training the young as well.
Logan liked his work. It kept him close to Rogue “ damn, he needed to call her “ and gave him something to fill long, lonely hours. Jean’s death still weighed heavily on his mind, though he knew he had done the right thing. Once the Professor was back, things would get easier. Every day dulled the hurt a little more, gave him breathing room again.
One regret he had carried over the last year was that he never got through to Storm. He had just watched her die inside, let her succumb to grief and despair. Though Hank had tried everything, Logan just let her go. He should have done something. He should have insisted, pushed, made her rage at him. Rage was better than nothingness.
“Mr. Logan, I presume?”
Looking up, Logan spotted a tall, wiry man wearing a crisp blue uniform. The badge over his right breast pocket bore the symbol of a sheriff. Wolverine pegged him for mid-forties, likely a lawman his entire life. He had sandy blonde hair streaked with gray and a lined, frowning face that seemed etched into a permanent deadpan.
Logan liked him already.
“Sheriff,” he said, nodding at the chair opposite him.
“Mary told me you’re here looking for Miss Munroe,” the other man gave Logan a look that clearly said he was a suspect until proven otherwise.
“Yeah,” Logan admitted. “I’m a friend from New York. Got a message that she was missin’, likely abducted.”
Tasser’s sharp brown eyes were suddenly laughing at him. “Abducted?”
One of Logan’s scruffy brows rose slowly. “You don’t think so?”
“Well, its hard to say,” Tasser shrugged one thin shoulder. “This is the wilderness, friend, people take off all the time.”
“Her dog was bleedin’, left locked in the garage,” Logan pointed out. “That don’t seem strange?”
“A little,” Tasser’s eyes betrayed him. Wolverine noted, with a hint of respect, that he was testing Logan’s knowledge of Ororo.
“An’ then there’s this.”
Fishing in his pocket, Logan produced a small tape recorder and set it on the table, just as Mary came up. She had a tray laden with rich smelling stew of very fresh coffee. While she laid out everything and took a seat, Logan turned the volume down on the recorder.
Without so much as a warning, he pushed the play button.
“Logan! LOGAN! I need your help!”
He watched both Mary and Tasser as the recording played. Mary’s coal black eyes welled up with tears as they listened to Ororo’s frantic scream for help. Tasser stiffened, trying for an impassive expression. But by the death grip he had on his coffee mug, Logan knew it was getting to him.
Hell, it got to Wolverine. He had listened to it over and over again during the many flights from Scotland to Alaska. Over time, his preternatural hearing was able to discover more and more of the events surrounding Ororo’s abduction. If he could get into her home, he might learn more. As it stood, the men who had taken her were professional, judging by the sound of standard issue boots on the floor. It was likely late at night, as he could hear no television left on and the chilling howl of a nearby wolf.
Pieces of a puzzle were bouncing around in his head. He would slip it altogether eventually, reconstructing the exact order of events before Ororo disappeared. Something in that knowledge might give her captors away. In fact, he was counting on it.
When the message turned to static, Logan flipped the recorder off. Noticing the tears now streaming down Mary’s face, he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a handkerchief for her.
She thanked him with a shaking voice, sitting beside the now scowling sheriff.
“Where did you get that?” Tasser demanded. “And how do I know it’s authentic?”
“Well,” Logan cleared his throat. “Ororo’s got some friends with real long arms an’ one of ‘em happens to work for the State Department. You can call him right now, get me an’ this tape authenticated. I’ll even let ya use my cell phone.”
That seemed to put the rather stoic sheriff out of things to say for the moment. Logan silently handed the phone over, a slip of paper taped to the back with Hank McCoy’s office number on it. Logan had expected some interference from local law enforcement and after explaining things to Hank, Big Blue had come through for him. Using his credentials, Beast could easily vouch for both Logan and the tape.
It was actually a good plan, one worthy of his brilliant, furry friend.
Mary turned to Logan when the Sheriff turned his back to them, listening intently to the voice on the other end of the cellular phone. Her eyes were slightly bloodshot, something Logan understood well enough. He waved her off when she tried to return his hankie, instead taking a scalding sip of coffee.
“Well,” Tasser said after a moment. “You check out, Mr. Hope.”
Oh, he was going to kill Hank when he got home. Logan Hope? Oh yeah, Big Blue was a dead man.
“Told ya I would,” Logan replied, covering his dislike for Hank’s new identity for him.
“To tell you the truth,” the man continued much more cordially as he handed Logan back his phone. “I can’t seem to get anyone interested in this case.”
“Huh?” Logan grunted, taking another sip of coffee. “No one wants to find a missin’ woman?”
Tasser shook his gray-blonde head. “She had no family to file reports for her, no reason she would have been murdered or kidnapped. I got the Anchorage Police out here for the first day, but they lost interest pretty quick.”
“I tried to appeal their official word,” Mary chimed in, biting at her fingernail. “But I wasn’t marked as next of kin or anything, so no one listened.”
Fuming inside, Logan took a moment of quiet to breathe deeply. No one cared. How typical. He wanted to tear the assholes’ throats open, but he somehow figured that wouldn’t be of any help to Ororo. For now, he’d simply take this one in the chin, until someone made him get violent.
He’d find her. He would find her alive, too. Nothing would change his mind in that. If he spent the next century searching for her, at least she would know that someone gave a damn enough to come looking.
Logan figured anyone deserved that much.
“So they’re considerin’ her a runaway?”
Tasser nodded somberly. “Of course, they haven’t heard the tape.”
“And they won’t,” Logan said meaningfully, hoping Hank had remembered the other part of his little lie.
“Right,” Tasser nodded, puffing his chest out somewhat proudly. “Official business of the State Department and all of that.”
“Exactly,” he had to hide a smirk behind his coffee cup.
“Why don’t you two eat up,” Mary cut in with a roll of her dark eyes. “I’ll take Mr. Hope out to Ororo’s cottage once he’s done.”
Something heavy and cold thudded down from Logan’s throat into his heart. He recognized the feeling a moment too late to keep it from his face. It was worry, fear, and everything else he always denied feeling. Seeing her things in an otherwise unoccupied space would make it real.
“Actually,” he touched Mary’s hand, covering his worry with a certain irritated calm. “I’d like to see her dogs first.”
“Sure,” Mary said, her eyebrow rising slightly. “I’ve got them at my place.”
~**~
He followed the young woman home in a rented Ford Explorer. The man at the rental agency had explained how the engine’s heating system worked to prevent the electrical system from shorting out in the cold. He stared at the apparatus with a mixture of confusion and fascination. It took a lot of knowledge and balls to live in a place like this.
Mary’s home was on the edge of town, on the banks of what looked to be a small river. As he exited the rental, he could hear the throaty bark of dogs from around the back, mixed in with the curious growling sounds of nature.
Everywhere he looked there were snow capped mountains and thick forest. Inhaling deeply, Logan was reminded of open wilds were instinct and nature replaced ordered society. It was the type of earthy place he could willingly lose himself in. Had that same chaotic calm called Ororo here too?
Mary, bundled in a thick parka, waved at him as she left her car. Her nose was red from the cold and her hair seemed impossibly brittle, but she managed a wide smile as she led him toward the backyard.
“Andine’s doing a lot better and her stitches are healing ok,” she was saying as she unlocked the tall chain link gate. “But they’re both restless. Eliar’s usually so calm, but since Ororo went missing, he’s almost rabid.”
“Happens,” Logan explained without thinking as he closed the gate behind them. “Huskies are more pack oriented than most domestic breeds. Ororo was part of their pack and it’s their job to find her. Keepin’ ‘em locked up is like holdin’ a mother back when her child’s in danger.”
“Whoa,” Mary said with a surprised chuckle. “That’s a little intense.”
Logan glanced at her, tossing the pretty young woman a feral smile. “It’s an animal thing.”
Her cheeks flushed bright red at the low, lilting growl of his voice. Logan fought the urge to chuckle, though what she did next confused him. Instead of fluttering her lashes, giggling, or otherwise giving in to that sensual aroma of desire he tasted on the air, she cleared her throat and took a step away.
At first, he thought he had frightened her, but a moment later, she smiled again.
“Ororo was right again,” Mary chuckled as she moved past him toward the dog kennels.
“Bout what?” he asked, peering curiously into the first kennel. “How long they been out here?”
“An hour,” she replied swiftly. “My dad came to let them out.”
She cleared her throat uneasily, reaching into the kennel to rub a beautiful Husky female’s snout. Logan tilted his head at the stunning creature, watching as Mary lovingly traced the line of gray-blue that made up the canine’s mask. He looked over the petite woman’s shoulder to inspect the wound.
A gunshot wound.
“Dog had a load of buckshot in her and no one thinks of foul play?” he snarled, indicating to the dog.
“It’s Alaska, Logan,” Mary responded patiently. “Accidental gunshot wounds are a part of life.”
“Huh.” He grunted, reaching in to scratch the beautiful pooch behind the ears. “Ya didn’t answer my question.”
Logan glanced up in time to see Mary’s cheeks turn scarlet once more. She cleared her throat, turning her back on him as she fiddled with the other dog’s kennel door.
“She said…” the girl began in a whisper. “She said that if anything ever happened to her and you showed up, I’d stop worrying.”
Surprised, again, and becoming irritated that so much was shocking him, he raised a single brow in her direction.
“She said that you took care of things,” Mary continued in a small voice. “She never said what or why, just that you took care and I’d stop worrying. And I have. I know you’ll find her.”
Logan turned back to the dog, whom was calmly licking the back of his hand. The bitch’s bright blue eyes shone with pain and loneliness. Ororo was not the type to lock her canine companions in cages while she was out. Mary obviously meant well, but he didn’t like this set up at all.
When he turned to the other kennel, Eliar was staring at him with bright, suspicious eyes. The bitch would come quietly…but the male would be a problem.
“Mary?”
“Yeah?”
“Got an old sweater of ‘Ro’s? Somethin’ she mighta left over one night? Better if it ain’t been washed.”
The girl looked perplexed for a moment, her face still burning from the chilled air and embarrassing confessional. After almost a full minute of her silent deliberation, she nodded quickly.
“Yeah, I do. What do you need it for?”
“Gonna take the pups with me,” he said, looking from one dog to the other. “Then tomorrow, I’m gonna find our girl.”
Andine licked his hand as though she understood him before placing her muzzle in his palm and whimpering pitifully.
~**~
“Ororo’s been a great pilot. She doesn’t cut corners, she’s good to the customers, never misses a drop or pick up. It’s been a real pleasure knowing her.”
Logan sat in the neat cockpit of Ororo’s tiny plane, looking around at the personal touches she had added over the months. The controls and consoles were polished, clean. It was obvious that she took great pride in her equipment.
The plane was old, but it purred, according to Kenneth Gates, the owner of Gates Airstrip. After a rough night in the hotel, plagued by dreams he could not remember or understand, Logan had piled the Huskies into his rental car and driven to the hangar Ororo frequently housed her plane in.
More to the point, it was the last place anyone had seen her.
“How’d you two get started?” Logan questioned, looking up into the top consoles, where the landing gear switches were housed.
He spotted a faded photograph tucked carefully into the corner of the console. Reaching for it, he felt his stomach sink. Without even looking, he knew who was in that old photo.
Sure as the sun rises in the east, when he turned the photograph over in his hands, he found a smiling Jean, laughing Scott, and amused Charles staring back at him. They were waving to the person behind the camera. He knew who had taken it. It had to be Ororo. There was her family, being together on a warm, clear day.
She saw the past in that picture. Everything good and happy in the world. But he could see the darkness, too. Everyone in that picture, at least to Storm’s knowledge, was dead.
“She showed up one day, out of the clear blue,” Gates was saying. “Said Mary over at the Lodge told her I was in need of a good pilot. I was, so we took a test run. ‘Fore we ever landed, I hired her.”
“That good, eh?” Logan replied absently, still staring at the picture.
“Knew her equipment, knew how to fly…but she just seemed to love being in the air. That more than any crap on paper is what made me hire her.”
“I thought she was freelance,” the mutant interjected, tucking the photograph back where he had found it.
“Yeah,” Gates admitted. “Two months ago she bought the plane from me. I get a cut, for housing and maintenance, but the work is all hers.”
Finally finished with his inspection of the plane’s cozy interior, Logan turned to the man who’d been talking in an almost breathless stream since he’d arrived.
“Sounds like you two had a lot goin’ for ya.”
“You kidding?” Gates sighed, running a hand through his red hair. “Look, Mr. Hope. She’s a great pilot and a good friend. We may not have hung out every Saturday night over a keg, but I want her back safe just as much as you do.”
Logan nodded, jumping down from the cockpit and whistling for the dogs. Though Mary had said both were edgy since Ororo’s disappearance, he seemed to have formed a fast and sturdy bond with the duo. They trusted him…at least after he’d scented himself with Ororo’s sweater.
They were good dogs. Loyal, well-behaved, and still reeking of the wild.
“Last time you saw her?”
The younger man paused, as though carefully remembering that last incident.
“She came in round four the day before the blizzard. She said she needed a place to house the plane when the storm came. I told her it was no problem and she gave me her flight plan for the next morning.”
“She was flyin’ somewhere?” Logan questioned, locking all of this information away in his mind.
“Yeah,” Gates said easily, sticking his thumbs in the loopholes of his jeans. “Vacationing couple wanted to get back to Anchorage. I knew something was wrong when they showed up that next day and Ororo was no where to be found.”
“She seem off at all, last time ya saw her? Scared or skittish?”
”Nah,” the man’s voice was filled with sudden and acute sorrow. “In fact, she teased me about askin’ Mary out. I blushed red as my hair and shooed her out the door.”
He felt for the man, he really did. But time loomed over Logan’s head like the executioner’s axe. Stopping to reminisce could cost Ororo her life. He needed to find her, not sit here while someone he didn’t know wallowed over the missing woman.
“Ororo ever tell you about problem clients? Anything that mighta seemed odd?”
Gates scratched his chin, which was heavily bearded. It looked, in the right light, like his face had just caught fire. Logan was careful to keep that observation to himself.
“Not really,” the man said after a moment. “Had a creepy guy come through here from Anchorage a couple of weeks ago. Said he was a doctor or something. Ororo didn’t say anything, but I got a creepy vibe from him.”
Logan’s eyebrow shot up, a smirk playing about his lips. “Creepy vibe?”
Gates shrugged his slender shoulders, then reached around Logan to grab a clipboard from a nearby cart. “Name was Allan Justice. I just…well, he seemed really interested in her. Asked her a bunch of questions, personal things.”
Instantly on his guard, Logan’s expression shifted from amused to furious in the blink of an eye. Why had no one reported this? Weren’t the cops supposed to interview people? Something very strange was happening here.
“What kinda things?”
As though sensing Logan’s change in attitude, the younger man coughed nervously and glanced toward the open hangar door. It was dark out, though the time read ten in the morning. That was going to take some getting used to.
“He asked if her hair was a natural color. What kind of upbringing she had. I got the impression that he was fishing for information while trying to make it look like idle conversation.”
“You tell anyone about this?”
The man nodded emphatically. “Yeah. Told the sheriff and the Anchorage Police.”
“What’d they say?”
For a moment, Gates looked at once annoyed and fuming. “That the doctor checked out just fine. Has an alibi. But I’m telling you, man, something wasn’t right about that guy.”
He was inclined to agree. If someone was here just weeks before Ororo vanished, asking those kinds of questions, Logan was sure he was involved. Maybe he was a middle man or maybe he only knew of someone that knew something…but he did have information.
“Got an address?”
Gates nodded again, this time looking relieved that someone was taking him seriously.
“Yeah, right here.”
While the kid ran into the office to fetch the good doctor’s address, Logan bent at the waist to check on Andine’s stitches. The pup did not bark or try to escape, but waited patiently while Logan finished his examination.
Eliar was standing not too far from them, watching carefully. Logan knew the Alpha Male would have some issues accepting him, but the canine would eventually get the idea. Someone had to look after them and if Ororo trusted him to come find her…
He frowned. That bothered him for some reason. Ororo had told Mary that, should something happen to her, Logan would fix things. How could she have known that? Why would she put her trust, her faith into the man that killed her best friend? Would he ever, truly understand what went on in that woman’s head?
“Got it!”
Gates had returned, handing Logan a slip of paper with the doctor’s name, address, and phone number. Staring at it for a moment, the often feral mutant came to a split second decision.
“When’s the next flight to Anchorage?”
The other man grinned from ear to ear.
“Right about now.”
