I shook my head, staring at the cheek dimples and familiar nose in a picture with a backdrop of spruce trees. He had a bit of stubble, sunglasses woven through his light hair, and his smile didn't quite reach his eyes. It couldn't be the same guy. Although the bus stranger and this man, Dustin Turcotte, looked identical. But he'd been riding the bus for... was it about a month? It had to be longer.

Still, the article piqued my interest.

Dustin worked at an architecture company and was in his mid-twenties with no partner or kids. According to his family, he'd responded to texts and posted on social media in the past month. After he'd requested a two-week leave from work and never returned, the company called his emergency contacts. The last time anyone confirmed they'd seen him in person was in early November.

You shouldn't be able to see me.

It was an odd thing to say. But I'd assumed a shy or awkward individual trying to go unnoticed would joke about it. 

Was the guy in hiding? 

Did he owe someone money? 

A bus commute every morning was very conspicuous, especially with the article out. He didn't cover his eyes with sunglasses, although his toque hid a lot of his hair.

"Doing a different sort of research, eh?" Stella teased from behind me with a cackle.

I pushed my chair away from the desk. "I might be slowly turning into my mother. My Bear Claw Lake research morphed into combing through missing person reports."

She leaned against my desk, stretching out her long legs and suede ankle boots. "Slippery slope. Maybe we can invite tourists to race the police to tackle unsolved crimes. No end to those. The winner gets box seats to a hockey game and a street named after them."

"Any idea is good at this point."

"You are a brilliant and resourceful human being. Once you get out of your head, you'll be fine. Call Josh. He's like the Mia whisperer."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You chose Bear Claw Lake for more than just a partnership opportunity." 

A knowing glint shined in her eye that made my cheeks warm. Sure, we'd stayed at Josh's place together this summer, and he had this gentle way of making problems seem insignificant, but he didn't affect me that much, did he? That crush faded with time.

Even if we were both interested, that path led into the woods without a return trail. The project still had a heartbeat, although faint, which I wouldn't jeopardize for a misguided what-if-this-could-be-more moment with Josh.

"As a resident of Bear Claw Lake, he'll give you much more accurate information about that body discovery. Unless you were looking at those missing person's reports for another reason."

My stomach turned. I wasn't ready to spill about the bus stranger. "That's a fair point."

"I'll leave it to you. Good luck charming information out of Josh, Mia Moray." Stella left with a teasing wink.

Later in the day, I worked up the courage to call Josh about our Bear Claw Lake project. It wasn't meant to be intelligence fishing like Stella implied. Josh had a right to know about our project's fate.

He picked up with a cheery "Hey" despite the events in his quiet town. He'd always found strength regardless of his circumstances.

"Hey, how is everything?"

"Chaos. I didn't think our town would be crawling with this many outsiders until your campaign ran."

"Can't imagine it's going well."

"It has its challenges."

I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. "Our campaign is on hold until the news blows over."

Josh inhaled. "It won't blow over."

"Why?"

"The person is not from here. Everyone from our community is safe and accounted for."

"At least that's good news for Bear Claw Lake." 

When I was growing up and came to visit, youth suicide rates were higher there and in the surrounding communities, especially the reserves, but they'd gotten many of the Indigenous kids involved in learning their Cree language and culture, one of many Indigenous cultures the Canadian government had spent over 150 years trying to obliterate, and the number of tragic deaths decreased.

"True, but they'll investigate thoroughly."

"Any idea how it happened?"

"No."

The silence on the other end convinced me that I said the wrong thing. I did not mean it to be an accusation against him or anyone in the town. "I know you were counting on that guiding work this winter. If anything comes up in the city—"

"We've survived here long before and will long after you had this idea. The city is your home, not mine. But I'm grateful for your offer."

"Of course. I feel bad that after convincing everyone this was a great opportunity, this happened."

"I have faith it'll be okay."

That made one of us.

A knock echoed from Josh's end of the call. "I have to go, but don't be a stranger."

"I won't. Bye, Josh."

I swallowed a lump in my throat as I hung up. Despite my intentions, I couldn't give him anything helpful. He was right that he'd survive without me. My offer was more about my guilt than his needs.

On the commute home, I hoped to run into the cute bus stranger, Dustin, if he was the same guy from the missing person article. He'd said we'd meet again, but we rarely shared a commute home, plus the bus was too busy at my stop to get anywhere near the back. I held onto the swinging plastic handle, bumping shoulders with fellow commuters as we stopped in traffic over the bridge. The smooth sheets of gray ice and fresh snow swallowed the river whole, leaving only darker blotches of open water, reflecting the light from the lamposts.

The bus jerked again as traffic reawakened and headed down the bridge, only to meet another stop. Cold air rushed in, fighting with the blaring heaters as we packed even more frozen sardines in this can.

By the time I disembarked, the crowd dwindled. I walked home around the park not because my mother had forwarded me several articles on the Bear Claw Lake tragedy–all of which I'd found earlier–but to avoid seeing my blood staining the path. My mother had shared nothing related to Dustin's disappearance. Her crime reporting had at least one filter. I worried about how much news she consumed to overshare the information she did with me.

Once I'd stowed my winter gear, turned on the kettle, and tossed a camomile and lemon teabag in my oversized mug, I called my mother.

"Mia, are you alright?" Her state of alertness rose like the sun every morning.

"I'm fine, Mom, making tea in my safe apartment." From my second-story window, I spotted a few retired ladies power-walking past the building and toward the park with scarves and neck warmers masking their faces.

"Good, how was work?"

"Depressing. My boss killed the Bear Claw Lake pitch. We wanted to run the campaign before Christmas, but no luck." The electric kettle rumbled to life like it would combust.

"The one you and Josh were working on this summer?"

"Yeah."

My mother sighed. "I'm sorry, sweetie."

"That's the business," I reassured myself as I checked the leaves on my ficus plant sitting on my windowsill. It wasn't loving the cold air seeping in near my air conditioning unit, and its leaves were dying. "I told him, and he seemed okay with it."

"That boy's been through a lot."

"He's my age, Mom." Despite that, she was right. He seldom talked about it, but he'd lost his sister and a few close friends, all of whom were far too young.

"And you'll always be the kids I watched grow up out in the bush."

I grabbed the ficus plant and transferred it away from the draft and near my sun-loving spider plant. "Our family only spent a few weeks a summer there."

"And you loved it."

"Not the horseflies and mosquitoes." Even with my skin fully covered, those suckers took chunks out of my flesh, and the mosquitoes left me with enough welts to become an itchy dalmatian.

"Yet you spent two weeks there, both this summer and fall. Is there something you've been hiding from me?" she teased. Not my mom too.

"My life's an open book." Except for chatting with a missing person this morning. But I'd save that until I learned more about the guy or confirmed he was someone else. "Josh is a friend I've enjoyed reconnecting with, but that's all. We live very different lives."

Mine involved chasing trends, social media influencers, businesses, and potential clients, while his included contributing to his community and connecting with nature. I dealt with angry clients and cancelled projects while he volunteered at youth groups and shared his knowledge of the land. His work was deep while mine felt increasingly shallow, even when I tried to find ways around it.

"You're not on one of those dating apps, are you? I've heard they're not safe."

I didn't have the budget to date, and it wasn't a priority. Bus Guy was cute, and so was the occasional client or friend of a friend, but those were just brief fantasies to make my life seem more exciting.

"The only thing I'm on is your Crave account. I've been bingeing that hotel-murder show."

"How you find that entertaining, I'll never know."

I poured hot water into my mug, resting my hands against the porcelain until it burned. "We can't all read every news article as it's published."

"Be nice or, I'll change the password."

I gasped and held my hand to my chest out of dramatic habit. "To your only child. How cruel!"

"If you're free tomorrow, stop by for supper. Your dad and I would love the company."

"I'll be there." I didn't make enough money to turn down food, nor was my social life active enough to reject non-work-related human interaction.