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VYPER STARED WITH DISGUST at her program’s results. Nothing. For nearly two weeks, nothing! Zero, nada, naught, not a *bleeping* thing. Her target, Elaine Granger, had not used her credit card or her mobile phone since leaving Wind-in-the-Trees Campground. Neither had she checked in at any campground in Canada with high-speed Internet service.
Vyper knew. She had foraged her way through the nation’s list of Internet service providers, had wormed her way into each of their databases, rooted out and identified every campground with broadband service, drilled down into their computers, and planted her custom Trojan horse, the program that would ping her if a Winnebago motor home of the same model and year as Elaine Granger’s checked in.
It’s getting cold out there overnight. Many campgrounds have closed for winter. That alone should have made it easier for me to find her. Where else but a KOA or something similar with electric hookups could she park an RV?
Vyper examined and verified her program parameters. They were perfect.
How can this be? Is the woman existing solely on cash? Living completely off the grid?
It was the only answer.
Vyper sat back and, with grudging admiration, studied the images of Elaine Granger Dimitri had sent her.
You impress me a little, Ms. Granger, she admitted, and I don’t impress easily. But I also don’t allow anyone to evade my nets forever. After all, what would that do to my reputation?
“It is only a matter of time, girlfriend,” she whispered to the photo of Elaine Granger. “You must come up for air sooner or later—and when you do? I will have you.”
Speaking of reputation, her client “Dimitri” had not endeared himself to her over the past week.
“We are paying you for results,” he’d snarled at her during their most recent phone call.
“I work for your superiors, not you, Zakhar,” she’d retorted. Oh, yes. She’d uncovered who he was and Baskin, the Moscow security officer for whom he worked. “You are not paying me at all.”
She’d held herself in check during their call, not letting on that she monitored every keystroke he made, not giving in to the urge to twist his tail for the pornography sites he’d visited online or the S&M images he’d downloaded to the laptop she’d given him.
What had disgusted her most was his penchant to seek out violent porn—even what were called “snuff films.”
Vyper sniffed in derision. Yes, information was power—power to be kept secret, held close, and then played at exactly the right moment for maximum benefit.
She would bide her time.
LAYNIE WOKE BEFORE dawn. She stretched, relishing, as she had six mornings in a row, the welcome awareness of freedom.
Freedom!
Laynie couldn’t recall when she’d last felt this sensation, this . . . letting down, relaxing her guard, choosing for herself how she would spend her day, unfettered by Petroff’s demands or the hovering, ubiquitous presence of Alyona or Zakhar or any of Petroff’s other restrictions.
Sleep and get up when I want. Eat what I want, when I want. Do what I want, when I want.
She rose, made herself a pot of coffee, filled a tall travel cup, and walked down to the lake to watch the sun rise over the lake. And like each of the preceding mornings, she stayed long after her coffee was gone, soaking up the quiet and the comforting, never-ending lap of water against the shore.
She heard steps behind her and frowned, irked at the disruption of her private time. It was Roger, picking his way across the rocks to the shoreline where she sat. His approach was hesitant and careful. He came alongside her but kept his distance, as though instinctively sensing that he wasn’t welcome.
“Are you getting any writing done?”
“Sure,” Laynie lied. Truth was, she’d spent the past days running miles along lakeshore trails to keep her fitness level up, then sitting for hours watching the sun slowly vanish over the lake. In between, in the afternoons before sunset? She’d spent those hours within Daisy’s walls . . . reading.
Roger hunkered down where he was, still keeping his distance. He was quiet, respectful of her privacy, but even from a couple yards away, Laynie could feel him working his way up to something.
She sighed within herself. She really did not want to hear Rog spout a rehearsed pickup line. She would have to shut him down—although she’d try not to deflate his ego too much. Still, the painful exchange would ruin her beautiful morning and put a strain on their arrangement.
I’ll probably have to leave—and I was really starting to like this place.
She carried the HK everywhere with her. It was tucked into her waistband, under her coat. She briefly fantasized about pulling it out and getting rid of Roger in much the same way she’d slap down an annoying mosquito.
Hey, then I could stay here all winter without ever using my credit card, right?
Except she was wrong. Completely off base. Roger wasn’t squatting nearby to make overtures.
He cleared his throat. “I need to say something, Elaine. You tell me if I’m wrong, eh?”
Laynie slid her eyes from the lake over to him. The man was as serious as he could be.
This can’t be good.
She tried to lighten the mood. “What? Am I sucking too much juice and you want to raise my rent? Or are my wild parties keeping you up at night?”
He didn’t rise to her attempt at deflection. “Elaine, you aren’t really a writer, are you? You aren’t working on any ‘looming deadline,’ are you?”
“Those are questions, not you ‘saying something.’”
“All right, let me rephrase. Elaine, I think you’re hiding from someone.”
Laynie faced him, defensive. Half angry. “No, I’m not. Why would you say such a thing?”
“Because it’s what I’m trained to see. I’m a cop, Elaine. Community Safety Officer Roger Mayfield, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Winnipeg.”
She’d let down her walls, relaxed her fortifications, and couldn’t build them back up fast enough. Her face mirrored her shock—and verified his assertions.
“You don’t need to be concerned, Elaine. I’m not on the job. I’m on medical leave. That’s why I’m here instead of down in the city. But I know the signs of someone who’s in the wind. I recognized them in you when you drove into my yard. And since you’re hiding out on my property? I had a friend run your plate. Guess what? It’s stolen.”
Laynie swept her eyes back out onto the lake, hoping . . . struggling to regain her equanimity.
“Are the police coming for me?”
“No.”
She frowned and faced him again. “Why not?”
His reply had to wait until he’d handled a coughing fit. “It’s a stolen plate, not a stolen vehicle. I gave my fellow officer no details or particulars, just asked him to run the plate. He . . . agreed not to report my call. Agreed to let me handle it on my end. As a personal favor.”
“And does this ‘personal favor’ come with a price tag you expect me to pony up, say, later on tonight in my RV?” Bitterness dripped from every syllable.
“I can understand why you’d think that, but no. I mean, you’re an attractive woman and all, but that’s not how I roll. In fact . . . what I actually came down to tell you was that I’d like to help you.”
Laynie didn’t know how to answer. She was too upset to actually hear what he’d offered.
All my careful plans—ruined! Ruined over a completely random encounter—a total stranger who turns out to be a cop? Of all the rotten luck.
“Look,” she said between her clenched teeth. “I don’t want or need your help. I’ll pack up and get out of here.”
“There’s no need for you to do that. It’s a guy, right? A guy you’re running from? An abuser?”
When Laynie didn’t answer, he added, “Well, I figure you’re actually pretty safe here—you haven’t used your credit card, and you’ve kept your RV out of sight. So, feel free to stay a while longer.”
Free? I was free until you ruined everything.
Laynie stood up. “No thanks. I’ll be out of your hair by nightfall.”
She stalked off and returned to Daisy. Sank onto a bench seat at the table.
What do I do now? Where do I go next?
There on the table sat her recent reading material, what had—quite unexpectedly—engrossed her for hours since the first afternoon she’d been parked under Rog’s hay barn. The worn volume was, from what Laynie deduced, Shaw and Bessie’s “travel” Bible. She’d found it along with the toothpicks and a deck of cards in the shallow drawer built under the end of the table.
Tucked within the Bible’s pages she’d found dog-eared sheets of paper traversed in Shaw’s careful script, listing where they’d camped and what they’d read and studied together while they camped. He’d added the walks they’d taken, the fun things they’d seen and done, and answers to prayers they’d prayed together.
The Bible’s pages themselves were a collage of verses highlighted in four colors—yellow, pink, pale green, and light blue. She hadn’t readily understood their color-coding system but, as she read what the Bradshaws had highlighted and compared the same color across chapters and books, she thought she’d figured it out.
Yellow seemed to be examples of faith.
And the scripture was fulfilled that says,
“Abraham believed God,
and it was credited to him as righteousness,”
and he was called God’s friend.
Pink verses spoke of God’s character and of his word.
For the word of God is alive and active.
Sharper than any double-edged sword,
it penetrates even to dividing
soul and spirit, joints and marrow:
it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight.
Everything is uncovered and laid bare before
the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
Pale green were Christian attributes.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,
forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness and self-control.
Against such things there is no law.
Those who belong to Christ Jesus
have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
Light blue indicated specific words of instruction or wisdom, and the highlighted passage in Ephesians 6 had struck a chord in Laynie’s heart.
Finally, be strong in the Lord
and in his mighty power.
Put on the full armor of God,
so that you can take your stand
against the devil’s schemes.
For our struggle is not against
flesh and blood, but against the rulers,
against the authorities,
against the powers of this dark world
and against the spiritual forces of evil
in the heavenly realms.
Therefore, put on the full armor of God,
so that when the day of evil comes,
you may be able to stand your ground,
and after you have done everything, to stand.
“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood? Is my flight to free myself from Petroff and his puppet, Zakhar, more than a struggle against them? Do ‘spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms’ actually exist?”
Laynie had grown up in church—Mama and Dad had made certain of that—but earlier in her childhood, Laynie’s heart had experienced the trauma of loss and separation. She had never been able to shake that loss, so she had internalized it instead, had taken both the responsibility and the punishment of it upon herself.
I’m worthless. My life has no value, and I deserve nothing from God. She had repeated the mantra for as long as she could remember.
Whatever she had heard of God’s love had thudded against the certainty of those statements and failed to breech them. She had sat through countless Sunday school lessons and sermons without the seed of the word of God ever penetrating the hard, pain-baked soil of her heart.
But when Laynie discovered Shaw and Bessie’s marked-up Bible, it seemed different.
Or was she different?
Laynie had—without setting out to do so—begun reading the Gospels to herself. One after the other, she had gobbled up the words, actually hearing them. She read the Gospels aloud, as if hearing the words with her own ears would help her to perceive the Scriptures’ underlying meaning.
After leaving Roger at the lake, she opened the well-used Bible to the Gospel of John where she’d been poring over—devouring—the works and words of Jesus.
“Chapter 8,” she muttered aloud, picking up where she’d left off. “But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Now early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them.
“Then the scribes and Pharisees brought to Him a woman caught in adultery. And when they had set her in the midst, they said to Him, ‘Teacher, this woman was caught in adultery, in the very act. Now, Moses, in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned. But what do you say?’
“This they said, testing him, that they might have something of which to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with his finger, as though he did not hear.”
What was he writing in the dirt? Most likely a list of all the woman’s sins.
Laynie sneered in disgust. I’ll probably never know.
“So, when they continued asking him, he raised himself up and said to them, ‘He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.’ And again, he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
“Then those who heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even to the last. And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.
“When Jesus had raised himself up and saw no one but the woman, he said to her, ‘Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?’
“She said, ‘No one, Lord.’ And Jesus said to her, ‘Neither do I condemn you. Go, and sin no more.’”
Laynie stopped, thunderstruck. An adulteress. Caught in the very act. And Jesus said he didn’t condemn her? I don’t . . . get it.
She could not help but compare her own sins to those of the adulterous woman—the many acts of fornication, adultery, deception, and betrayal she’d committed in service to her country.
Because it didn’t matter. I already knew I was worthless. Offering my body to further the greater good seemed . . . appropriate. Fitting.
Her eyes traced the print bawock to Jesus’ question to the woman and she read aloud, “‘Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?’”
But he meant it for that woman, the adulterous woman—not for me.
Even while she shook her head in denial, she could not evade the spark of hope that leaped within her when she whispered aloud, “And Jesus said to her, ‘Neither do I condemn you. go, and sin no more.’”
“‘Go, and sin no more,’” she repeated.
The spark inside her flared and caught. Am I that woman? Is Jesus speaking to me?
No. But . . . is it possible?
THAT AFTERNOON, LAYNIE was still debating whether to leave or stay. If she stayed, she needed to head down to the bait shop and let them run her card. A big, dangerous step.
Someone knocked on her door. “Elaine? I’d like to talk to you again.”
Roger.
Laynie opened the door a crack. She remained leery of his intentions, so her greeting, “Yeah? Do you want to come in?” was frosty with unveiled derision.
“Nope. Why don’t you grab your coat and come ’round the back with me?”
“I’m busy. Packing up.” It was a lie. She hadn’t done a thing toward leaving.
“No, you’re not. Come on. You’re coming with me.”
When she didn’t move, he growled, “Don’t make me get my cuffs, lady.”
Angry as she was, Laynie saw he was kidding. Sort of.
She huffed with her own faux indignation, put on her coat, gloves, and a knit hat, and followed him into his backyard. She was surprised to see a small patio, a firepit, and two Adirondack-style wooden chairs drawn up to the blazing fire. Flames roared and jumped about in the pit, sparking and flickering.
“Built us a fire. No sense freezing our butts off while we talk, right?”
“Uh, right.” Laynie sat down, sniffing the pine sap that snapped and popped in the firepit, reacquiring a little of the morning’s calm. “Okay. What did you want to talk about?”
“Well, I still want to help you.”
“Why?”
“Why not?”
“Because I think motives are important.”
He nodded. “I agree. Motives are important and . . . well, see . . . I . . .” but his sentence petered out, and he didn’t pick it back up.
Something he’d said at the lake clicked into place. “Rog, you told me you were a cop on medical leave. What . . . what for?”
The afternoon had faded into twilight, but she thought she saw a little sadness drop over him, and he sagged in his chair.
“Actually, I should have said I was a cop on disability, and permanent disability, at that.”
He sighed. “I have cancer, Elaine. Late stage, small-cell lung cancer. I don’t smoke and never have, but there you go—I’m still gonna die, and it won’t be very long until I do.”
Laynie couldn’t catch her breath.
Of all the things she imagined him saying to her, this was not it. She was shocked. Shaken.
Then she started to piece it together. Thin. Sallow skin. Slow and careful. Bruising. Persistent cough. The signs had been there, and she’d seen them, but she hadn’t made sense of them. Until now.
“Isn’t . . . isn’t there anything they can do?”
“They can keep me ‘comfortable’—says here in fine print. When the doctor told me that I had only two to three months, I decided to spend as much of it up here as I could . . . before I, you know, before I couldn’t anymore.
“It’s been six weeks, and I’m going downhill fast. I wear a fentanyl patch for the pain, but I can’t keep half my food down. I’m weaker. Stumbling. Falling if I’m not mindful. I’ll be packing up a week from Monday, heading back to Winnipeg. To a hospice center.”
The gun tucked inside her waistband dug into her skin, and she felt ashamed of the motives she’d accused Roger of.
“I’m so sorry, Rog.” For more than you know.
“It’s not your fault, Elaine . . . and, anyway, it’s going to be okay. Not the dying part—I doubt that will be fun—but afterward? I know where I’m going when I die, and when I get there? It’ll be better than okay. It’ll be awesome. Because I’ll see Jesus.”
He cleared his throat. “Anyway, I wanted to reiterate my offer. I’d like to help you.” He reached into his pocket and handed her a folded wad of cash. “I don’t need your money, so I’m returning it. Let’s keep you off the grid a while longer, shall we? Just stay. Don’t use your credit card.”
“But . . .”
“And maybe . . . maybe you can make sure I can get myself out of here, on the road when it comes time?”
Laynie took the money, but her hands were shaking. “Yeah. I can do that. And thank you. I . . . I don’t understand it, but everywhere I’ve been since I . . . since I left, circumstances have pretty much gone my way—even when it looked like they hadn’t—and people, complete strangers . . . strangers like you, have helped me.”
“Well, all those things, those blessings? You do know it’s the Lord, right? That he’s calling to you, trying to get your attention? I knew it that day when you drove up here and asked to camp out under my hay barn. Might as well have been a golden, neon arrow pointing from heaven down to you, it was that obvious in my spirit.”
He coughed for a minute, then caught his breath. “I mean, someone must really be pounding on the gates of heaven, praying up a storm for you, eh?”
A month ago, even just a week, Laynie would have snarled at him. Cursed him. Today, she couldn’t deny what he said.
“I think it has to be my sister, Kari. My mama and dad, too. And the couple who sold Daisy to me.”
He made a face. “Daisy?”
“Yeah. Daisy. My trippy hippy-mobile.”
“Um, yeah. I wasn’t goin’ to say anything, but whew! Who picked that upholstery fabric, eh? And that beaded curtain? Haven’t seen one of those since the sixties.”
They laughed—which made him cough and cough—then they laughed again. The fire crackled and they talked. They roasted sausages on sticks over the fire, Laynie eating and Roger trying but unable to swallow more than a bite or two. Opening up to each other.
As evening drew on, Laynie sighed in concern for Rog, concern mixed with relief. She didn’t need to leave this hiding place yet, this place of peace. She was safe again.
For a little longer.
