The text disappeared.
“What?” Kellen said to the phone. “What?”
Predictably, the phone didn’t answer, but a quick glance at the gauges told her everything she needed to know. The engine was overheating, the arrow rising steadily. “You treacherous bastard.” What had Horst done? Cut a line? No, there should have been trouble before now, and anyway, the worst that could happen was an engine fire.
The text said, Blow. As in a bomb. As in...as in the explosion that had killed her cousin.
For what purpose? Horst didn’t think she was going to get away in the van, so he and his friends wanted to retrieve the head and destroy the evidence.
Smoke curled out from under the hood.
At best, this was going to mark the place she and Rae started walking. At worst—
Kellen pulled as far over toward the edge of the road as possible, unfastened her seat belt, Rae’s seat belt, opened Rae’s door and said, “Jump out and go stand—” she scanned the area “—over by the creek and behind that hemlock.”
“Okay.” Rae gathered her blankie and Patrick and lowered herself to the ground. “What did the treacherous bastard do now?”
“Run!” Later they would talk about repeating what Mommy said and what the treacherous bastard had done. Now, Kellen climbed in the back and started throwing weapons, ammunition, her bag and the mummy’s head out onto the road. Rae’s bag went last; it was open and junk flew everywhere in the van and on the road.
Kellen knew there would be hell to pay, but the van started trembling like a volcano about to erupt. She jumped out and grabbed the head and her bag and sprinted toward Rae.
Toward Rae, who was running toward her, yelling, “My princesses!”
“Shit!’ Kellen dropped everything, grabbed Rae and bodily carried her, kicking and screaming, back to the protection of the creek bed.
The van went up like a lighter in a whoosh of flame and heat that Kellen felt singe the hair on the back of her head. Kellen clutched Rae, hugged her, held her back.
My God. They’d almost died. Rae had almost died.
Rae struggled and sobbed, “My princesses! My nail polish! My glitter shoes!”
Kellen held her tighter and tried to calm the thunderous beating of her heart. In a voice that trembled, she said, “Honey, we need to have a serious discussion about what to pack next time you stow away for a bonding adventure.”
Kellen looked back at the van. Flames reached up into the Douglas fir. This was Western Washington, the Teflon forest on the Olympic Peninsula, one of the rainiest places on earth.
But it was high summer, the dry season, and the heat of the fire made the cedars and Douglas fir around the van smolder. If their luck turned bad, if the fire caught and spread, they could roast sitting beside a trickling mountain creek.
If their luck was good, they might somehow find their way to a ranger station.
Unfortunately, Horst’s map didn’t show anything but the torturous path to the Restorer.
Kellen looked around. Which way to go?
The Olympic National Forest and the adjoining park were isolated, deeply forested, slashed by freezing rivers, divided by windswept mountain peaks. Narrow paths served the hikers and bikers, but dare to veer off the track into trackless wilderness, and it could be years before anyone found your body. Kellen had a child to care for, and she needed her bag, which was scorched, and she couldn’t leave Rae’s bag. Whatever was inside, they might need it. More than that, no one knew Rae was with her, not even Horst. Whoever he was working with would take her, use her, kill her.
Sure, Kellen’s feelings for her daughter were a confused tangle, but one thing she knew—no one was taking the kid.
Rae won’t burn. She won’t die. I won’t be responsible for another innocent death.
Kellen took Rae’s face between both her hands and turned it to hers. “If you promise you’ll stay here, I’ll see what I can retrieve.”
Rae’s damp brown eyes peered at Kellen. “You’ll save my princesses?”
“I will try.” Kellen peeked at the open pink bag, its contents spilled all over the road. She was pretty sure the fate of at least one doll was grim.
Kellen grabbed the suitcase with the head, her backpack and the pink bag, in that order. She paused only long enough to scoop up one doll with a dishcloth cape—somehow it seemed that Supercotton Dishcloth Princess deserved to be saved—and fling a bunch of other random stuff into the bag. She ran back to Rae, who was standing at the edge of the road and crying.
“It’s okay. We saved almost everything. Look. You’ve got Patrick. You’ve got your blankie, here’s your superhero princess.” Kellen risked a glance at the van and the trees. “And the flames are dying down.”
“I want my daddy!” Rae sobbed.
Of course she did. “Him we don’t have.” Driven by the intense need to hide, to hurry, to run, Kellen pushed Rae up the rocky banks of the creek and away from the road. “But we’re superheroes, aren’t we? We’ll be fine on our own. Won’t we?”
Rae caught her breath, shuddering as she tried to stop crying. “Y...yes.”
“Who are we? ThunderBoomer and LightningBug?”
“ThunderFlash and LightningBug,” Rae corrected.
Kellen offered her fist to bump.
Rae stared, then bumped it.
“Wipe your nose.”
Rae looked around for something to wipe it on.
“On your sleeve.”
“Grandma says I’m not supposed to—”
“Out here, we’re superheroes and we don’t have grandma rules. When we get home—then we’ll put on our disguises and keep the grandma rules.”
Rae wiped her nose on her sleeve.
Kellen was getting pretty good at handling the kid. But she was dragging under the weight of the pink bag, her own backpack and the weight of the suitcase with the head. She looked around. They stood in a grove of tall hemlocks and fir, out of sight of the road. “We have to consolidate our belongings in my backpack.”
“What do you mean?” Rae asked suspiciously; the kid was no fool.
“I mean we have to put all the necessary stuff from your bag into mine so I can carry it.”
“I can carry my bag.”
“You can’t. You need to put all your effort into hiking.”
“You can carry my bag.”
“Can’t. It’s pink.”
“I like pink!”
“It’s bright and we’re superheroes...in hiding.”
“I want my bag!”
“We’ll stash your bag.”
“I have to have all my princesses!”
“Then you’ll have to leave Patrick.”
“But I have to have Patrick!”
“I won’t be able to carry it all.”
“I can carry it.”
And...they were back at the beginning. Kellen had lost track of the issues. The kid had her wound up in knots.
Rae took a long breath, ready to fight or cry or—
Kellen reached into Rae’s bag, grabbed the crumpled brown bag and pulled out the first thing she found. “Here. Eat this!” She shoved a muffin studded with cranberries into Rae’s hand.
Rae debated for a moment, crying or eating, and eating won. She gobbled the muffin.
Thank God. The rule was that an Army always traveled on its stomach. Kellen needed to remember—so did Rae.
She stared at her child and for one painful moment she remembered Afghanistan and...
A burned-out house. A melted coil of metal. The stench of desperation and death.
God. God. Kellen had tried so hard not to get involved with Rae, to care so much she hurt herself...and the child. More than anything in the world, she didn’t want to hurt her own child.
Rae stared at her. “Mommy, are you sad?”
Was she crying? Kellen put her hand to her face. No. Her cheeks were dry. But somehow, Rae saw too much. “I’m okay. I’m just concerned about what we do next.”
From down the road, they heard the sound of an approaching vehicle.
“It’s Daddy!” Rae leaped to her feet.
“Or it’s the bad guys.” Kellen grabbed her arm, pulled her down and tucked her close.
“No, Daddy!”
Wishful thinking, kid. “If it’s Daddy, we’ll see and come out of hiding. If it’s the bad guys, we won’t. Okay?”
Rae struggled to answer.
Kellen put her finger on Rae’s lips. “Let’s climb a tree. Do you know how to climb a tree?”
“Daddy and Grandma won’t let me climb trees. Not since I fell out and hurt myself.”
“We’re superheroes, and the tree-climbing is one more thing we’re not going to tell Grandma or Daddy.”
Verona stood in the door of Max’s room, watching him pack. “What’s happening?”
“I can’t get Kellen. Her phone goes directly to voice mail. I called that bastard who set her up with the job and told him to bring her back. Brooks said he had no way to reach her, and when I told him Rae was with Kellen, he finally admitted it wasn’t the straightforward job he told me. The first courier is dead, Kellen and the guy she was with have disappeared into the mountains in a van and—” Max choked.
“Why doesn’t he send in his team?”
“He hasn’t got a team! He hasn’t got a staff! The MFAA is underfunded, barely hanging on as a federal department. I don’t even know if the guy who was killed was a part of the operation or somebody Nils hired!”
Verona moved swiftly into the room and put her hand on his arm. “Max.” She shook him. “Max, listen to me. Kellen is a lousy excuse for a mother. But she had experience in the mountains. Right? In Afghanistan?”
“Right.”
“She’s loyal to her people, and I know without a doubt she would lay down her life before she allowed anything to happen to Rae.”
He stopped packing and looked at Verona. “You’re right. But what if it doesn’t matter if she lays down her life? What if that’s not enough to save Rae? If the worst happens—how can I live?”
Verona stared back at her son and saw anguish and a loneliness she had hoped was vanquished forever. Time to do more than offer words of support. “What can I do to help you get ready?”
“I need food I can easily carry on an on-foot search. Toilet paper. Water filter. Headlamp.”
“I’ll round up the camping gear.” She went to the door and paused. “Rae and I made banana bread yesterday. I’ll send a loaf. You can share it with Kellen and Rae when you find them.”