Alarm slammed through Kellen. She groped all the way down in the narrow bag. Rae’s clothes and shoes were there, but Rae was simply gone.
“Calm,” Kellen muttered. Panic wouldn’t help. Although right now, panic seemed like the right thing to do. “Think.” No one had rustled through the bushes, so Rae had to be nearby. Kellen crawled out of the bag into the freezing mountain air and, still on her hands and knees, looked around.
The starlight was bright, bright enough to show the shrubs that surrounded and protected them and—that shivering rock hadn’t been there before. Rae had wrangled her way out of the bag, probably punching and kicking all the way and, still asleep, was curled into a frozen little ball.
“Oh, sweetie.” Kellen picked up her child and put her in the sleeping bag. She rubbed her cold toes and hands, hugged her close and cried terrified tears and tucked Rae’s beloved blankie close around the child’s head. What if she hadn’t woken when she did? Rae would have died of exposure and it would be Kellen’s fault.
One more big black mark on the bad mommy chart.
For the rest of the night, Kellen slept in short bursts, waking every few minutes to check on Rae and hoping against hope she hadn’t done Max’s child irreparable harm.
As the sun rose, Kellen finally fell into a deep sleep and woke awash in anxiety and guilt.
But Rae was right there, lying on her stomach, her blankie bunched under her arms, with her crayons, drawing in her ThunderFlash and LightningBug book.
Kellen watched her, noticing how much like her cousin Rae looked, how she frowned as she put all her energy into coloring, that she seemed healthy after her brush with freezing death... “How are you?” she whispered.
Rae turned to her, smiling as brightly as ever. “I’m fine, Mommy.” She kissed Kellen on the mouth. “How are you? I woke up before you and I put on my shoes and socks and got my crayons and my book. See?” She showed Kellen a new page of superhero drawings in purple, red and yellow. “I got my own breakfast. I picked huckleberries and ate them.”
That explained the smears of red and purple on her face.
“I came back to bed and colored until you woke up.” Rae beamed. “I saved you some berries.”
If the child wasn’t okay, she was faking it well. Kellen looked at the squished blackish purple berries piled in the dirt, waiting for her.
She ate them.
Rae chatted. “What are we going to do today? Will there be bad men after us some more? Are we almost there? Will the park rangers take us for a pizza? I want pesto, cheese and chicken.”
Absurd conversation. “No anchovies?”
Rae shrugged. “They aren’t my favorite.”
Another flash of maturity in a child obsessed with princesses and flashy sequins.
Kellen rolled to look at her backpack. The contents were strewn from one end of the hedge to another. “You put your shoes and socks on, and got out of the sleeping bag, and got back in.”
Rae nodded, uninterested.
That explained the pine needles poking Kellen in the legs and the—
“Were your shoes and socks dry?”
“Yes. Lookee!” Rae showed Kellen the newest drawing. There was a stick figure, tall and dressed in red and black. Rae said that was ThunderFlash. There was a shorter stick figure, dressed in a cape of pink and yellow stars. That was LightningBug. And a hideous white head-like thing with too many eyes floated beside them. Solemnly, Rae said, “We have a talisman.”
Where did this kid get her vocabulary? Kellen felt her shoes and socks. They were dry, thank heavens. “What talisman?”
“The head! The Triple Goddess will guard us. Look at how she took out that man when you hit him! And that guy from the van!”
“Actually—” Kellen couldn’t believe she was indignant about this “—I’m the one who aimed the head well enough to take him down.” She took a breath and tried to think how to explain this to a seven-year-old. “Faith in something unknown is a great thing, but you have to combine faith with action. So if you saw a bad guy sneaking up on us, would you pray to the Triple Goddess, or would you scream a warning?”
Rae screamed. Kellen jumped and grabbed her, ready to put her hand over Rae’s mouth. Stopping herself, she listened as birds took flight in the trees above. With a sound so high-pitched, anyone within earshot would be looking up for a hawk or a cougar.
She relaxed. “Nice. But let’s not scream again unless there’s trouble. Now—what if the bad guy grabs you first?”
“Kick them?”
“Where?”
“Some place that hurts.”
“Right. The best places to kick or hit are the head, the sternum and the groin.”
Rae giggled. “Groin!”
Kellen pretended like she didn’t hear. “It’s easy to remember. You punch right down the middle of the body. Face—” she pointed at Rae’s nose, mouth and throat “—sternum—” she pointed at Rae’s breastbone “—and groin.”
When she pointed at Rae’s groin, Rae stopped laughing and her eyes got big. “I hit a tree one time on my bike and fell off the seat and landed on the bar. It hurt so bad.”
“So you know what I’m talking about. It hurts men, too, worse than it hurts girls.” Kellen reflected for a minute. “Although maybe that’s not true, maybe men are more whiny about it.”
“Groin...” Rae giggled again. “Groin. Groin. Groin.”
The chanting was going to get old fast. Kellen dived to the bottom of the sleeping bag, retrieved her jacket and boots and socks and got dressed. She crawled out of the bag and started rolling, organizing and stuffing.
Rae stopped chanting and cocked her head. “What’s that noise?”
She whispered, and her quietness got Kellen’s attention. She froze and listened.
Footsteps. Someone was walking toward the thicket where they hid. Heavy footsteps. A man.
No, two men.
In a panic, Kellen looked toward Rae. Would the child be quiet?
Rae put her finger to her lips. She was shushing Kellen.
Kellen nodded slowly, subduing her terror.
“I would swear I heard someone scream,” one of the men said.
“It was a bird.” The other guy lit a match and puffed on a cigarette so hard the cloud of smoke drifted across them in a wave.
“Fine. It was a bird. Then where did they go?”
“Who cares about them? Where did the head go? That’s where the value is.”
Both men kept their voices low. Both men had Eastern European accents. In slow motion, Kellen slid down and looked at their shoes.
Shiny black leather, unsuited for hiking. That confirmed her suspicions; this was Group 1, the Greedy Bastards.
“We’re supposed to be chasing them toward the ranger station, toward the other team. But if we find them first, I say we handle the matter ourselves.”
The first guy said, “The boss could be a difficulty.”
Mr. Cigarette grunted an agreement.
“And what about the kid? He didn’t tell us about a kid.”
“So he doesn’t know everything.” The cigarette dropped to the ground. The guy stubbed it out with his shoe. “A little girl, they said. I like little girls.”
They walked on.
Kellen gestured to Rae to remain still and quiet.
Rae’s eyes were big; she didn’t even blink. She had heard the words, and while maybe she hadn’t understood all his meaning, his tone revealed far too much of his sick pleasure at the idea of killing a woman and her child. And more.
They sat very still for long chilling minutes.
Finally, Rae stirred. She whispered, “Mommy, what are we going to do?”
Kellen finished packing the bag. “Change of plans. We’re going to the Restorer as quickly as we can.”
“Where’s he?”
“Uphill.”
“Okay!” Rae crawled under shrubs, reached out and nabbed the cigarette. She crawled back and handed it to her mother. “I don’t like this man. He’s gross. He litters. But I like the Restorer. Right?”
“Yes. He’s one of the good guys.” She hoped. Nils Brooks didn’t necessarily associate with the good guys. She fieldstripped the cigarette, scattering the tobacco and shredding the paper. “Wait here.” She crawled out and scanned the area.
The men’s footsteps led away and downhill, and as far as she could see, they hadn’t doubled back. “Come on, Rae, we’ve got to get going.”
“Mommy, what are we having for breakfast?”