The next morning, Kellen gathered the yarn that had made up Rae’s blanket, rolled it into a ball and packed it at the bottom of her backpack. “The safest place,” she told Rae. She packed their jar of peanut butter and their apple core, and was folding their tarp when she heard a great rustling down the path, a rumbling of something large rolling up the slope. She heard grunts. She heard a rattle and a spontaneous curse. She looked at Rae and put her finger to her lips.
Rae mimicked her.
Keeping her head low, Kellen peeked over the edge of the stones and saw the first of a group of mountain bikers laboring up the slope and into the flat at the base of their hideout.
One of the women called, “I’ve got to stop here. That last ledge punctured my tire.”
The leader held up her hand. “Roberts needs a break. Looks like a good spot for a rest.”
Everyone nodded, gasping deep breaths.
The bikes ground to a halt.
MOUNTAIN BIKING GROUP:
FOUR MALES, SIX FEMALES, IN GOOD SHAPE. HELMETS, GOOD EQUIPMENT. LEADER IS SOFT-SPOKEN, EMPHATIC, COMMANDS WITHOUT BEING BOSSY.
They leaned their bikes against trees, pulled out bags of granola, rolls of dried fruit and energy bars, complained about their knees, the upkeep of the trail and swore they would never take this route again. They were grinning and obviously enjoying themselves.
Kellen slid down to sit on her rear and look at Rae. In a soft voice, she said, “Kid, we’ve got it made.” Standing, she called down to the bikers, “Hi. My daughter and I have been hiking this fabulous wilderness, and it’s great to see other people enjoying it, too!”
Startled, the bikers looked up as one entity. Two of the men and two of the women reached for tools and held them like weapons. Everyone studied her, wary and hostile.
Then Rae bobbed up and smiled. “Hi. My mommy and I are bonding!”
The tension oozed out of the group, but not all at once and not completely. Not from everyone. Uh-oh. “Is something wrong?” Kellen asked.
One of the guys, the one who still held a tool in his hand, said, “Come down and we’ll talk.”
Kellen studied them again. She didn’t think they were violent, but something was definitely going on. Yet she had committed when she spoke to them, so she said, “Let me finish packing and we’ll be down in a sec.”
“Can I go down now, Mommy? Can I? Can I?”
Max said Rae had never met a stranger; Kellen saw the truth of that, and the potential for trouble, right now. “Wait for me.”
Rae looked longingly over the edge of the rocks. “They have food.”
“Rae, I mean it.” Kellen used her Army-command voice. At least, she thought she had, but this time it sounded a little different. Oh, hell. It was a mother-command voice. She didn’t even know she had it in her. “I’m almost ready.”
Rae put her back against the rock, slid down onto her bottom, crossed her arms and sulked.
Kellen wrapped the head in the sleeping bag and attached it to the backpack, and as she did, she said softly, “Rae, please remember we’re secret superheroes and we don’t want to tell any of the bikers what we’re doing up here or what has happened to us. If Mommy says something that’s not quite true, that’s okay. Okay?”
Rae still sulked.
Kellen knelt down beside her and lifted her chin until Rae looked at her. “Okay?”
“Okay.”
Kellen gave her a quick kiss, then stood and pulled on the backpack. To the bikers, she said, “I’m coming down now.” Best not to make any unexpected moves around these folks. She jumped down into their midst. “Come on, honey.”
Rae bobbed up, sulk forgotten, beaming with the joy at the prospect of meeting the bikers and cajoling her second breakfast out of them. Kellen lifted her arms and caught Rae when she jumped and staggered backward.
Rae focused right on the muscular guy with the wrench in his hand. “He’s eating granola.”
Subtle. Kellen brushed Rae’s hair off her forehead. In her most cheerful voice, she said, “I know! But we had breakfast already. Remember?”
“I’m hungry!”
The guy stopped eating and, guilty and undecided, looked at his bag of granola.
Kellen turned to Roberts—
ROBERTS:
FEMALE, CAUCASIAN ANCESTRY (ASSUMED), LATE 30S, 5'3", 100 LBS. BROWN HAIR, HAZEL EYES, FAIR SKIN. COMPETENT, WATCHFUL, INTERESTED.
—who was stripping her tire from the rim and replacing it with an undamaged tire. “I can’t believe she eats so much.”
Roberts grinned. “I’ve got twins about her age. Some days they eat nothing, but most days... Growing kids need a lot of calories.” She pulled a bag of dried apricots out of her pocket. “We do this every year. We always bring too much. Give her these.”
Kellen called Rae over and handed her six apricots.
She was already eating the baggie of granola. Not even Mr. Tool-as-a-Weapon was proof against her wiles. “Thank you, Mommy. Mr. Durant gave me this. He wants me to call him Brad. Did this nice lady give these to us?”
“She did. Her name is Mrs. Roberts.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Roberts! Can you change your tire all by yourself?”
Roberts grinned at her enthusiasm. “When you’re mountain biking, you have to be able to do everything all by yourself.”
“Can I watch you?” Rae settled down to eat and observe.
Kellen eased back a step.
“Where are you headed?” One of the guys squatted on his haunches against a tree and the way he acted, as if he had the right to know, raised her hackles.
But the general attitude here was suspicion, and she needed these people. She needed the protection of a large group, and if she could somehow wrangle transportation to safety...to the Restorer... She stuck out her hand. “I’m Kellen Adams. You are...?”
“Wade McNomara.”
WADE MCNOMARA:
MALE, ASIAN ANCESTRY/IRISH SURNAME (INTERESTING), 50 YO, 5'8", SO SKINNY NO ONE WOULD USE HIS DRUMSTICKS TO MAKE SOUP. NOT THE LEADER. UNFRIENDLY.
He lifted his index finger and waved it in a circle. “I’m the founder of the Cyclomaniacs.”
“Cute name. We’re headed to the lookout on top of Horizon Ridge.”
Wade moved from foot to foot. “You don’t want to do that. That guy up there—Zone.”
“Zone? His name is Zone?”
“That’s the least of it. He’s weird. He’s crazy.”
“That’s reassuring.” She needed the information, so she squatted against another tree. “What’s wrong with him?”
“His family owned Horizon Ridge way back in the day. It’s an extinct volcano, above the tree line, and you can see forever up there. Even standing on the ground, it’s amazing, and I’ve heard in the tower the view is west to the ocean and south and east for miles. When World War II rolled around, the federal government wanted to build a lookout up there, and Zone’s great-grandfather was a shrewd old bastard with good contacts. Somehow he made them agree that if he built the lookout, his family had the right to live there in perpetuity.”
“What’s wrong with this Zone person living there? Sounds okay, if he has the right.”
“You know how it is. When you’re in the mountains, everyone helps each other and if you visit one of the National Forest lookouts, you can go up and take photos. If there’s a ranger they’ll show you around, and sometimes you can rent the place for a night or a week.”
Kellen didn’t know that. Her previous experience with the mountains was of civil war in Afghanistan. And this experience, in the Olympics, had been unrelenting terror driven by the hope of escape. But she said, “Sure.”
“Zone is hostile.”
That’s the pot calling the kettle black.
“A loner. Barricades himself in. Two years ago, I took the Cyclomaniacs there. He came out on the deck with a shotgun.”
“That’s not good.” She had believed she was leading Rae to the one place they would be safe. Now another worry—would she get Rae safely to the lookout and be denied access?
“He never lets anyone come up, never leaves.” Wade shuffled his feet some more, stirring the carpet of pine needles, making aggressive eye contact.
“He has to leave,” Kellen pointed out. “If he lives above the tree line, he hasn’t got a garden. He needs supplies.”
“No one’s ever seen him out with the real people.”
“Is Zone his last name?”
Wade shrugged. “I think so.”
“What’s his first name?”
“Never heard it.”
If she was getting this right, Wade had led the group up the mountain, promising a spectacular view. Zone had ordered them away. Wade had looked like a fool, and everything about him spelled anger and resentment.
No wonder he wasn’t the Cyclomaniacs’ leader.
Still, he tried. “So don’t go up there,” Wade commanded.
She hesitated. Of course she did. Would she be wiser to take Rae and head back toward civilization?
No. The Greedy Bastards and the Mercenaries were back that direction. She assumed they were headed up the mountain now, searching for her and Rae. The Restorer was closer, and even if he was everything Wade said, he was better than the men who hunted them. “We’ve got an appointment with this Zone.”
“An appointment? You didn’t even know his name!”
“This is a business trip. He’s an expert on restoration. I’ve been sent to take something to him.”
“I thought you and your daughter were bonding.”
“We are. I didn’t know there was a problem with him. Apparently I wasn’t given all the information I needed. I mean, obviously.” Damn Nils Brooks. Someday she was going to kill that bastard. “Still, I’ve got to deliver.”
Wade watched her as if he didn’t quite believe her.
She wanted to consider the idea of sending Rae on with the bikers. That would be safer...probably. But Wade was still behaving like she was some kind of criminal. Maybe it was better to bring their hostility out into the open.
She looked around. Everyone was watching her, either surreptitiously or openly. “What’s wrong? Everybody’s acting as if we’re...as if we’re dangerous.”
The leader had wandered close and was listening to the conversation, and at last she butted in. “You didn’t hear what happened a couple of days ago?”
Kellen shook her head. “We haven’t talked to anybody.” Who wasn’t a gun-toting assassin and headhunter. She extended her hand. “Kellen.”
“Liz Angelacos.” She shook but didn’t kneel with Kellen and Wade. “On President Roosevelt Road, there was a van that caught on fire.”
Kellen had to play this carefully. “Right. I saw that. But... I assumed it was an accident.”
“Everybody thought that, but no one knew what happened to the people inside.”
“You suspect foul play?”
“Right above the site, some guy was handcuffed to a tree.”
So they had found Horst. “That’s weird.”
Wade jumped in as if he couldn’t wait to spread the bad news. “He had his throat cut.”