Born to Run (34 page)

“S
O FAR, SO good,” Ed muttered to himself. Isabel was enjoying her last night up at her shack and Davey was at home in Bridgehampton
with George and the housekeeper. Ed was overnighting at the Magiston Resort and had his head resting against the pillows before dinner, after a strenuous round of tennis on the indoor courts. He
was here for his reunion of Loane’s Rangers, his old unit, together with the usual hand-picked ring-ins. Every two years he hosted his buddies at the historic Magiston for a quiet dinner. No
spouses or partners. Ed was devoted to his Rangers, many of them having earned a spot working in the sprawl of his corporate empire, or somewhere else on his team.

In pride of place in the centre of the grand table, always, would be the shot of Loane’s Rangers taken twenty-five years before: Ed flanked by ten men in camouflage flight suits, one of
whom was cradling his baby girl swaddled in a matching camy blanket. Mel Abbott had fought with Ed in ’Nam but died rappelling in the Rockies in the early 1990s. His daughter was Niki, and Ed
and the Rangers had virtually adopted her when Mel died.

At college, her tuition paid for by Ed, Niki had signed up for the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps program. Even as a kid she’d imagined herself as a pilot, unlike her dad; his
passion had been fast cars and he’d even named her after Niki Lauda, the Formula One Grand Prix winner. What Niki loved most about flying was the exhilaration of calculated risk-taking, which
didn’t exactly make her a great fit for the disciplined life of the military.

However, it was her knack of capturing in her photographs that same sense of living on the edge that made them so sought-after. After ROTC, she’d trained as an Air Force pilot and, despite
her notoriety for breaking the rules, she attained the rank of captain. It was ultimately because of that reputation that she was frog-marched out of the service and pushed herself into full-time
camera work, well, mostly full-time, as her Loane’s Rangers colleagues knew.

It was set to be a long night with much to celebrate, so Ed had taken an early nap. He bent sideways to check the hotel’s bedside clock. It was around seven, half-an-hour before cocktails.
He lay back on his pillow and imagined Isabel, extinguishing the shack’s lanterns, her own head hitting the pillow just as his was getting up.

“Sleep well,” he whispered.

Niki’s soft blue eyes fluttered open and she brushed aside a strand of her red hair. “Wha…?”

I
N AROMATHERAPY, BLACK spruce is used to suppress anxiety, but it couldn’t help Isabel. She sensed a presence, and froze. Not a wisp of
breath escaped her as her ears strained… At first, she heard nothing but the wind, until she detected the low rumble coming at her from beyond the trees.

She slid the tip of her hiking pole into the snow and, as quietly as possible, unbuckled her pack at the waist and let her shoulders and arms slip it slowly to the ground, her right arm causing
her to wince, though only a little. Her fingers closed around the knife handle sticking up from her belt pouch and, like a reed in a breeze, she twisted around for the empty water bottle in the
side mesh pocket of her backpack, gripped its neck and yanked it out.

She waited.

A flash of moonlight flared over near the stand of trees the growl was coming from. In the glow, an animal’s snout began to make itself out. It was white. Abruptly, a pair of low luminous
eyes blazed at her. Despite the tremble of panic, she calculated that they were too close to the ground… This was not a bear, it was something much smaller. And yet it was bigger than a
snowshoe hare.

Instinct took over. She flicked on her flashlight and aimed it directly at the yellow-green eyes, praying the beam would startle whatever it was and make it scamper off.

Her torch lit up a wolf, and she almost dropped it in fright. Her heart was pounding as though she had already made a run for it, which her thrashing mind was telling her to do.

The beast defied the light, refusing to back off. It wouldn’t avert its eyes. They were riveted on her, staring her down, sizing her up. She could feel them gazing up and down her body,
like the sum-total of all those sleazy eyes she’d had to endure over those years waiting tables, but far worse.

Her blood ran cold, and she clamped her jaw till it ached as she tried to still even her slightest movement.

The wolf’s sharp, bared teeth flashed the beam back at her as a thick string of saliva drew its way down from its muzzle to the ground.

Isabel was prey. She was sure of it. The assurance that
no adult had ever been killed in North America by a wild wolf
was looking scratchy.

She met its gaze halfway along her beam, and noticed a strange dark stain spreading out from under one of its front paws. In this poor, exaggerated light, the animal’s paw seemed to be
bulging. She moved her beam, just a little. It was blood. Her whole body shook, remembering that the advice had actually been that no
healthy
wild wolf had killed an adult.

ANDY Goodman’s ears were assaulted by an unrelenting banging on the toilet door.

“You okay in there?” the barman shouted as he kept pounding. “Andy! You okay?”

“Hmm…? Yeah, I’m fine. Be out in a minute. Musta fallen asleep.” It wasn’t because of the booze; he’d only had four drinks the last couple of hours due to
Brad knowing Andy liked to push it, but he’d started his ranger’s rounds early that day, around six, and this was as good a spot for a bit of shut-eye as anywhere else.

Andy wiped his nose and sniffed. “Must be all that fresh mountain air in here.”

As Brad swung out the door and walked back into Daisy’s, he flicked on the extractor fan.

With a furry tongue and a dry mouth, Andy sat for a moment in the dim light—the bulb dangling above him was dead—and heard a buzzing sounds from within the confines of his cubicle.
“Brad, hey… cut it out.” His pants were still furled around his ankles but he now realised the noise was coming from down there, from his beeper hanging off his belt. It was
flashing red.

Andy unclipped it and brought it up close to his eyes. Shit! Gretel was at 253 bpm. What the fuck was she doing? He scrolled back to read the log. She’d been up above 240 for fifteen
minutes. Why hadn’t he woken?

Was someone—or something—chasing her? Was she on a kill? Before he could answer with even more speculation, he watched as his wolf’s heart rate slumped, in the space of a few
seconds, to 83, a resting rate.

And then it plunged again, to 59, a beat of sleep. Or worse.

This was wrong. Way wrong. The beat drops were too rapid. She’d been attacked, or caught in a trap… bleeding to death. It had to be.

He was buckling his belt as he raced out through the bar, his head spinning around, searching for someone to help. Paul Dawkins was in one of the restaurant booths. Paul was a local garage
mechanic and volunteer fire-fighter who had assisted Andy when Gretel was first introduced into the area; they had done the radio-collaring together. “Paul, Gretel’s in trouble up
there.” He held up his beeper so Paul would understand. “We gotta go. Now!”

Paul was drinking margaritas with his wife and a couple Andy didn’t recognise.

“Gretel?” his wife asked warily. Her finger wiped the salt off the rim of her glass. She didn’t know any Gretels around these parts.

“One of Andy’s wolves,” Paul responded. “The pregnant one Andy was going on about…”

“Come on, man,” Andy yelled. “I need help, like fuckin’ urgent.”

Paul’s wife didn’t hide her disgust at his language, but Andy was the only one who didn’t notice; he was already out the door and Paul was following, leaving just a shrug and
his party behind him.

GRETEL kept her head low to the ground. She began to slope toward Isabel, paw by paw, the dark splotches trailing behind her being whisked into the snow by her dragging
tail.

Isabel didn’t breathe. She didn’t move. She kept the flashlight beam aimed directly at the wolf’s eyes, hoping to blind it or push it back as though she were wielding a
Star
Wars
lightsaber.

As the wolf drew closer into the long, narrow cone of light, the snow cover flared the underside of her muzzle and made the beast loom even larger.

Suddenly, Isabel spotted more blood splatters in the snow… in between her and the wolf. They were hers. The wolf had been tracking her. Sniffing her.

With her teeth, Isabel pulled a glove off her hand. Careful to avoid sudden movements she delicately pressed her arm. Her hammering heartbeats were spurting blood out of the wound—she
could feel it—and saw it oozing out from under the X of the duct tape and dripping to the ground. She felt like a target.

The creature stopped... fifteen feet back from her prey. She arched her back and, snout down, nosed into one of Isabel’s bloodstains. The animal stretched out long and taut and, as though
she had made a tactical decision, lurched to one side and started to circle Isabel.

Isabel
was
prey.

Her knife blade was ludicrously short, fine for slicing an apple not for hacking at a leaping, snarling carnivore. She feared the bottle in her other hand was also next to useless. She needed a
better weapon and dropped her eyes to her backpack… The shovel. She also spied a rock protruding partway out of the snow. Staring back at the circling wolf, as though that might warn her
off, she forced her shaking knees to bend, taking herself down slowly. No sudden movements. With her eyes fixed on the animal, she deposited the flashlight on top of her pack, aiming it at where
the wolf seemed to be heading.

Her hand felt for the shovel and unclipped it as silently as she could. With the handle tight in her hand, her other, good arm raised the bottle by the neck and smashed it down onto the rock,
shattering the brittle silence.

Isabel hadn’t expected it.

For weeks, she hadn’t had one of her flashes … but now, years of trauma welled up inside her…

She was fifteen… the gory wolf tattoo rippled on his tricep as that evil bastard lunged for her.

Her body shook uncontrollably.

But who was holding the fucking broken bottle this time! She almost screamed it out loud, but let it gag in her throat, not out of fear… out of defiance.

This time it would end differently. This time, she would be no victim. Too much depended on it.

“THE networks say he’s flying out to St Louis first thing tomorrow to visit Taylor’s widow,” said Niki, her voice raised so Ed could hear her in the
bathroom.

He came out, looping his bow tie. “Perfect timing,” he said, nudging her elbow. “To dinner?”

“Last supper?”

T
HE SNOW SUCKED the heat out of both bodies, gorging on the blood from their gaping wounds, turning itself into a stinking red slush. The two
combatants were waning.

Gretel’s blunder had been shooting for Isabel’s neck. As the growling animal hurled herself up and her wild eyes met Isabel’s square on, she sensed this mad woman was no easy
victim.

Isabel’s blood surged, roping her thick neck vein so it seemed to slash across her scar to make the sign of the cross that the ancients would wield to ward off evil. Gretel didn’t
know about such things, but she should have paid more attention to the shovel that Isabel had hoisted high, before she heaved it down, crunching it into the wolf’s snarling maw. Gretel had
pitched onto her back and immediately rolled, coming back for more, howling, almost losing her footing in her slippery charge. Isabel swept the spade wide and almost knocked her aside but Gretel
managed to duck it, and gripped her fangs into Isabel’s already weak arm. Jerking her head from side to side, she forced the weapon out of Isabel’s hand before ripping into her
limb.