With his topo map, Hutch carried a grease pencil to mark animal sightings, possible campsites, and other points of interest. Now he withdrew both and recorded the time on the blank back of the map. He returned the pen and map to his jacket pocket.
The boy from the television commercial was gone. Fear had returned. Dillon's eyes brimmed with unshed tears. Whether they flowed from terror, from the realization of the close call, or from the reminder of his father, Hutch could not tell. He dropped to his knees, took the boy in his arms, and hugged him. Dillon squeezed tightly around his neck, weeping quietly, his small chest heaving against Hutch.
But in giving comfort it was impossible not to receive it, and Hutch realized he had hugged Dillon not only for the boy's sake but for his own as well. Each of them needed to know the comfort of another human.To know he was not alone in his fright.
Despite an urgency to put ground between them and Declan's gang, Hutch held Dillon until the child's tears stopped. Even then, Hutch refused to relinquish his hug. When the boy lifted his head from Hutch's shoulder and eased his hold, Hutch unwrapped his arms and leaned back. His patience was rewarded with a sad smile, but a smile nonetheless.
“We gotta go,” Hutch said.
“I know.”
Hutch had expected no more than the nod Dillon had offered so many times before. He thought these words marked a deepening of their relationship, or at least of Dillon's trust in himâand that was good enough.
Turning his thoughts toward the journey ahead, Hutch retrieved the map again and spread it out on the ground. He lay down before it and asked Dillon to join him.
“If I explain the terrain to you, on this map, do you think you could show me where the cabin is?”
Dillon scanned the mapâall of its thread-thin contour lines, tiny elevation numbers, color-coded ecosystem indicators. Finally he shrugged.
Hutch said, “We'll do it this way . . .” He pointed into the woods, in the direction they were heading, away from the place, where the Hummer was most certainly a smoldering wreck. “Over this wooded rise is another long, shallow valley, lots of trees. From the top of this hill we should see two mountains. One to our left would have trees coming around both sides, but not joining in front, like it's wearing a shawl or cape . . .”
Dillon listened, nodding. His eyes stared into the woods, but he was seeing Hutch's landscape.
Laura sat on the rear bumper
of an anonymous four-wheel-drive pickup truck, yet another vehicle disabled by Declan's gang. She had lost count of how many garages they had entered, how many cars and trucks and motorcycles and ATVs they had checked. At last count the population of Fiddler Falls was 242.The number of households was roughly eighty-five, which included half a dozen at the Kramer boardinghouse and at least two dozen small cabins and mobile homes fanning out well beyond what Laura considered the town proper.That left approximately fifty residences in town. She knew not everyone owned a vehicle, but it seemed to her they had checked at least that many in the last ninety minutes or so.Terry leaned against the frame of the garage opening.
“So I was wrong,” he said. “It seems they did reach every vehicle in town.”
Laura frowned. “I heard they recruited some townsfolk to help them, threatened them if they didn't. I suppose, with eight or ten people, it wouldn't be too difficult to find everything with wheels and disable them.”
Terry shrugged. “Look how many we got to. It's not like they had to start them or spend any time with them. They just had to make them immobile.”They had found a few cars with broken driver's side windows.Terry had speculated that they had been locked and broken into so the vandals could access the hood latches.
“They collected keys as well,” Laura said. “They got mine, and I heard them demanding them from others. Kyrill and Bad, with their rifles.”
“Doesn't look like they needed to. They were thorough enough destroying the cars.”
Laura thought about it, then said, “Except they kept a couple for themselves.”
“The ones they used to follow the Hummer,”Terry agreed.
“It makes sense.Why have all this going on and rely on only one truck? They would want a backup and maybe a couple if they had to go in different directions, run different errands, or whatever it is they do.”
“Are you thinking they kept a few more for themselves, not just the ones they're driving now?”
Laura nodded, lost in thought.
Terry continued. “I didn't see any other vehicles in front of the community center.”
“Maybe they're keeping them somewhere else. In some parking lot or garage we haven't got to. That makes sense too: that they would have a backup, but hidden away, out of sight.”
“So what do we do about it?”
“They're gone, aren't they? Off chasing Dillon and Hutch?”
“I don't know if all of themâ”
Thunder cracked the silence. But it wasn't thunder.They had both heard it before. Laura bounded off the bumper as though it had struck her at a good clip. She ran the length of the crush-rocked driveway and into the dirt road. She looked up to the hills, scanning.Terry reached her and saw it first.
“There!”
She saw where he was pointing, to a ribbon of smoke high in the hills. The point of origin was masked by distance and a nearer hill. It was in one of the clear areas, one of the low valleys that had been formed by a glacier eons ago.
Laura pulled in a sharp breath and covered her mouth.
“No. No. No,” she thought, then realized she had spoken aloud when Terry rushed to say, “No, it's okay.We don't know what that is. It could be anything.”
“Anything? It's them. It's Declan. And Declan was after Dillon.” Panic hit her brain like raw alcohol. She felt light-headed. Shadows crowded the edges of her vision. She reached out and grabbed Terry's arm.
“Laura . . . ?”
He stepped behind her to put a hand under her arm, but she didn't need it.The dizziness passed, followed by the cloudy vision. She spun to face him. “Where's the gun? The one we got from the girl?”
“I have it, butâ”
“Give it to me!”
“Laura . . .”
“Terry, let me have it.”
He read something in her eyes, and his confusion softened to concern. Resignedly he reached behind his back and pulled out a pistol.
She glanced at it and repeated, “The one we took from the girl. The one with bullets.”
Terry shook his head, returning the gun to his waistband and reaching around with the other hand. “I thought that was it. I didn't realize . . .” He let the thought trail off and handed her the other pistol.
She opened the breach, dumped the contents into her hand: two unused bullets, four empty shells. She pushed the bullets to her palm with her thumb and turned her hand over; the empty shells fell to the dirt. She put bullets back in the cylinder and shut it, making sure the chamber that would come around when she pulled the trigger contained a bullet.
To Terry's slightly amazed expression, she said, “Wife of a cop.” Gripping the revolver in her right hand, she started to run.
On her heels, between breaths, Terry asked, “Where are we . . . going?”
“To find out . . . where they're keeping . . . the spare cars.”
Dillon had seemed sure of
the cabin's location when he pointed at the map. Based on the topographical references it provided, Hutch had described the terrain in detail. Like an air-traffic radar, his descriptions had panned back and forth over the map until Dillon recognized the landmarks. It had been a slow process, but one that Hutch felt would pay off in fewer false starts as they trekked toward the cabin. After pointing out the location of the cabin, Dillon had, on his own, described nearby hills that the map confirmed.
He had not seen or heard Declan's vehicles reapproach the area. He was as certain as he could be that the man had accepted the sacrificial offering of the Hummer as evidence of their deaths. More than likely, the Jeep and the Bronco had continued down the hill, back to town. Still lying on the ground, Hutch folded the map.
“Good job,” he told Dillon. He pushed up and rolled back onto his butt. He tugged at one of the socks he had stretched over his boots back in the rec center. “We can put our socks on now.”
Dillon sat, crossed his legs, and corrected his footwear.
When they had finished, Hutch said, “How 'bout we go find this cabin of yours?”
“Yeah.” Dillon grinned, pleased to have helped and to be heading toward the place his mother had promised to meet him.
It started to rain.
The first drops struck Laura,s
forehead and nose as she slowed down, approaching the corner of Shatu' T'ine Way and Provincial. She stopped and pressed her back against the side wall of the Fiddler Diner. The rain quickly escalated to a torrent.
Terry stopped beside her, panting hard. “I've never felt such cold rain,” he said.
“That time of year. Their trucks aren't back yet.”
The community center was directly across the street. By looking diagonally through the diner's side window and then through its front window, Laura could see most of the building's facade.
“Think we can get in?”Terry asked.
“One way or another.”
“What if someone's there?”
“There better be. Else who's going to give us the keys and tell us what we want to know?”
“They're just gonna tell us?”
She held up the pistol. “Yes.”
She tucked the gun inside her coat, keeping her hand on it. The rain had already drenched her hair and clothes. Only a swath down the center of her back remained dry, thanks to the building she leaned against. Without another word she rounded the corner and headed directly toward the center's front doors. She lowered her head to let the rain strike her hair and pour off; its iciness and velocity would have stung her eyes and blinded her. She was glad they had reached the town's one paved street before the rain got heavy. Navigating the muddy side streets on foot was treacherous business. Head down, she kept only the pavement in front of her in view. She trusted that no one would open the center's doors until she summoned them. Terry's sloshing gait stayed right behind her.
She crossed the main portion of the street and entered the dropoff-and-pickup semicircle directly in front of the building. She had rarely used this convenience, since their home was three blocks up Provincial and two down Camsel. But she had stood out here often, either as a parent or a teacher. During community or school events held here, townsfolk enjoyed catching up as they arrived or departed. Of course, none of them ever would have imagined the building as their prison, and she never would have guessed that someday she would cross this area, gun in hand, with every intention of using it.
She tried not to retain the memory of the thundering explosion or the ripple of smoke on the hillside, but it wouldn't let her go. Her certainty of their meaning was a knife in her gutsâand also the steel in her back. It was this that would drive her to do what must be done. She reached one of the doors and cautiously, quietly tried the latch.
She moved to the next door: also locked. She signaled for Terry to step near. She put her lips close to his ear so he could hear her above the pounding rain.
“Knock. Hard. Like you're one of them. Whoever comes to the door, don't do anything threatening.Take a step back, put your hands up. If there's only one person, clear your throat.”
He blinked at her, water flicking off his eyelids. She wasn't sure he completely understood, but he nodded once and stepped up to the door. She pressed her back against the wall.
Using his fist,Terry beat on the door. He didn't stop but carried on with a continuous pounding, even after a voice from the other side asked who was there. Something rattled inside, and a latch clicked. The door opened partway. Terry took a step back and raised his hands. He cleared his throat.
“I . . . I . . .”
A pistol emerged from behind the door, pointed at his face. It moved toward him. Then a hand and arm.
Laura seized the wrist with her left hand, raising it as she would a branch she was passing under. She stepped forward, between Terry and the gunman. Her own pistol swung around until it touched the nose of the young girl with whom she had fought the night before.
The girl said, “
You
.”
“Drop it,” Laura commanded.
Terry stepped up behind her and wrenched the pistol from the girl's hand. “Don't yell out. Who else is here?”
The girl's dark eyes darted back and forth, thinking, conniving. “Everybody.You'll die if you do this.”
Terry spoke over Laura's shoulder. “We saw them leave.”
“They came back,” she said too quickly. “They parked out back.”
“You're lying, Cortland,” Laura said.
The girl scrunched her brows.
“I'm a teacher and a mother.You can't lie to me. Now move.” With the barrel of the gun, she pushed Cortland's nose flat, forcing her to take a step backward. They walked like that until the door behind them clicked shut. The roar of the rain became a purr.Water poured off Laura and Terry, striking and pooling on the tile floor.
Terry stepped out from behind Laura. He shook his head and said, “You're just a kid.”
“I'm older than I look.”
“Right,” Laura said. She punctuated her next words with little jabs at the girl's nose. “We want a vehicle.”
“Well, I want a mansion in Beverly Hills.” Said with a contemptuousness only a teenage girl could achieve.
“A car, ATV, motorcycle. I know they have something stashed.”
Cortland blinked. “If they do, they haven't told me.”
“You're lying again.”
“Whatever.”
“Cortland, maybe your mother didn't love you and that's why you're here. I don't care what made you this way. But I love my son, and a car will help me get him the hell away from you people.” She wanted to give this girl as little information as possible. “Now if you don't want your fellow freaks to come back and find your brains splattered all over the wall, then you'll tell me what I want to know.”