Magic hour: a novel (5 page)

No movement. Nothing.

Ellie’s stomach grumbled loudly.

“Aw, hell.” She reached down for the chicken and tore off a leg.

As she bit into it, she couldn’t help closing her eyes for just a second. She chewed slowly, swallowed.

The leaves rustled. The branch creaked.

Ellie stilled. She felt a breeze move through the park; it scratched the drying leaves.

The girl leaned forward. The pink tip of her tongue showed between her lips. Ellie noticed that the girl was missing one front tooth.

“Come on,” she whispered. When there was no movement, Ellie tried different words, hoping for a connection. The stories and sentences weren’t working. Maybe simpler was the answer. “Down. Here. Chicken. Pie. Dinner. Food.”

At that, the girl dropped from the branch, landing like a cat, quietly and on all fours, with the pup still in her arms.

Impossible. The child’s bones should have snapped like twigs on impact.

Ellie felt something in her gut tighten. She wasn’t a fanciful or superstitious woman, but just now, sitting here on this bench, staring at this filthy, scrawny child with her silent white wolf pup, she felt a kind of awe.

The girl’s gaze locked on her. Those beautiful, eerie blue-green eyes seemed to see everything.

Ellie didn’t move, didn’t even breathe.

The girl tilted her chin and sniffed the air, then slowly released her hold on the wolf, who stayed close beside her. She took a cautious step toward the chicken.

Then another.

And another.

Ellie released her breath as quietly as she could. The girl moved like a wild animal, sniffing, sensing. The wolf pup shadowed her every move.

Finally the girl broke eye contact and went for the food.

Ellie had never seen anything like it. The two looked more like litter mates over a kill than anything else. The girl kept tearing off chunks of chicken and stuffing them in her mouth.

Ellie reached slowly behind her and gathered up her net.

Please God. Let this work.
She didn’t have a clue what Plan B was.

In a perfect cheerleader turn, Ellie pulled out the net and tossed it toward the girl. It settled over the child and the wolf pup and hit the ground. When they realized they’d been caught, all hell broke loose.

The girl went crazy. She threw herself to the ground and rolled to get free, her grimy fingers clawing at the nylon net. The more she struggled to be free, the tighter she was bound.

The wolf pup snarled. When the red dart hissed into his side, he let out a surprised yelp, then staggered and fell over.

The girl howled. It was a terrible, harrowing sound.

“It’s okay, honey,” Ellie said, finally moving toward them. “Don’t be afraid. He’s not hurt. I’m going to send him to a nice, safe place.”

The girl pulled the sleeping pup into her lap and stroked him furiously, trying to waken him. At her failure, she howled again, another desperate, keening wail of pain that cut through the quiet and sent a flock of crows into the darkening sky.

Ellie inched around behind the child. As she approached, she noticed the smell. Dying black leaves and fecund, overripe earth; beneath it all was the ammonia scent of urine.

She swallowed hard and let the hypodermic slip down from its hiding place in her sleeve. Carefully, she stabbed the girl’s rump and gave her the injection.

The child screamed in pain and twisted around to face her.

“I’m sorry,” Ellie said. “It’s just protective custody. You’ll go to sleep for a minute or two. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

The girl scrambled backward to avoid Ellie’s touch and lost her balance. Another wailing howl came up her throat and then she collapsed. Lying there, coiled around the unconscious pup, the girl looked impossibly frail and young, and more helpless than any person Ellie had ever seen.

I
N THE LAST FEW MOMENTS OF THE CLIMB, THE PALE
P
ACIFIC SKY BEGAN
to slowly turn from burnished gold to the palest salmon hue.

He paused in his descent, breathing hard, and swung around, dangling from his rope and harness, to take in the view.

From his perch on the granite face, some four hundred vertical feet above the crystalline blue beauty of an unnamed alpine lake, Max Cerrasin could see the world. All around him were the jagged, imposing peaks of the Olympic Mountains. The breathtaking, awe-inspiring landscape felt as far from civilization as anywhere on Earth. For all he knew, he was the first person to climb this jutting, dangerous slab of rock.

That was what he loved about this sport. When you were high above the world, anchored to a bit of stone by a piece of metal and your own courage, there was no outside world. No worries, no stresses, no memories of what you’d lost.

There was only the extreme beauty, the solitude, and the risk. He loved that most of all: the risk.

There was nothing like imminent danger to make a man know he was alive.

Still breathing hard, sweating, he climbed down slowly, finding his way inch by inch, caressing the granite, feeling it for weaknesses and instability.

His foot missed once and he started to fall. The rock crumbled beneath his hand and skittered away, pelting his face.

In the split second that he was free, he felt his stomach clench and his heart kick into overdrive. He reached out, grabbed hold.

And found purchase.

He laughed in relief and rested his forehead on the cool stone as his heartbeat settled back down to normal.

Then he wiped sweat from his brow and kept moving downward. As he got closer to the ground, he moved faster, more sure of himself. He was almost there—less than thirty feet from safety—when his cell phone rang.

He dropped to the ground, fished his phone out of his pack, and flipped it open. He knew before he saw the number that it was an emergency.

N
EWS OF THE GIRL’S APPEARANCE SPREAD THROUGH
R
AIN
V
ALLEY LIKE
a spring shower. By nine o’clock that evening crowds had formed outside of the county hospital. Cal was answering one phone call after another. He’d surprised Ellie by offering to work late. Usually he raced home to make dinner for his wife and kids. But by now the story being told was of a flying wolf girl with magical powers over the weather, and everyone wanted to be part of it. Tomorrow morning there would be lines at the Olympic Game Farm; everyone wanted to see the wolf pup they’d captured.

Inside the hospital, the girl lay in a narrow bed. There were several electrodes attached to her head and another pair that monitored the beating of her heart. A single leather restraint coiled around her left wrist and anchored her to the bed rail, although in her unconscious state she certainly posed no threat to herself or others. It was the first time the restraints had been used in ten years; nurses had spent forever in the storage room, trying to find them.

Ellie stood back from the bed, her arms crossed. Peanut was beside her. For once, her friend wasn’t talking. They both felt badly about leaving Earl to handle the crowd outside and Cal to handle the phones, but they had to delegate. Ellie needed to talk to the doctor, and Peanut . . . well, Peanut did not intend to miss one iota of this drama. She’d left the station for only thirty minutes since the girl’s appearance—and that was to drop off dinner at home. Her daughter, Tara, was babysitting for Cal.

Now, Dr. Max Cerrasin was examining the child. Every now and then he murmured something under his breath; other than that, no one spoke.

Ellie had never seen him so serious. In the six years he’d lived in Rain Valley, Max had gathered quite a reputation—and it wasn’t only for his doctoring skills. Ellie still remembered when he’d moved to town. He’d taken over Doc Fischer’s practice and settled into a piece of lakefront property on the edge of town. The single women had been all aflutter; every woman between twenty and sixty—Ellie included—had been drawn to him. They’d arrived at his front door in a steady, chattering stream, always bringing a casserole.

Then they’d waited impatiently for him to choose one of them.

And waited.

Over the years, he’d dated—plenty, in fact—and he’d made friends with almost all of the available women in town, but no one could really lay claim to him. Although he was an outrageous flirt, his attention was spread out evenly.

Even Ellie had failed to coax love from him. Their affair had been like all the others—white-hot and blink-and-you’ll-miss-it brief. Lately he’d been seen going out less and less, becoming that strangest of animals in a small town: a loner. It made no sense at all to Ellie. All those good looks gone to waste.

“Well,” he said at last, shoving a hand through his steel gray hair.

Ellie eased away from the wall and went to him. When she looked up into Max’s blue eyes, she saw how tired he was. No wonder. She’d heard they’d found him on some rock face only a few hours ago. He’d come straight from the mountains, not even bothering to change into work clothes or put on his white coat. He wore an old, faded pair of Levi’s and a black tee shirt. His curly gray hair was slightly damp and messy, but—as always—it was his eyes that demanded attention. They were an electric blue, and when he looked at you, there seemed to be no one else in the room. Even now, looking tired and confused, he was the best-looking man she’d ever seen.

“What can you tell me, Max?”

“She’s seriously malnourished and dehydrated. The hydration we can take care of pretty quickly, but the malnourishment is serious.” He lifted the child’s unbound wrist; his fingers easily encircled it. Next to his tanned skin, her dirty flesh looked splotchy and gray.

Ellie flipped open her notepad. “Native American?”

“I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure that under all this filth, she’s Caucasian.” He let go of the girl’s wrist and moved down the bed. He gently lifted her right leg at the knee. “You see those scars on her ankle?”

Ellie leaned closer. Beneath the grime she saw it: a thick, discolored band of scar tissue. “Ligature marks.”

“Almost certainly.”

Peanut made a gasping sound. “The poor thing was
tied
?”

“For a long time, I’d say. The scarring is not new tissue, although the cuts around it are fairly recent. Her X rays show a broken left forearm that healed badly, too.”

“So, we’re not looking at some ordinary kid who wandered off from her family in the park and got lost.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Any evidence of sexual trauma?”

“No. None.”

“Thank God,” Ellie whispered.

He shook his head, sighing quietly. “I saw a lot of bad shit in the inner city, El, but I never saw anything like this.”

“What can you do for her?”

“This isn’t my area of expertise.”

“Come on, Max . . .”

He looked down at the girl. Ellie saw something in his eyes—a sadness; or maybe fear. You could never tell with Max. “I could run some tests—brain waves, blood samples, that kind of thing. If she were conscious, I could observe her, but—”

“The old day care center is empty,” Peanut said. “You could watch her through the window.”

“Right. Put her there, Max. She might try to escape, so keep the door locked. By morning I’m sure we’ll know more. Mel and Earl are canvassing the town. They’ll find out who she is. Or when she wakes up, she’ll tell us.”

Max turned to her. “We’re in the deep end here, Ellie, and you know it. Maybe you should call in the big boys.”

Ellie looked at him. “It’s my pool, Max. I can handle one lost girl.”

THREE

J
ULIA STOOD IN FRONT OF THE FULL-LENGTH MIRROR IN HER BEDROOM
, studying herself with a critical eye. She wore a charcoal gray pantsuit and a pale pink silk blouse. Her blond hair was coiled back in a French twist; the way she always wore it when seeing patients. Not that she had a lot of patients left. The tragedy in Silverwood had cost her at least seventy percent of them. Thankfully there had been those who still trusted her, and she would never let them down.

She grabbed her briefcase and went down to her garage, where her steel blue Toyota Prius Hybrid waited. The garage door opened, revealing the empty street outside.

On this warm, brown October morning there were no reporters out there waiting for her, clustered together and yet apart, smoking cigarettes and talking.

She was no longer part of the story.

Finally, after a year of nightmares, she had her life back. It took her more than an hour to reach the small, beautiful Beverly Hills office building that she’d leased for more than seven years.

She parked in her spot and went inside, closing the door quietly behind her. On the second floor, she paused outside her office, looking at the sterling silver plaque on the door.

DR. JULIA CATES

She pressed the intercom button.

“Dr. Cates’s office,” came the scratchy-voiced reply through the speaker. “May I help you?”