I heard something. An elk. I was looking right into the huge animal’s eyes—glazed and frozen. It was as lost and afraid as
I was. Then it pounded past me.
I could hear the fire now. It was a soft roar, seductive, almost melodic. Slowly, I began to see again. The smoke wasn’t as
bad on slightly higher ground. The sky was turning red, brightened by the fire. Gazing north, I could see rows of withered,
blackened trees on a distant hillside.
A nearby tree caught and burned with a loud
whoosh.
A huge limb crashed to the ground. Sparks flew high into the air, like big firecrackers exploding.
The fire had definitely turned with the wind. It must have been racing over the ground for the past few hours, gaining strength
as it moved. Now the monster was big. Huge. They had gotten rid of all the evidence, hadn’t they? The school was long gone
in the terrifying blaze.
I called out again.
This time I heard retching coughs. The kids were nearby. But where were they?
“Max? Icarus, Oz?
Max?”
I saw Kit first. “I’ve got the twins,” he said, as he staggered out of the curtain of smoke. One twin was hoisted over each
shoulder. He
was
strong.
Pip started to growl again. He bared his little teeth. His coat was already covered in soot and ash.
There was a shot. A flare of light.
A gunshot in the middle of all of this.
Where had it come from? What direction?
Another tree limb fell in a blaze of orange and gold sparks. Pip yelped.
“Let’s go. Let’s go!” Kit yelled.
We started to run for it.
W
ENDY WAS WRAPPED tightly in my arms. We were managing to stay ahead of the raging, thundering fire so far. Most likely the
rapidly shifting winds had pushed it away from us for the time being.
I was trying to get my bearings when I heard Max shout, “Look. Look out. More guards!”
I could see two men were poking around in the valley below us.
I was stunned. To my absolute shock, I recognized them. I knew both men standing down there. They were from Boulder Community
Hospital. Colleagues of David’s.
The taller of the two was wearing a blue satin L.A. Dodgers baseball jacket, a cap, rimless glasses. He had salt-and-pepper
hair and a full beard. The other man was shorter but weighed more, a Humpty-Dumpty in plaid shirtsleeves and baggy khakis.
The taller man was Dr. Michael Vaughan. He was in Neurology. The man with the spare tire was Bobby something. He was head
nurse in the Ob-Gyn unit. I’d seen him at a party once, entertaining people with photos of babies whose deliveries he’d assisted.
His
babies, he’d called them.
They were David’s friends. We had socialized with them.
Tears welled up in my eyes, and it wasn’t from the smoke. It was the sense of betrayal I felt. Maybe they were just volunteers
looking for survivors of the fire. It would be a great thing if Dr. Vaughan and Nurse Bobby were a couple of concerned citizens,
wouldn’t it? All we’d have to do is whistle to them and we’d be heading out of the wilderness toward antibiotics, clean sheets,
and warm food.
But a strange, intuitive feeling stopped me from yelling, “Hey, we’re over here.”
Kit and the children were being very quiet, too.
Then Kit pointed to the left and I saw our salvation: a black Jeep. Our Jeep.
Unfortunately, Vaughan and the male nurse had discovered it, too. They were trying the doors.
Kit forced a clip into his gun. His face was grim, stretched tight. His concentration was total.
He kept his gun in shooting position. They finally walked away from the Jeep. They were looking for something—us? Their eyes
kept scanning the surrounding woods. Thank God, they didn’t see us. I threw a deep, audible sigh.
Something bright flashed in my peripheral vision. I jumped back. What now?
Kit was holding up the car keys.
“Whatever made you lock the car?”
Flashing a grin I hadn’t seen in a while, he said, “It’s what city kids do.”
W
E HOPED AGAINST HOPE that no one was looking for Kit’s Jeep. We hoped
they
didn’t know who he was, or why he was out here in Colorado. Then we worried about the FBI’s lack of involvement, and specifically
why Kit had been taken off the investigation. We had our plates full with worry.
This was not good. None of it was. We piled into the Jeep and Kit drove fast, almost dangerously, down the narrow, twisty
mountain road we’d come on. The kids loved it, urging him to go even faster.
As we rounded a sharp curve over a ravine, I saw a small group of men and women standing by one side of the road. Hikers?
They looked harmless enough.
Then I recognized them and my heart nearly stopped. They were from the hospital in Boulder, too. Some of them were wearing
headphones with tiny mikes near their mouths.
Three men and a woman—all of them doctors at Boulder Community. Wearing headphones to go hiking? Damn. I didn’t think so.
I wasn’t real big on conspiracy theories, but I had a lot of faith in what I saw with my own two eyes.
“Get down. Please get down!” I told the kids. “Get down below the window.”
The suspicious doctors looked up at our speeding Jeep, but the children stayed down, and the docs from Hell didn’t seem to
notice anything wrong.
“They’re from Boulder Community Hospital.” I told Kit the latest bad news. “This is getting so damn creepy. I can’t stand
it. I
wish
I was being paranoid.”
He stepped up the speed, and the kids whooped and hollered again. Even under the circumstances, it was a joyride to them.
They were absolutely fearless. Somehow, we made it to the bottom of the mountain in one piece, and as far as we knew, without
being spotted.
I remembered that Oz, the twins, and Icarus had never been outside the school before this. It was all brand-new to them. They
were on overload, complete overstimulation, maybe even more than me.
“Welcome to Bear Bluff, Colorado,” I said. I looked back and tried to make a happy face. “It’s actually a pretty nice place
to live.”
“It’s even creepier than the School,” Max said in a deep, croaky voice. She laughed. “Just kidding, Frannie and Kit. It is
nice.
If you like to eat red meat.
You’ll love it, guys.
Not!
”
“I’m really, really scared,” Wendy trilled. Her brown eyes were bulging, and she did look petrified now.
“So am I,” said Peter.
“Care Bear stare!” Max said to them. Obviously, it was something they shared, a lucky saying, a charm.
“Care Bear stare!” the others chorused. “Care Bear stare! Care Bear stare!”
Unfortunately, Max was right about the creepy part.
Now, two army Jeeps were approaching in the opposite direction. Army Jeeps? Was the army part of this, too? How could that
be? Who were
they?
Everybody but
us?
“Down in back,” I whispered and the kids ducked again. I ducked down as well.
We passed by the grunting and groaning U.S. army Jeeps without incident.
“Kit, please tell me this can’t get any worse,” I said as we got on the last stretch toward my place. I needed to stop at
the Inn-Patient for medical supplies. I had to treat the lacerations and bruises from our flight down the mountain.
“If you recognize any more hospital personnel, old friends and acquaintances and such, be sure to let me know,” he said.
We curled around the last familiar bend approaching the Inn-Patient. Kit almost stopped—then he sped up. He stepped on the
gas hard and the Jeep lurched forward. We barreled right past the Inn-Patient, past my home.
“Kit,
stop.
We have to stop!” I yelled. “Kit, stop this Jeep! Now!” I repeated.
“Frannie, no! It’s not good. We can’t stop,” he said and kept speeding down the road. The rear of the Jeep was fishtailing
badly.
I knew Kit was right, but I couldn’t believe what I saw. I thought my heart was finally going to break.
They had burned down my house, my hospital, my everything. They had torched the Inn-Patient. All of my poor animals were inside.
WHEN THE WIND BLOWS
W
E STREAKED PAST the Inn-Patient at better than sixty miles an hour. I felt hollow and sick inside. I knew Kit was right to
speed by my place without stopping, but that didn’t make it any easier.
Max leaned in close from the backseat. “Oh, Frannie, I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault.”
“We’re sorry, Frannie,” the other kids joined in.
In the back of the Jeep, little Pip was in a highly agitated state. Pip was barking and whining as we passed our old house,
or what was left of it.
Damn them. Damn them to hell. Who had done this? Who was responsible? I wanted to do terrible things to them. I felt I had
the right. I’d never felt anything close to this kind of anger and disgust.
“I know where we can go.” I finally managed to speak after we got a mile or so up the road where I used to live. “I know where
we’ll be safe, for a little while at least. Until we can figure something out.”
I gave Kit directions to my sister Carole’s. She lived in the town of Radcliff, which is about twenty miles southwest of Bear
Bluff. We’d be okay there, for the rest of the day, anyway.
Carole had moved out to Colorado from Milwaukee, after she split with her husband, Charlie. She lived on a small working farm
with her two daughters, Meredith and Brigid, and their dogs, two geese—Graham and Crackers—and a house-trained rabbit named
Thumper. People can tell right away that we’re sisters.
I would have gone to Carole’s earlier, at least to talk to her, but she and the kids had been on their two-week camping trip
to Gunnison National Forest. I wasn’t even sure if they were back now, which might be even better.
But I spotted C-Bird working in her vegetable garden as we approached the house. She was nearly lost among the droopy-headed
sunflowers. Bumblebees danced around her.
“Kit, would you stop here? Let me walk to the house. I have to sort of prepare Carole for this.”
“Doesn’t she like kids?” Max cracked from the back.
“Yes, she does, and animals, too,” I said.
I climbed out of the Jeep and walked toward my sister. I wasn’t sure I was doing the right thing now. I wasn’t sure about
anything anymore. In the last few hours I’d learned there were a lot of folks in the area whom I couldn’t trust. I also had
a better appreciation for what Kit had been going through with this case.
My sister Carole is five years older than I am and a great, great person in every way. Her husband, Charlie, a radiologist,
was such a jerk to lose her and his kids. Carole summed it up. “You snooze, you lose.”
“Instant family?” she said, looking toward the Jeep. She had on muddy gardening boots, plaid shorts, an old denim shirt, and
a floppy straw hat. Sunblock was smeared unevenly on her forehead and cheeks. Behind her, a clothesline was heavy with towels
and bathing suits from their trip.
“Of course
you can bring them for a little unexpected visit, Frances. Who are they, though? Is that a
man
in the driver’s seat?”
I nodded. “His name is Kit—I mean it’s Tom.”
Carole’s eyebrows raised several inches.
“Uh-huh. He’s Kit, Tom, whatever. And? The others?”
Man, oh man, oh man. The others?
“Carole, this is very strange. I’m your sister. You trust me, right?”
“Up to a point. You didn’t get married to someone with a huge family, Frannie? Please tell me you didn’t. Oh hell, I don’t
care if you did,” Carole said and pushed strands of loose hair away from her face. “You
didn’t?
”
I put my hand on her arm. No, that wasn’t enough for me right now. I needed more. I hugged my sister tightly in the middle
of her garden.
“Sweetie, are you all right? You’re trembling,” she said against my cheek. “You’re trembling all over.”
“Someone is after us,” I whispered. “I’m not kidding. I’m not making a joke. And—those children in the car? Carole, oh God,
Carole. They uh, they uhm… oh hell, they have wings and they can fly.”
S
UPPER AT MY SISTER’S HOUSE is usually a spontaneous event, what with Thumper or possibly one of the geese, Graham or Crackers,
encouraged to wander in and out of the dining room like an extra guest or two. Over the table is a quote that accurately captures
the family’s spirit: “If the sky falls, one may hope to catch larks.”
The sky
was
falling.
I had to hand it to Carole, though, she was enormously cool under fire. So was Kit. And so were Meredith and Brigid, who are
two of the nicest, kindest, smartest kids I’ve ever met.
“Is this your idea of payback for Frank the Swan?” Carole said, and we cracked up. So did Kit, though he had no way of knowing
exactly what we were talking about. Before she had left for her camping trip, Carole had brought me an old, hopelessly injured
swan for mending.
Over a home-cooked meal I told Carole as much as I dared, and said that we would be out of her house as soon as we possibly
could. It was also decided that Carole and the kids would return to Gunnison National Forest for another week of camping—just
to be safe.
When dinner was finished, Kit and I had to leave for a while. It was Kit’s idea. We were going to see Henrich Kroner, who
had been David’s boss at Boulder Community Hospital, and who was also high on Kit’s list of suspects. Kroner had studied embryology
under Dr. Anthony Peyser in Boston.
Henrich had come to Colorado from MIT. He’d never been charged or indicted in Boston. He lived in Boulder with his current
girlfriend, Jilly. I remembered that Jilly was a pediatric nurse, and worked at the hospital’s in vitro fertilization clinic.
I couldn’t help thinking of all the murdered babies at the School. All of the rejects. A pediatric nurse? It couldn’t just
be a coincidence.