What Doesn't Kill Her Page 7

“Dove sei vissuto in Europa?” A test; she spoke Italian fluently.

  “In Francia, Germania, Spagna. Ovunque creano vino.” His dark eyes glinted as he answered just as fluently.

  “Bene.” She looked at her hand, smiled, then disengaged from his grip. “Max? About Rae?”

  “Did you check her room? She probably got distracted sneaking Princess Gigi into her new princess bag.”

  “I did, and her room is a mess. Max, you’ve got to get tough on that girl or she’s going to spend her life thinking everyone else is going to pick up after her.” Verona’s voice dropped into ominous disapproval mode. “You can’t say you feel bad because she hasn’t got a mother. She has one now.”

  Verona was a handsome woman, tall, spare, stern and protective of her family, and when Rae was born, she had been their savior. She had showed him how to care for an infant, tended Rae when he went to the hospital to visit Kellen or to work at the office and never made him feel guilty for intruding on what should have been her retirement from teaching. When Kellen disappeared, Verona had been his support, had moved with him from Pennsylvania to Oregon, understanding his need to go someplace away from the trauma of his tortured romance. She hadn’t exactly intruded on his relationship with Rae; he would never say that. But she had been the final word on scheduling and discipline.

  So while he loved his mother, Kellen’s return had not gone well, and it was mostly Verona’s fault. Verona could not quite believe Kellen had forgotten Max, couldn’t conceive that a woman didn’t remember giving birth and resented Kellen’s invasion into the smooth tenor of their lives.

  Yet Kellen hadn’t really attempted to intrude; Max wished she cared enough about Rae to do so. But every time Rae observed Kellen’s actions and mannerisms, then imitated her behavior, Verona bristled.

  Arthur Waldberg cleared his throat. “Should I...go out and wait?”

  Max made his decision. “No. Stay.” He scribbled a salary on his sheet, inserted it into the employment package folder, and pushed it across the table. “If that amount and the conditions of employment are agreeable to you, go out to the tasting room and take up the management reins.”

  “And?” Arthur raised his brows.

  “Sure. Expand the operation as you see fit. Bring in your people as needed; I won’t interfere unless I see a problem. I’ll check in occasionally to see how it’s going.” Max wasn’t too worried; he kept pretty close tabs on all operations. “The old manager took three of my best employees with him. Bring in your friends for an interview.”

  Arthur smiled, an amused crooked smile. “Eventually, when you trust me, I’ll be allowed to hire my own employees?”

  “Yes. When I know and trust you. Now excuse me, I have to go find my daughter.” Max held the door for his mother to precede him.

  “Maybe she turned into LightningBug and flew away,” Verona said.

  “LightningBug?” Max headed out the back door toward the house.

  “That superhero name she made up for herself.”

  “LightningBlast.”

  “No, it’s definitely morphed into LightningBug.”

  Max laughed shortly and ran up the stairs to Rae’s room. He half expected to find her there, dressing her princess dolls in superheroine clothes, oblivious to the time. But she didn’t respond to his calls, and the floor was suspiciously clean of dolls or clothes or tiny high heels, and her pink princess bag was nowhere to be found.

  That wasn’t right.

  In fact, that was very wrong.

  He toured the second floor, calling Rae’s name.

  His mother yelled, “Max!”

  He ran down to the main level.

  “Max!” Verona’s broken voice lured him into the master bedroom. Verona stood by the bedside, holding a crinkled page of lined notebook paper in her shaking hands.

  His heartbeat picked up, going from slightly concerned to something-is-really-wrong in a second. He took the paper, saw the drawing of two caped females, one big and one little, and read Rae’s childish scrawl:

  Daddy, I’m with Mommy on ad vencher...

  He gave a roar of horror and grabbed for his phone.

  10

  “Rae!” Kellen sat unmoving, staring at her daughter.

  Her daughter, who wore a pink leotard, a pink glittery tutu, a gold plastic necklace with matching bracelets and black rain boots with big-eyed pink owls on them. She held her big brown stuffed dog, Patrick, in one arm. On one side of her head, she wore her hair in a French braid. On the other, her flyaway blond shoulder-length hair looked as if it had been combed by a chicken. She was pale. She looked scared. But by God, she didn’t stop smiling.

  “Mommy?” Rae’s brown eyes were fixed on the gun pointed in her face.

  Kellen lowered the pistol, set the safety and slid it with shaking hands into her holster. “Sweetheart...you shouldn’t have... You don’t understand what you...” Kellen sucked in a breath, tried to focus. “Bond?”

  “I heard Daddy. He said you hadn’t bonded with me and I’ve been making our comic book ThunderFlash and LightningBug, and when they go on an adventure together, we bond.” Rae started bouncing up and down and grinning.

  Kellen felt physically ill. Light-headed. She wanted to faint, to froth, to cry. She said the first thing that came to her mind. “Your father’s going to kill me.”

  “No, it’s okay,” Rae said smugly. “I wrote him a note.”

  Wrote him a note. Kellen mouthed the words, and with that, sense returned. And fear. Even more fear than before. She glanced behind them.

  She’d left Horst on the road, but clearly he was working with someone. That someone wanted the mummy’s head, or at least wanted the money they would get for it. There might be, was probably, a tracking device on the van or in the head’s travel bag or both. She already knew these guys would kill to obtain the head. She needed to get going, get away, save the head...save Rae.

  “Get up here on the seat, sit down, strap in.” Kellen fumbled for her phone. “We have to go.”

  “Okay, Mommy, let me get my blankie.” Rae knelt beside the back seat and dragged out her Ocean Princesses backpack.

  Now Kellen remembered that flash of pink. If only she’d followed up, she would have found Rae, called Max, and she and Rae would be on their way home now. Horst could have stolen the head without trying to kill her, and he’d be dead because whoever wanted that head wouldn’t share the profits. But Kellen wouldn’t be involved, and her child would be safe. “We don’t have time for your blankie.” She ran her hands over herself, searching. Where is my phone?

  The look Rae shot at her was nothing less than incredulous. “I have to have my blankie!”

  From somewhere, Kellen heard those very words echoing down the years. Who, time and again, had said that?

  Oh, no. That was her voice. “Right. I’m going to start driving.” She put the van in First and eased forward. She felt in her lower pants pockets, then her shirt pockets, then back into the pants pocket where her phone should be. That pocket was unbuttoned.

  She hadn’t unbuttoned it. How had it come to be—?

  She caught her breath and stared up the slope of the road.

  Horst. His claim to be a Disney World pickpocket. All that bragging she had put down to nothing but words from that big silly man-boy—and he’d lifted her phone slick as a whistle.

  When had he done it?

  When she was loading the head into the van. When she was removing her jacket. When she was distracted by that glimpse of pink.

  “Mommy, I have to be in the seat belt!” Rae’s indignation practically fogged the van. “If I’m not in the seat belt and you stopped suddenly, I could be hurt or even killed.”

  Kellen kept driving up the narrow road, picking up speed, keeping one eye on the rearview mirror. “Did your grandma tell you that?”

  �
�Yes, and my daddy.”

  “They’re right. Did they tell you you’re a big girl and you can strap yourself in?”

  “No...”

  “Give it a try.”

  In a slow and disorganized operation, Rae dragged Patrick, her ragged stained yellow yarn blankie and a bunch of ragged pieces of paper stapled together between the front seats, then looked at the passenger side. “Where’s my car seat?”

  Kellen squeezed the steering wheel and for the first time, realized she was on the fine edge of hysteria. She wanted to shout, How should I know where your car seat is? She wanted to grab Rae by the shoulders, to shake her and insist she admit she’d done a terrible, dangerous, reckless thing. She wanted to explain that they would probably both die.

  No matter what Kellen did or said, or what Rae agreed to, they would probably die.

  Oh, God. Kellen was a terrible mother. She wanted to rattle her own child, and they were going to die. She had to try, but if she couldn’t save them...

  She glanced at her daughter, at the dirty bruised bewildered face, and knew Rae didn’t have a clue. Kellen took a breath and got control of her temper. “We don’t have your car seat. If I’d known you were coming, I would have brought it, but since you surprised me, you should slide up there and buckle your seat belt.”

  “I need my car seat. If I can’t see out the window, I’ll vomit.”

  Of course you will. In a soft coaxing voice that hid an overflow of worry and irritation, Kellen said, “Sit on your friend Patrick. He won’t mind.”

  “Okay!” Rae put Patrick on the seat, hopped up on him, turned to Kellen. “Buckle me in.”

  I’m driving. Kellen bit back her response. Bad mother or not, she could see that a seven-year-old couldn’t—

  “Or I can do it!” Rae got on her knees to reach the seat belt, dragged it over her and clicked it tight. She stuffed her blankie between the high end of the belt and her neck, leaned against it and sighed. “I hurt my face when you killed that man.”

  “I didn’t kill him...! That bruise on your cheek?”

  “You shot him.” Rae touched her bruise. “Yes, there.”

  “He wore body armor. That protected him from the bullet so he didn’t die. I did throw him out on the road, and he’s after us with his bad friends.” Kellen groped at the side of her door, found the first aid kit, dug around and got a chemical ice bag. She snapped it and when it got cold, she passed it to Rae. “Put that on your cheek.”

  “Okay!” Rae did for maybe five seconds, then held tattered pages out at arm’s length. “Look at our book!”

  The road was gravel and cluttered with washboards. Every curve turned in on itself and climbed straight up the side of a mountain. Occasionally the road dipped into a creek bed. The wheels clattered over rounded stones and through trickling waters that, despite the summer months, would be still bracing. Or icy. Depending how long your feet were in them. Kellen maintained a speed that kept the roil of dust at a minimum, and all the time, she wanted to give way to her panic and put her foot flat on the accelerator. “I can’t look at it right now. What does our book say?”

  “We’re ThunderFlash and LightningBug.”

  “Wait. I thought I was ThunderBoomer?”

  “No. I’ve decided we are ThunderFlash and LightningBug, and we have adventures and save everybody.”

  “Yay, us.” Kellen was still trying to grapple with the reality of her child here, with her at the crossroads of disaster and death. “Rae, if you’re supposed to always be in a seat belt, why did you crawl in the back and hide?”

  “I told you. To bond!”

  “Do you think that was the right thing to do?”

  “You’re my mommy, and I don’t want you to go away.”

  Kellen guessed that was a good answer. “Do you know what it means to bond?”

  “It’s like glue, only stickier.”

  Kellen opened her mouth and shut it. Actually, that described bonding pretty well.

  Rae said, “Monster MegaBond! Bonds metal, plastic, paper, silk, porcelain! Not even two monsters can pull it apart.” She grunted deeply and made a gorilla face.

  An infomercial. The kid got her bonding smarts from an infomercial. Kellen couldn’t believe how stupid this was, and at the same time—damn. Funny and clever.

  “When are you going to call Daddy?”

  “I can’t. Horst stole my phone.” And didn’t Kellen feel stupid admitting that to a child.

  “If I had my own phone, we could call Daddy right now.”

  “Your own phone? You’re seven!”

  “Martin has his own phone. Amelia has her own phone. Scarlett has her own phone. Jackson has his own phone.” Rae recited their names with solemn certainty.

  “Your friends have cell phones? That’s appalling.”

  Rae sagged in the seat. “I need a phone!”

  “Why?”

  “So we could call Daddy!”

  “Why else?”

  “So I could text!”

  “Why else?”

  “So I could play the game where you pop the Bubble Wrap.”

  “I’m not helping you with this one, Rae. I agree with your daddy and your grandma. You’re too young for a phone.”

  Rae crossed her arms over her chest, hunched down in the seat and pouted mightily. Then she pointed at the floor. “Look, your man left his phone.”

  Kellen glanced down and there it was—Horst’s phone, big as life. She must have knocked it out of his pocket when she kicked him. “Can you pick it up for me?”

  “I’m not supposed to—”

  “I know, you’re not supposed to get out of your seat belt, but this is a special occasion.”

  “Like when Grandma wants to smoke a secret cigarette but she can’t reach her Marlboros?”

  Kellen grinned in evil delight. That explained that occasional whiff of forbidden tobacco floating around Verona. “Exactly like that, except I’m not doing anything naughty.”

  Rae unclicked, squatted on the floor, picked up the phone and handed it over, then sat on Patrick, pulled up her blankie and belted herself in.

  Kellen slowed to a crawl. “Let me see if I can call 9-1-1.” She checked for service. None. Damn it. Absolutely no cell, no satellite. They were too far into the mountains for any kind of signal. “I’m sorry, honey, I can’t call Daddy or 9-1-1.”

  “That’s okay. This is fun!” Rae beamed.

  “Right.” Kellen poked at Horst’s phone, trying to get around the lock screen, and the last text message slid past.

  How many miles until the van blows?

  11

  The text disappeared.

  “What?” Kellen said to the phone. “What?”

  Predictably, the phone didn’t answer, but a quick glance at the gauges told her everything she needed to know. The engine was overheating, the arrow rising steadily. “You treacherous bastard.” What had Horst done? Cut a line? No, there should have been trouble before now, and anyway, the worst that could happen was an engine fire.

  The text said, Blow. As in a bomb. As in...as in the explosion that had killed her cousin.

  For what purpose? Horst didn’t think she was going to get away in the van, so he and his friends wanted to retrieve the head and destroy the evidence.

  Smoke curled out from under the hood.

  At best, this was going to mark the place she and Rae started walking. At worst—

  Kellen pulled as far over toward the edge of the road as possible, unfastened her seat belt, Rae’s seat belt, opened Rae’s door and said, “Jump out and go stand—” she scanned the area “—over by the creek and behind that hemlock.”

  “Okay.” Rae gathered her blankie and Patrick and lowered herself to the ground. “What did the treacherous bastard do now?”

  “Run!” Later the
y would talk about repeating what Mommy said and what the treacherous bastard had done. Now, Kellen climbed in the back and started throwing weapons, ammunition, her bag and the mummy’s head out onto the road. Rae’s bag went last; it was open and junk flew everywhere in the van and on the road.

  Kellen knew there would be hell to pay, but the van started trembling like a volcano about to erupt. She jumped out and grabbed the head and her bag and sprinted toward Rae.

  Toward Rae, who was running toward her, yelling, “My princesses!”

  “Shit!’ Kellen dropped everything, grabbed Rae and bodily carried her, kicking and screaming, back to the protection of the creek bed.

  The van went up like a lighter in a whoosh of flame and heat that Kellen felt singe the hair on the back of her head. Kellen clutched Rae, hugged her, held her back.

  My God. They’d almost died. Rae had almost died.

  Rae struggled and sobbed, “My princesses! My nail polish! My glitter shoes!”

  Kellen held her tighter and tried to calm the thunderous beating of her heart. In a voice that trembled, she said, “Honey, we need to have a serious discussion about what to pack next time you stow away for a bonding adventure.”

  Kellen looked back at the van. Flames reached up into the Douglas fir. This was Western Washington, the Teflon forest on the Olympic Peninsula, one of the rainiest places on earth.

  But it was high summer, the dry season, and the heat of the fire made the cedars and Douglas fir around the van smolder. If their luck turned bad, if the fire caught and spread, they could roast sitting beside a trickling mountain creek.

  If their luck was good, they might somehow find their way to a ranger station.

  Unfortunately, Horst’s map didn’t show anything but the torturous path to the Restorer.

  Kellen looked around. Which way to go?

  The Olympic National Forest and the adjoining park were isolated, deeply forested, slashed by freezing rivers, divided by windswept mountain peaks. Narrow paths served the hikers and bikers, but dare to veer off the track into trackless wilderness, and it could be years before anyone found your body. Kellen had a child to care for, and she needed her bag, which was scorched, and she couldn’t leave Rae’s bag. Whatever was inside, they might need it. More than that, no one knew Rae was with her, not even Horst. Whoever he was working with would take her, use her, kill her.