“Maybe if I told her about your father—”
“She’d what? Grow some balls?”
Caitlin took a breath. “She knows?”
Promise looked away, scratching at the peeling finish of Stupid Tom’s side panel. The car was old enough to have roll-up windows. “She knows.”
“And she stays with him?”
Promise turned back Caitlin’s way. “Not every woman’s as strong as Magda.”
Caitlin started to respond to that load of shit, but the road narrowed toward a mass of green metal girders that made up the bridge into North Bend.
Then who can be trusted to watch this girl while I decide what the hell to do?
Even if ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine of the hundred thousand people in the county were perfectly normal, law-abiding, nonpsychotic superheroes, Caitlin had no way of knowing who in the thirteen-year-old’s life could be trusted.
“Promise, who helped you get to the Dayans in the first place?”
Promise looked away. “I shouldn’t say.”
Caitlin made her guess. “You don’t have to. I know it was Hazel from the Lumberjack.”
Promise’s shrug wasn’t a ringing endorsement, but it wasn’t a sullen denial either.
“She helped me too,” Caitlin continued, her intuition turning her earlier assumption into the only thing that made sense. “The night I went there, she tried to help me meet with Magda, but had to scare her away when she saw your dad’s friends come in.”
Promise’s eyes returned to the front windshield. “She’s all right. Her son’s a hottie.”
Caitlin was happy to hear a normal sentence come out of the teenager’s mouth. “Hazel’s got a son?”
“Tammy’s age. He’s in the Army. We used to all go down to the dunes to watch him ride dirt bikes.”
“Like BMX-style?”
Promise actually laughed at that. “Motocross. Like the X Games. He was sponsored and everything.”
Caitlin pulled over, found her notes from the Lumberjack, then dialed Hazel’s number. Luckily, Hazel answered. Even luckier, she gave an address.
They left Stupid Tom’s stupid car a mile from their destination, then crept through the shadows and side streets of a hilltop neighborhood overlooking Coos Bay, finally knocking on the side door of a single-story house.
Hazel opened the door a crack, looked around, then hurried them inside.
CHAPTER
51
PROMISE HADN’T BEEN kidding.
Hazel’s two-bedroom house had more framed pictures of her son Ryan in neon motocross gear than furniture.
“Where’s your stuff?” Hazel said, bringing them each a glass of water and setting a box of Wheat Thins on the living room coffee table. Promise reached out for the crackers like they hadn’t eaten hours before.
“Back on the hill,” Caitlin said. “With my rental truck.”
“And Magda,” Promise said, through a mouthful.
Caitlin nodded. “Everything went to shit.”
She told Hazel most of what she could remember, stopping only to gulp down water.
Hazel brushed a strand of Promise’s hair back. “You girls have really been through it. So what’s your plan?”
Caitlin sat back on the couch. “First thing in the morning, I get ahold of the sheriff. If he doesn’t answer, I go to the state police. If they don’t bite, I go to the FBI.”
“Like any of them will care,” Promise said. “Only the Daughters know the way to the Light.”
Caitlin popped a stack of crackers in her mouth. “Hiding from life in the woods isn’t the way to anything but mosquito bites.”
Hazel patted the girl on the back, then reached for a TV remote. “Better check on the fire.”
Two channel changes later, the screen displayed a scene Caitlin knew all too well from summers in California. A field reporter stood at the base of a hillside neighborhood behind a line of police tape and the flashing lights of a fire truck. Further up the hill, beyond the last house, a bright wall of orange flames snaked through the darkness. The station switched to overhead footage taken earlier in the evening. A massive SuperTanker plane dropped flame retardant on one of many hot spots in the rapidly advancing firestorm. The camera, obviously mounted on a helicopter looking down on the SuperTanker, pulled back to a wide shot, shrinking the massive plane to the size of a crop duster and revealing a miles-long hellscape of unconfined fire.
A graphic at the bottom of the screen read Three Percent Contained.
“Good lord,” Hazel said. “They’re barely making a dent.”
Caitlin took a gulp of water. “I imagine Oregon’s used to fires like this.”
Hazel shook her head. “Not around here, not for years.”
Promise stared at the screen and muttered something under her breath.
Caitlin touched the girl’s leg. “What’s that?”
Promise stood up. “It’s the Cataclysm.”
Hazel laughed. “The what?”
“I need to be there,” Promise said. “I need to get to God’s Hill.”
Caitlin stood up to meet her. “Not tonight, you don’t.”
Promise pointed at the TV. “But this is the Light.”
“No, it’s not, Promise. Those women are insane. Magda is crazy.”
“You’re the one who’s crazy.” Promise’s words came out soft, but the look in her eyes screamed bloody murder. “You think you’re just gonna drop me off at the police station and everything’s gonna be all right? Or my mom’s just gonna leave my dad? Magda said she’d take care of me, and she did. Magda said I’d be safe under the Light, and I was. It wasn’t until you came to town that everything went bad. You’re the one who’s crazy.”
“Maybe I am,” Caitlin said, her own voice raised. After days of dealing with a cult, her not-dead mother, and white supremacists, a teenager was going to drive her to violence. “Or maybe I’m just tired and need to catch like four hours of sleep in a safe place.”
“There is no safe place.”
“Girls,” Hazel said, turning off the TV and stepping between them. “I don’t think the world’s going to end tonight. Maybe tomorrow, I don’t know, but tonight, you both should get some sleep.” She took Promise by the arm. “You can sleep in Ryan’s room. There’s clean sheets, and I think I have extra toothbrushes. I don’t know about you, but I can’t stand going to bed with a dirty mouth.”
Maybe it was because Hazel had raised a child, or maybe she just had the calming skills of a bartender, but Promise relented to her demands like a regular who definitely wanted to return in good favor.
“I could brush.”
Hazel walked her down the hall.
Caitlin reached for her phone; text messages, voice mails, and emails all waited for her replies.
“I got a charger for that,” Hazel said, returning with an unwrapped toothbrush and a travel-sized toothpaste.
“Thanks.” Caitlin nodded toward Ryan’s bedroom. “There’s no weapons or anything in his room, are there?”
Hazel shook her head. “Not unless she can swing a motorcycle helmet. He’s got like twenty of those.”
“Good. I need ten minutes to make some calls.”
Hazel picked up the remains of their snack. “You go right ahead. I’ll get you a towel and some sheets of your own. This couch folds out into a queen.”
“You’re an angel, Hazel.”
Hazel waved the praise away. “I help when I can.”
Caitlin watched the woman go, then finally got to her phone. She’d listened to only half of the first voice mail before she dialed Lakshmi and hit connect. Between rings, she checked the time: 1:37 AM.
Good God, Hazel really is an angel.
Lakshmi answered on the third ring. “Caitlin? You’re alive.”
Caitlin laughed out loud, surprised by how happy she was to hear the young woman’s British accent on the other end of the phone. “And you’re awake.”
“I don’t kno
w if I’ll ever sleep again. So much has happened.”
“I know the feeling.” Caitlin sat back into the couch. “Tell me everything.”
They traded stories for almost ten minutes.
Caitlin stretched out, finally kicking off her shoes. “I can’t believe you did that, all by yourself.”
Lakshmi sounded apologetic. “I know you said I only needed to look into Beverly Bangs, but when I didn’t hear from you—”
“I’m not mad.”
“You’re not? I thought maybe that was why you weren’t calling back. In the past, I’ve been a little, you know, pushy—”
“Stop.”
“—and I’ve tried too hard—”
“Seriously—”
“—and I know I’ve asked a lot of you, just moving to LA without knowing anyone, like you’re my family or something, asking for help to try to get a job—”
“Shut up, Anjale.”
Lakshmi stopped talking.
“I’m not mad,” Caitlin continued. “Far from it. I’m amazed.”
“Amazed?”
“Good God, yes. Amazed and proud. Good freaking job, kid. Great job.”
Caitlin could hear the girl’s blush through the phone. “Oh, well, it really was the least—”
“And you are part of my family. Inasmuch as I have family. I mean, you answered the phone at almost two in the morning.”
“Well, it was you.”
They both stopped there. Caitlin realized she was smiling and wondered if it’d been her first of the day.
“Of course”—Lakshmi broke the pause—“you do have family now. Your mother’s still alive.”
“Yes, she is. Her and Beverly Bangs Chandler.”
Caitlin thought about the pieces. She’d really let Magda have it up on the hill, but now, with the gunfire in the distance, she found herself thinking not just about her mother but about all the women in red living in their alternate reality. Even in the modern world, scientists couldn’t convince everyone on the planet that the earth was round. What would it take to get her mother and her well-armed friends off that stupid hill before they all ended up unrecognizable in the forest?
How can I break through to someone who thinks they’ve seen the face of God?
As tired as her brain cells had to be, one good idea managed to surface. “I know Beverly said she wanted to stay off the record, but do you think she’d record a message?”
“What kind of message?”
“Something I can play for Magda. She’s been told that Beverly and Tanner died in a car accident because they tried to leave God’s Hill. If Beverly could tell her something only the two of them would know—”
“That’s brilliant,” Lakshmi said. “I’ll call her first thing in the morning.”
“Me too.” Caitlin relaxed into the cushions. “Call me in the morning as well.”
Lakshmi assured her she would, then hung up.
What a day.
Every muscle in Caitlin’s body ached like she’d competed in an Iron Man competition. A shower would help, sleep even more. The next morning, she’d get Promise help. After that, with a message from a dead woman, she’d go back to God’s Hill and give her mother another chance. As angry as she’d been an hour before, she still had a mother. As long as she was alive, there was a possibility the two of them could have a relationship. And if she could bring Magda down from the mountain, maybe others would follow.
The sound of Hazel returning caused Caitlin to full-on yawn, a sign she’d fall asleep in seconds, but the look on Hazel’s face cut Caitlin’s assured slumber short.
“What is it?”
“She’s not in the room,” Hazel said. “Did she come out here?”
Caitlin reached for her shoes. “Crap, is there a back door?”
“Yeah.” Hazel started that direction. “You go out front. She can’t get far on foot. I’ll get my car out of the garage.”
The loud roar of an engine, the kind a high-performance motocross bike might make soaring over a sandy dune, erupted somewhere in front of the house, then howled away down the street.
“Shit.” Caitlin slipped her shoes on. “Let’s go.”
Hazel looked around the kitchen counter. “Where the hell are my keys?”
Caitlin got up to help her look but already knew they weren’t going to catch a girl who wanted to be on time for the end of the world.
CHAPTER
52
JOHNNY CHECKED HIS watch. Almost two in the morning, and the last he’d heard from Tom was hours ago.
Gunner tightened the straps of his Kevlar. Once they’d gone miles from Powers, they’d stopped by Johnny’s for more gear. Each carried a semiautomatic assault rifle and ammo.
“Wind’s picking up, John. I’ll be damned if I can’t smell the fire.”
Johnny slid two more loaded clips into the top left pocket of his BDU-style tactical pants. “That shit’s in your nose hairs.”
Gunner put a finger to a nostril and cleared a passage. Some of the snot made it onto the clump of ferns at his feet, the rest onto his sleeve. “No way, we started something big.”
“Guess the forest service should have let us log.”
“Yeah, but what if they trace the tracers?”
“Back to you?” Johnny laughed. “Bought them at the gun show, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Relax. Nobody at those things is tracking ammo. You ready for this?”
He handed Gunner a night-vision rig. No discount monocular this time.
“You’re letting me use your ATNs?” Gunner said, taking the goggles.
“Military grade, for real work. This might get dirty.”
“Cool.”
Johnny watched Gunner adjust the straps and turn the goggles on. “I mean it. There’s a good chance we walk out of here with blood on our hands.”
Gunner put a finger up and emptied his other nostril. “You mean, like we might have to rough some bitches up?”
“I’m here to get Promise, even if we have to leave some bodies behind.”
Gunner pushed the goggles up, revealing his eyes.
Johnny didn’t see a hundred percent conviction. “They ain’t from here, Gunner, and they ain’t like us.”
Gunner nodded. “Yeah, you’re right.”
Johnny still didn’t feel like Gunner was all the way on board. “You help me get Promise away from those Dogs, I’ll give you ten grand.”
“Damn, John, of your own money?”
“What’s money compared to my daughter?”
Gunner flipped the goggles back into position. “Shit, I’d have done it for five.”
CHAPTER
53
HAZEL OFFERED TO drive her all the way to God’s Hill, but Caitlin insisted that as a local, the bartender would be more valuable making the case to the sheriff in person first thing in the morning. Instead, they settled on a ride to Stupid Tom’s car.
Armed with the map Magda had drawn, Caitlin aimed the stolen sedan back toward God’s Hill. She plugged her phone charger into the cigarette lighter, turned the car radio on, and let the auto-seek function search station by station until she hit a talk channel providing nonstop fire coverage.
She had no idea how fast a motocross bike would go, nor what kind of mileage it might get, but still doubted she’d catch Promise. Undoubtedly, the girl knew a thousand faster ways to get back to the Dayan compound than Caitlin ever would.
Mixing with a handful of cars on the 101, she passed through North Bend at the speed limit, then floored it over the bridge out of town, causing her phone to fall off the seat.
“Right, the phone.”
Too many moving pieces, not enough time, not enough sleep.
Caitlin turned the radio down, reached for the phone, and made a call on speaker.
Lakshmi answered. “You’re not calling to take back that whole ‘good job, well done’ thing, are you?”
“No, but don’t wait till the morning to
call Beverly.”
She filled Lakshmi in on the latest development, then hung up. Maybe Beverly Chandler would answer Lakshmi’s late-night call, maybe she’d return the call first thing in the morning, maybe not at all.
Caitlin was in her tunnel, too many thoughts to think, not enough time to explore a single one. Usually the feeling hit at the beginning of a story assignment, the moment where she compartmentalized all of the moving pieces, then broke them down into a spreadsheet to identify common qualities and disparities. But this wasn’t a story, this was life, and every line item carried a lifetime of weight.
Plus, the nighttime driving.
And the rapidly advancing wildfires.
And the knowledge that she’d soon outrun her cell phone service.
She returned to the phone, dialed another number.
“I can’t speak too loudly,” Scott Canton said, his voice hushed, “for I might scare the fish.”
Caitlin laughed. “Seriously? You’re fishing before the sunrise?”
“My friend, at my age, every day is about the sunrise.”
She knew from experience that Scott’s fishing meant sitting in a boat on a lake and reflecting on nature.
“Thank God someone is sitting somewhere enjoying something.”
“Thank God?” Scott said, his voice now full volume. “You must have had some week. Tell me everything.”
Caitlin let the items floating in her tunnel out into the open, a flow from memory to memory. Scott followed her thoughts enough to comment occasionally and even guide her when she veered off topic. Finally, when she’d emptied every bit of her mind, he took over.
“Sounds like you may die tonight, young woman.”
His words almost caused her to swerve off the road. “What the hell, Scott? Is that supposed to help me?”
He laughed. “Hear me out, for I might die in the next five minutes, here in this boat. We all can—”
His voice dropped out for a few words, but he was on a roll, so Caitlin didn’t interrupt.
“—I don’t mean this as a bad thing, or an alarm, but as a spiritual reminder. To live on this earth is to die on this earth. We are all bound for the same fate, and the timing is rarely preordained. In your case, you’ve told me the situation, the players, and the stakes. After all that, you still have chosen to return to a fight from which you could walk away. As your friend, I want nothing more than to tell you to turn around and leave those people to burn in the fire they created. Be assured, I’m going to call the local police—”
Sins of the Mother Page 24
