She tried Reid back with trembling fingers, but got the anonymous voicemail she’d expected. She phoned Tim after that. He had a friend with a helicopter; they could search from above. But Tim didn’t pick up his cell and there was no answer at the barracks. Liz left her message with a feeling of despair.
She dialed the emergency line then, about to press the final digit, when something made her finger falter. How long would it take if this became official? To get a helicopter off the ground, maybe call in SWAT from downstate since the potential for a hostage situation was clear even to Liz, making her sore eyes fill, inflaming them all over again.
Whatever time it took, she didn’t have. She would lose all control once she reached Tim. And the Shoemaker had Reid in his grip.
Liz patted her eyes dry with a piece of gauze before hitting the Call button by her bed.
The nurse returned. “Mrs. Daniels! Is everything all right?”
Asinine thing to ask, Liz heard Jill say. I just threw you out of my room and now I’m about to walk out of here. Of course everything isn’t all right.
“Do you know when Tim—when the chief left here last night?” she said.
The nurse nodded. “There was an emergency. It’s been on TV. A suicide at the jail.”
That explained the silence at the barracks.
But maybe it was a blessing in disguise.
Even if the police did eventually rally forces to go in—with a helicopter yet—their proceedings would be loud and unmistakable. What would the Shoemaker do if he knew he was being hunted? Even a skilled and expert search might be sensed by him; he had such uncanny awareness. Whereas now he had no idea that Liz knew where they were. She could go there undetected. And get out with her children the same way.
“Thank you,” she said.
The nurse nodded again. “The doctor will be in during morning rounds. Given your progress, perhaps we can release you this afternoon.”
As soon as the nurse was gone, Liz shimmied out of her gown. She found her clothes, then got dressed beneath the thin sheet, wriggling to hide her maneuvers just in case anyone walked by. She couldn’t see as clearly as she would’ve liked—her eyes still felt rheumy and had a tendency to run—but at least all motion didn’t send vibrations of torture up her face. She slipped into her shoes and shuffled over to the door. It took a few minutes for another patient’s call light to flash, causing the nurse to leave her station. Once she did, Liz eased through the doorway and down the hall to the stair, stepping lightly, fast.
On her way out, she ducked beneath the closed gift shop’s ribbed overhead door, which hadn’t been lowered all the way, in order to grab a pair of sunglasses. Perhaps Reid didn’t have it so wrong with this theft thing after all.
Liz used the last charge in her cell to call Wedeskyull’s only cab.
At home, Liz changed into hiking boots and clothing suitable for walking: waterproof pants and a T-shirt. Then she loaded a knapsack with other items: a change of clothes, a rain cloak since the sky was overcast, some food, and a water bottle. Glancing at the contents of the cupboard, it occurred to her that the kids might need sustenance, too. Who knew what they’d been surviving on these last weeks? The prospect of feeding her children bathed her heart in such warmth that Liz stole a few minutes to slap together sandwiches, then added cookies and every treat she’d ever sneaked into the pantry under Paul’s watchful gaze. She went upstairs for the children’s raincoats as well. At the last second, she added Izzy to the now-bulging knapsack. She had promised Ally.
A sob rode up her throat, and Liz swallowed it back.
Two poles warred inside her, one that cautioned forethought and judiciousness, another that infused every cell in her body with urgency. Liz had to fight the second. Panic in the wilderness could get you killed, especially a wilderness as dense and impenetrable as this promised to be. If Liz fell down—likely, given her depleted state—and got hurt, then the chance of anyone stumbling upon her was almost nil. She took the precaution of leaving another message at the barracks, then texted Tim information about her route. But a recollection of the depth of those woods overshadowed everything as she typed. If Liz migrated even a quarter of a mile from her intended direction, she might get lost and be impossible to find.
She quelled another surge of franticness, picked up the knapsack, and walked out to her car.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
The dim sky cast no light over the circle of green, rendering it dull and gray. Without Paul here to keep this area trimmed, the blades had grown scraggly. Soon the circle would be taken over by encroaching meadow, Michael Brady’s tribute swallowed up.
Liz entered the cemetery, pausing for a moment by the graves Reid had seen. She crouched down, fingering the deep trenches of the letters, then gazed upward. The sky looked ready to release, spatter everything below with its contents.
It would be drier in the woods than out here once it rained.
Liz stood up and went silently on, knapsack swinging against her back.
No sound issued forth as she approached the forest, not even the whisper of leaves. The air was still, heavy with impending downpour. She smelled the coppery tang of ozone.
Liz pressed herself through a latticework of branches, visoring her forehead with her hand. She took the sunglasses out and settled them on her face, even though they stole the scant light. The thought of a twig getting anywhere close to her eyes made her knees weaken.
These trees were like fangs, so closely packed you could barely make your way between them. Liz had to shoulder her body from trunk to trunk, only the knapsack preventing her jacket from getting torn. Within minutes, she was breathing hard from exertion. At least the glasses shielded her sore eyes from a kaleidoscope of fall color overhead, and the toneless sky helped keep the light low, too. Still, Liz had to stop often to wipe away tears. When she looked down to check her compass, she let her eyes flutter shut for a few seconds until she could see clearly again.
It was chilly in this sunless throat, but Liz had gotten warm from her efforts. She edged forward, selecting one tree to go for before considering the next to try and breach. The slow pace helped ensure that she kept the memorial site directly behind her. She had to hope that Paul and the others hadn’t turned far left or right of it. It was impossible to tell whether people had come this way recently; the forest was so dense it immediately consumed any hints of trespass. But Liz had grown up in the wilds of the Adirondacks, and knew different methods of orientation: sun, compass, the way the moss grew on trees. It seemed likely she was heading as they had, if only because other routes looked to be even less passable.
This wasn’t territory that encouraged recreation. There were no paint splotches on tree trunks to guide hikers, nor a single check-in station or hut. There weren’t even the spent shell casings or stray piece of litter that would’ve marked a hunter’s passing. There was big game to feast on in this wilderness—deer, moose, bears—but no one had come to stalk it.
Despite the way they rebuffed passage, these woods didn’t feel ominous. They were thick and full with a lusciousness to them, wet even though the sky hadn’t yet spilled over. Water seeped from the ground, beading in the silvery air. The remaining green leaves looked juicy this late in the season, while others had burst into fireworks of red and orange. The trees teemed with occupants: small, skittering chipmunks, screeching birds. The earthen layer at Liz’s feet provided lush nourishment; velvet crumble raged with tiny insects.
The rational part of Liz knew that such density of life had no bearing on whether she would find the hidden huddle of existence she was searching for. But it felt like there was a link. A group of people had come here to feed off this land, and each sign of how much would be theirs for the taking caused hope to flare.
She used her arms to push past twiggy encumbrances, hearing wood snap in her wake, but intent only on moving forward. There was nothing ahead of her or behind except for more trees. Liz felt as if she were swimming in a sharp sea.
Her arms grew sore from holding them up, but if she had lowered one, her face would’ve been instantly scored.
She began to wonder if she would be forced to turn back. She wasn’t equipped to stay out overnight if the weather did its worst. The canopy was so thick that you couldn’t see clouds to gauge when they might rupture, but a storm was definitely coming. Distant thunder rumbled, like an animal gearing up to attack, and Liz could feel an electric crackle in the air as surely as if she’d brushed against an outlet.
And then she wondered if that sense of electricity was due to something besides lightning. Some ways ahead, not close enough to run for, especially since running was an impossibility in the depths of these woods, she saw flickers of light.
They could be actual lights—lanterns or a torch against the gloom—or they could merely be clear patches through the trees. Either way, they represented something different from the identical vista she had been seeing for what felt like years. Liz continued moving from tree to tree, taking care to muffle any sounds, waiting for the ordinary camouflage of rodents or deer to hide the crackle of leaves and breaking branches for which she was responsible. The imposed pace was an ordeal. She felt a constant temptation to barrel forward, screaming out Reid and Ally’s names.
And then, as if they’d been conjured up by desperate desire, she saw them.
Liz skidded to a halt, planting her feet in a feathery well of ferns.
No, it wasn’t them. The figure was much too small to be Reid or even Ally. But Liz was sure she had seen something human, moving with purpose and precision, not just one of the lumbering animals contained by these woods.
Two somethings actually.
Liz’s eyes ached. They felt as if they were bulging, swelling in their sockets. She leaned against a tree trunk, covering her face with her hand even though she wanted nothing more in this moment than to see. But she knew she was straining, pushing the limits of tender, barely recovered tissue. If she didn’t rest her eyes, they might fail her altogether. And the thought of being blind out here sent a spear of terror into her very core.
She opened one eye, releasing a stream of cleansing tears. Liz cracked the other eye, likewise overflowing, and mopped at her face. Then, praying that too much time hadn’t passed, that she hadn’t missed whatever sight had been before her, Liz squinted into the tunnel of trees.
Nothing.
No flitter of movement, candle-quick and darting.
All was still, weighted down by the impending storm.
Liz dropped her head and trudged forward, though she feared that this walk was hopeless, and that if she didn’t turn back now, it might be too late.
She stopped so short, she nearly fell forward. One hand shot out, scraping rough bark, and she braced herself against a tree.
Right there—that was a moving body behind the branches up ahead.
Liz’s fists were clenched with hope and fear; her fingernails pierced her palms. The screen of leaves was maddening, making whoever was out there disappear and reappear in an endless succession of illusion. She blinked her runny eyes and tried to focus. If this was an adult—the Shoemaker for all she knew—then calling out would be the worst thing she could possibly do.
There was a growl of thunder overhead, and Liz used the noise to disguise her creep forward, abandoning the shelter of trees. She was visible now; the forest had thinned out. A wind came up, rattling the timbers with a dry, husky sound. And when the leaping form finally resolved itself, Liz froze, not because she could be seen, but because she knew who that was, appearing in intermittent glimpses betwixt and between the blowing foliage ahead.
The crying boy who had fled her house with his mother just a week or so before. Liz suddenly remembered his name and whispered, “Cody!”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
A finger of green light, alien, glowing, signaled the gathering storm. In a few minutes the sky was going to crack open, and everything would get much harder.
“Cody!” Liz called again, trying to be heard.
But the boy didn’t hear her over the wind and batting branches.
Another voice cried out, louder than Liz’s. “Cody! Where’d you go? Where are you, Cody?”
Liz knew the voice like she knew her own skin.
It was Ally’s.
Liz lifted her head and bellowed in a way she didn’t recognize. It was a cry born of sheer instinct coupled with the knowledge that she had to keep quiet. A dirge from a tribal instrument, low and deep and long. Both muted and urgent as she drew closer. Liz’s lungs went slack before the first syllable had come to an end, and she had to gather breath and try again.
“Alllll-yyyyyyy!”
The little girl turned. She realized in the same splinter of time, not an instant taken for processing or reflection. “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!”
And they ran.
Liz felt the skitter of twigs by her eyes, but she didn’t blink, or even avert her head, so intent was she on keeping her daughter in her sights. Ally leapt over branches and cavities in the ground, her feet flying above the earth without seeming to touch it. Liz dropped without intending to, her body knowing better than her mind how to make sure they met, chest to chest, Ally’s head cupped in the crevice under Liz’s chin so that their bodies formed a single heart. Liz rocked back under the force of their collision, arms wrapping around her daughter’s slight form, as she laughed and sobbed out Ally’s name.
“Mommy,” Ally said. “Mommy, you came. You came on vacation.”
Somberness dabbed her face for a moment, but for Liz laughter overtook tears, until finally she became aware of the sensation, the feel of her daughter in her arms.
“Ally, sweetie, you’re wet. Why are you all wet?”
Imagining terrible possibilities out here, swimming trials, kids kept cold and damp, or even water torture at the Shoemaker’s hands—
It was Ally whose laughter rose then, tinkling like seashells as she said, “Well, it is raining, Mommy. I guess I’m wet because it’s raining so hard.”
And Liz looked up and saw that the sky had finally split apart, unleashing the soaked contents of its clouds, and that her face and head and body too were slick with rain and she hadn’t even known it.
Liz unzipped her pack, and got out the raincoats. In addition to the rain, Liz had also missed the presence of Cody, who had trailed Ally to the reunion and was standing, thumb in mouth, drops trickling down his face.
The canopy had prevented them from getting too badly wet. Liz brushed water off both children’s clothes, then buttoned them up and secured their hoods. The routine maneuvers of care kept her from having to think about what came next.
Liz had to find Reid, but after that she had no idea. The existence of other children wasn’t something she’d worked out.
Spotting another item in the sack, Liz beckoned Ally closer. She pointed to Izzy’s yarn head, then looked up to drink in Ally’s joy.
Ally snatched out the doll and cradled her to her chest, swaying back and forth, and murmuring words too hushed to hear.
Liz couldn’t help but smile. “Okay, enough. You don’t want Izzy to get wet.”
Reluctantly, the little girl relinquished her doll.
“Cody?” Liz asked, once Izzy was sequestered again. “Where’s your mom?”
Cody and Ally exchanged looks.
“Al?”
Ally hadn’t let go of Liz’s hand; now she dropped it reluctantly and turned to Cody. “It’s okay, Cody. This is my mom.”
“I don’t know,” Cody said, a tremor beneath the words. “She asked Ally to watch me.”
Despite everything, Liz registered the pride that raised Ally’s shoulders and leveled out her small chest, and she experienced a flush of motherly delight. Then she wondered what could’ve happened to make a woman entrust her child to a six-year-old.
“Okay,” Liz said as if that were a perfectly natural state of affairs.
The children linked hands.
Continuing in a casual
vein Liz added, “I think I’m going to walk both of you out. We’ll meet your mom a little later, Cody, okay?”
Cody gave a single nod.
“But first we have to find Reid,” Liz said, still briskly. If she acted as if all of this were completely reasonable, no problem at all, then perhaps things would fall into place. “Do you know where he is right now, Al?”
The scope of this place wasn’t immediately apparent, but there was emptiness beyond the final rim of trees, and Liz sensed that it might be massive.
“Just Reid?”
“What, sweetie?”
“If we’re going,” Ally explained, and Liz nodded encouragingly. Her daughter seemed to be accepting the premise unquestioned, which was good. It had occurred to Liz that there might be protest. “Is it just me and Cody and Reid? Or the others, too?”
“The others,” Liz echoed. How to keep her daughter from knowing that Liz didn’t particularly care what the adults did? They had come here of their own accord; they could leave the same way. Getting the children out was key. “Sweetie, I think we’ll let the grown-ups kind of come a little later. You know? I’m sure it won’t be long.” Though of course that was the last thing she was sure of. Especially in the case of Paul and his demon partner.
Ally was shaking her head impatiently. “I don’t mean the moms or dads. I mean the rest of the kids.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
Rain tatted overhead, lone droplets penetrating the roof of leaves. One swelled on Liz’s cheek as she turned her face toward Ally’s.
“There are—more children? You mean besides Reid?”
Ally nodded decisively. “There’s Reid, and Tom, and that weird little girl, I can’t remember her name—”
“Carthage,” Cody said with perfect enunciation.
“Don’t call someone weird,” Liz said automatically.
She lifted her head to the elephant belly sky. How to find three other kids? The rain would both hide and hinder Liz. Ally and this little boy were too young to move fast, they would slow her down. But they also knew things; they could tell Liz where to go. Would she be putting them in danger if she asked for their help? Liz could put herself at risk to find Reid, but she wasn’t willing to endanger Ally or Cody. If the Shoemaker came, would they be safer back here in the forest, concealed behind a tree? Or staying at Liz’s side?
Ruin Falls Page 28
