A hand on her shoulder made her jerk around. Bonnie pulled down her dust mask. Her smile lines were gray with soot, and she wasn’t smiling. “What is going on here? We have to get out of here, we can’t breathe—who are these guys?”
“They’re saying we can’t go through! Sally tried to move the barricade—” Another helicopter flew overhead, so low and close it drowned Deirdre’s voice, but it was obvious what was going on.
Bonnie stepped up to the leader. “What would it take to let our friend go?” she asked, calm and reasonable, as if she were asking for premium floor mats at a car dealership, instead of negotiating a hostage release. Sally struggled inside her tangle of army men.
“If you promise to turn around, we’ll let her go,” the leader said.
Bonnie nodded. “Sally, come here.”
Amazingly, Sally stopped resisting, and the soldiers stopped twisting her arms and let her go. Emerging from a wall of camo, Sally gave a little shrug and straightened her shirt. “You guys are in deep doodoo,” she said to the leader. “I work for the District Attorney.” She’d regained her self-control, and her self-righteousness.
“Let’s go Sally, we’ll wait for Wilma,” Bonnie said loudly. When they reached Sally’s truck, Bonnie drew them into a football huddle, and said in a low voice, “Sally, give me your keys and go get in my truck. Get ready to drive. We’ll be moving along here in a sec.” She opened the driver’s door. “Emily, come on out, go with your mom honey.” Sally and Emily did as they were told. If the guards noticed or wondered why they were getting back in different trucks, it didn’t show on their faces.
Bonnie got behind the wheel of Sally’s truck. Deirdre started to jog downhill towards her own truck, but then curiosity got the better of her when the truck engine revved, and the trailer started inching ever so slowly uphill with Darkling and Giselle kicking impatiently inside. She stepped off the road, and watched in wonder as Bonnie drove Sally’s truck, straight and slow, towards the squadron of men with machine guns.
* * *
CRYSTAL HAD WAITED IT out, the whole evacuation thing.
John had already left, packed his Gran into the little car early this morning, along with all of her equipment. The sheriffs had come around all the houses in Lake Hemingway this morning, but she hid in the bathroom of the double-wide while they pounded on the door. She’d heard the neighbors yelling at each other as they packed up their cars. “Did you pack your pills?” “You got the keys?” “Where’s the goddam keys Alice?”
That had been a couple hours ago. She’d taken a nap since then, smoked a bunch—weird, in a fire, she knew—eaten some chips and some mini crumb donuts. There was no power, so she couldn’t watch TV, and she’d lost her damn phone when that weirdo attacked her. She was dying for a cold drink, but the fridge was already lukewarm and starting to smell musty.
Where was Jeremy? He would know to look for her here, and even though he didn’t have his car, he should’ve come and found her by now.
Last night, spying on her dad at Stephanie’s house—what used to be her house—she’d seen the guy who’d attacked her. He drove a huge old boxy sedan the color of split-pea soup.
She followed him to the gas station, where he filled 20—she’d counted them, 20—five-gallon gas cans, which all fit into the back of his big old car. Damn. They don’t make cars with trunk space like that anymore. But like, didn’t anybody wonder about some assassin looking dude buying that much gas during a wildfire?
Trembling, half with fear and half with rage, she’d tailed him along the highway back towards Lake Hemingway, keeping a good distance. Up ahead, in the smoke, his brake lights flared and he slowed and made a left turn onto the road up to Paraiso. She was too chicken to follow, so she’d come back here to hunker down for the night.
Paraiso. It all came back to that. Jeremy had found something up there, had some crazy plan to narc on their dad. If her dad found out, there was a good chance Jeremy was dead. But if he wasn’t…
Damn smoke, she smelled it everywhere. And the half-light outside, it looked like one of those movies, after the world is destroyed by bombs or viruses or zombies and everyone dies except a few tough survivors.
She got up and opened the door, looked around. She saw fire, actual flames, across the lake. She’d have to go now. She went to the car, pulled off the tarp, and got in.
God, she loved this car. She started it, revved the engine, imagining she was grown up, going to meet her friends at a dance club. But her fantasy was cut short. Where was she going, for real? Her mom was dead. She’d pushed that truth as far to the edges of her brain as possible, and focused on the positive. This was her chance to get out. But as much as she had planned for this day, now that it was here she couldn’t imagine doing it alone. She needed her brother.
She backed out and creeped through the neighborhood, onto the empty highway. A half mile east she turned left, up to Paraiso. The deep twisty canyon road was so dark she turned on the headlights, but they made no difference.
She was on one of the last hairpin turns before getting to the top, hoping her dad hadn’t changed the gate code, when the car coughed, jerked a little, sputtered, and died. The gas gauge. Crap. It was empty.
She got out and opened the trunk. There was the heroin she’d stolen from Chad. Her insurance policy for getting out of here. And Beck’s janky little BMX bike—the new one she’d gotten after her brother stole her other one, just so he could give her rides. Such a dork.
This wasn’t going as planned, but oh well. Who cared. There was gas at the construction site, at least 100 gallons, that was the one thing she knew for sure.
She looked down at the pastel pumps from John’s grandma’s closet, the toe cut out to fit her long feet. She bashed the heels off on the curb, put them back on, and pulled the bike out of the trunk. A gust of wind blew a bunch of ash in her face. She got on and started pedaling, her knees bending at crazy angles like a grasshopper. The wind spun in a vortex around her, pushing her up the hill.
This was real Wizard of Oz shit. And she was the Wicked Witch.
* * *
DEIRDRE HAD WATCHED AS Bonnie played chicken with armed militia. They jumped out of her way at the last second. There was a thump, then a few loud cracks as the front of the truck hit the barricade, tipped it over, and crushed it like an aluminum can. The truck bucked a bit as it drove over—the barricade was not insubstantial—but against an 8000 pound, 500 horsepower metal hulk, it folded like a paperclip. Sally’s Dodge had proved a very effective battering ram. The trailer full of horses finished the job and completely flattened the barrier. Bonnie couldn’t avoid—or could she have?—scraping the side of a Humvee as she swung around it on the narrow road. Oh well. Sally had insurance.
Deirdre had shaken herself into action then and ran back to her own truck, instructing everyone within shouting distance, “Stay bumper to bumper! Pass it down!”
At five miles per hour, the Fairy Glen residents asserted their rights. By the time Deirdre, fifth in line, squeaked by, they seemed to have thought the better of their assignment and stood limply to either side of the train of cars with guns pointed down.
But then one of them let out a yell, and she turned to look. The smoke had cleared and he was pointing at the ridgeline above. The glowing outline of the tallest house at Paraiso stood like a tower. Behind it, the massing orange-brown plumes made it look like it was already burning. It was like looking at Mrs. Fey’s tarot card, minus the lightning and falling bodies.
Her insides lurched but she kept driving. The road came out onto a flat paved portion, within the sacrosanct boundaries of Rancho Alto. Gone were the large oaks of the canyon; the landscape was blessedly flat and open, sloping down towards The Ramparts.
Here, Bonnie pulled over. Deirdre pulled in behind her and got out of the truck. Sally and Lina soon followed, and all four were safely parked to get back in their own vehicles while the rest of the Fairy Glen residents sped by, some waving, but most not reali
zing that the courage of these women was the only reason they were free.
Bonnie came striding towards the others and conferred briefly about a plan to stay together and meet at the stables in Del Rio.
Lina didn’t look so hot. She was paler than usual and swayed like a skyscraper in the breeze, her mouth tightly shut like a soon-to-be-puker trying to prevent the inevitable. With three kids, Deirdre had seen it a million times. She helped her to the curb and sat her down.
Lina whispered something. She leaned in closer and Lina repeated herself. “I don’t like men with guns.”
Poor Lina. Of course. Her country had been racked by war. She didn’t talk about details, didn’t make a big deal of it. Deirdre only knew what Lina’s husband, who’d been stationed in Bosnia, had said, that he’d rescued her from a fate worse than death. And now he was abandoning her. Deirdre decided, from now on, she would treat Lina like family.
But nature called, so she left Lina sitting with her head between her knees and ducked around to take a quick pee in the relative privacy next to her trailer. As she was finishing up, she was startled by a fireman, in dusty yellow firepants with bright reflective strips, red suspenders, and a navy blue t-shirt, his helmet clasped to his side.
“Oops, you surprised me. Did Wilma send you?” His handsome brown face was thin and drawn, dark straight brows punctuating his sad liquid brown eyes. She kept talking to hide her embarrassment, but a prickle of recognition traveled up her spine. “They tried to block us but—”
He cut in. “It’s your daughter ma’am.”
She gasped, fearing the worst. “What is it? Tell me!”
“We know where she is, but we can’t get to her.”
“Where is she?” she practically squeaked this time, and moved closer to the young fireman, her hands clasped together, pleading.
“She’s up there, with her boyfriend,” he gestured to the ridgeline. “Paraiso. We can’t get there.” He sounded even sadder this time.
Scarlet let out a high whistling whinny from inside the trailer. The other horses followed suit.
“We can’t get to them. We can’t get to Paraiso…” he repeated, starting to stammer and look ill. Deirdre was dumbstruck. Panic and relief coursed through her in equal measures, along with confusion. “Why? Why can’t you get there?” she asked. No answer.
It was then that he dropped his helmet to the side, and a huge burnt hole in his t-shirt was revealed, a grizzly mess of charred flesh and bone beneath. “Oh my god, you’re hurt!” she said. She covered her mouth.
But then the wound grew before her eyes, as if his flesh was still burning without fire. His eyes rolled up into his head, his knees buckled, and he fell to the ground. She shrieked. Billows of smoke rolled overhead, engulfing her and the trailer. With the one good breath in her lungs, she yelled “Bonnie! Sally! This guy needs help!” They ran around to meet her.
The smoke cleared, wafting towards the coast. Deirdre turned and was stunned to see nothing but empty ground. “He was just here, a fireman!” They looked around, confused. “Somebody must’ve picked him up. They found Rebecca!” she said, forgetting the fireman and his gruesome injury and focusing on her daughter. “I have to go up there. I have to go.”
Deirdre couldn’t be reasoned with. Nobody else had seen or heard the fireman. She was unloading Scarlet as her friends tried to talk sense in her, but they were just a faint background noise. The fireman’s words were much louder, repeating over and over.
She resolutely saddled and bridled Scarlet while they begged and pleaded with her, but she blocked them out. Rebecca was alive, and at Paraiso. Maybe the firemen couldn’t get up there, but she knew the way. Scarlet knew too. They’d done it before.
The only qualm she had was Ginny. Deciding in a split-second, she unclipped Ginny’s lead line. She’d get out, she knew it. Animals knew how to take care of themselves. It was mostly the manmade things that tripped them up—fences, roads, cars. Hopefully some kind soul would find Ginny and care for her until they were reunited. And if she didn’t…she wiped the thought from her mind and focused on what she needed: her useless cell phone (just in case), her multi-tool, a flashlight, water. A first aid kit from the trailer’s tack room. As she tightened the cinch, she said to Bonnie, “Lina’s losing it. Make sure she gets out of here okay.”
As she mounted a spinning Scarlet, Bonnie put a hand on her shoulder to stop her, but she growled like a feral animal and shrugged it off. “Take the horses and go!” she yelled at Bonnie. “GO!”
She trotted Scarlet toward the blockade with Ginny clopping along the asphalt behind them. Bonnie kept calling after her, but it wasn’t going to stop her. Nothing could have stopped her. Once she reached dirt she kicked Scarlet into a gallop, past the security guards, and off to the right, down the trail into Hidden Creek Canyon’s northeast folds. She had to go down to go up again if she wanted to follow the same path she’d followed that scary night. And she would follow it. No chances. No chance to get lost on a different path, no chance to trailblaze a false shortcut. Rebecca needed her.
* * *
REBECCA CAME TO WITH a jolt in the dark closet. No idea how long she’d been out. She heard shouting, and rolled up onto the balls of her feet to listen.
Jeremy’s voice. “You know how I got into dealing Dad?” She couldn’t hear anyone answer, but Jeremy went on. “Tanya. Tanya used to take me with her to get her drugs from Chad. You know what else she’d do?”
There was a silence. Rebecca’s ears strained.
“She’d go up to her room when we got back, put on something slutty, then come out by the pool.”
“Shut up Jeremy.” This was ‘Dad’, his voice booming. Rebecca jumped a little.
“Then she’d run her hand up my thigh.”
“Jeremy.” This time the voice was warning, warning of something terrible that might happen if Jeremy kept talking.
“It was her idea, she said she wanted it—” Jeremy’s voice cut off to the sound of a hard slap. Rebecca instinctively touched the side of her face. He couldn’t know Tanya was dead, that he was defaming a dead woman.
“They were two of a kind, huh? That’s why you had Chad killed right? Because of what he was doing to Crystal?”
“Gag him.” Jeremy’s dad’s voice, rough and vicious. After a few seconds—what felt like minutes—enough time for him to regain his composure, his voice was solid, steady, and purposeful. “You’re a disappointment. Always have been, and always will be.”
Then, “Take care of him.” He was ordering the other dude. Just like that. Just like he could wipe his hands clean of his own flesh and blood, when it was his own fault Jeremy was so messed up. God, his own step-mom! Rebecca’s insides did a little twist, and something told her she’d never think of Jeremy the same way again, no matter how unfair that was. He’d been just a kid when this all happened.
Anger hit her like a bucket of ice water. This man had married wives, spawned children, then tossed them away like imperfect pots in ceramics class, until he got it right. Class One A-hole.
But wait, what would that dude do with him? She heard the front door open and shut. She breathed out slowly and took a chance at peeking out of her dark hiding place.
In the cavernous living room, Jeremy sat in a folding chair, arms tied behind him, feet tied to the chair. The man was kneeling in front of him, facing away from Rebecca.
Jeremy’s eyes were wild but hooded, all the fight drained out of him, but the defiance still left. He saw her and started laughing through the gag, slowly at first then rising to a howl as if he’d told the funniest joke anyone had ever heard. She frantically put a finger to her lips to shush him, but the man kneeling in front of Jeremy was unfazed. He snapped a purple rubber tourniquet around Jeremy’s pale bicep. Shit! He was gonna shoot him up, kill him just like Chad! He picked up a syringe. She moved forward but before she could get to them (like what was she going to do anyway if she did?) the guy slipped the needle into Jeremy’s bulging vein an
d pushed the plunger. He turned around to put it away and she froze, counting on her black clothes and hair to hide her in the dark den. He gathered up a leather doctor’s bag and left out the front door, like a repairman done with a job.
“Jeremy, Jeremy!” she whisper-screamed as she ran to him and shook him. His eyes rolled around, then his head. She yanked off the gag, started to try to undo his hands, but they were zip-tied; same with his feet.
“Oh hey Rebecca. What are you doin’ here?” he managed to drawl, all casual, before he passed out completely. Great, now he was dead weight. Who knows where that guy had gone, or when or if he’d come back. How was she going to get this tongue-lolling idiot out of harm’s way?
She took a second to think, but heard steps coming to the front door. She hopped behind it just as it opened, her heart banging. She heard Jeremy’s dad’s voice outside asking, “Did you take care of him?”
Through the crack in the door she saw the man, his muscular frame filling her view. He stopped opening the door, turned and said, “Yes, he’ll sleep again. But we’re really running out of time—”
“No, I meant, take care of him,” the dad said. “Same way you took care of Chad.”
There was a pause. “I don’t understand.” The dude pulled the door closed again. She breathed out.
Jeremy roused a bit. “Dad?” he called.
“Shhhh,” she said, scurrying past him.
As she slid out the back door, she heard Jeremy sobbing. “Where’s Crystal, Dad? Where’s Crystal? I went back to get her and she was gone.”
* * *
DEIRDRE STRUGGLED FOR AIR. She’d stopped sweating. Never a good sign.
Reluctantly she halted Scarlet and took a swig of water, and tried to slow her rasping breath. They were almost to the construction office clearing now, and she wanted to be ready.
October's Fire (Fairy Glen Suspense Book 1) Page 35
