Not Just an Echo (Piper Anderson Legacy Mystery Book 3)

by Danielle Stewart

  Her mouth opened to protest, but when her eyes raked over his face she knew there was no need. Every corner of his expression left no room for question. He was absolutely serious. Nothing would keep him from that medicine. He pulled the gun from his belt and clutched it tightly in his hand as they both sat in silence, waiting for Amal to return.

  “I’m feeling cold,” Cosette whispered after a while, looking up at the sun. It was still blazing brightly so the shiver overtaking her didn’t seem good. “In the movies,” she sighed, “right before people die, they get cold.”

  “You aren’t going to die,” he said and knew his tone wasn’t comforting but dismissive. More of a stop being ridiculous even though she had every reason to be afraid. He was out of practice when it came to being around someone who needed to hear everything was going to be all right.

  “If this doesn’t kill me,” she said, “do you really think we’ll get out of here? The odds don’t seem very good. Four thousand people wash up on a beach full of armed men, and we’re all supposed to get out all right? Why? Because we’re Americans? Did you hear Wilkie talking? How is it I’ve spent every day of my life not knowing this place existed, let alone how much the world has done to destroy them, control them for the last couple hundred years. My biggest problem was I didn’t marry a man I didn’t even love. Or that my coffee wasn’t strong enough. Now I’m about to take some medicine from someone here that might need it.” She shook again, and pulled her knees up to her chest. “We’re monsters,” she muttered, sounding far away. “We’re all monsters.”

  Amal came back up the hill and waved them to follow. “Come; he’s got the medicine. He’s ready. Come.”

  “Come on, Cossette,” Aiden said, but she didn’t move. She slumped forward onto herself. “She’s passed out.” He tucked the gun back into his belt and bent down to lift her up. Carrying her like a doll, he hustled down the hill.

  A small frail woman who looked nearly a hundred years old and a short, light-skinned male doctor greeted them at the door and pointed to a small cot, one of only two in the room, where they could lay her down. The other cot held a child with a bandage covering most of his face, a small blotch of red blood where his eye would be, showing through the gauze.

  “I am Dr. Joshua,” the man said, his cheeks resembling those of a chipmunk, and when he smiled Aiden noticed his front teeth could be described the same.

  “We didn’t see the spider but I think, by the look of the bite, we’re dealing with a black widow. She seems to have had a severe reaction to it.”

  “Go,” she said, pushing ineffectually at Aiden’s arm as he laid her down. She was barely conscious but he knew what she was trying to say.

  “I’m staying,” he whispered to Amal. “Where is the best vantage point in the house? I want to be able to see if someone is coming.”

  “Up those stairs,” Dr. Joshua explained. “You will see a small window that opens up to the roof. I don’t know if you can fit through.”

  “I’ll fit,” Aiden assured him as he took another long look at Cosette. “Take care of her,” he ordered, knowing exactly how inflexible and demanding he sounded. It was no mistake the butt of the gun was showing in his belt. Maybe Cosette would get the best possible care no matter what. But Aiden wanted them to know if they planned to compromise that in anyway, they’d have to answer to him.

  “The medicine will take one hour,” Dr. Joshua said. “After that she will be awake and beginning to feel better but still not completely well. But I can’t keep her here any longer than that. I can’t risk it.”

  “I understand,” Aiden nodded, not wanting to sell short the great danger Dr. Joshua was putting himself in just to help a stranger. “You get her that medicine and we’ll be out of here.”

  Chapter 14

  Betty had prayed for Amal, Cosette, and Aiden. She had covered all her bases with God. But she hadn’t asked for protection for herself. If her family was safe, if the people of this island were made better by her prayer, then that would be enough for her. Whether or not she made it home would not be something she’d pester God with today.

  “Wilkie,” she said, watching the boy nibble his fingernails down until they bled, “come sit by me.” She patted the cushion on the floor and smiled warmly at him. “I want to know more about you.”

  Reluctantly he slinked his way across the stone floor and settled by her. “There is nothing to my story that is any different than any others here. Everyone suffers, just for different reasons.”

  “I’d still like to hear if you’ll tell me.”

  “My parents were peacemakers. Which means you will die. If you do not take up the fight of one side or the other, you are everyone’s enemy. They fed the families of all tribes, and because of that they were killed. They were out in another village and we got word of it from neighbors. We were not able to say goodbye. We do not know where their bodies are. We nearly starve on days when food runs out and we can’t get more for a while. Amal works. I work. But it doesn’t matter. There are no resources here. But if we’re lucky and climb a high enough tree some days we can look out and see the cruise ships go by. Filled with food they’ll throw away and money no one needs. You will never understand.”

  “I’m sorry,” she mouthed, but didn’t want to interrupt him. “Explain it to me so I can try.”

  “Amal has raised me for five years. We are not stupid. We read. All the books we can get, we read them and then read them again. If I was not born here, if I had been born in America, I think I would have liked to be a scientist. I know all the elements. I know how a plane flies. I know many things.” This was a boy defending his character, but she was not the enemy. His words spilled together almost frantically, and Betty could see the exhaustion in his eyes.

  “I could see it the first moment I looked at you,” Betty agreed, keeping her face intentionally gentle. He may have been hurling accusations of ignorance at her, but who was to say he was wrong? Over her many years she’d learned there was one thing all children universally wished to know. They mattered. “When a person knows a very many things, it can be seen. They carry themselves different, they have a light in their eyes. You have it.”

  “It doesn’t matter here,” Wilkie shrugged, but she could tell her words had begun to penetrate. “It won’t mean anything living here. Knowing things doesn’t matter if you are trapped. Or dead.”

  “But knowing things can keep you alive,” Betty offered, rubbing his back gently. Her heart tugged as he stiffened under her touch. She didn’t let up though. There was power in touch, she’d seen it work over the years. Hugs were powerful. “Look at how you got us all here. We never would have made it without that big brain of yours.”

  “I lied,” he said, sounding a little ashamed now. “I lied to get you here.”

  “Sometimes,” Betty said, turning every word over in her mouth, taking her time, “sometimes, you have to tell a story a certain way to get the right ending.”

  “I hate my story,” he sighed, and though it was only an inch, maybe less, he leaned closer to her. Betty didn’t usually wait for an invitation, but this was a sensitive situation. That little lean, however, was enough. She pulled him the rest of the way against her, laying his head gently on the sweatshirt she’d folded on her lap.

  “I didn’t much care for my own story for a while,” Betty exhaled, sympathizing though she knew the depth of his pain was a cavern she’d never had to explore. “And when I wasn’t much bigger than you I assumed it would always be that way. Because when you’re small and you’re climbing a tree and you look down you don’t feel like you’ve gotten very far. Every limb is harder than the last and it always feels like you’re about to slip off and plummet to the ground.”

  She watched his profile change as he laid his head in her lap. Wilkie looked wholly unimpressed by her attempt to comfort him.

  “At some point you get high enough to really start seeing everything. The other trees around you, the view for miles. At some
point the climb becomes worth it. And when you’re old like me . . .” She paused but he didn’t interrupt. “You’re supposed to say I’m not old.”

  She watched his cheek pull up into a smile before she kept going.

  “When you get older,” she began again, “you start to get really high up in that tree, and you realize the tough part of the climb was what got you up that high. And it was worth it.”

  He didn’t answer but a yawn split his face wide open. Rather than dive deeper into the metaphor she knew he was years away from being able to appreciate, she began to hum. There were a few tunes that always worked on her daughter and her grandchildren when sleep made their eyes heavy but the world kept their mind spinning.

  “You know,” she said, humming out her words as though none of them had a care in the world, “you remind me of my granddaughter, Frankie. She’s bright but it gets her in trouble some times.”

  He yawned again as Betty rocked gently back and forth and began to hum again. She could see his thick black lashes drooping and then finally closing. Before his breath settled into the tell-tale rhythm of sleep he whispered, “Do you think when they come get you guys to take you out of here they’ll take us too? Maybe if you ask them. I would promise to be good.” Then he drifted off to a far away place.

  “You’re a good boy,” Betty said, patting his back. “You’re already a good boy. Sleep. I’ll be right here.”

  She could feel Clay’s eyes on her as Wilkie slept. “Don’t even say it,” she cautioned in a whisper. “Don’t even bother giving me the warning about getting attached. Don’t tell me the odds of any rescue party taking this boy with us are slim.”

  “I wasn’t going to say any of that,” Clay whispered back. “I was going to bring you a snack.”

  “Hmm,” she said through a smile. “I married a smart man. “

  “You and I have brought a lot of people into our lives over the years,” Clay said, handing her a granola bar. She shifted Wilkie slightly as she reached up for it.

  “This is different,” she said, finishing his sentence. “This isn’t some kid from down the way that needs clean clothes. We’d be in way over our heads if we tried to get involved in this anymore than we already are. We just need to get through this and forget it ever happened.”

  “That doesn’t sound like you at all.”

  “That’s because you married a wonderful woman who just loves getting her heart broken.”

  “It’ll work out, Betty,” he assured her, sweeping a hand over her frazzled hair. “Everything always does.”

  “That’s a terrible lie,” Betty groaned. “But right now I’m going to pretend to believe you.”

  Wilkie stirred against her and she shushed him comfortingly as she began to hum the song again.

  “I’m going up to the roof and take some food to Jules and Michael. I never thought I’d miss cooking day in and day out in our restaurant so much. What I wouldn’t do for a hot griddle right now to fry up some bacon. We’ll surely appreciate everything a lot more when we get home.”

  “Sure will,” Clay agreed, leaning down and kissing the crown of her head.

  “If we get home,” she corrected, but turned her eyes down and away.

  “You don’t get to lose faith, Betty,” Clay reminded her. “Of all of us you have the tightest grip on that rope. Everyone needs to know you’re still holding on to it.”

  “I’ve walked through many trials in my life.” She looked down at her muddy shoes and smiled. “And these feet have plenty more miles they can walk.”

  “Keep saying stuff like that.” Clay grinned as he ducked out of the low doorway.

  “I will,” she whispered, patting Wilkie gently as he slept. Everyone had a place, a responsibility in this world. Somewhere along the way Betty had learned hers was to calm. She’d tell people everything would be all right. Tell them enough times for them to believe it. That God has a plan. No one was ever truly alone. Things had a way of working out perfectly. As far-off rapid gunfire echoed in the stone room, it was the first time she, herself, wasn’t so sure.

  Chapter 15

  “You promised you would go on,” Cosette said, slipping her shirt back over her head as she scolded Aiden. “You lost over an hour of light sitting around, waiting for me to get this medicine.”

  “It’ll be better for me to travel in the dark anyway. I’ll get you back to the fort first. Amal and I can continue on from there.”

  “You can’t,” Amal interrupted apologetically. “There is smoke that way. Something between here and there is on fire, and we don’t know what. You can’t go back.”

  “The others,” Cosette said, a pang of terror shooting through her stomach. There had been no time to say goodbye after the spider had bitten her. There had been no time to thank them for coming back for her on the ship.

  “We must continue on to Torrella Bay. The doctor says we can use his motorbike with the covered wagon on the back. You can both fit in there. If we are stopped, I will say I am getting supplies for him. We can be in Torrella Bay in a couple of hours.”

  “The fort may have been compromised,” Aiden said, looking out the window in the direction they’d come.

  “My only living relative is in that fort,” Amal edged out tentatively. “The only other person in the world who looks like me and has my blood in his veins. But I know he would want me to go on. He would want the truth to be told. I believe that. If I can do that, then surely you can too.”

  Cosette felt her eyes well, but she blinked away the tears. Who was she to cry now? If all went according to plan, by tonight she’d be somewhere safe, never having to think of this place again. It was the people here who deserved to cry. “We can make it,” Cosette said, nodding her head. “I feel a lot better. The motorbike will get us there much faster than if you had to go on foot.”

  “If we are caught with this information,” Aiden explained, his eyes wild with words he couldn’t seem to say. “You don’t deserve to be a part of this.”

  “Does anyone?” Cosette asked, righteous indignation filling her. “Do these children deserve it?” She gestured at the boy in the other cot whose bandaged face was now soaked through with blood. “You’re holding the only thing that can help them.”

  “Yes, and it only takes one of us to deliver it. You bake cakes, Cosette. You were on a cruise to fix your broken heart. This isn’t your reality, and it doesn’t have to be. I can talk to the doctor, and he can hide you here. I can make him.”

  “Wave a gun in his face?” Cosette asked, angrily. “Demand he risks the lives of his family to protect me? What makes my life worth more than this boy’s?” She pointed again and a little sob escaped her. “Nothing. I am not worth more than him. I’m going with you. And we’re going now.”

  It wasn’t the shock on Aiden’s face that impacted Cosette, it was the gratitude on Amal’s. She remembered devouring books as a child and when she learned about civil rights something stuck out to her. Oppressed people could rise up and maybe they would win. But when people who had nothing to gain rose with them momentum could shift.

  “Get the motorbike,” Aiden said, his eyes still fixed on Cosette as he searched for something. She had no idea what puzzle he was working out in his head, what answer he hoped to read on her face, but as his eyes broke away she could tell he’d found it. “If we’re caught, we burn all of this.” He gestured to the papers in the satchel over his arm. I want a small container of gasoline and some matches. The first sign that we aren’t making it to Torrella Bay, we destroy it.”

  “Fine,” Amal agreed reluctantly. “I will apologize now, the wagon for the motorbike is small and the road is uneven. Hardly passable in some places. It will not be comfortable.”

  When he disappeared from the room Aiden turned on Cosette abruptly, sending her jumping. “This isn’t a game. It’s not a movie. It’s not a dream. Your life is in peril right now. If the worst happens, I might not be able to save you.”

  “But if the nothin
g happens,” she said, her hand sliding over the arm of the tiny sleeping boy in the cot. “Who will save them?”

  Chapter 16

  Aiden’s arm cramped as Cossette’s body weight pressed on top of him. He had the gun in one hand cocked and ready to fire if needed. On the floor of the tiny covered wagon were the matches and the small medicine bottle filled with gasoline. The papers and photographs they needed to deliver were tucked beneath him. Cosette perched half on top of him.

  “What are you exactly,” she asked, eyeing him sideways as she shifted, trying unsuccessfully to get more comfortable. It was futile.

  “What do you mean?” he stalled, knowing exactly what she was asking.

  “Military? Government? Who do you work for?”

  “I’m a ghost,” he answered flatly. “If I told you it wouldn’t matter. It’s not an agency you’d know of. It’s not something you see in the movies. I make contacts like Amal. I get intel. I observe for myself and I report back to the people who make decisions.”

  “Decisions about what?”

  “About who is evil and who is a little worse. They decide when a war starts. When one should end. They decide when genocide should be ignored and when we should intervene. If there’s an outbreak of a disease, they decided if we should help. Human rights violations are documented and they decide what to do and when.”

  “How does someone get a job like yours? How does that happen?”

  “You don’t apply,” he replied with a tired smile. “They find you.”

  “Can you say no?” Cosette asked. “Do they make you take the missions?”

  He thought on it for a long moment. Had he really had a choice in all of this? “I have witnessed some of the most horrific atrocities inflicted on the most vulnerable people. But because I’ve seen it, action is taken.”

  “But Amal’s seen it. He must have told anyone who would listen.”