She stopped then, and raised her flashlight to illuminate their faces. “What if you find those pieces and they don’t fit into the picture you have in your mind for me? What will you do then?”
“There will always be room for me to make new discoveries about you, Jama. That’s how it should be.”
Why did he see such doubt in her eyes?
Chapter Thirty-One
Jama felt herself melting again. Tyrell’s words touched her, even though he’d spoken them without the knowledge of what he could learn about her-and what it could mean. The truth…the missing piece of that puzzle could destroy them. It could destroy everything, her whole life. How selfish was she for withholding it? Didn’t all the Mercers deserve to know? And didn’t she deserve whatever happened after they discovered the truth?
“Where did you go?” Once again, he stepped forward slowly, cautiously.
“Utah.”
He said nothing, but she could sense his surprise. She studied the sizable perimeter of his flashlight beam, took a step, waited for him to join her, and studied the next patch of well-lit ground. Renee was right. The tracking skills had come back easily.
“What did you do in Utah?” Tyrell asked.
She took another step, and waited again for him to follow. She saw a small indentation in the grass, some bruised blades. Perhaps the result of a child’s footprint? Jama shook her flashlight, frustrated that it didn’t have the power of Tyrell’s.
She pointed. “Do you see-”
“Yes, I do. Look for more prints.”
They bent over and searched, slowly and methodically, and Jama wondered if Tyrell was as aware of her warmth beside him as she was of his warmth, his presence, his scent, the very feel of his movements, almost in tandem with hers.
“It’s amazing how cheaply a person can live if they have to,” she said.
“I know. I learned that when I was doing mission work abroad. How did you live in Utah? You couldn’t have practiced medicine there.”
“I could have gotten a license if I’d wanted to.”
“You’re saying you didn’t want to practice? As a fourth-year surgical resident, you must have qualified for some kind of work in the medical field.”
She had no answer for him, because she didn’t really know, herself. It probably had to do with not feeling worthy of the profession she had worked so hard to join. She followed the pattern of Doriann’s steps. It was slower going here in the grass.
“What did you do?” he asked.
“I worked odd jobs when I needed cash. I washed dishes at a restaurant for a week, and I was a file clerk in a temporary position.”
This took some time for him to contemplate. “Where did you live?” His voice was different. More somber.
“In my car. In Amy’s old tent. I hiked and camped. I stayed in Canyonlands National Park and along the Colorado and Green rivers for nearly four months. I was in The Maze for two. I ate a lot of beans and rice, dried fruit, nuts.”
She felt his attention riveting on her instead of the task at hand.
“Watch what you’re doing,” she said. “We’re looking for Doriann, remember.”
For several long moments, they searched in silence, found more signs of footprints, continued forward.
“You lived in the wild?” he asked at last.
“I didn’t live in the wild, I lived in a tent and a car.”
“I remember the tent. I got it for Amy as a college graduation gift. I got you a down comforter, because it was more your style.”
“Well, I guess you don’t know everything, then. The tent was just big enough for two, lightweight and strong. Amy and I took it when we hiked the Grand Canyon that summer before we started med school.”
“You borrowed my car for the trip.”
“We discovered in med school that we probably should have been studying and working, not hiking, but I’m so glad now that we did it that way.”
“It was Amy who loved to camp out. You hated it,” Tyrell said.
That used to be true. “I remember those nights in the Canyon. We had nothing but our sleeping bags and the tent floor between us and the hard ground.”
“So you did it for Amy.”
“She was always teaching me to try new things,” Jama said. “Camping was one. I came to like it.”
“Enough to do it for months? By yourself? Alone in the wilderness?”
She didn’t answer.
He stopped walking. “You camped out all those months to punish yourself for your best friend’s death.”
Jama looked toward his dark form. Why had he brought up the subject tonight of all nights, after all these years of avoidance?
“But there’s more to it than that,” he said. “Isn’t there?”
Time for a safer subject. “Amy taught me to see camping out as an opportunity to be surrounded by God’s sanctuary, instead of buildings erected by human hands. The Canyon was a good school, but I didn’t learn the deepest truth until I was alone in the silence of Utah.”
They searched the circumference of the area where they found the last track, then picked up the trail again.
“What was the deepest truth?” he asked.
“That I will never have all the answers, no matter how much I study and learn, and no matter how long I live. That I will always fail if I try to do the right thing in my own power. That God is bigger than I ever imagined. It took the trip to Utah, all that time alone, to show me that I need God in my life.”
Jama slowed at a pile of last year’s leaves that had most likely washed across the field during last fall’s flood. No form of an eleven-year-old.
The stillness of the night was intensified because the cold had silenced the spring peepers-the frogs Jama loved to listen to in the evenings when she was growing up.
Tyrell’s flashlight flickered, and he jiggled it. The battery was getting low. Jama knew he carried spares in his backpack.
“For the past four and a half years,” he said, “everything connected to Amy’s death has been a forbidden subject between us, and I don’t feel comfortable with forbidden subjects.”
“Meaning you have to knock down any wall that gets in your way.”
“It’s a caveman thing. I wouldn’t expect you to understand it.”
“Forbidden subjects are a Jama Keith thing, and you obviously don’t understand that.”
“Believe me, I’ve been trying. Tell me, Jama, is it just me, or do you push everyone away like this?”
The tone of his voice stung more than his question. How badly had she hurt him by trying to not hurt him worse…or herself…or the friendship they had shared for so long?
“We weren’t going to do this,” she said softly.
“I never promised that.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry.”
She turned just in time to see the muzzle of a rifle planted in front of her face, heard the metallic cocking of the gun. She looked at Tyrell and froze.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Teeth chattering…icicles forming in her brain…frost must be settling down from the sky. Snuffling…movement…rustling…
Doriann jerked awake, cried out, braced herself. He’d found her!
Something touched her face-something cold. She swallowed a scream and scrambled away, tried to stand and run, hit her head on the roof of the cave and fell back into the smelly leaves.
She heard a whimper and grew still. That wasn’t Clancy. It wasn’t Deb. Something soft and fuzzy touched her nose. And then something warm and slimy rubbed over her chin, flicking her lower lip with a familiar smell. Dog breath.
Dog breath!
A loud hound howl filled the cave.
Doriann gasped, choked on the smell. “Humphrey?”
Another howl.
Doriann reached out and felt his long, floppy-soft ears, his long snout, and even smiled when he licked her face again and again. “It’s you, Humphrey!”
She started to cry, and buried her face
against his soft fur, and held his warm, wriggling body in her arms. She felt as if she could almost reach out and touch God’s hand, it was that close. He really was watching over her!
She sniffed and wiped her face with her sleeve. “It was you I saw on the road, wasn’t it, Humphrey? And it was your howling that scared Clancy.” More answers to prayer she didn’t know to pray.
She realized that if she hadn’t grabbed the steering wheel when she did, Humphrey would be injured or dead now, and not warming her up in this cave.
Of course, she also realized that she probably wouldn’t be here, either.
Or maybe she would.
He nudged against her arm, his way of asking to be petted. She flung her arms around him again and cried harder. Jesus had sent a piece of home to her here in the forest in the dark, in the middle of danger.
Humphrey nestled closer, nuzzling under her arm, panting dog breath all around her. He lay down beside her. She wiped tears away again so they wouldn’t freeze on her face.
This was why Humphrey was a wandering dog. Because God knew that someday, this dog would need to wander here and find a freezing kid in the middle of a killing frost. His warmth seeped through her, and comfort surrounded her. She let herself drift. This time she could fall asleep without being afraid that she’d freeze to death.
Agent Sydloski’s face was gold-and-black granite in the glow from the dashboard lights of his agency car. “This won’t happen again.”
Jama looked at Tyrell’s silhouette from her position in the middle of the backseat. His face was carefully expressionless.
The agent looked at Tyrell, jaw protruding. “Right?”
“You think we want to risk jail time?” Tyrell asked, and Jama wondered if the agent realized Tyrell was avoiding a direct answer.
The agent turned in his seat, making eye contact with Jama. “You do realize, don’t you, that there are armed and dangerous killers in the vicinity? You two may be the best marksmen in the state, but there’s a man out there who’s already proven he’s not only capable of killing, but is happy to do so. You two have strict orders to get into your vehicle and remove yourselves from the blockaded area. I will receive a call when you have passed the eastern roadblock, and if I do not receive that call within the next ten minutes, we will come looking for you, and you will be taken into protective custody.”
“No need to come looking for us.” Tyrell pointed to the gravel exit, directing Agent Sydloski to turn into the creek-side area where his SUV was parked. “But you have to understand that there was no roadblock when we arrived. You should reserve your surveillance for the killers.”
Agent Sydloski parked in front of Tyrell’s vehicle. “Our job is to protect United States citizens. Your best chance of seeing your niece alive again is to let us do that job and not distract us from our objective. Go home and stay out of our investigation.”
With a final thanks for the lift-Jama could hear nothing but respect in his tone-Tyrell climbed from the car, opened the door for Jama and gave a half salute to Sydloski as he escorted Jama to the passenger door of the Durango.
“You knew it could happen,” Tyrell said as she slid inside.
“They didn’t have to be so rude.”
“It’s the FBI, Jama. You just don’t smart off to a federal agent.” He closed the door, walked around the front, got in, his profile outlined by the lights from the agent’s car. When the SUV’s engine was running, the agent pulled back onto the highway. The man drove slowly away, making it obvious that he was still watching for Tyrell and Jama to leave.
“I didn’t smart off,” she said at last. “I simply explained that we saw no roadblock. You told him the same thing.”
“Not with your flair,” he said dryly as he pulled onto Highway 94 and headed toward River Dance.
“How were we supposed to know this section of the Katy Trail and the road were cordoned off?”
“If we hadn’t entered by an alternate trail we would have been warned away. You should be glad we got to keep our pistols.”
“Why did we?”
“Renee probably paved the way for us. Having our permits probably made an impression, as well.”
“Slow down,” Jama said.
“Excuse me? I’m not stopping. We could still be thrown into jail.”
“I didn’t tell you to stop, I told you to slow down. We could get ticketed for speeding, couldn’t we?”
He released pressure from the accelerator. Jama smiled to herself.
“I wasn’t breaking any speed limits,” he said. “Why slow down?”
“I want to check the river.”
“For what? I’m pretty sure there hasn’t been any flooding since we saw it at dusk.”
They saw the promised roadblock up ahead, and a deputy sheriff stepped out, waved them down, hand on his weapon.
“Okay, this is too weird,” Jama said. “That can’t be Tim Holloway. I graduated with him.”
“He’s back in River Dance, was sworn in as deputy a few months ago.”
“This isn’t right. He couldn’t hit a single target in school to save his life. What’s he doing with a gun?”
Tyrell shushed her.
Tim beamed a bright light through the windshield at them, recognized them both, then waved them through with his old, crooked smile.
“He’s going to get himself killed if he doesn’t know what he’s doing,” Jama said.
“He knows how to handle a gun now. He joined the Coast Guard after graduation. Spent ten years out in San Diego and got tired of the overcrowding and high cost of living.”
“Oh. Guess I’ve been out of the loop for a while.”
Tyrell shot her a look. “You think?”
“I should know better than anybody that people can change.”
“Sure they do. And sometimes it takes a lot of tries to get it right. Remember Carla Haines? We thought she’d be a doctor or attorney, maybe run for office someday. Who would believe she would drop out of college her first year, lose her scholarship and become a professional dancer in Vegas?”
“Don’t forget Mark Richland,” Jama said. “I went steady with him for two weeks in eighth grade. He goofed off all through school, totaled two cars, barely graduated, and was told he’d never amount to anything. Now he has his own business with five hundred employees.”
“People falter,” Tyrell said. “That doesn’t mean they’ve failed. It just means they’ve learned from their mistakes.”
She caught sight of the bridge over Fern Creek. They were nearing the river. “You know the boat landing at Carson’s Crossing?”
He didn’t answer.
She looked at him, and saw the suspicion on his face. “We’re out of the blockaded area,” she said.
“And you’re reminding me about this because…?”
“When we saw that first broken branch, after it became obvious Doriann was following her abductors?”
“Yes?”
“I thought I saw those same small shoeprints aimed in the other direction, toward the river, cutting through the woods almost willy-nilly. I told myself at the time that it had to be a simple case of Doriann attempting to find a better place to hide as she followed them.”
“Why didn’t you say anything about it then?”
“You found more tracks going the other way, which seemed to confirm my reasoning.”
“And you knew I wouldn’t agree to our going separate directions.”
“Exactly, but now it appears I might have been wrong.”
“Why? The tracks obviously led to the barn, where the Feds had found abundant evidence that Doriann and her captors had been there.”
“Okay, but isn’t it possible we could have missed a separate set of tracks that led away from the barn? She wasn’t there, and she must have gone somewhere.”
“So you’re saying she would have tried to return to the river.”
“The shoeprint I saw was dug deeply into the mud, as if she’d been running. There w
ere leaves scattered, also as if someone had run through them.”
He looked at her.
“Maybe she was caught tailing her captors,” Jama suggested. “Maybe she stepped on something like a limb or rustling leaves, and they heard her and made chase?”
“That’s possible.”
“And she’s a smart girl. She would know she could follow the river to safety eventually.”
“We didn’t see any other shoeprints coming from the opposite direction.”
“We weren’t looking,” she said. “Think about it, Tyrell. We were focused on those particular prints, headed that particular way. It’s the same reason I didn’t seriously consider following tracks headed any other direction, because those tracks kept going north from the river. We both know that other people follow that old tractor path, and so we weren’t expecting anything else.”
Tyrell braked at a low spot in the road and turned right. The tires shifted onto gravel that popped and crackled in the cold evening stillness. The SUV’s headlights plunged into fog that blanketed the great river.
Tyrell eased to the very edge of the concrete ramp and parked, switching off the headlights.
“I blew it,” she said. “I should have mentioned the tracks to you the first time I saw them.”
“You did fine.”
“But no Doriann.”
“What’s on your mind, Jama?”
“We start from here and follow the river west, the direction Doriann might be coming from.”
“We should notify the FBI of our suspicions-”
“They’re covering the blockaded area, and with only a skeleton crew.” Jama said. “I mean, my goodness, Tim Holloway’s been pressed into service. There’s no way the FBI will be able to cover the acreage that needs to be covered. We’ve still got our guns, we know how to shoot, and we’re already here. What’s a little jail risk when Doriann’s life is on the line?”
Tyrell put the truck back into gear and reversed.
“What are you doing?”
“If we’re going to do this, we can’t park in plain sight.” He shifted and eased the vehicle into the deep shadows to the right of the boat ramp, where a path led from the Katy Trail to the river’s edge. He parked behind a stand of cedars. “They can’t see this from the road.”
A Killing Frost Page 20
