by Ilsa J. Bick
“They found us first,” Scott said before Talbot could respond. “Will was checking, you know, dialing through the frequencies, and then these guys came on.”
“Oh.” What had happened to Will and the others?
Talbot was playing with the lock. “We’d picked up an extraneous signal we’d seen before. It was a band of a known smuggling ring. We were finally able to pinpoint your location, but it took a while to mobilize people. We had to coordinate with the Canadians. You’re actually straddling the border here.”
“Yeah, we wondered about that.” This story was plausible enough to be true. Maybe something had happened to Will or Scott had overheard Will talking to the agents and then volunteered to lead them here. Will would want to stay with Rachel. But wait, if they really have been rescued, those people would have doctors, right? Or medics? Will would have no reason to stay with Rachel. He would be itching to get back to her and Hunter.
“I’m surprised Will didn’t tell you about checking the frequency and letting me know. We had a signal worked out.”
“Yeah?” Scott frowned. “You did?”
“Yes.” Oh, Will. She had to do something.
“Damn this thing.” Straightening, Talbot let out an exasperated sigh. “It’s frozen.”
“Yeah, it does that. I had to use a lighter the first time around. Sorry, it must’ve gotten blocked up with ice.” She made a show of patting pockets then pulled out a lighter. “Here. Try this.”
“Thanks.” Flicking the striker wheel, Talbot got a flame going then held it to the lock. “That’s got it…ah.” Socking in the key, Talbot gave it a twist. “There we go.”
“Holy shit.” Scott crowded in on Talbot’s right as the younger guy, snow boots splishing, came up on Talbot’s left. Reaching in, Scott came out with a wad of banded cash. “How much are we talking here? A million?”
“Try more like three,” Talbot said, handing a brick to the younger guy. “Check that.”
“No sweat, but why the fuck is it wet? Is that—” The younger guy gave the packet a sniff. “Is that Scotch?”
“Yeah, there were broken bottles in there.” Her right hand found what she was looking for, and now she carefully twisted. “Careful. Don’t want to cut yourself.”
“I’ll watch myself,” the younger guy said, “ though it’s not like there isn’t plenty here to kill the pain.” Digging out a small knife, he cut a small slit, dipped in the tip of his knife, gave the white powder a sniff then flicked out the tip of his tongue and made a face. “It’s good.”
“So is that heroin? Or cocaine? What’s that taste like anyway?” Snagging the cap, she jammed that back in her hip pocket before it could fall to the snow. The loop was exactly where Will said it would be. “You know, in movies, they’re always tasting and rubbing stuff on their gums.”
“That’s for cocaine.” Talbot was looking at the younger guy. “Well?”
“Bitter as shit.” Turning to Scott, who was jamming wads of cash into his jacket, the young guy hooked a thumb. “Hey, not like that. Evidence, man. Bags are back with the Snowgos. Go grab a couple.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice.” Scott slipped in a brick, though. “And one to grow on,” he said and jogged in the direction of the woods where Will and the others had gone.
“What an asshole,” the young guy said.
“Well.” Talbot was hauling out bricks and setting them on the snow. “You won’t have to suffer with him much longer.” As if catching the innuendo, Talbot flashed her a grin. “In a manner of speaking. You neither.”
“Great,” she said.
She watched as the men pulled out brick and brick, wad after wad. She didn’t have much time. Scott would be back any second and, knowing Scott, he’d make sure he got his cut no matter what.
So I have to do this. The avgas bladders were to her left, and she edged that way now. But hadn’t Will also said she’d helped to make a life? She was responsible for two lives now. Somebody, tell me what to do. She eyed the men, but they had their backs to her, so it really was now or never. Sliding another slow inch to her left and then another, she felt her left hand brush the siphon hose. Carefully, she nudged the hose until the open bore rested over the half-empty bladder and then released the clamp. She felt cold liquid on her fingers but heard nothing as the avgas sheeted over fabric. Good.
“Say,” she said, already backing up, “do you guys mind if I go get my pack? I left it on the other side next to the signal fire.”
“Sure.” This time, Talbot’s smile didn’t make it to his eyes, which were, she saw now, the lifeless gray of a shark’s skin. “But don’t run off.”
“Are you kidding?” She was the edge of the fuselage. Maybe twenty feet, thirty max. It will have to do. Still facing them, she reached for her right hip pocket. “You guys are my heroes—”
“Hey!”
They all wheeled. Scott stood at the verge, black duffels in his hand. “Hey, she’s got something in her pocket, she’s got something, she’s got—”
Damn him. In one swift moment, she pulled the flare from her pocket and jerked the string. There was an audible crack and then a shower of sparks as the flare caught and bloomed a red-hot flame that sounded like a blowtorch.
Talbot and the younger guy rounded, setting up ripples in the puddles at their feet. “The hell?” Talbot cried. “What are you—”
“Yehi ’or, you fuck!” Tossing the flare, she whirled around and thought, Run, Emma, run, run, run as fast as you—
She discovered that the MythBusters guys had been right. Sparks were the necessary ingredient.
In the next second, the last of that day erupted in a sheet of heat and flame, and with a roar.
And she knew nothing more.
AND THERE WAS…
Chapter 1
The hospital room was decorated with tiny lights. Soft Christmas music trickled from a ceiling speaker outside her door. At the moment, a jazzy rendition of “Jingle Bell Rock” competed with the soft and intermittent tick-tick-tick of a blood pressure cuff that self-inflated every twenty minutes and always got tight enough it was a wonder her left hand hadn’t gotten gangrene and fallen off. She’d complained to a nurse that her blood pressure never went above one-twenty, and the cuff was inflating to over two-twenty, which she was certain was stroke territory. The nurse, a cranky woman who probably was pretty pissed she got tagged to work on Christmas Day, had only shrugged, and Emma decided to deal. There were, she had discovered, many worse things in the world. Although if she had suffered through another rendition of Elvis crooning about his blue, blue Christmas, she might be moved to do violence. At times, she found herself almost wishing for Burl Ives.
“It was a rancher,” Will was saying. He perched on the edge of her hospital bed. “Nice guy named Judd. He said he’d like to visit soon as you’re feeling up for it.”
“I’m up for it,” she croaked. Her throat was still sore from that rush of superheated air as the concussive blast, which had knocked her flying, sheeted her body. Good thinking, her doctor had said, you putting that part of the plane between you and the fire. If she’d been any closer or in a contained space, she’d have probably flash-fried her lungs. It’s what happens to people in burning buildings, the doctor said. One big inhale, and their lungs are toast.
“Actually,” she said to Will, “I’m up for leaving.”
“Tomorrow. Don’t rush it. Where do you have to go anyway?”
Anyplace that isn’t a hospital? She still had her interviews with Kujo’s people to do, too. Although all that seemed almost trivial now. She should write all this up, get it down while it was fresh. She bet Outside magazine would take it. Ooh, and then if she included the rescue, Kuntz’s people and all…this had possibilities, but not if she was stuck here. She wondered how many other stringers were here already, camped around the hospital. Probably dozens.
She was surprised, actually, that there wasn’t a throng of reporters at her door now. She wondered if
maybe Will had something to do with that. Or the hospital might care about its other patients. She’d known an older friend of a friend who’d been an intern when Reagan was shot. Talk about ancient history. The friend said the police escorted her into the hospital every day. She had nothing to do with the president’s care and wasn’t even on the surgical team, but reporters still stuck mikes in her face, hoping for a scoop. Journalists were like vultures over roadkill when it came to a story. That, at least, the movies got right.
“Tell me about Judd,” she said.
“He was out with his cows. He said he heard the plane go down but didn’t realize it was a plane until almost a week later when he heard it on the news. He was the one who got word to the search parties. We were right, too. They were looking in the wrong place. Even so, everyone kind of brushed him off except for that friend of yours, Kuntz?”
“He’s not my friend.” Her throat moved in a painful swallow, and she said, thinly, “He’s only a guy I was going to interview.”
“Here.” Taking a cup of ice water from a tray, he held the straw steady so she could sip. “You want more?” he asked when she came up for air.
She shook her head. What she wanted was food. She eyed the cubes of red Jell-O on her hospital tray and a half-congealed lump of something the nurse said was cream of wheat but that looked like something a cat brought up. The doctor said if she did well with soft foods today, she could have something approaching real food tomorrow. After all, the doctor said, we don’t want to tax your digestive system here.
Was he freaking kidding? It had taken all her willpower not to chuck applesauce at the guy. Her stomach wanted to get back to work.
At her stomach’s sudden, loud grumble, Will cocked an eyebrow. “Someone’s awake.”
“Oh, ha-ha.” Maybe Will would smuggle something in. Like, like…doughnuts. The soft type with chocolate crème. Or maybe Mexican? No, no, pizza, dripping with grease… My God, would you stop? She forced herself to focus. “So, what happened with Kuntz?”
“He got in touch with somebody back in Washington…Patterson? Anyway, the guy’s got friends. They rerouted a border patrol drone. It saw the signal fires you kept burning. So their people were heading up on foot when their drones saw the snowmobiles. They got there in time to get us, but Scott and the other two were already long gone and headed back your way by then. I think if they’d left more than one person to watch us, it might have been worse. As it was, all of a sudden, these red fireflies are lighting up the guy watching us, and they’re shouting for him to freeze and gets his hands up.” Will’s dimple showed. “It was like the movies. Oh, and the feds got into Burke’s safe, the one on the plane? A lot of maps and contact numbers. The DEA will be busy for a while.”
“Cool.” She rested a hand on her belly. Other than the jab of her hipbones…the doctor said she’d shed ten pounds…nothing felt different. “Can I ask you a question? The very first day, you made that comment about the black market and habits being hard to break. Did you know?”
“I wondered. The extra avgas when you’ve got a big belly tank made me sit up and then Hunter and Burke were going on about weight. So…” He shrugged. “It crossed my mind. I was thinking of putting a bug in someone’s ear once we got where we were going.”
“Speaking of which, how is Hunter?”
“They took both legs in below-the-knee amputations. Me, I think he’ll lose even more, but they wanted to give him a chance with as much viable tissue as possible.” He put a hand atop hers. “You are a nut and a maniac and one extremely, amazingly lucky woman. A little charred, but look at the bright side. If you hadn’t already been turned around, you might have lost your eyebrows.”
Instead of only the three inches of hair spilling from her watch cap, which had instantly crisped. “How’s Rachel doing?”
“About Scott? Not great. But the baby’s fine. He seems happy to wait to put in an appearance, but she’s pretty close, so you never know. You realize that if this had been a Harlequin novel, she’d have given birth, and you’d have delivered it.”
“Yeah, instead, we got sucky real life.” Then she blew out, impatient with herself. “I’m sorry. I should be grateful, I know. It’d be a lot worse if we were all dead.” Or if they’d been as unlucky as Hunter, Earl, Burke. Even Scott. “I guess what I meant is…”
“How does Rachel feel about you?” Will sighed. He, too, had lost weight. His cheekbones were sharp as axe heads, but that made him look stronger. A little feral, actually. It was a nice look. “I don’t get the sense she and Scott were destined for a long and happy life, especially after Scott pretty much gave us up when Talbot showed. But he was the father, and she’s also lost her dad. Give her time.”
They fell silent for a few moments. In the hall, Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers were warbling on about once upon a Christmas.
“Tell me about your wife,” she said. “Tell me what really happened with Becca. You didn’t divorce.” She didn’t know how she knew this, but she thought that was right.
If caught off-guard, that didn’t show on his face. “There’s not much to say. We wanted children, and then when we thought she was pregnant…” He paused. “Cancer’s a thief, you know. It steals everything. By the time she died, she had so many mets…metastases to the brain, she didn’t know who I was anymore.”
“And that’s when you stopped.”
“Being an oncologist, yeah. It was like that really bad joke about the universe laughing behind your back. I couldn’t save my wife. All I could do in the end was help her die.”
“How many years ago?”
“Seven. I still think of her every day. It would be odd not to, don’t you think? But everything people say about time and memory is right. It doesn’t really hurt anymore. But sometimes I’ll see something, a beautiful sunset, for example, and I’ll think how Becca would’ve loved that and how sad it is that she hasn’t gotten that chance. But I can still see it and enjoy it, and until now, doing that on my own…that’s been all right. But…oooh.” He turned to stare at her cardiac monitor, which was pitching a fit, and a heart rate that was practically galloping across the screen. “We’re not excited, are we?”
“Oh, ha-ha.” She felt a flush that had nothing to do with the really bad sunburn she’d given herself. It had been seven years for Will, but less than two for her. Maybe that was long enough. She wanted to be part of something living, for a change. In fact, if her heart rate was any indication, that wasn’t a maybe. “But what?”
“But it’s not all right now. If you’ll let me…” He put a hand on the swell of her belly. “If you’ll let me, I’d like to see how all this turns out. I’m not making promises, but I’m a pretty steady guy. I’m kind of demanding, though.”
“Yeah?” She was suddenly having a tough time catching her breath. She liked the weight of his hand. “In what way?
“In all ways. I want to be the person with whom you wake every morning,” he said, “and who tells you to please brush your teeth because, you know, sex with morning breath only really works in movies. And the rest is commentary.” He waited until she was done laughing then said, “What do you want?”
She had asked herself that same question earlier in the day when the doctor had wheeled in a portable ultrasound, applied warm goop to her belly, and then pressed the transducer to her abdomen. She’d avoided having an ultrasound until now, avoided any kind of exam, in fact, except on the day she visited the abortion clinic then chickened out for reasons she couldn’t understand. Now, though, she’d heard the baby’s heart, a hollow but rapid beat that reminded her of a runaway horse. Oooh, the doctor said and turned the monitor around so she could see. That’s one happy baby.
She held Will’s gaze. “I want to name her Klara, if it’s a girl, and Robert, if it’s a boy.”
He was bending down—to kiss her, she was sure of it—when her stomach picked that moment to complain so loudly they both broke into laughter instead.
“Another party h
eard from,” he said, slipping a finger beneath her grandmother’s necklace to caress her collarbone. “And your stomach is correct. Di liebe is zees, nor zi iz gut mit broyt.”
The old Yiddish saying was right. Love was good and probably better with bread.
But get real.
Love was even better with pizza.
Chapter 2
“Emma?”
She jerked awake with a gasp. Her door was ajar, but the overhead in her room was out. The small Christmas lights still twinkled, enough for her to piece together a face, but she’d have known the voice anywhere. “Mattie. Honey, what are you doing here?”
“They wouldn’t let me visit until now,” she said.
“But visiting hours are over.”
“Okay, fine, so I lied. I’m not supposed to be here, but I waited until I saw the nurse leave.”
“Where’s your mom?” She checked the time; it was only a little past six. Will was due back at eight and he’d promised a gooey, loaded veggie pizza if he had to bring it in under a trench coat.
“Downstairs. My dad’s mom, my real grandmother, is here. Joshua’s coming.”
She sat up. “You’re kidding. Will said it was going to be another week or something.”
“I guess Joshua has different ideas. Kind of like a movie, you know? Him being born on Christmas? I actually kind of feel sorry for him. He’ll get totally gypped out of presents every year.”
She bit back a laugh. “I hadn’t considered that.” She reached out to touch the girl’s shoulder. “I’m really glad to see you.”
“I…” Mattie gave an audible swallow. “I was really scared I was never going to see you again. I’m so sorry about Scott. I think he heard me talking to Mom and…”
“Sweetie, don’t worry about it. It’s past now. It doesn’t matter. You didn’t do anything wrong. Scott had…he had his problems.”
“Yeah.” Drawing in a shaky breath, Mattie dragged a forearm over her eyes. “I didn’t like him, but I didn’t want him to die either.”