by Sylvie Kurtz
“Tell me about his footwear.”
“Why?” One of her heels clacked against the floor mat like a manic drummer hammering the pedal of a bass drum and Nora wished she could get up and move instead of being strapped in this car seat doing nothing.
“So I know what kind of tracks to look for.” Sabriel’s voice remained smooth and even, but she sensed the calmness cost him.
She’d promised herself she wouldn’t be a burden to him, so she dug deep. Try as she might, she couldn’t picture the boots. “Tommy got Scotty hiking boots for his birthday last September. He gets a discount at work. I don’t know the brand. Brown. That’s all I remember.”
“Size?”
A small yelp escaped her. “That, I know. Size six.”
“Hiking poles?”
She didn’t think Scotty had any, but that didn’t mean Tommy hadn’t provided him with some. “I don’t know.”
“What time did they leave? Your best guess.”
Her head ached and her thoughts snarled in a mess. To keep from falling apart, she went back to scratching the pink polish off her nails. “Scotty went to bed at eight. I checked on him at ten. I let him sleep in this morning because he’d had several asthma attacks over the week, and he needed extra sleep. If I’d checked in on him when I got up—”
“They could still have had hours of lead time.”
On a logical level, she understood this, but emotionally, she kept thinking that she could have done something more. That, if she’d only been more observant, she could have prevented this nightmare.
Sabriel tapped his thumbs against the steering wheel, reeling her back to the present. “What kind of outdoor experience does Scotty have?”
Scotty talked about the hikes he and his father took on their Saturdays together. But two hours every other weekend wasn’t very long and kept them close to home.
“He’s hiked with Tommy since he was little,” Nora said, but the true answer was another I don’t know.
How could she know so little about her own son? The one person she spent most of her days with? The one person she thought she knew better than herself?
“His asthma keeps him from most sports.” Much to the Colonel’s irritation. “Especially in the winter when the cold triggers attacks.” Cold like tonight. And last night. Was he okay?
“Other than the asthma, is he in good health?”
Sabriel’s question derailed her grim train of thought once again. And she finally understood that the interrogation was in part meant to keep her from drowning in worry. Why in the world was that clinical approach so comforting? Because you’re a mess, Nora. She had to stay strong, and his calm questions were keeping her afloat, giving her a steady anchor. “Just the normal scrapes and bruises.”
“What about injuries?”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Has he ever broken a leg or an arm?”
“Why would that make the difference?”
“Could alter his tracks.”
Oh. “Nothing.”
Sabriel knew how to look, what to look for. They would find Scotty. She knew it. “After a day? How hard will it be to pick up their trail?”
“If it doesn’t rain, the tracks should hold.”
She looked outside at the stygian night, so dark, so cold. No moon. No stars. That meant clouds. And clouds could mean rain. Her tongue turned to cotton and sweat prickled her armpits. How could she be sweating and yet feel so cold?
“What kind of kid is Scotty?” Sabriel asked.
There he was again, saving her from her dire thoughts with his question and part of her turmoil quieted. “He’s a great kid. Sweet, smart. Smarter than the Colonel gives him credit for.”
“What does he look like?”
“He’s small for his age.” Which somehow seemed like a failure on her part when the Colonel looked at her son with disappointment in his eyes. “He has Tommy’s wild blond curls.” Blond curls he twirled around a finger when he slept—just as he’d done with her hair while he’d nursed. “Brown eyes like mine.” They sparkled when he recounted his adventures with his father.
She couldn’t help the small smile that formed at the familiar tug on her heart when she thought about her son. “Only one of his cheeks dimples when he smiles. His feet look too big for his small body, and he bounces in place when he’s excited and can’t contain himself.” Not helpful, Nora.
She pressed her temple against the cool window glass and noticed that Sabriel listened to her babble with studious intent, as if what she left out was as important as what she said.
At her pause, he glanced in her direction. “Go on.”
But she didn’t want to lean on him too much, to lose herself again because it was easier not to rock the boat than to swim on her own. “Didn’t Tommy ever send you pictures?”
Sabriel gave a quick shake of his head. “What about hobbies and interests?”
“What happened between the two of you?”
The tendons along Sabriel’s jaw became taut wires.
“Hobbies?”
“Tommy says you’re the only person he can trust, yet you two never talk.”
“Not related to the situation.”
“What if it is?”
“Hobbies?” Sabriel insisted with a quiet, yet unmistakable authority.
“You’re asking me to pour my guts out, but you can’t give me a single speck of something in return?”
His jaw slid from side to side. “You came to me for my skill, not my history.”
“But they’re related. By the Colonel.”
“Because of the Colonel, I’ll help Tommy.”
Cringing at the sting of his words, Nora went back to peeling away the pink nail polish. Still, something had happened to turn a treasured friendship into a net of guilt and regret. What had happened at Ranger School? Was there more? Was it because of Anna? Nora shook the thoughts of Tommy and Anna and Sabriel and their complicated relationship out of her mind. She had to concentrate on Scotty. He was her priority—finding him, getting him home safely was all that mattered.
“Scotty loves to read,” she said, hoping to defuse the tension she’d caused. She still needed Sabriel’s help. “Which the Colonel doesn’t consider a manly endeavor.” She snorted. “As if generals were born knowing everything there was to know about strategy without ever cracking open a book.”
A montage of Scotty moments flashed into her memory like a photo album and not thinking about all the blank pages she’d hoped to fill in the years to come took all of her effort. “Everything about the outdoors interests him. Plants. Animals. Bugs.”
“Like Tommy.”
She nodded.
“Right- or left-handed?”
“Left. Like Tommy. Why?” She turned in her seat to take a better look at the man who knew so much about the man who’d fathered her child, about how to find him and rescue her son. She gave a prayer of thanks that Tommy had such a loyal friend.
“Right-handed people tend to circle to the right,” Sabriel said.
The unfinished thought implied left-handed people would tend to circle left.
“A trail is a string of clues,” Sabriel said. “The more I know, the faster I can follow.”
Without signaling, he turned into the trees. She gasped and grabbed the dashboard, bracing for a collision. Were the Colonel’s men back? Her glance zipped to the missing mirror and met nothing but darkness.
The seat belt jammed into her chest, stealing her breath, but the Jeep kept moving forward—not directly into the trees, but down a narrow lane.
The Jeep bounced along the rutted dirt track barely wide enough for the tires. Tree branches, bushes and weeds scratched along the sides and the undercarriage of the truck in a nails-on-chalkboard grate.
How far had they gone? Far enough to have found Tommy’s starting point? The black landscape gave away none of its secrets.
“Where are we?” she asked as her breath returned.
Sa
briel stopped before a primitive gate of weathered planks. A red stop sign, whose phosphorescent paint flared in the headlights’ beams, warned, “Private Property. Keep Out. Trespassers Will Be Shot.”
Sabriel said, “Welcome to your corner of hell.”
Chapter Five
The Jeep’s headlights sliced across a clearing where a ramshackle cabin squatted. The building stooped old-man crooked with its sagging tin roof spine, liver spots of mold and cracked board skin.
A string of questions lashed at Nora’s mind, but she didn’t voice any of them. She let them turn inside her mouth until their knots lost their sharp flavor. But the words Can I trust you? kept buzzing in her ear with a bloodthirsty mosquito whine. Was this just another ploy to strand her while Sabriel charged into the wilds alone?
What choice did she have other than to trust him? Going back to the Colonel? Losing Scotty?
Not a chance.
Sabriel powered the Jeep right up to the front steps, then rummaged in the backseat and emerged with a headlamp.
“Why are we stopping?” Nora asked, frantic to keep going.
“Supplies.”
Supplies made sense. They couldn’t go trekking through the mountains without food or water. But the place looked as if no one had set foot there in decades. “Here?”
He didn’t answer, but unlocked the padlock guarding the door and disappeared inside, leaving her alone in the dark. A restless edge nagged at her that they were wasting time. Each minute they stopped allowed Tommy to take Scotty farther away from her, gave the Colonel another chance to find her son before she could.
Help him. It’ll go faster.
She scrambled out of the Jeep. The damp scent of night and decaying leaves pressed against her as she headed to the cabin. The wind’s cold fingers chased her inside.
Groping the darkness, Nora stepped into the scrubby building. She’d never seen a dark so deep. In the city, there were always lights. At the Colonel’s, the security spotlights turned midnight into midday. Here nothing, except for the tiny beam attached to Sabriel’s head. Going suddenly blind must feel like this.
How was Scotty handling this black hole of night? Surely, Tommy had thought to bring along flashlights.
Sabriel’s light bounced crazily against the cracked wood of the walls, highlighting snakes of cobwebs, fangs of trusses and skeletons of cupboards.
Nora followed Sabriel to the back of the building. “Is this your place?”
He grunted and stopped.
She bumped into his hard body and rebounded just as quickly, but had to grasp his forearm for balance. The subtle scent of mint and pine struck her now as it had when they’d hidden in the fissure of rock at the adventure camp. Clean. Pleasant. Masculine. Heat rose to her face. Hanging on to him like that wasn’t the way to prove she could stay on her own two feet, that she wouldn’t get in his way. “Don’t you have electricity?”
“I’ll get the oil lamp in a bit.”
Sabriel crouched before a metal trunk the color of dried blood under the focused beam of his headlamp. His hands gripped the decorative brass corners with a ferocity that turned his knuckles white. He closed his eyes and bent his head forward as if in prayer.
His hands shot across the lid, then hesitated above the brass clasp. With an explosion of breath that sounded as if someone was peeling his skin, he ripped the clasp open and threw back the cover. The crack was like a seal breaking, releasing the scent of cedar into the air. He pawed through the contents, though she could swear he saw nothing, then shoved pants, fleece and long underwear at her.
“These should fit.” He shut the lid with a decisive snap. “You look about the same size.”
Anna. Nora’s throat dammed. He was giving her Anna’s things. He’d kept them all this time, and now he was handing over his treasure. Her heart went out to him. She hadn’t realized that helping her would force him to rip open so many wounds.
From what Tommy had told her, the Colonel had ruined Sabriel’s promising Army career after he’d eloped with Anna. Sabriel had barely survived the Colonel’s vengeance. And helping her was pitting him once again against the Colonel. She would have a lot to make up to him once Scotty was safe.
She gave a small nod. “Thank you.”
Sabriel grunted and strode toward the front of the cabin.
She trotted after him. “No, I mean it. I appreciate…everything.”
“If I’m going to drag you through the mountains, I don’t want you holding me back because you’re cold and your fancy boots are slipping all over the place.”
“You’re right.” The words rushed out, afraid she’d made another mistake, afraid he’d leave her behind. “I’m sorry.”
Sabriel located the oil lamp on the lone shelf flanked by two cupboards. The flame from his lighter sparked the wick to life, throwing the single room into a soft light that erased the sharp corners and wrapped them in a cocoon that felt too intimate.
“Dress in layers,” he said, his voice strangely thick, and headed toward the door.
“Where are you going?” A quick march of panic trampled her chest. Don’t leave me alone.
He slanted her a wry smile. “Want me to stay for the striptease?”
Heat rushed up her neck and pooled in her cheeks. “Uh, no, that’s okay.”
“I’ll go chase the skunks out of the outhouse while you change.”
Skunks? He had to be joking. “It’s not going to work.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Scaring me. I’m not going back. Not without Scotty.”
He shook his head, the tilt of a smile and the gleam of approval quickly hidden as he turned the headlamp back on before heading out. “Tommy always said nothing could scare you.”
He had? Wow, she’d put up a really good front then, because everything scared her. More than she’d like to admit. Not even sleep could guarantee her a respite—not with the recurring nightmares chasing her awake, drenched in sweat. In them, she’d find herself alone, cowered in a dark corner, shivering as the sordid sounds of the night echoed in her skull, in her bones, in her blood, waiting, praying, begging for her mother to come back.
But she’d survived. She’d found a way. And for Scotty she would again.
“Tommy’s right.” Her chin kicked up. “Nothing you can say or do will scare me.”
The click of the door closing was her only answer.
She stacked the borrowed clothes on the table and took off her leather boots, wool slacks and cashmere sweater—peeling away the layers of Nora Camden until all that was left was Nora Picard, who had survived the streets of Boston and fought to make a life for herself. Even though she’d lived surrounded by comfort at the Camden estate, part of her could never quite silence the insecurity of her childhood. She didn’t want that fate for Scotty.
She wanted this over. She wanted Scotty safe. She wanted her quiet life back—imperfect as it was.
But things could never be the same. She could never let the Colonel have that much control over Scotty—or her—again. She didn’t know how she would do it, but she had to take her son away from the prison of the mansion.
Sabriel had survived his attack. She could, too.
The bracing air of this cold October night licked at her bare skin. She reached for Anna’s things and thrust into them as if they were armor. The arms and legs were an inch too long, and the top and long johns fit a tad too snugly.
Anna had been tall and wafer-thin—like her mother. Nora had never quite managed to attain the Camden-perfect figure. She liked food too much. Another tick against her in the Colonel’s eyes.
Nora slipped on a pair of thick gray socks. She’d never met Anna. Her sister-in-law had died three weeks before Nora had met Tommy. Tommy had admired his sister’s strength to turn her back on family expectations and do what she wanted to do, damn the Colonel and the consequences. The Colonel had cut her off without a penny, disowned her, and refused to let any of the family attend her funeral.
&n
bsp; She couldn’t imagine what it had been like for Sabriel to endure Anna’s death alone, shunned by the family that should have supported him in his grief. Even Tommy hadn’t had the strength to defy the Colonel to go to his best friend’s side or mourn his sister.
Yet Anna was one of the reasons Nora and Tommy had connected so deeply and so fast. Loss had a language of its own, and they’d both understood it.
She zipped up the last layer of fleece and warmth enfolded her for the first time since she’d left the estate. Maybe her sister-in-law’s courage would seep into her bones and complement Sabriel’s strength to see her through this ordeal.
Hang on, Scotty. I’m coming for you.
* * *
SABRIEL STEPPED onto the weed-choked path outside old Will Daigle’s shack, glad for a reprieve from Nora. Her stubborn insistence and vulnerability were wearing on him like a fresh blister. Having lived under the Colonel’s influence for so long, he hadn’t expected her to have so much steel left in her spine.
He let habit navigate him around the perimeter of the clearing so he could give Nora privacy and him a chance to arm the early-warning system the paranoid codger had set up years ago.
He’d racked his brain for a safe place to protect Nora until he could bring her son and Tommy back. No place was safe around here. Not while the Colonel was bent on one of his “missions.” Taking her back to the Aerie would eat up too much time. And he couldn’t put anyone else in the path of danger.
He glanced at the jagged outline of old Will’s shack. It was really nothing more than four walls and a roof that barely offered protection against the elements. Yet the memories of Will and what he’d taught two runaway boys were more precious than the rising real estate values, and neither Sabriel nor Tommy could bear the thought of selling the land Will had left them after he’d died.
Still, coming here was hard. Between Will, Tommy and Anna, memories stuffed every crack of those drafty walls. Breathing room for all of them.
Do not open that Pandora’s box.
Keeping a watchful eye on the shack, he whipped out his phone and placed a call to Seekers.
Kingsley answered.