by Becky Melby
Get hold of yourself, Keegan. Liam took off his hat and ran a gloved hand through his hair. God had given His angels charge over his comings and goings thus far. He chastened himself for doubting as he rode silently into the trees across the river from Hannah’s house.
A candle burned in the upstairs window. Her window. But tonight she wouldn’t be sitting at her desk. He slid off Fallon, tied the reins to a skinny birch then hoisted the saddlebags over his shoulders. Did Mam wonder if she was losing her mind when every few weeks a loaf of bread would disappear from the cupboard or a slab of smoked sidepork wasn’t where she’d put it? He hated the deception, but there would be no place for him under his parents’ roof if they thought he sympathized with the abolitionists. If Da knew what he was doing tonight, Liam might well find himself swinging from a limb of the twisted oak that shaded the chicken coop.
He lifted the pine boughs off the canoe then stood still, trying to shake the feeling he wasn’t alone. Fallon’s nicker broke the night silence. And a branch snapped behind him.
CHAPTER 9
Numbly brushing eraser crumbs off the side of her hand, Emily stared at the empty chair lying on its back, flat against the floor where it had fallen. Lexi. “Did he hurt you?” Call 911. The fragments piled one on top of the other, triggering her own haunting memories.
Sierra? Are you okay? Can you hear me? Can you…? Blood, orangey-red in the afternoon sun, streaked across her forehead, into her hair, and onto the snow. Eyes—brown, dull, lifeless—staring, not seeing. Sierra! The scream hurt, ripped along her spine, black lines slithered before her eyes, blocking the sun.
A soul-deep shudder roused her. She pulled her sleeve back from her watch. Jake had been gone half an hour. She stood and righted the chair.
Focus on what you know to be real in the here and now. Crossing her arms over her chest, she paced to the window then back to the table. Two floor plans lay side-by-side on the table. One professional, the other drawn in pencil on graph paper. One a series of little boxes, the other wide-open and airy. One old, almost unchanged, the other new, innovative.
Was she describing renovation plans or people? She didn’t know all that much about Jake, the professional keeper-of-the-same. Other than college, he’d lived in Rochester all his life. She’d never lived outside of Michigan, so they had that in common. But she’d traveled, seen the world. Had he? A town this size would make her claustrophobic. She craved new tastes, smells, views. The accident had reduced her life to a series of orderly little boxes. It was time to smash some walls.
She looked at her watch. Only four more minutes had passed. What was going on? He’d told Lexi to lock the door and asked if she’d been hurt. Who was after her? Would he call her when he knew something? Lord, take care of her. Comfort Jake. The prayer, so much like all the others she’d uttered in the past months, came naturally. Did God tire of hearing nothing but 911 calls?
Rolling her shoulders back, she circled the table, shaking the tingling out of her hands. Damp spots on her sleeves marked the spots her hands had clamped. “Go to your happy place, Emily.” She’d laughed every time her therapist said it. No matter what was tearing at her insides, the psychobabble brought a laugh. Leaning her forehead against a windowpane, she closed her eyes.
She had a happy place. And she’d never even been there.
California…Monterey…light and airy…waves hitting rocks… lulling, soothing… Where the blue-dome sky kissed the horizon. Where a beachfront room awaited her.
Someday.
She paced into the kitchen, picked up a handful of almonds. They tasted like river rock. She looked again at her watch. “God is our refuge and strength.” The words scrolled through her mind. She needed to know the rest of it.
She climbed the stairs and lifted the lid from the bin that held the letters. She’d arranged them in order on a stack of T-shirts to avoid touching them and reread the words of the letter dated November 3, 1852.
“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear.” She read the verse out loud. Lord, be Lexi’s refuge and Jake’s strength. With an inexplicable need to commit it to memory, she read the verse over, and then again. “A very present help in trouble.” From the church pew, she contemplated the iron rods on the wall—converging in the center, flattened at the ends. She stood and crossed the flowered linoleum and stroked the cold metal with her thumb.
Thunder rumbled, rattling the windows, and her phone rang. BRADEN IMPROVEMENTS flashed in white letters.
“Jake?”
“Lexi’s okay. She had an asthma attack and she’s in the ER. She’s going to be fine.”
“Thank God.”
“Yeah. Hey, I won’t get back to your place today. I’ve got a situation. Lexi’s cat ran off, and I think it’s too scared to go home.” His sigh sent a chill from her earlobe to her fingertips. “I’ll explain that later. But if Lexi finds out I haven’t got the cat, she’s liable to have another attack. I need to hunt it down.”
“Can I help?”
Several seconds passed. “Actually, you could. Do you know how to get to the hospital in Burlington?”
“I’ve got a GPS.”
“Can you meet me near the emergency room entrance in about twenty minutes?”
“I’ll be there.”
Another silence. “Thank you.” Roughened by emotion, his tone sent a shiver down the opposite arm. She set down her phone and found herself focusing once again on the cross. Lord, protect that cat.
A smile stretched the out-of-practice muscles at the sides of her mouth. She was making great strides—she’d added two people and a cat to her prayer list.
“Kind of like a stakeout, isn’t it?” Adam bent low and leaned toward the dashboard, gazing at the darkening pewter of the afternoon sky.
Emily turned on the defroster. “We should have coffee and doughnuts like the cops do.”
“I’ve got peanut-butter-and-cheese crackers.” He lifted the flap on a huge camouflage-print pocket near his left calf and pulled out a clear cellophane package. “They’re a little squished, but it’s still nourishment.” A red tab zipped along the side, loosing six impossibly orange cheesy crackers.
Taking two, Emily questioned what nourishing ingredient caused the square to glow in the cloud-choked light. “Thank you. Makes me feel like a kid again.” She scanned the houses on the hill. They were parked across the road from Adam and Lexi’s house, facing west, with a river on their right. “Is this part of the same river that goes through Rochester?”
“Not here. This is the White River. It joins with the Fox and Honey Creek”—he pointed to the northeast—“on the other side of Echo Lake and then flows into Illinois.”
“Wow. You’re a walking Wikipedia.” She pressed her lips together then smacked them. “Sorry. I suppose you get tired of people picking on you because you’re smart.”
“Sometimes.” His head tilted to one side. “People used to call me Encyclopedia Brown.”
“That’s a compliment. Did you read The Case of the Secret UFO?”
“Yeah. Do you read those’ cause you’re a teacher?”
“Actually, I read that one while I was living at a rehabilitation hospital last year.”
“Jake said you were in an accident. What happened?”
“I was skiing in Colorado. I lost my balance and collided with another skier.” I shouldn’t have been there.
“That must have been awful. What happened to the other person?”
“She…lived.”
“Thank God.”
“Yes.” She looked over her shoulder. No cat in sight. “Don’t you think she’d come through the woods?” Adam had picked the spot to wait and watch—their stakeout. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to wait at your house?”
Adam shook his head, a bit more emphatically than seemed warranted. Dark eyebrows wrinkled in closer to his nose. “Pansy’s a weird cat.” He pointed at the sky over the water. “Cumulonimbus,” he mu
ttered.
“Not sure the river can take any more rain. You’re safe up here on the hill, though.”
A short, hard exhale jerked Adam’s shoulders as he glanced at the white house with green shutters. “Yeah. Safe.”
So much said between lines, but Emily couldn’t decipher it without more clues. “So you and Emily live with your dad, I take it.”
He shrugged. “We live with my mom’s husband. Our real dad ditched us. He wasn’t mean, but he was lazy like Ben. Nobody knows where he is now.”
“I’m sorry.”
Adam shrugged.
“And Ben never legally adopted you?”
Shoulders up then down again. He wrenched his bag from the backseat. “I got some books on the Underground Railroad.” He held up what appeared to be a map. “BUR SPUR” was printed in red letters outlined in white. “This shows all the places around here where runaway slaves were hid or where abolitionists lived. The BuR SPUR stands for the Burlington, Rochester, and Spring Prairie Underground Railroad Trail. There are three places in Rochester—one of them is just a block from your—” He dropped the pamphlet. “There! There she is. I knew it!”
An enormous orange cat with an uncanny resemblance to Puss from the Shrek movies sauntered across the highway. Half a block away, a red pickup slowed. Pansy lifted her chin in acknowledgment. Emily’s relief tumbled out in laughter. “That’s one confident animal.”
Adam grinned. “Lexi says she’s got cattitude.” He threw his bag in the backseat and opened the van door as a low black convertible barreled past, horn blasting at the animal it missed by mere inches. An almost human screech came from the cat. Orange fur bristling, Pansy darted toward the water, streaked along the river’s edge. Adam slammed the car door and ran after her.
Emily started the car and made a U-turn, keeping one eye on the red shirt that bounded through the underbrush along the waterline.
At the first side road, Adam leaped over a guardrail and turned left. Emily caught a streak of orange burning ahead of him. The roly-poly cat ran like a cheetah. “Catch her!” Emily yelled. Useless noise with the windows closed.
A raindrop splattered the windshield. Thunder rumbled from the south. Flipping the signal lever, she waited for a semi to pass. A green airport sign hung below one that read BIENEMANN RD. Adam stopped running at a gravel drive that ran under what appeared to be an old railroad bridge. Rust-brown ribs spanned the river. Faded letters spelled out BIENEMANN FARM. A gate closed off the drive at the end of the bridge.
Rain pelted the windshield. Emily rolled down her window. “It’s private property, Adam. Get back in the car before you get soaked.”
Chin bouncing on his chest, lanky arms limp at his sides, he marched to the van and got in.
“She’ll find a place to hide and find her way home when the rain stops.”
Adam shook his head. “She’s too smart for that. Ben’ll kill her if she goes home.”
Kill was an overused word in junior high. But there was no questioning the tone in his voice. “You’re serious.”
“Yeah.” Adam ran his hand through damp hair and nodded. “Lexi told Jake that Ben said he was going to kill the cat. He threw her, really hard, on the concrete.” He swiped a cheek wet with more than rain.
“We’ll find her.” Emily gave in to the maternal nudge and rubbed his shoulder. The red shirt was steamy, coiled muscles taut beneath it.
“Look!” His window went down. Across the water, the cat ran between the trees. Lightning branched like bleached nerves above the bridge. “I know what—“Thunder crashed, swallowing his words. Adam grabbed the door handle.
“Stay—” The door closed on her plea. Emily opened hers and fished for her cane, stuck under Adam’s pack. Pulling it free, she kicked the door open. Rain lashed her face. Black clouds slammed together. Jagged, blue-white light stabbed the pewter sky. “Adam!”
“There’s a boat! Come on!” His left arm scooped the air, beckoning her.
“No! That’s crazy. You can’t—”
“Come on!” He held up an oar, shaking it in the air.
Emily tripped in the gravel, caught herself with her cane. Half-sliding down the bank, she reached the old wooden rowboat as Adam shoved it into the water. “Get out of that thing. Look at it. It’s ancient.” He held out his hand to her. “Adam. Please. Get out. This isn’t safe.”
“If I don’t find her, Ben will, and that’s not safe. I have to catch her for Lexi.”
Everything in her wanted to scream, It’s just a cat!
She took his hand.
CHAPTER 10
It took all of Adam’s strength to push away from the bank. He squeezed the oar with fingers purplish-gray from the cold. Had it ever rained this hard in the history of the world? His bottom jaw clattered against the top.
“It’s not like a canoe, Adam. You can’t steer with only one oar.”
What did she know about boats, anyway? Emily hadn’t stopped yelling since she got out of the van. But she’d gotten in the boat, and now he’d show her. Squinting into the sheeting downpour, he dipped the oar deep on the left. Port. He knew this stuff. He’d watched a movie on the Titanic just two weeks ago. Right was starboard, left was port. Two strokes into the wind, the boat swerved toward the bridge. He swung the oar across the bow, one stroke to correct. Back over the bow, two starboard strokes to fight the current, one port stroke to straighten their course. He glanced behind. Fifteen, maybe twenty yards stretched between them and the bank. Three more sets zigzagged them closer to the opposite shore. He studied the highway, a blurry line dotted with trees off to the right. It was getting closer. The current was winning.
“I’ll take a turn.”
What could she know about boats? Still, his arms burned. He swiveled on the splintery seat and handed her the oar. The boat jerked ahead a couple yards, but they were headed for the bridge. Adam smiled. She’d give up soon enough. Back and forth, they crept across, but they were losing the battle with the current.
He shifted position, moving away from a crack in the weathered seat. His feet felt weighted. He looked down. Water covered the tops of his shoes. His pulse quickened. It’s just rain. Just rain.
“Here! Take it!” she yelled.
She quit sooner than he’d thought. Women. He didn’t try to hide his grin. Taking the paddle, he quickly fell into rhythm.
The boat rocked. What was she doing back there? Adam looked over his shoulder. Emily was taking off her jacket. If she thought she was going to make him put it on, she could guess again. It would only slow him down. The boat stopped rocking.
“Keep rowing on the right!” she called over the wind.
He glanced back. She’d wrapped her Windbreaker around the curved end of her cane and was dipping it in the water. “Okay!” He stroked and she matched it. Their course straightened instantly.
“There’s no earthly way of knowing…” Emily scream-sang Willy Wonka’s “Rowing Song” over a clap of thunder.
Adam laughed and joined in. They volleyed verses about hurricanes a-blowing and danger growing as they neared the trees. Adam looked down. The water had risen at least two inches. The boat sat lower in the water.
“Log! Ahead on the right!” Panic filled Emily’s voice. He felt her swing her makeshift oar to starboard. “Paddle, Adam! Hard!”
He needed a better center of gravity. Sliding off the bench, he dropped to his knees and felt a board move beneath his shins. Bending into the wind, he shoved the oar deeper, pushed harder. The log rolled, a dragon head lifting out of the water— “We’re gonna hit it!”
“Stop paddling! Let the current take us around—” The boat shuddered then rose on the right side.
Adam scrambled for a hold. The oar tumbled into the river. Wood splintered. A jagged branch punched through the bow. “Emily!” Fighting terror, he fastened his gaze on the riverbank. They weren’t moving. If they could hold on to the log… “Give me your cane!”
It landed on his arm, the jacket still w
rapped around one end. He fought with the material, but couldn’t untie it. He needed a knife. Back right pocket. Hands stiff and shaking, he pulled it out and ripped through the jacket. He swung the hook onto the dragon neck and yanked. It held. The pitching stopped.
“Hold still. I’m moving forward.” Her steady voice calmed him. “When I say so, move to your right. Okay. Move.”
Adam made room. With a quiet groan, Emily landed beside him. “Good thinking.” She pointed at the cane. “I’ll take over when you get tired.” She felt around behind her as she spoke and finally produced a phone. But when she flipped it open, the screen was black. Her arm rubbed against his as her shoulders fell. She turned to him with a scared-looking smile. “Can you swim?”