What Doesn't Kill Her

by Christina Dodd

  Ranger Nicolson pulled it out and examined it.

  “What’s the knife for?” Ranger Holt asked.

  “Sometimes I need to cut rope. Or salami, which I’m carrying. It’s a camping knife. Doesn’t every camper carry a knife?”

  “Have you used it lately?” Ranger Holt asked.

  “Not on this trip.” Max planted his feet. It was time to act like an innocent hiker unfairly detained. “What’s happened?”

  Ranger Nicolson replaced the knife. “Two men were attacked and bound.”

  “Two men? My God.” Max only knew about the one. “Badly hurt?”

  “One was shot, not fatally. One was hit and knocked unconscious.”

  They weren’t talking about the guy Max had found. This was two different men entirely. Had Kellen been involved?

  “And there was a murder.”

  “A murder? What kind of murder?” Max hoped he didn’t look guilty.

  “Throat slashed.” Ranger Holt adjusted her stance and somehow looked even more forceful. “Someone saw a man fitting your description fleeing the scene.”

  Max broke a sweat. Someone saw him. He was in trouble—and that meant Kellen and Rae were in trouble. “Look. You checked out the knife. It’s clean. I’m Max Di Luca. I’m related to the Di Lucas at Yearning Sands Resort. I manage the Di Luca Winery in Oregon. I left Oregon yesterday. I got here this morning.” Max couldn’t be detained here.

  “I know your name,” Ranger Holt acknowledged. “That doesn’t absolve you of possible murder.”

  Max had to be very careful now. “I’m on a mission. My daughter and my...my girlfriend are up here somewhere.”

  “Okay.” Ranger Nicolson drew out the word. “What made you decide they are in danger?”

  Be wary, Max. “I didn’t think they were in danger. Not before I met you.”

  “Then why are you tracking them?” Ranger Holt asked.

  “I’m not tracking them. I know where they’re going—to Horizon Ridge.”

  “Why would they do that?” Ranger Nicolson asked.

  They were hammering him with questions, trying to catch him in a lie. But playing football had taught him how to remain calm under pressure, and that inner peace thing he’d learned at the monastery helped now, too. His voice remained steady, warm, trustworthy. He hoped to hell. “My girlfriend is in security. She got a job transporting an antique to that guy that lives up there for verification.”

  “What guy?” Ranger Nicolson asked.

  “The Restorer, they call him? Apparently he’s...odd.”

  “He is.” As Max revealed what he knew, and Ranger Holt realized he had his reasons to be here, she seemed to relax. “Why is your daughter with your girlfriend?”

  “It was kind of a...not-planned outing.”

  Ranger Holt came to attention again. “Your girlfriend kidnapped your daughter?”

  “No! The opposite. My—our daughter decided go along for an ad vencher.” He tried to say it the way Rae had written it. “Her note is in my backpack. Left pocket.”

  Ranger Nicolson pulled out the paper scrawled in crayon and showed Ranger Holt. They exchanged glances.

  Ranger Holt lowered her pistol and click-released the safety. “Your daughter is your girlfriend’s daughter, too?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your daughter is how old?” Ranger Nicolson asked.

  “She’s seven. Rae Di Luca. She thinks she should run the world. I’m pretty sure by the time she’s eleven, she will.” Max smiled the way he always did when he talked about Rae.

  The rangers did not return his smile.

  Max continued, “I’ve done a bad job of saying this, but I’m trying to rescue my girlfriend from my daughter. I can’t contact them. My girlfriend’s cell phone is going to voice mail. Now you tell me they could be dead?” His voice rose. He wasn’t acting out for drama’s sake; Kellen had taken a dangerous job, Rae had stowed along and somehow the job had gone sour. This delay and the knowledge he’d gleaned from the rangers only made him more anxious. “I need to find them. Can you help me?”

  “We don’t have communication right now any more than you do,” Ranger Holt told him.

  “What about the Restorer? Can you reach him?”

  Ranger Holt laughed, brief and bitter. “Zone—the Restorer—avoids contact with us.”

  “When we get to a place where we can send out an alert to the other rangers, we will,” Ranger Nicolson said. “Can you give us a description of your girlfriend and daughter?”

  “I’ve got photos,” Max said. “Same pocket as the note.”

  Ranger Nicolson looked and passed the photos to Ranger Holt, who ran a scan on the photos with her phone. Nicolson returned the photos and passed Max’s backpack to him.

  Max slung it over his shoulder. “Do you have transportation I can borrow?”

  “We’re on foot, and no motorized vehicles are allowed in this area.” As if he’d uttered a blasphemy, Ranger Holt narrowed her eyes at him.

  Ranger Nicolson seemed less inclined to judge him with every word he spoke. “You can rent a bicycle at the Northwest Mountain ranger station—”

  “Where is it?” Max asked eagerly.

  It turned out to be eight miles in the wrong direction.

  “Then I’ll hike.” Max started past them. “I’ll run. Because there’s a killer on the loose.”

  22

  Kellen pedaled across bridges made of a single flat log, up hairpin turns and down them and ignored her imaginings of crumpled bikes, broken bones and bloody gouges.

  The group stopped every hour to rest, eat and compare bruises, and every time Rae danced from one to the other, spouting a constant burble of exclamations, questions and pure joy. By the time they reached the trailhead, she had charmed even Wade. He gave her a giant baggie of granola—the kid was never going to be constipated again—and promised to send her grandmother the recipe, and privately, he gave Kellen his phone number and told her to let them know if they made it out alive.

  Reassuring guy. Kellen figured as long they didn’t have to descend any more vertical slopes on a bike, their odds of surviving were good. After all, she’d fought off mercenaries before.

  Although Horst hadn’t had a chance, tethered to the tree as he was, and—what kind of killer did that? Slashed a helpless man’s throat? Maybe someone inclined to random violence, but that would be a coincidence. More likely, it was one of his team. “When you get back to cell service, call Di Luca Winery. Ask for Verona. Tell her Rae is with me and unharmed.”

  He nodded. “Will do.”

  The Cyclomaniacs got to the end of the trail and slammed to a stop. They flipped their bikes around to face back the way they’d come.

  Liz dismounted, shook Kellen’s hand briskly, accepted a hug from Rae and pointed up the narrow, steep, challenging path. “He’s that way. Here’s some goose jerky and dried fruit. Good luck.”

  The group mounted up and pedaled back the way they came.

  “Bye!” Rae shouted after them. “Someday I’m going to have my own bike and I’m going to come and ride with you!”

  She got a couple of waves in response before they disappeared so swiftly Kellen figured they’d attained light speed and vanished.

  “Rae, let’s not shout.” Kellen touched the Triple Goddess’s wrapped head. “The bad guys are out there.”

  “Yes, Mommy. I know. A bike!”

  “Yes, Rae, I know,” Kellen mimicked. “See that?” She pointed up the same path Liz had shown them. “We’ve got to get up that way as fast and quietly as possible. We want to dodge the headhunters and reach Horizon Lookout before dark.” She adjusted the backpack and gave Rae a little shove.

  Rae ran up the first slope. “Mommy, I want a mountain bike!”

  Of course you do. “Let’s speak quietly.” As if you
could. “I think a mountain bike for you is a good idea.” Max would have a fit.

  “We can go mountain biking with Daddy!”

  “I can’t.” Kellen was firm. “Mommy’s a chicken.”

  Rae stopped, incredulous. “Why?”

  “Mommy doesn’t like going down those mountains at that speed.” Kellen gave her another little shove.

  Rae remained stubbornly in place. “You’re not afraid of anything!”

  “I guess I am. You’re braver than me.”

  Rae thought about that for a minute. “That’s because I’m LightningBug and I can fly.”

  Kellen wouldn’t have thought she could laugh. Not now. Not here. But she did and spontaneously hugged Rae. “You are the bravest, smartest girl in the world.”

  “In the universe,” Rae corrected.

  “Right. Now. Let’s walk to the lookout so we can get there before dark.”

  Rae ran up the next slope and waited for Kellen. “I want a purple mountain bike.”

  “Shhh,” Kellen warned.

  Rae lowered her voice. “Because purple is the color ThunderFlash and her sidekick LightningBug share.”

  Kellen didn’t know why she kept talking. Maybe because she could keep her voice down and Rae would always talk, and she always got louder. “Are you sure ThunderFlash isn’t the sidekick?”

  “Don’t be silly, Mommy. I’m little. I’m the sidekick. You’re big and smart. You’re the head superhero.”

  At least she had that, Kellen reflected. On a mountain bike, she might cluck like a chicken, but she was the head superhero. “Talk quietly,” she reminded Rae.

  It would be one of a hundred times she said it that day. She said it right up to that moment when she realized the old Army adage was true—when things were going too well, you were walking into an ambush.

  23

  The attack came at 5:05 p.m., as the forest that had surrounded them began to thin, the winds to die and clouds started their slow descent on the mountain, bringing a damp chill and the premonition of darkness.

  The immense amount of food Rae had consumed this morning had vanished on the trek up the mountain, and she had been pleading for an hour. “Please, Mommy, can we stop and eat dinner? I’m starving.”

  “Have a breakfast cookie.”

  “I don’t want a breakfast cookie. It’s not breakfast time. My feet hurt. I want to stop and have a fire and a hot dog and a bun and steak on a stick and a s’more.”

  “You’re killing me. That sounds so good.” They’d had a rest every hour since leaving the Cyclomaniacs, and a snack every time, but they had climbed far enough, fast enough, high enough that ahead, Kellen could see the end of the tree line: barren earth, boulders that stuck out of the earth like splintered bones and a trail worn into the hard-packed dirt. The path funneled between two steep ten-foot cliffs and there was even a sign, battered by wind and rain and cold: Horizon Lookout, 1 Mile. “We’re almost there. Wouldn’t you like to go to the lookout, give Zone the Triple Goddess, get warm, know we’re safe?”

  “No, I want to eat dinner.” Rae, who never whined, was in power whine mode now. She stopped and said defiantly, “I’m not having fun anymore.”

  Kellen killed a smile. The child was serious. Through all the shooting, the terrors, the rough conditions, the lousy food, she had been more than simply stoic. She had been almost unrelentingly cheerful, making the best of everything. When she said she wasn’t having fun anymore, that was a serious statement, and Kellen needed to treat it as such.

  “Do you want me to carry you?” Despite the fact her hip had been protesting for the last three hours.

  “No!”

  Kellen walked on. “We have to keep going. I have an itch at the back of my neck.”

  Rae caught up. “A mosquito bite?”

  Without looking, Kellen could tell she’d stuck out her bottom lip, and she decided to treat Rae’s comment seriously. Because honestly, she didn’t know if Rae was being sarcastic—which seemed a little advanced for a seven-year-old—or honestly didn’t understand. “It’s just a saying. I’m afraid we’re being hunted. If we can get to the lookout, we’ll be safe.” She hoped.

  “I thought you said riding the bicycle would put us ahead of the bad guys.”

  “That’s what I hope. But they knew where we needed to take the goddess’s head, and we know they split up. If some of them came this direction right away, they’re already here...somewhere.” The story of Horst and his slit throat scared Kellen. That casual violence raised the stakes; Rae’s young life could not be a sacrifice on the altar of the Triple Goddess.

  Yet Rae was blissfully unaware. She only knew she was hungry and tired and cross. She stopped again. “Mo-o-o-mmy!”

  Kellen wheeled around, knelt in front of her and took her arms. “Look, Rae—”

  A roar. Bark and wood chips blasted around them, and for one stupefied moment, Kellen stared at the smoking hole in the tree where she had been standing.

  The Mercenaries had found them, and they were shooting to kill.

  She slammed Rae to the ground, pulled her behind that tree and held her close for one moment, long enough for Rae to catch her breath, long enough for Kellen to whisper, “Crawl. To that rock.” She pointed and pulled her pistol. “Stay low.”

  Rae crawled.

  Kellen peered around the tree.

  From her right side, a rifle thundered, ninety degrees from the last one.

  Crap. There was more than one of them.

  She vaulted up the hill after Rae, picked her daughter up by the waist and sprinted zigzag toward a boulder, a clump of trees, another boulder.

  Shots followed, some from below, some from the side, some from above the tree line.

  Kellen’s mind clicked off the possibilities. Three or four shooters. Trying to corner Kellen and Rae, maybe send them away from the Restorer, back down the mountain and into the arms of more mercenaries.

  No. Kellen heaved Rae over the top of a four-foot high boulder, vaulted over it, knelt beside her daughter and waited for a shot from that side. If it came, they were surrounded.

  Nothing. So one direction to go—first sideways along the tree line, then up the slope and into the fog.

  For the moment, they were safe here. Kellen put down the backpack, found the defective computer tablet, pulled it out and turned it on. She looked up, ready to explain her tactic, and saw Rae, round-eyed and with a trembling lip. “Are you okay?”

  “You hurt me.” Rae hugged her ribs.

  “I’m sorry.” Kellen was, for all the reasons. “I’m going to create a diversion.” The tablet was heating in her hand. “I need you to stay low and run as fast as you can. Can you do that?”

  A shot hit the rock above their head.

  Rae nodded, an exaggerated up-and-down movement.

  Kellen leaned sideways and assessed the landscape. One shooter’s likely cover: a once-tall hemlock laid flat, its roots ripped from the ground by last winter’s wind. He was in a good position to nail them. “Rae, go that way.” She pointed toward a stand of trees, stunted and warped from the high winds that blasted off the Pacific.

  Rae ran.

  Kellen skipped bullets along the top of the log—and flushed him out. She fired again, a barrage of six bullets, more than she could spare. But she nailed him. His leg spurted red, flailed beneath him. He screamed and went down. Lucky shot at this distance, but she didn’t take the time to congratulate herself. She sprinted after Rae, zigzagged toward a windswept pile of downed branches and needles and flung the tablet in among them. With luck...

  She raced behind a tree, then another tree, then another, then into a clump of shrubs.

  Shots followed her every time.

  One shooter down, two or three left. Stormtroopers who couldn’t hit anything. Or Kellen would be dead already.


  She sprinted to the clump of trees where Rae hid, heard the barrage of shots, felt the slam of a bullet against her left arm between her elbow and wrist. Like a baseball player, she slid through the low-hanging tangled branches and into shelter and scrambled onto her knees.

  Rae gasped. “Blood, Mommy!”

  “I know.” Kellen had been shot before. It never got easier. This burned like hell and bled a river, and until she pulled back the torn material, she feared it had sliced through an artery. But no. The bullet had slipped through her flesh like a hot knife through butter, a clean slice of pain that bled too freely and needed stitches. “It’s okay. I probably won’t lose my arm.” An Army joke, an offhand way to say it wasn’t fatal.

  Rae burst into tears.

  Wrong thing to say, Kellen. Again. “It’s just a scratch. I promise. And you can’t cry. I need you to help me.”

  “I don’t know how to shoot.” The child was trembling. “But I can try.”

  “Not that. Darling, you don’t have to shoot anyone.” Kellen rolled up her sleeve.

  “I can throw a rock.”

  “No rocks. We’re not that desperate yet.” Kellen realized the shooting had stopped, and she held up one finger. She heard the soft fast shuffle of light footsteps. In a whisper, she said, “Not this time...someone’s sneaking toward us. Be small.”

  Rae hunched down, wrapped her arms around her knees and squeezed her eyes shut.

  In her mind, Kellen reconstructed the terrain. These trees, the cliff, the entrance to the canyon...the rocks whose shelter they had left. Whoever stalked them had followed Kellen’s trail. Very smart. How unfortunate. She didn’t want smart trackers, especially one moving at that speed. She didn’t have time for subterfuge. She had to get off a shot. On her belly, she crawled around a tree trunk, stuck her head out and ducked back.