Kat Wolfe on Thin Ice

by Lauren St. John

  But there wasn’t a moment to think about it as Rocky came flying out of the pipe and leaped into Kat’s arms. That was too much for the agitated huskies. They barked and howled loudly enough to be heard in Florida.

  Remembering Harper’s instructions on what to do in an emergency, Kat made a series of spontaneous decisions.

  She stuffed Rocky into her backpack, zipped up his protests, and heaved him onto her shoulders. Leaping onto the sled, she snatched the ganglines and popped open the garage doors. As cold air blasted in, the huskies blasted out.

  “Gee!” cried Kat. “Gee, gee!”

  The huskies swerved left. As they rounded the front of the cabin, Kat got the shock of her life. In the distance, Harper was stumbling along the lakeshore. A barrel-shaped police officer lumbered after her, a bloodied scarf of paper towels billowing from his neck.

  With a collective howl of rage, the huskies bore down on him.

  “Leave it! On by!” Kat screamed as they drew level with the cop.

  Five of the huskies obeyed—albeit with great reluctance—but Thunder swung his head as they swept past, delivering a vicious nip.

  The man skidded on the ice and went down like a felled buffalo. He lay on his ample belly, yelling curses.

  Kat braked long enough to pull Harper onto the rig, hugging her close with one arm and clinging to the lines with the other. They bounced and wobbled along the lake’s edge toward Otter Creek.

  Kat’s heart was in her mouth. Would the ice be solid enough to take their combined weight? The huskies would know. She had to trust them.

  They did, and it was.

  The minute they were sheltered by the high, rocky walls of the creek, the tortured yells of the police officer faded to nothing. The huskies quickly found their stride. They ran in silence, their breath blowing in white puffs, their bright blue eyes watching for hazards.

  Snow-covered evergreen trees hung like specters over the banks. Though the wind numbed their cheeks and sliced through Kat’s thermal gloves, the fire in her chest blazed strongly.

  “Who was that man, Harper? Did he hurt you?”

  Harper recounted her conversation with the officer and her terror when she’d realized he matched the sketch of the ambush attacker. It had changed everything. Theirs was no longer a mission only to save Riley. She and Harper had to get to safety now!

  Rocky too, Kat remembered with a smile, as the raccoon poked his head out of the backpack.

  One after the other, landmarks the girls had circled on the map and rehearsed until they were dizzy fell behind them. Deadwood Bridge. Pinto Pond. Wild-Goose River.

  Before they knew it, the huskies were puffing up the riverbank. Silver Lake, iced over and streaked the color of mercury, was before them.

  Harper saw the pale-yellow house first. Smoke wafted from the chimney. “Kat, that’s Cath Woodward’s home at the end of the lane. I recognize it from the satellite image. Seems we’re in luck. I think she’s home.”

  “Haw,” Kat called to the dogs. “Haw!”

  Panting noisily, the huskies veered right and pulled up behind a battered SUV. A sign planted in the snow-covered lawn appealed to visitors to: SAVE ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL.

  “Hold on to the huskies,” said Harper. “I’ll ring the doorbell.” She walked confidently up the path of the clapboard house.

  Kat stared at the hospital sign, remembering the local newspaper report: “With the battle to save the loons behind her, Woodward plans to turn her attention to fundraising for the St. Francis of Assisi Children’s Hospital…”

  Riley’s words also came back to her: My nan’s crazy about birds. Dad thinks she’s crazy in every way, but that’s only because she’s as fierce as a lioness when it comes to righting wrongs.

  Righting Wrongs.

  Wrong Righters.

  Wrong Writers.

  “Harper, stop!”

  Abandoning the huskies, Kat ran up the path.

  It was too late.

  Petite, purple-haired Cath Woodward was opening the door, her smile turning to astonishment as she took in the six huskies spreading out across her lawn, the bedraggled girls in their oversized thermals, and Rocky the raccoon, shrieking to be let out of Kat’s rucksack.

  Kat bounded onto the porch. To Harper’s astonishment, she said furiously, “It’s you, isn’t it? You’re the eighth member of the Wish List gang or the Wrong Writers or Clue Club or whatever stupid name you call yourselves. How could you do it? You’ve betrayed your own granddaughter, made her a pawn in your evil game. She loves you so much. Are you going to claim the reward for kidnapping her too?”

  A tall man with many tattoos and a gentle gaze came up behind Riley’s grandmother. “Is there a problem, Cath?”

  “Hope not,” she said. “Any chance you could feed and water these girls’ huskies, Michael? They look as if they might need it.”

  His face lit up. “It would be a pleasure.”

  “Don’t you dare touch them!” Kat began angrily, but Harper quieted her with a We have more pressing business glance.

  Cath Woodward looked sad and resigned, as if the fight had gone out of her.

  “I don’t believe you’d abduct your own granddaughter,” said Harper. “So what have you done with her? Where’s Riley?”

  “I think you’d better come in.”

  Kat tried to resist, but Harper was already unlacing her snowy boots and following Cath into the house, and she wasn’t sure what else to do. Whispering soothingly to the raccoon, she stepped over the threshold.

  The hallway was lit with candles and smelled of warming winter spices.

  Classical music played softly. Cath hung up their coats and gloves before leading them up a staircase lined with photos of sailboats and birds. Kat noticed a portrait of a flame-haired woman who resembled Riley.

  Cath pushed open a bedroom door and Kat’s mouth dropped open. Riley was sitting up in bed, wearing candy-striped pajamas. She was absorbed in the game of Scrabble she was playing with Bianca and Georgia. Kat recognized the women from their online photos. Bianca gave a nervous smile. Georgia threw a questioning glance at Cath and an alarmed one at Rocky.

  “Riley,” said Cath. “Two friends are here to see you. Three, if you count the raccoon.”

  “I keep telling you, I don’t have any friends,” said Riley, intent on rearranging the letters she concealed behind a fold of patchwork quilt. “Except y’all, of course … Uh, what raccoon?”

  When she saw Kat, her expression flickered through more moods than Storm Mindy. It settled on partly sunny with a warning of thundershowers to come.

  “Kat with a K! Harper! What are you doing here? How did you find me?”

  “They know everything,” Cath Woodward said in a flat tone. “Don’t ask me how. They know about the Wish List gang, the Clue Club … even the Wrong Writers.”

  “No!” cried Bianca.

  “Are the cops here?” asked Georgia.

  Riley’s eyes met Kat’s. There was an audible gulp.

  “This is not how it looks,” she said.

  WHAT THREE WORDS

  “Before you get mad and refuse to speak to me ever again, I want to thank you for saving my life, Kat with a K.”

  With those words, Riley scrambled out of bed, had a head rush, and collapsed weakly onto the patchwork quilt. Bianca went to put a protective arm around her, but Riley twisted away. She rearranged the pillows and sat cross-legged on the bedcovers.

  Kat was simmering with fury. “Saving your life? We risked our own lives and the lives of the huskies to go searching for you in a snowstorm. We were nearly killed by a bear. And the entire time you were fine and cozy in Silver Lake, playing Scrabble with your nan and other criminals.”

  “We deserve that,” remarked Georgia.

  “Hard to argue with the ‘other criminals’ part,” agreed Bianca.

  “That’s one story, but it’s not the whole story,” said Riley. “If you know everything, Kat, then you’ll kno
w that when I met you in the forest, I wasn’t with my aunt and uncle. They were protection officers, hired after I witnessed the theft of a diamond necklace. It was their job to keep me safe until the trial.”

  “How did they feel about your grandmother being a dear friend of the accused?” demanded Kat. “Or did it slip your mind to mention it? Were you in on the scam too? Were you planning to have an attack of amnesia at the trial?”

  “Whoa there!” protested Georgia. “Be upset with us, sure, but leave Riley out of it. She’s innocent.”

  Cath Woodward laid a hand on her granddaughter’s shoulder. “Believe us, or don’t. Until yesterday, Riley knew nothing of the Clue Club. The fact that she saw Gerry take the diamond necklace at the Royal Manhattan was a cruel coincidence, and finding out that her grandmother was involved was crueler still—for both of us. When her bodyguards were ambushed and the identity of the star witness was revealed, I died a thousand deaths.”

  “If you really didn’t know that your nan was a gangster and a thief, you must have felt betrayed,” said Harper.

  “That’s if Riley’s telling the truth,” interjected Kat.

  “Stick around long enough and I’ll prove it,” Riley shot back. “Yeah, I felt lied to and let down. Nan used to be my hero.”

  Her grandmother looked as if she wanted to crawl under the bed, but Riley had already moved on. She stared at the girls in wonder. “Why would you put your life on the line for someone you’ve met only once, Kat? Harper, you didn’t know me at all. Why would either of you risk so much for me? After today, I’d understand if you withdrew your offer of friendship, but I’ll always be a friend to both of you—if you need an extra one. When someone saves your life, that’s just the way it is.”

  Harper was bewildered. “You keep saying that, but I don’t understand. How did we save you?”

  “I’ll try to explain. Technically, it was Kat’s cat who saved me.”

  Kat felt a rush of joy. “Tiny helped you?”

  “No question about it. Without the photo you gifted me, I wouldn’t be here.”

  “Tell us what happened,” urged Harper. “Leave nothing out.”

  “I hate to be boring,” Georgia broke in, “but do either of you girls have a phone signal? I need to message Riley’s dad. He’ll be out of his mind with worry.”

  Harper checked hers. “Nope, we might as well be on the moon.”

  Kat was looking from Riley to her grandmother and back again. “Mr. Matthews doesn’t know that Riley’s been rescued?”

  “He’s known since yesterday morning that she’s safe, but we haven’t plucked up the courage to give him Cath’s address yet,” confessed Georgia. “He’s changed his phone number, and Riley doesn’t have the new one. We had no choice but to call the police hotline. For nearly a day, they wouldn’t believe us. Then they wanted an address. I was on the phone to them and I hung up in a panic. Before we could decide what to do next, the power got knocked out. That was last night. Michael was on his way to the gas station to use their phone to call the hotline again when you and your huskies showed up.”

  Riley put an arm around her grandmother. “It’s a complicated situation. After my mom walked out two years ago—”

  “Walked out? I was wondering if she’d died,” Harper admitted.

  “Nah, she just moved to New Zealand with her personal trainer and started a new family. To cope, Dad threw himself into work. That’s all he does these days: work, work, work. It’s been tough. Nan and I were always super close—much closer than me and my mom were. She had no interest in reading and couldn’t stand the outdoors, but that didn’t matter because me and Nan were bonded by nature and books. But after Mom left, Dad banned me from seeing my grandmother. He said she was a bad influence.”

  “Gee, I can’t imagine why,” Harper said sarcastically.

  Riley flushed. “Obviously, he didn’t know she was a robber.”

  Cath Woodward put her head in her hands. “How on earth did it come to this?”

  “Dad was more concerned that she’d turn me into an eco-warrior like her,” explained Riley. “He doesn’t understand that even though I was born smack-bang in the middle of Manhattan, the wilderness is in my blood. That’s why your wild cat helped me so much, Kat. After the ambush, what kept me going in the storm was this absolute belief that Tiny and the forest animals—and you and Harper, of course—were my friends.”

  “But how did you get from there to here?” said Harper. “To this house?

  “I’ll tell you the bits I remember. Nan can fill in the rest. At about four A.M. on Tuesday, I was woken by the burglar alarm on our safe house. Jo was sure it was a bear, but she and Tony made the decision to move me to another cabin just in case. They rushed me to the vehicle in my pj’s and a denim jacket.

  “I dozed off in the back seat. Next thing I was shocked awake by gunshots. We were parked, and the driver’s door was open. Tony was lying bleeding on the road. I couldn’t see the shooter. Jo pulled me out of the vehicle and got me into the trees by the roadside. She gave me her phone and told me to run and hide. She promised to come get me. About five minutes later, I heard another shot, and then there was just a horrible silence. After that, I just ran and ran.”

  “You must have been terrified,” said Harper, recalling the police brute who’d crushed her arm just a few hours ago, demanding to know where Riley was hidden. Now didn’t seem the right moment to mention it.

  “Mainly, I was terrified of getting hypothermia,” Riley was saying. “Like I told Kat, up until two years ago, I came to these woods all the time. Winter or summer, Nan would take me camping. She taught me survival techniques. I knew I had to dig a snow cave to keep warm. I didn’t manage that, but I did build a shelter.”

  “We found it,” Kat told her.

  “You did?” Riley was amazed.

  “Matty, one of our huskies, tracked you there using the blue neckerchief you gave me.”

  “If only I’d had her fur to heat me up in the storm. My pajamas and sneakers were soaked and crusty with snow. I couldn’t feel my feet or my hands. All I wanted to do was sleep. But I knew from what Nan had taught me that that’s the biggest danger sign. It means that hypothermia’s setting in.”

  “What about the bodyguard’s phone?” asked Kat. “Did you try using it?”

  “A thousand times. There was no signal, and the battery was dying. Eventually, I got so cold I didn’t care about living anymore. I started to drift off. Suddenly, I heard your voice, Kat, as clear as if you’d been standing beside me. ‘He looks scary, but he’s the best friend anyone could ever have. He’s my protector, and I’m sure he wouldn’t mind being yours.’

  “I remembered you passing me the photo. Your hands were so warm and your eyes were so kind. You’d told me you’d be my friend. I took the photo from the pocket of my denim jacket. Tiny did look scary but in a good way, like he’d protect me from any bear, assassin, or storm. His leopard fur was so silky and golden, it made me feel better just to look at it. I wanted to stay alive just so if I ever saw you again I could tell you that Tiny’s spirit saved me in the snow. I didn’t know then…”

  Her voice trailed away.

  Her grandmother read her thoughts. “You couldn’t have guessed that when your paths crossed again it would be under these unfortunate circumstances. I’m so sorry, Riley. If I could go back in time and change things, I would.”

  Bianca and Georgia shuffled awkwardly too.

  “You still haven’t answered Harper’s question, Riley,” said Kat. “How did you get from there to here?”

  Riley rallied. “While I was shining the phone flashlight on the photo of Tiny, I noticed the signal flickering. I saw something else too: Jo had installed What3Words on her phone.”

  “What’s that?” asked Kat.

  “An app that divides the earth into three-meter squares and gives each square a three-word locator,” said Harper.

  Riley smiled. “Nan had made me put it on my own phone in case
we ever got separated on a camping trip. My brain was so cold and fuzzy, I couldn’t recall Dad’s new number, but Nan’s was engraved on my brain. My fingers were too numb to send a message. I just prodded the locator and hoped she’d figure out it was me. That’s the last thing I remember until I woke up here—in this den of thieves.”

  Cath sagged as if she’d been dealt a physical blow. “By a grim stroke of fortune, it was only because I was up at dawn checking the headlines to see if the cops were getting anywhere in their hunt for us—the so-called Wish List gang—that I saw the breaking news. It was the single most hideous moment of my life, discovering that the star witness was none other than my own granddaughter. Worse, Riley was missing, feared abducted or lost in the northern Adirondacks with Storm Mindy charging in.

  “There are no words to describe how I felt. It was my fault she was in that situation. If we’d never come up with that wretched Wish List, she wouldn’t be in harm’s way.”

  “What did you do next?” asked Kat.

  “As I despaired, my phone pinged with a notification from What3Words. Three words came up: Sweetcorn. Hare. Volcano. The number wasn’t Riley’s, but there was no doubt in my mind that it must be her. I rang Michael, who’s taking care of your huskies, and he and I drove like maniacs in our truck to the red square that marked Riley’s grid reference on my phone. The whole way there, it pulsed like a beating heart.

  “When we found her, she was virtually lifeless. With the storm moving in, it wasn’t safe or practical to get her to a hospital. Our friend Kiara’s a nurse and could give her the best care. She and her husband, Rob, had been staying with Michael, so it was simple enough to transfer their bags here. Our other friends were already on their way to join us. When Storm Mindy arrived, the seven of us—and Riley—were trapped here.”

  “I finally came around yesterday morning,” said Riley. “You can imagine how I felt when Nan broke the news that she and the others were the subject of an international manhunt and close friends with the thief I’d watched snatch the diamond necklace.”