by Linda Gerber
I shook my head. “Wow. You’re really supportive.”
“I just want to know if you’ve thought it out.”
“Well, I haven’t, okay? I’ve had just about as much time to work this out as you have. Do you have any great plans you’d like to share?”
“Don’t be snide, Aphra. It doesn’t become you.”
“Well, I’m sorry. When I get attacked, that’s how I react.” I stomped ahead of her.
“Who’s attacking you?”
I spun around. “Do you hear yourself? All this questioning, criticizing. What do you call that?”
“Is that what you think this is?”
“Um, hello. Yeah. You treat me like a little kid who doesn’t know what to think.”
“When I saw you last, you were a little kid.”
“Well, I’ve changed since then. But not as much as you have.”
She actually looked stung, as if she had no idea. “What are you talking about?”
“Oh, come on.” I eyed her up and down. “You’re not the same person at all. We used to have fun together. Life was a big adventure. Now I don’t even know you anymore. You’ve become this uptight, pinch-lipped government agent.”
She bristled. “Aphra, don’t be unfair.”
“Unfair? That’s pretty funny coming from you. You made me think you and I were a team and then you left. Now all I want is a little support, and you can’t even give me that.”
“I do support you,” she said, voice softening, “but this is not a game, Aphra. You need to be sure in your actions. Decisive. That’s why I’m challenging you, to make you stronger. To be the smart and tough young woman I raised you to be.”
“Raised?” I stepped back. “How could you raise me when you were never there?”
I wished I could take the words back when I saw the tears in her eyes, but I was too hurt to tell her that. I folded my arms and turned away.
She approached me slowly, reached out tentatively, rubbed my arm gently. “I’m so sorry, Aphra. I . . . I should have been there for you. I hope you understand I just wanted to protect you.”
“And I wanted a mom.”
“I’m here now.”
I wiped a stray tear from my cheek. The anger had passed like a summer storm and all I felt now was regret. “I’m sorry for messing things up.”
“Oh, no, no.” She pulled me into her arms. “You haven’t messed up, Aphra. I handled things all wrong.”
“But if it wasn’t for me—”
“If it wasn’t for you, I’d have nothing to fight for. If it wasn’t for you, I’d have given up long ago.”
I think we both cried ourselves out, standing by the river. If given a choice, I don’t think I would have chosen the route I’d taken, but in the end, I’d do it again without hesitation. I had found what I’d been looking for. I found my mom.
CHAPTER 10
After we had dried our eyes, Mom and I scoped out the origin of the smoke I had seen from atop the hill. Sure enough, downriver we found a camp-site. We didn’t get too close, just near enough to see the tents and campfire through the trees. Then we hiked back double time to where Seth and Stuart were resting. I waited for Mom to tell them about our discovery, but she looked to me and nodded, giving me the lead.
“We think we might be able to locate some transportation,” I began.
Seth’s eyes lit up. It was the first encouraging thing he’d heard all day. “Where?”
“We don’t know that we’ll find anything,” I said, “but there are some campers down the river. We figure they might have a car or a raft . . .”
Stuart shook his head. “No. We shouldn’t be involving civilians. This could get dangerous.”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed right in his face. Was he kidding? It could get dangerous? We’d passed the realm of possibility and landed smack in the middle of absolute certainty about twenty hours ago. Had he not looked at his hand lately?
“We won’t involve the people,” Mom said firmly. “Only the transportation.” She raised a hand to stop my protest. “If they happen to possess any.”
Seth, of course, was more than ready to take the gamble. Stuart kept mumbling and complaining the entire time. If it wasn’t for the need to cut him some slack for being injured and all, I would’ve liked to slap him. As it was, I had to settle for tuning him out.
By the time we neared the camp, long shadows stretched out from the trees and the chill had returned to the air. Shivering, I tried to pick up the pace as much as I could, considering Stuart’s inability to keep up. I just figured that the faster we moved, the warmer we’d be. Plus, the quicker we found a way out of there, the sooner we could put the whole thing behind us.
Wood smoke hovered with the gathering mist, and the smell of roasting meat made my stomach rumble.
“What if we just told these people that we needed help?” Seth whispered. “Wouldn’t that be easier?”
Mom shook her head. “There would be too many questions we couldn’t answer. The fewer explanations needed, the better.”
I liked Seth’s idea of asking for help, especially if we could share the fire and the food, but Mom was right. Plus I knew from personal experience that a person could be placed in deadly trouble by getting involved. We couldn’t impose that danger on anyone.
Men’s voices carried through the evening air, and we skirted the perimeter of their camp, keeping out of their way. I spotted four of them on the other side of some green domelike tents, sitting around a campfire, drinking and laughing. Since we didn’t see any cars or even tire tracks, we continued on to the river, hoping for a boat.
Sure enough, up on the rocky bank sat two kayaks. My heart dropped. Two. I’d been hoping for a raft or something on which we could all ride out together. With two, we’d have to split up.
As I’d expected, Mom suggested that she and I ride together, leaving Seth once again to take care of Stuart’s deficiencies. Between his injured hand and aching ribs, there was no way Stuart could paddle a kayak with any effectiveness, so Seth would have to do enough paddling for both of them.
“It shouldn’t be difficult since we will be following the river downstream,” Mom assured him. “You sit in the back so you can do the steering.”
“I know,” Seth said. “I’ve been kayaking before.”
“So have I,” I put in—as if it were relevant.
I’d actually only been sea kayaking, and never tandem. Plus these kayaks were built a little differently from what I was used to—wider and a bit shorter, without the upswept bow of the island kayaks. But a kayak was a kayak, I figured. How hard could it be?
While the guys slid their kayak into the water, Mom held ours steady so that I could climb to my seat. I settled down into the cockpit and readied my paddle. She pushed away from the shore before slipping into her own seat.
I held my paddle just above the water until she gave the signal. She counted until we found a rhythm and then instinct took over. I dug deep, pushing the water behind us as fast as I could in order to catch up with Seth and Stuart. The kayak cut through the water like an arrow, racing over the dips and swells. Before long, my arms burned and my shoulders tightened, but I tried not to think about it. Even though my body craved rest, my mind still yelled, Go! Go! Cold mountain air snaked across the bow, rippling the fabric of my shirt, blowing back my hair and raising goose bumps on my skin, but all I could think about was getting down the river, away from locator beacons and helicopters. We couldn’t paddle fast enough.
I heard rough water as we came toward a bend in the river. That couldn’t be good. I tensed and called behind me, “Mom?”
“I hear it.”
“What do we do?”
By now, I could see the froth kicking up in the river ahead of us. Each stroke brought us closer. My hands gripped the paddle so hard that I swore I was going to go right through the wood. “Mom?!”
“We’ll ride it out! I’ll do the steering,” she shouted. “You just tell me if
you see any major obstacles.”
The current pulled us downstream and I soon found that I was using the paddle more for keeping upright than for actual paddling. Icy water sprayed in my face and drenched my hair and clothes. My fingers throbbed from the cold.
I tried to navigate through the worst of it, yelling back to Mom, “Right! Left!” but still we hit rocks under the water, teeth-jarring hits that sent us reeling to the side or shot us into the air, only to slap back down onto the surface to be drenched all over again.
I blinked away water, shivering so hard that my back ached. My arms felt heavy. My head felt thick. That could be why I wasn’t quick enough to tell my mom about the huge boulder sticking up from the water until we were right upon it. I did manage to scream, but not until the bow cracked against the boulder, rebounding and spinning us completely around.
Mom fought for control, but we were shooting down the rapids backward. There’s not much she could have done. I’m not sure exactly what happened next, but my guess is that the stern hit another rock. Only this time instead of spinning the kayak, it sent it end over end. I shot up in the air. The paddle flew from my hands, but I barely spared it a thought, because I was headed face-first into the river. I pushed free of the cockpit and splashed down ahead of the kayak.
Freezing water closed over me.
My first instinct was to try to swim against the current, but I did remember from preparing for the whitewater trip—you know, the one with Mom that never happened all those years ago—that if you were thrown from a boat, you were supposed to sit back, try to ride the current feetfirst, and cross your arms against your chest. This rule, of course, presupposed that you were wearing a life vest to keep your head above the water, and maybe a helmet to keep from cracking your skull on a rock. I kept going under and getting a mouthful of water every time I went down. I lost track of Mom and the other kayak. All I could think about was finding the next breath of air and not smashing into anything. That was plenty. Once the river calmed down, I could worry about little things like hypothermia and being stranded alone in the woods.
More than once, my feet smacked into underwater rocks and I was thrown out of position and had to fight to maintain the posture. It was during one of these fights that I hit my tailbone on a rock. Pain flared up my spine and down both legs. I could hardly move. My head dragged under the waves. Water shot up my nose. I gagged and coughed, fighting to keep my head up.
Finally, we came to a bend in the river and the water quieted just a bit. The current was still strong, but at least I was able to gain some control.
I turned around. Where was Mom? All I could see was dark water, swirling, frothing.
“Aphra! Over here!” Stuart and Seth stood knee-deep in the water, making big arm gestures and yelling at me to swim to shore. Their kayak lay on the rocky bank. Apparently they had managed to avoid getting tossed into the water.
Seth cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled something to me, but his voice was lost in the roar of the river.
“Where’s my mom?” I yelled.
He shouted something else and pointed.
I almost missed seeing her float by me. Her hand flailed above the water, but in the darkness it almost looked like a jumping fish. But then I saw her face surface. She gasped for air and went under again.
“Mom!”
The current pulled her away from me and I had to swim after her. In the cold, my arms and legs were weighted. It felt like I was swimming through sludge. Frozen, moving sludge. “Mom! Mom!”
Her head popped to the surface a yard or so ahead of me. It took almost all the energy I had left to reach her. I grabbed the back of her shirt. In her panic, she grasped at me and pulled us both under. I fought to get free and pulled away, almost losing her in the current again.
“Relax!” I yelled. “Hold still!”
Never before had I been so grateful for my lifeguard training. I didn’t have to think about it; instinct took over. I pushed her so that she was floating on her back and hooked an arm around her torso. With every ounce of strength I had left, I swam with the other arm for the shore. As hard as I pulled, though, I didn’t even seem to be moving. The current sucked at us both, carrying us farther downstream.
Seth yelled and splashed through the water, running along the shore to keep up with us. I kept my focus on him and swam harder. He jumped into the water as I got closer and swam out to meet us. Together, we dragged Mom in.
She coughed and gagged, but at least she was breathing on her own. We staggered onto the shore, shivering, legs wobbling. Even though we were out of the water, I knew we weren’t home free. The sun had dipped behind the mountains, taking with it what warmth it had provided. We were wet. We were cold. We were lost. We were in big trouble.
“A-Aphra,” Mom said between shivers. “I had n-no idea you c-could do that.”
“Look!” Stuart cried, pointing downstream. “Lights!”
There were lights, and a lot of them. Maybe a town? I guessed they were about a mile away. I just hoped we could make it that far.
We never got a chance to find out.
Before we had gone ten yards, a black truck crested the hill above us, its bright headlights sweeping down on us and capturing us like some kind of freeze ray.
“You’re a hard crew to find,” a man’s voice called out.
“We’d about given you up for dead.”
CHAPTER 11
It was over. There was no place to run except back into the river, and that hadn’t worked out so well the first time. I grasped Mom on one side and Seth on the other and waited for the inevitable.
The man trotted down the hill toward us, his dark shape backlit by the headlights behind him. “Don! They’re soaking wet! We need more blankets!”
I tried to focus on him, but he shined a flashlight in my eyes and I couldn’t see anything but white light. “Pupils responsive!” he yelled, and wrapped a heavy, coarse blanket around me.
“You’re lucky we saw you,” he said as he moved on to Mom. “We had just about called off the search for the night.”
“What?”
“The search. We’ve had crews out all day looking for you. You must have seen them. They spotted you this afternoon, but by the time they called in your location and got bodies up there, you were gone.”
Spotted us . . . the helicopters . . .
Ranger Don—I assumed they were both rangers since they were dressed in matching uniforms like overgrown Boy Scouts—harrumphed. “What were you trying to do, anyway? Get yourself killed?”
“It’s a good thing those anglers radioed when their kayaks went missing. Least we knew to check the river.”
“The crash site,” I said. “Did you find—”
“Let’s get you back to the station and your bodies warmed up and then we can talk.”
“Station?”
“The ranger station. The quicker we get there, the quicker you can get dry.”
Mom and Stuart sat on opposite ends of the middle bench seat in the rangers’ SUV, and just behind them, Seth and I huddled together in the far back. Once we weren’t moving, the shivering set in for real and we needed each other’s body heat, even if there wasn’t much to go around.
The whole scenario had a very surreal feel to it; one minute we’re fighting our way through the wilderness and the next we’re riding along all warm and comfortable on a cushy seat with Bach on the radio. Well, maybe not completely comfortable—the SUV bumped and bounced over the rocky terrain, throwing us around pretty good in the back. That, plus the itchy wool blankets they had given us smelled like wet farm animals and . . . well, it seemed strange to be worried about such mundane comforts when just a short while ago I wasn’t even convinced we were going to make it down the mountain alive.
When we reached the ranger station, Ranger Don and the first ranger, whose name I never did get, ushered us up the wooden stairs and inside, clucking over us like a couple of old hens. It wasn’t until the door closed b
ehind us that I noticed the blond man in the dark suit seated behind the desk.
“Thank God,” he said. “We’ve been looking all over for you.”
My face went numb as Watts’s cold eyes swept over us.
“They were down by the river, sir,” Ranger Don reported. “Just as you predicted.”
Watts stood. He planted his hand at his waist, pushing back his jacket enough that his shoulder holster was plainly visible. You know, just in case we forgot who was in control. “Thank you for your outstanding effort today, gentlemen. We couldn’t have done it without you.” Then, turning to us, “We have some dry clothing and blankets in the next room. And I understand you’re in need of medical attention.”
“We’re fine,” I blurted, even though Stuart seriously needed a doctor for his hand. It made me sound like a petulant little kindergartner, but I couldn’t stand the way Watts was acting all benevolent.
“I’m glad to hear that,” Ryan said from the doorway. “I was worried about you.”
My breath caught. I should have known. His head was bandaged and he wore a dark suit and tie similar to the one Watts had on. So, Stuart had been wrong; Ryan was CIA after all. And Stuart had been wrong about leaving Agent Ryan behind at the crash site, too. If we’d taken him with us, he wouldn’t have been able to alert Watts about our condition or our whereabouts. Of course we wouldn’t have made it very far trying to carry Ryan as well as Stuart, either, so I don’t know what choice we had, but it made me feel better to be angry at Stuart, so I wasn’t going to analyze it too closely.
“Ladies, you may have the room first,” Ryan said, bowing his head in our direction. “Please change quickly. The men should get out of their wet things as soon as possible.”
My legs shook so badly that I could hardly follow Mom into the back room. As if practically freezing outside wasn’t enough, just being in the same room with Watts again made my blood run cold. I wanted to scream. My mind went back to the chase after Joe died—had that only been a day and a half ago? Watts had been following me. He followed me to the apartment. He was following me still. Would I ever be free from him?