Celia’s pale hair framed her delicate features. The lights entwining the trellis around her sparkled. “It’s all right,” she said, raising her hand for the waiter. “You’re just doing your job.”
They approached the driveway and waved at Officer Davis. The center was deserted. Celia glanced at the flight, to Banshee’s solitary silhouette. “There she is,” she said, wondering what had happened. “Do you want to see her?”
They walked up the hill to the flight cage. Banshee faced the mountain, her back to them. Gunderman squinted, feeling a tingle of alarm. The eagle turned around, and he and Celia both took a breath.
“That’s not Banshee,” said Gunderman. “Call your dad.”
Celia pulled her phone out of her bag and tapped it. “It’s gone straight to voice mail,” she said.
Gunderman turned and strode toward his car. “Erik?” she called, but he slammed the door and drove away.
• • •
The rented Honda rolled steadily through the twilight, heading northwest on a sparsely traveled highway. Lyllis kept the speedometer at a careful 65, supplying a running commentary as Michael searched for radio stations and rummaged through the glove compartment. “Look!” he said, pulling out a paper map. “An antique!”
Luna sat in the back. She tried to picture only Mars and Banshee, but a kaleidoscope of human faces whirled around her. Adam. Roland. Ned. Warren. Lyllis. Michael. Her rehabber friends. Spinning beyond them were others, the ones she had almost succeeded in blocking from her memory. In the middle were Harry and Rose. Above them all, almost invisible, was Hélène.
Lyllis cruised along the right lane as twilight faded to darkness. A pair of headlights appeared behind them, illuminating the inside of their car. Lyllis glanced in her rearview mirror, then the dark SUV accelerated and hovered beside them.
“What’s the matter with that guy?” asked Lyllis, unable to see through the SUV’s darkened windows. It sped up and pulled into their lane, and a second set of headlights shone behind them. An identical SUV accelerated and hovered, matching their speed. “What the…” said Michael, as both SUVs began to slow down. Blocked, Lyllis slowed with them.
“How did they find us?” cried Luna.
“That sonofabitch,” growled Lyllis, peering into her rear view mirror and searching the dark highway behind her. “I am not giving you up!”
“Please, just stop!” Luna pleaded.
The speedometer dropped to 40. “There’s nobody behind us,” snapped Lyllis. “You two hang on, because when we hit 20 I’m going to jam on my brakes, then I’ll cross the divider and go the other way!”
“Don’t!” Luna cried, as the highway curved to the right. “Somebody’s going to get hurt!”
“Look out!” shouted Michael. Stopped on the side of the road was a car, tail lights flashing, parked too close to the right lane. Lyllis jerked the steering wheel to the left to avoid it, and slammed against the SUV beside them. The Honda shuddered, serpentined, and clipped the SUV ahead, then rocked and became airborne as it left the road. It sailed down the embankment, landed on two wheels, and rolled. It came to rest upside down, and its tires squeaked as they spun.
Chapter 23
Owen stood next to his garage and waved goodbye, wearing a worried smile. “Be careful!” he called. “Call me!” Elias and Wizzie each waved from their window as they drove away.
“So, Pop,” said Wizzie. “Mom really doesn’t know about any of this?”
“No,” said Elias. “And if Anna hadn’t gotten the stomach flu you wouldn’t, either.”
“But aren’t you glad I’m here? We’re a team! You don’t want to drive to Minnesota all by yourself.”
“Of course we’re a team. But you shouldn’t be involved, because you’re not an adult. And it’s…”
“Illegal?”
“Well…yes.”
“But it’s the right thing to do?”
“It’s the right thing to do.”
“Then that’s good enough for me. Maybe I could do a report on it for school and get extra credit.”
“Oh, stop it.”
“Just kidding, Pop. It’ll be our family secret. I mean, unless we get arrested, then I suppose everyone will know. Am I too young to go to jail?”
“We’ll find out, won’t we?”
Wizzie gave him a disapproving look. “How do you think Mom’s business dinner went with Officer Gunderman?”
“No idea.”
“Has she called?”
“Not sure.”
“Because you turned your phone off?”
“Yup, but first I texted her that you’re with me, so she wouldn’t worry.”
“But why isn’t she involved? She’s a grown-up! I’d think…” Her jaw dropped. “Wait a minute! Did you set up their dinner so they wouldn’t be around when you switched eagles?”
“Can you leave me alone for five minutes?”
“Wow, Pop! You’re…wow! You’re amazing! Where did you learn how to do this stuff?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Elias, trying not to look pleased.
“Huh! Well! How far is it to Minnesota?”
“Far. But we’re stopping in Indiana.”
“Why?”
“We’re picking up Sean Callahan, because you’re no help with the driving.”
“Sean Callahan! You mean Cole and Bailey’s dad? Cole, who trains the hawks? And Bailey, who makes medicine out of plants?”
“That’s the one!”
“Aww, this is awesome! I’m so glad Anna got sick!” She beamed and crossed her legs. “So Pop, where do you think Luna is right now? I can’t wait to see her, it’s been so long.”
“Me, too. And I think she’s in a car on her way to Minnesota. I’ll bet she’s feeling pretty lucky right about now.”
• • •
The darkness was soft and gentle. So quiet after the wail of metal and the crash of glass, so still after the world had turned cartwheels, then come to rest.
Luna felt a sharp pain in her left arm and a dull throb in her head. When she opened her eyes she found herself upside down, held firmly by her seat belt.
“Lyllis!” she cried. “Michael!”
From one side of the car she heard an exhalation. From the other, a groan. “Ohhh,” whispered Lyllis. “They’re back,” said Michael, as headlights illuminated the interior of the car.
“Please tell me you’re all right!” Luna pleaded, struggling to unfasten her seat belt.
There were voices, then footsteps. “Hello?” called a voice, young and female. “We called 911!” added another, deep and male.
Luna’s buckle opened and she dropped downward, landed on her shoulder, and felt another bright blast of pain. There were more footsteps, and more voices. “How many of you are there?” asked one. “Can you talk?”
“Three,” said Michael weakly.
“Don’t fall asleep!” ordered a voice, and two young men crouched by Michael’s window. “Hey, are you with me? We’re all from the University, taking a road trip to New Orleans. Where were you going?”
“Never mind!” murmured Lyllis, her eyes narrowed against the pain.
“I’m sorry!” Luna whispered. “How badly are you hurt?”
“It’s not on you, baby,” said Lyllis.
“Lyllis,” said Michael. “You’re a shitty driver.”
Luna tried to pull herself toward the open window. Her hand touched the ground beneath the Honda’s roof as sirens called in the distance. There were new voices, louder and more authoritative. Metal creaked and squealed as the doors were forced open. Hands reached into the car, and Luna pulled away. “Take care of them first!” she said.
“Relax,” said a paramedic. “We’ll take care of all of you.”
They eased her onto a stretcher and carried her up the embankment. Luna scanned the area and found two ambulances, a fire truck, a police car, and a dozen college kids clustered beside two blue vans. Behind her was the overturned Honda and beyond i
t, a stretch of woods. The SUVs were nowhere in sight. “Are they all right?” asked Luna.
“They’re awake. They’re injured but conscious. Can you look at this light?”
Luna tried to process the swirling mix of sight and sound as the EMTs placed her stretcher in the ambulance. A paramedic cleaned the blood from the side of her head with damp gauze and applied a bandage. “Your friends are right behind you, he said.” He cleaned her blood-soaked arm, applied a line of butterfly closures, and wrapped it tightly. Two more EMTs placed Lyllis’s stretcher beside her.
“They’re putting Michael in the other ambulance,” said Lyllis.
“He’s stable,” said an EMT. “You’re all very lucky.”
“You okay, baby?” asked Lyllis.
“Yes, are you?”
“Broke my damned leg. Feels like I busted some ribs.”
An EMT conferred with the paramedic, both bent over the splint on her lower leg.
“Lyllis,” Luna whispered, leaning toward her. “They’re out there somewhere. I can’t go to the hospital, they’ll follow me.”
“But the hospital will protect us!” Lyllis whispered back. “They have security!”
“They’ll call the cops, and the cops are after me, too. There’s already one out there now.”
“Then you’re gonna have to run,” said Lyllis. “Can you?”
“Yeah.”
“Go now.” Lyllis fluttered her hands by her neck. “I can’t breathe!” she announced.
Luna regarded her with alarm, and Lyllis frowned and gave her a surreptitious wave of dismissal. The two medics reached for the monitors, and Luna slipped out the back door. She angled away from the light, and into the safe and darkened woods.
• • •
Cicadas. Tree frogs. A Barred Owl. The occasional rush of a passing car. Gunderman drove in silence, his windows open, surrounded by the sounds of the night; hearing, instead, a crack, a snap, and a roar as his entire career went up in flames.
What was wrong with this case? He kept making rookie mistakes. He needed to get back to the Loxahatchee, but thanks to the mad quest of Luna Burke, there was a good chance soon he might no longer work there.
He dialed a number. “Evening,” he said. “This is Officer Erik Gunderman, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Could I leave a message for Officer Davis, please? Could you tell him I need a list of every car that entered or exited the Western Pennsylvania Wildlife Center tonight? He has my number. Yes, thank you.”
Get into their heads, his criminal psychology professor used to say. He had tried to profile Luna Burke, the defensive, violent, lawbreaking young woman with a troubled past who had somehow become a symbol of…what? A lone figure on a doomed, misguided mission.
He remembered her in Sean Callahan’s driveway, eyes ablaze, spitting insults at him as she defended Callahan and his kids. He could hear her shouting as he drove her, handcuffed, into the night. Aggressive. Furious. Defiant. He had met her eyes in his rearview mirror, and seen all of it.
But then, just for a second, he had seen a flash of something else.
Fear.
Black and bottomless, then it was gone. It disappeared so fast it had also vanished from his memory. He pulled his car to the shoulder of the road.
Part of her was still a girl, he realized, and she was afraid. He reached for his laptop. It was more than a long shot; odds were she wasn’t anywhere near Pennsylvania. He hadn’t bothered to go to Rose and Harry Burke’s farm, as local officers told him it had been deserted since their death. Another mistake. He called up a file, and eased back onto the road.
Twenty minutes later he turned onto a dirt driveway. At the top of a hill in the distance stood a farmhouse. As he drove closer he saw a barn behind it, both illuminated by the rising moon. There were no signs of life, and he felt a twinge of disappointment. Luna Burke had not returned to the only real home she had ever known.
The front door was covered with graffiti. Three windows on the second floor were broken. The barn’s sliding door hung haphazardly from its hinges, held in place by a padlock. He pulled on a pair of latex gloves, grabbed a flashlight, and slid from the car. He climbed the front porch stairs and turned the knob, but the door was locked. The first floor windows were locked, as well.
He lifted the mat, searched under a flower pot, and slid his fingers around the doorframe. He walked back down the stairs, ran his hand beneath the top step, and pulled out a key. He slid the key into the lock, and opened the door.
The house was dark and silent. Gunderman’s flashlight illuminated the dishes still piled in the sink, the mail unopened on a counter. The sun-bleached chairs, faded magazines, and neat line of hiking boots were all layered with dust. On a table by the stairs was a large framed photograph of a grey-haired couple, beaming, both wearing hats, gloves, and heavy coats. Between them, holding a Golden Eagle, was Luna. She was thin and pale, too small for her coat and dwarfed by the massive bird cradled in her arms, but her smile shone like a searchlight.
She’s so young, thought Gunderman, mystified. She couldn’t have been with the Burkes that long, yet she was handling a Golden Eagle. There weren’t many strong, experienced wildlife people who would go near a golden. He peered at the enormous slatted flight cage looming behind them. Where had the photo been taken? There was no flight cage anywhere near that size at the Western Pennsylvania Wildlife Center.
He climbed the stairs and paused in the doorway of a room with a king-sized bed and matching oak dressers. A few steps farther down, two single beds flanked a bedside table. He continued to the last bedroom, and shone his flashlight inside.
A colorful quilt covered a queen-sized bed. Flowered pillows adorned a comfortable chair. A few glittering silver stars hung from the ceiling by delicate threads, while a dozen more lay ripped and shredded across the the floor. Gunderman stepped carefully around the jagged edges of a cup, across the shards of a shattered mirror.
The top of the dresser was crowded with framed photographs. Luna and Celia feeding baby opossums, Luna and Elias releasing a songbird, Luna, Harry, and Rose standing before a Christmas tree. Gunderman raised his flashlight to a bulletin board hanging from wall near the bed. In the center Harry and Rose smiled at the camera, their arms around each other. Like planets around the sun, a dozen pictures of the rescued eagle revolved around them.
Don’t get sidetracked, thought Gunderman. She broke the law.
His gaze traveled over the scattered clothing, the open drawers, the closet door ajar. An envelope lay ripped and crumpled in a corner. Dust swirled as he removed the letter and pieced it together. Dear Ms. Burke, it read. Congratulations on your admission to the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine.
He tucked the letter back into the envelope. I’m sorry, son, his father had said, his voice unsteady, calling in the spring of Gunderman’s junior year. She just didn’t wake up. She had a good long life. Your mother’s making the funeral plans, she wants to know your schedule. You know your grandmother would be mad as a wet hen if you missed an exam for this.
Gunderman felt a forgotten pang of grief, a memory of his sunlit life abruptly rendered dark and unrecognizable. Is Warren still with her? he thought. Is she alone?
He turned and shone his flashlight behind him. On the strip of wall between the doorway and the closet was a framed photograph. Luna stood before an enormous slatted flight cage, smiling, protectively embraced by a diminutive woman with upswept white hair. Gunderman stared at the woman’s fierce dark gaze, and felt a jolt.
It was Hélène de la Croix. The Canadian Bird Woman. The radical, reclusive face of the environmental protest movement, heroine to all those who felt the damage beneath their hands: the broken spines, the crumpled wings, the fur and feathers covered with oil and washed up on the sand. In a war too big to win, where angels worked anonymously and villains were profiled in Forbes, she was their warrior queen.
And whether or not she wanted to be, he realized, Luna was her heir. He had been
wrong. Hers was not a misguided mission; it was a journey of wild and heedless love, unencumbered by rules or logic or any thought of the future. And the entire scattered, bonded, fervent adopted family of the orphaned girl and the rescued bird were risking what they held so dear — their licenses — in order to help her.
She’s going to the Port Clyde Eagle Sanctuary, he thought.
He left the room, locked the front door behind him, and slipped the key back under the porch stairs. He slid into his car, pulled off his gloves, and tapped his voicemail. “Hello Erik,” came a voice. “This is Officer Larry Davis. You wanted a list of the cars that entered and exited the wildlife center tonight. There were two. One was a blue Hyundai, belongs to Peter Kellogg, Pennsylvania plate GRW-6021. I could see it was full of kids, no room for an eagle crate. The only other one was Owen Trumbull’s hearse, and Owen was the only occupant of the vehicle. Pennsylvania plate number HJL-3578. If you need anything else, please call me. Have a good night.”
Gunderman closed his eyes. Elias had smuggled the eagle out in a borrowed hearse.
He tapped his phone again. Celia said Banshee panicked if you rocked her crate, so they couldn’t park in a remote area and carry her over the border. They would need to cross in a vehicle, and the closest border crossing to the Port Clyde Eagle Sanctuary was Fort Frances, on the Canadian side of the bridge at International Falls, Minnesota. Luna had last been seen — or almost seen — in Wisconsin. It was close to a straight shot north.
Did she have any identification? She would need paperwork to get the birds across: a 3-177, a 50 CFR 21. Attempting any of it was crazy, the odds stacked against her. And that was why Hélène de la Croix would help her, even if Luna were a stranger. The odds were beginning to even out.
Elias would have to break up the trip, as it was a 17-hour drive from his wildlife center to International Falls. Would he meet her in the hearse and drive her and the birds to the border, or would he simply hand off the eagle and return to Pennsylvania? Either way she would cross at night, when there were fewer officers on duty. Her husband was blanketing police departments with donations. Where was he?
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