Alone in the Wild

by Kelley Armstrong

“I agree,” I say. “Ideally, we steal Sidra back from Cherise. If she figures it out and complains, we pay her off, as painful as that will be. And then we never, ever do business with her again.”

  * * *

  We have two choices here. Return to where Cherise and Owen snatched Sidra or track the couple from here. Sidra and Baptiste’s campsite is a kilometer away, and it seems likely that they brought Sidra back here before they broke camp. Dalton confirms that with the campfire. If they left last night, the coals would be cold by now. Also, it makes no sense to lie in wait for Sidra with all your gear on your back.

  Tracking them from here makes the most sense, especially when we know they’ll head for Rockton with their booty. There’s no reason to do otherwise.

  We split up, dividing our best trackers—Storm gets Petra and me, and Dalton takes Felicity and Baptiste. We head to the campsite first. If we had any doubt that Cherise and Owen are the couple who camped here, it disappears when Storm arrives. She’s growling even before I ask her to snuffle the ground.

  “When even dogs don’t like you, that’s a very bad sign,” Petra says. I wait for her to make some comment on the fact that Storm likes her just fine, but Petra isn’t so ham-handed. The implication dangles there, and she knows I’ll see it.

  I snort my response and ask Storm to follow Cherise and Owen’s trail. She grumbles at that, a growling sulk that tells me she really doesn’t want another encounter with the trader couple. I crouch in front of her and murmur reassurances, and she looks at me as if to say, I hope you know what you’re doing. Then she sets out.

  Our luck with using Storm as a tracking dog has been sporadic so far. Am I disappointed in that? Yes, I’ll admit it. That’s not her fault. While Newfoundlands are used in search-and-rescue, they aren’t bloodhounds. Whatever Dalton’s excuse for buying her, she really is a companion dog, and she’s brilliant at that, an absolute joy in our lives. The fault may also be ours—we aren’t dog trainers or trackers, and no amount of reading can fully overcome that. We’ve discussed sending her down south for professional training, and we might still do it. Yet she’s still young, and when she can’t find our quarry, it’s not through lack of intelligence or commitment—it’s the fault of challenging terrain.

  Today, though, Storm proves that she’s a perfectly fine tracker and the problem is that, too often, we’ve set her on the trail of people who know she’ll come after them and use every trick for avoiding her. When it’s someone who has no expectation of being tracked, finding them is puppy’s play, and we have to hold her back from running along Cherise and Owen’s trail. We get some dirty looks for that—clearly we should be able to keep up.

  Finally I spot Owen, and I’m about to grab Storm’s collar, realizing I lack an end-of-search signal. Another oversight on my part. Fortunately, she has no desire to get close to Owen, and she slows, glancing at me as if to say, There he is. Can we go now?

  We cannot.

  It’s just Owen. He’s sitting. Well, crouching actually, while performing a bodily function that Cherise obviously doesn’t want to witness.

  As Petra sneaks up on Owen’s other side, he finishes his business, rising with his hands on his pants, pulling them up.

  “Shit that stinks,” a voice says, and Petra and I go still. It’s Cherise. I can’t see her, but it’s clearly her voice.

  “Yeah, it stinks because it’s shit,” Owen says. “Yours doesn’t smell like roses, babe.”

  “Cover it up,” she says.

  He grumbles that this isn’t their camp—they aren’t sticking around—but he knocks snow over the steaming pile as he fastens his jeans.

  Petra looks at me. I gesture for Storm to stay, and then I begin to circle around to where I’ll be able to see Cherise. Petra stays ducked behind a bush.

  After a few steps, I spot Cherise leaning against a tree. There’s no sign of Sidra, but she must be nearby. I keep circling until I’m opposite the couple, and I can see everything around them. Trees and a few low bushes. Nothing big enough to hide Sidra.

  Both Owen and Cherise are armed, but the rifles are slung across their backs. I glance around for Dalton, but his group is long gone.

  I step out from my hiding spot. “Hey, guys.”

  They both spin on me. I raise my hands. Owen reaches for his rifle, but I say, “Uh-uh. You go for yours, and I go for mine, which is a lot more accessible.”

  Their gazes go to my open parka, my gun right there, ready to draw.

  “Storm?” I say. “Come, girl.”

  She bounds from her hiding place. As she does, Petra appears five paces behind the couple, but they’re busy watching the dog. Petra stops there, her gun out, and waits.

  “We hear you’ve found the baby’s mom,” I say.

  Cherise’s expression doesn’t change. Her partner, however, sneaks a look her way, one that tells me what I’ve already suspected.

  “Let’s trade now,” I say. “You hand her over and collect your reward.”

  Cherise snorts. “Since you obviously don’t have the goods we were promised, we’re not handing her over. We’ll meet you at Rockton.”

  “Sure, we can all go to Rockton. Together.”

  “We’ll meet—”

  “The only reason for you to argue is if you don’t have the mother.”

  “Yes, we don’t, all right. We know who she is. We’re on her trail. But we still need to talk to her.”

  “Talk?” I say, brows rising. “Why not just grab her and save yourself the trouble?”

  “Because someone put that into the terms of the damn agreement,” she says, scowling at me. “Did I misinterpret something? I sure as hell understood that we need to bring her to you of her own free will. Which, yes, complicates things and…” She looks from my gun to Storm and launches into a string of profanity.

  “Yeah, they fucked you over, babe,” Owen says.

  She shoots a lethal glare at him and then swings it on me. “You did, didn’t you? Set me on this girl’s trail and then followed, waiting until I found my prey and then swooping in like a damn scavenger. I do all the work. You take the prize and then claim you owe me nothing.” She steps forward. “That was a stupid move, girl. A really, really—”

  “Stop right there,” Petra says as Storm growls.

  They both turn to see Petra, and I wince. Cherise hadn’t gone for her gun. There was no reason for Petra to reveal herself.

  “Yes, I brought backup,” I say. “And she’s going to lower her gun right now, having realized Cherise is justifiably angry with me and not actually about to attack.”

  Petra’s expression says she doesn’t appreciate taking orders from me. She still lowers the gun.

  “If I did what you think, Cherise, you’d have every right to be pissed,” I say. “I did not. I’m following a separate lead directly from Rockton. I’m sure if we’d been following you for the past three days, you’d know it. Now, do you have the baby’s mother?”

  Cherise throws up her hands and turns in a circle, as if to say, Do you see her?

  “If we find that you kidnapped her—”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Cherise snaps. “That’s the kind of mistake this idiot would make.”

  She waves at Owen, who only protests with a halfhearted “Hey.” When she looks at him, he flashes a grin and a shrug and says, “Fair enough. Never claimed to be the brains of the operation. You’re with me for my pretty face. Not that I’m objecting. ’Cause you really like how I look, and I reap the benefits of your appreciation.”

  She rolls her eyes and then turns to me. “I understand the terms of our deal. I also understand that there is no way in hell I’d get away with kidnapping that girl. She’d tattle the moment my back was turned. Also, I’d have to kick the kid’s ass for ratting me out, and if you think I’d enjoy that, then you and I have a fundamental misunderstanding of one another. I wouldn’t mind if I had to, but I’m not going to do it for fun. I have other ways to spend my time. More productive ways.”
>
  “Like enjoying her husband’s highly talented—” Owen begins.

  “You done with the sales pitch?” Cherise says.

  Owen’s brows arch. “Sales pitch?”

  “Casey doesn’t want to fuck you. I know that comes as a tremendous shock, but I could write you a goddamned letter of recommendation, and it wouldn’t change her mind. Now stop embarrassing yourself. The blonde seems tough enough for you. Maybe she’d like a romp.”

  “With him?” Petra says. “No thanks. However, if you’re offering…”

  Petra’s trying to throw Cherise off balance, shock her. But Cherise only barks a laugh and says, “Not on the table, sugar. Not right now, anyway. I’m busy negotiating with your friend here.” She turns to me. “I don’t have the girl. I notice you aren’t naming her. Neither am I. We’re both covering our asses in case the other has mistakenly identified the target. I don’t have her. I’m on her trail, though. I was given bad information on her exact whereabouts, but I spotted her this morning. Unfortunately, they were on the other side of the river, which isn’t fully frozen, so I couldn’t cross there and talk to them. I picked up the trail, and I thought we were getting close when my darling husband needed to take a shit.”

  “I had cramps.”

  “And now we’re further delayed. Also, we’re no longer the only ones tracking her. So here’s my offer, Miss Casey. You can give me half the reward for finding her and setting you on the proper trail. Or we race to the finish line. But if we get to her first, I expect the full reward … or I will take her captive until I get it.”

  Petra balks, pointing out that we know who the target is and Cherise didn’t “find” her. Yet Cherise did find out who Abby’s mother is, independent of us, and unlike us, she knows where to pick up the trail. Also, as far as I’m concerned, if half the reward means Owen and Cherise fade into the forest without interfering, it’s worth it. So I agree.

  “You said they,” I say. “She wasn’t alone. You saw her with someone this morning?”

  “Yep, her and her husband, out looking for their little one.”

  Petra’s gaze cuts my way, but I pretend not to see it.

  “So you saw this girl…”

  “Sidra. Yes, I saw Sidra.”

  “And some guy…”

  “Her guy. Baptiste. I saw Sidra and Baptiste across the river this morning, and I’d strongly suggest that you set your pup on their trail, because that sky says snow, and their trail isn’t going to last.”

  FORTY

  Cherise shows us the trail, and I put Storm on it. The trail is a mess, and I can’t help but wonder if we’re being tricked. Whoever walked this way is following in the tracks left by a herd of caribou. The temperature is rising, and it’s got to be above freezing, the sun beating down on a trail through relatively open land, meaning not only are the human prints almost lost among the caribou ones, but they’re all melting into mush. And then it starts to snow, almost as if Cherise called for the skies to open and make it even more impossible to confirm her story.

  “Here,” she says, pointing at a clear footprint. “And before you say that’s mine…” She puts her own foot beside it. Hers are about a size bigger. I don’t trust Cherise, but she plays the long game, looking into the future and setting out her pieces for the moves that will ultimately benefit her rather than the ones that’ll fill her pocket at this moment. It’s not in her interests to trick us for one reward when she might be able to parlay this transaction into a long-term relationship.

  They leave, and I set Storm on that print, the only one I’m relatively sure comes from Sidra. She snuffles around a bit. Once she’s confident, she starts tracking.

  “He lied,” Petra says. “That son of a bitch Baptiste lied. I don’t know how you bought his story, Casey. I’m sorry, but that was dead obvious. First his kid is kidnapped and then his wife? Not even by the same person? I’ll tell you what happened. That hostile woman—Ellen—took Abby for good reason. Those two kids abandoned the baby or they were talking about it or they were just shitty parents. Ellen took Abby and ran. They caught up and shot her, and left their own baby to die in the forest.”

  I glance over at her. That’s all I do. Heat rises in her face, and then her jaw sets. “Yes, I find it hard to believe any parent would do that, but as a cop, you know it happens. Even more likely, it was just him. My ex was the ‘maternal’ one in our relationship. Maternal in the traditional, ignorant sense that women are the ‘real’ parents, and the guys are just sperm donors and bottomless wallets. That’s how men are raised. My ex grew up sneaking his sister’s dolls to play with. If his parents caught him, they took them away, terrified it meant he was gay. That’s what we do to little boys, and we do the opposite to little girls who don’t want dolls. The result is that Mom usually is the maternal one, the protective one. How many family annihilators are women?”

  “A few,” I say. “But, yes, they’re overwhelmingly men. Your point being, I presume, that you think Baptiste didn’t want this baby. So he tried to get rid of her, shot Ellen, and is now leading us on a wild-goose chase after a fictional kidnapper.”

  “You saw his gun. Does it match the murder weapon?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yet you still think the kid’s telling the truth and Cherise is lying about seeing them together this morning?”

  “No, I don’t think Cherise is lying.”

  “Mistaken, then?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  She grumbles at that. An idea is forming in my brain. It’s been there since Cherise mentioned seeing Baptiste and Sidra across the river, and my gut screamed that she was wrong. Not lying. Just mistaken.

  My brain demanded—and then supplied—an alternate explanation … and berated me for not asking more questions while I had Felicity and Baptiste here. Simple questions, easily answered, and yet I didn’t ask, because they didn’t seem germane to what was happening.

  Baptiste or Felicity could tell me what I need to know. I also want to find Dalton to bounce this theory off him. He didn’t hear our voices and come running while we were talking to Cherise. That bothers me, and I’m trying very hard not to freak out over it and shout for him. That would risk tipping off others in this forest. I must trust that Dalton is fine.

  I could be wrong about Baptiste. If I am, then that may answer my “where are they?” question. My only consolation is that I haven’t heard a shotgun blast. Which doesn’t keep me from wishing we’d kept the damned weapon we’d taken from Baptiste.

  After another half kilometer, I can’t silence that fretting anymore. We might be hot on Sidra’s trail, but we need to reunite with the others.

  Petra agrees.

  “I’ll play signpost and mark the trail,” she says. “You take the pup and go find Eric.”

  I set out with Storm. I’ve told her to find Dalton, and I’m hoping she’ll catch his scent on the breeze. We walk through unbroken snow wherever possible, leaving bread crumbs back to Petra. It’s less than ten minutes before Storm goes still. She sniffs the air. It’s not Dalton. If it were, she’d veer that way without hesitation.

  “Who is it, girl?”

  Her body language is relaxed, meaning whoever it is doesn’t worry her. Not Cherise and Owen then. It’s a scent she recognizes, though, someone she has no strong feelings about either way. She glances at me, and there’s question in that look. It suggests she’s smelling another member of our party—Felicity or Baptiste—and while they aren’t her target, perhaps I’m also looking for them?

  “Good girl,” I say. Then I tell her yes, please track the new scent. I’m not sure she’ll understand my command, but she sets off at a lope.

  I take out my gun. I must, in case this is Baptiste, and I am mistaken about him. We head into thick forest, and I slow Storm, only to get a look that says we’re too close to the target to bother. Yet despite the thick forest, I don’t see anyone.

  Storm stops. She goes rigid and whines, anxiety strumming from her. I look arou
nd. There’s no one here, no place for anyone to hide.

  “What is it, girl?”

  I follow her gaze. Just ahead, snow has been flattened. I see prints, multiple sets. That’s when I spot the blood, drops of red sunk into the snow.

  I race over.

  There’s blood. Definite blood, recently sprayed, droplets falling into fresh snow. Under my feet, the snow isn’t just trampled—it’s flat. Someone fell here. A struggle on the ground, a blow, blood flying.

  Two sets of prints, coming from opposite directions. One significantly smaller than the other.

  Felicity’s prints. I recognize the imprint of fur around the edge. The other set is male. Not Dalton’s boots. That’s all I can tell. His prints would be instantly distinguishable from the tread-free ones. Felicity was here. Someone attacked her.

  Or she attacked someone.

  If it was Felicity attacking, though, she lost. I see the male prints leaving the flattened snow of the fight … and dragging something with him. Dragging Felicity.

  I’m following that trail when Storm whines. Not the anxiety of smelling blood, though. This is excitement. Her nose goes up, and her entire body wriggles with the joy that can only mean one thing.

  “Eric?” I say. “Do you smell Eric?”

  She woofs, a deep adult-Newfoundland woof, even as her massive body puppy-gyrates with excitement.

  “Good girl.” I glance at the trail where someone dragged Felicity away. Is leaving it to go after Dalton the right move?

  “Stop right there!” a voice shouts. Baptiste’s voice, ringing through the forest … coming from the direction Storm is looking.

  From Dalton’s direction.

  A shotgun blast, and I’m running, running as fast as I can. I hear Dalton’s voice then. Thank God I hear Dalton’s voice, even if it barely pierces the blood pounding in my ears. He’s saying something I can’t catch, his voice calm, and Baptiste shouts at him again, telling him to get back, get back right now, get away from her.

  Her?

  Felicity?

  Sidra?

  Either way, my gut drops. I’ve made a mistake. An unforgivable one. Cherise said she saw Baptiste with Sidra after Sidra was supposedly kidnapped. Petra jumped to the obvious conclusion—Baptiste was lying—but I’d wanted to believe otherwise. Yes, there’s a selfish part of me that wants Abby’s parents to be horrible people who do not deserve her, so I can keep her. But there’s another part I only recognize now. The part that wants the best of all possible endings to this story by that little baby getting back to loving and capable parents. I want her to have good parents who love each other and love her and are beside themselves with panic at her disappearance.