Just Intuition

  The first thing she stuffed into the empty bag was her red Columbia windbreaker and pants, followed by Erin's MiniMag flashlight from the bedside stand. It was kept close for those times when they blew an electrical fuse and she needed to traipse to the basement to tinker with the ancient fusebox in the middle of the night. Erin hadn't yet gotten around to the electrical work, so using the hairdryer made that happen with more frequency than she liked.

  Attuned to the fact that something different was happening, Fiona trailed inquisitively behind her when she made her way downstairs to finish packing. Wrong-Way Rachel was holed up somewhere sleeping off the catnip she had enjoyed earlier. The exhausted cat would not be interested in poking around the kitchen counters for another couple of hours.

  Allie retrieved a small hatchet, the first aid kit, a bottle of insect repellant, and a coil of yellow polypropylene rope from the storage bin in the front closet. A pack of matches, zipped into a plastic bag, went in after that. She hesitated and leaned, staring into the bag. Fiona whined, wetly nosing the back of her knee and she startled upright. She reoriented herself and searched the hallway closet until she found the red Swiss Army knife her ever practical foster mom had given her. It was an immeasurably handy tool and she slid it into the front pocket of the computer bag. In the kitchen, she added what seemed like random items. Fiona wagged her tail when Allie reached into the bottom cupboard for the bag of dog treats.

  Leaving her wallet and cell phone behind, she locked the door and loaded the dog into her sadly abused car. She tossed her bag onto the front passenger seat and started the engine. Fiona's tongue dangled out the side of her mouth and her fabulous tail swished energetically. She snuggled into her assigned spot in the back. Allie took a deep breath and backed out the driveway.

  She drove on autopilot, absent of conscious decision making. The car navigated across paved streets to the outskirts of town where she turned off and bounced down an unmarked road. Potholes and ruts were deep, scraping the vulnerably low undercarriage of the tiny car. Allie paid no mind and continued until the narrow road became a single lane. It dwindled to twin rows of tire marks through a field of weeds. She drove aggressively, slamming the gears between first and second, forcing the four cylinder engine to its limit. Mud sucked at the tires, rendering them virtually useless. They spun on the unforgiving terrain. She slammed the shifter back into first gear, made her way past a stretch of spongy ground and built up speed, shooting down a narrow tree-lined path.

  Fiona's nose twitched in excitement when she sensed their proximity to the river, her tail whipping faster than ever. Allie gunned the engine one last time. The Mini Cooper pitched forward down the bank to the thick aquatic grasses at the river's edge. Water spurted over the hood when it lurched to a stop and then sank ungraciously to its axles in muck.

  Stunned, Fiona flattened herself on the floor. The dog shot into the front seat and pawed at Allie's shoulder when brown water seeped in. As if sleepwalking, Allie calmly unclipped her seatbelt and shoved at her door but it was blocked and would not budge. Unruffled, she unrolled her window, retrieved her bag and exited into the knee deep mud. Fiona followed and instinctively headed back up the bank for drier ground, all four paws thrashing through the weeds.

  "You're a retriever," Allie said. "You're supposed to like water." The mundane words surprised her when they escaped her mouth and she suddenly looked around, as if this was the first time she'd noticed her surroundings. She grimaced at her favorite shoes sunk under two feet of sludge. Pulling them free, she crawled onto the hood of her car, wrenching off a windshield wiper in the process. She sighed at it and tossed it through the open window. Fiona watched her, barking nervously from the top of the riverbank. Allie swung the computer bag over one shoulder and stood up on the bubbled paint of the car's hood. She held a hand over her brows to shield the sun and watched the river.

  A solitary figure in a canoe appeared upstream and Allie waited. Erin's posture stiffened when she recognized her girlfriend and the sunken Mini Cooper. Her paddle strokes quickened. Fiona's barking grew feverish when Erin's canoe pulled closer.

  "Baby!" she called out. "What are you doing here?"

  "I am coming with you!" Fiona chimed into the conversation with a worried bark of her own.

  "You can't. Your car!" Erin nosed the canoe into the grasses and out of the river's current.

  "You have to take us! You can't leave us stranded out here!" Allie pointed at the dog pacing onshore as if that would be the deciding factor.

  * * *

  She was right. The closest house was miles from here, if she could even find it in the woods. Erin knew she could not leave her out here alone. She pointed to a rocky outcropping fifty feet downstream and backed the canoe out of the weeds. "Meet me there!"

  Allie bounded onto the roof of the car and then, like an Olympic long jumper, made one giant leap toward the riverbank. Fiona ran to greet her when she landed ankle deep in mud and dragged her sodden shoes up the bank. The dog circled as if they had been separated for days and trotted contentedly behind her to the prearranged meeting spot. They arrived as the canoe's bow eased onto shore and Erin disembarked, hands reproachfully on hips. She faced Allie, who beamed triumphantly.

  "What were you thinking?" Erin said, more tersely than she had intended, and Allie's smile drooped.

  "I-I'm not a hundred percent sure." Allie's lip almost quivered before she recovered. "I know I needed to get here, to this very spot, as fast as I could. I didn't understand until I drowned my car and saw you coming down the river." Erin's expression softened. "You can't leave me here. You have to take me with you."

  "And the dog?" Erin massaged Fiona's soft ear. "What do we do with the dog?"

  Allie lifted a foot into the canoe and began to board before Erin quickly grabbed the teetering gunwale and motioned her back. She took a deep breath. They would have to start from square one. She slid the boat back off the rock until it was buoyant in the water and waded to her thighs beside it. She relocated the gear and rotated the canoe until the bow was facing out. Directing Allie to enter from the stern, with her weight centered, she reminded her to hold fast to the gunwales. Allie did as instructed and slid her hands along her way to the bow. As if it might leap out and snap at her, she studiously avoided the shotgun lying across Erin's pack.

  She had a great sense of balance and there was a minimum of wobble during the procedure. She slid gracefully into her seat, bag at her feet. When she was settled, Erin gently picked up Fiona, hoisting the nervously compliant seventy pound canine into the middle of the boat. The dog's body tensed and she stiffly settled into a spot dead center. She stepped one sneaker over the side and pushed the canoe away from shore with her other foot. It destabilized momentarily as everyone on board adjusted their position and then settled low in the water. Fiona whined softly and Erin reached forward to pat the dog's back.

  "It's okay, buddy," she crooned. "You're a good girl." Fiona's tail thumped against the aluminum keel and she sniffed a spot under the thwart. Sufficiently distracted, she shifted her weight a little more and hunkered lower in the boat. Erin slid her paddle out slowly so as not to alarm the dog and made strong strokes to get the craft back into the river's downstream current. Paddling solo, she tilted the blade at the end of each stroke to correct the yaw.

  Allie took up the extra paddle in front and wholeheartedly tugged it through the water, thrashing the wooden handle against the metal gunwale. After a couple of noisy strokes, she peered around at Erin, who thrust her paddle deeply into the water, drawing it back until it was even with her hip. Erin pointedly withdrew the paddle and repeated. Allie watched the demonstration and then dutifully replicated it at the bow, forcefully propelling the canoe forward. Taken off guard by Allie's unexpectedly strong stroke, Erin was forced to dig in to correct their direction.

  "I'm so glad you are not a lily dipper," she quipped, and Allie shot her a baffled look. The view from the stern lifted Erin's spirits and she marveled at how easily
her city girl had transformed herself once she'd committed to being in the great outdoors. Allie's strong arms pumped rhythmically when she paddled, ponytail swishing back and forth like a metronome across muscular shoulders. It was hard not to want to reach out and stroke the soft caramel colored skin at her neck.

  Erin steered them downstream once more, and the two women settled into an easy rhythm. Fiona heaved a great sigh and settled her head on Erin's pack. The sky grew darker and rain clouds gathered in the distance. A half hour passed before either of them spoke.

  "Do I need to ask how you knew where to find me?"

  "I don't know," Allie told her. "I just came." She pulled her paddle from the water and twisted around in her seat. "I don't remember actually thinking about what I was doing. I just did it. I packed stuff, loaded the dog and drove. I didn't understand why I had driven my car in the river until I saw you come paddling around the corner. I couldn't risk missing you."

  "Hmmm." Erin had no response to that. They paddled on for a few more minutes.

  "I don't have a headache!" Allie exclaimed. Fiona's ears twitched upright, settling back down when no apparent danger emerged.

  "You better not have candles and wine in that bag, because I have no time for romance." Allie kept paddling, but Erin could imagine the impish grin on her face. In other circumstances, it would be an immensely enjoyable canoe excursion. She turned her mind to the urgent purpose of this particular trip.

  "Two other officers went downstream in my dad's fishing boat," she said. If Allie wanted to help, she might as well know what they were looking for. "They are checking the main channel but they can't get into any narrower streams, or places with too many weeds. This canoe rides higher in the water and doesn't have a motor to get tangled. We will be able to check all of those areas." Up front, Allie nodded. She did not miss a stroke.

  "Look up ahead," Erin whispered and Allie's ponytail bobbed to attention.

  "A moose!" she said, a little too loudly, causing Fiona to let out a tiny yip. The wary moose raised its head and, with unusual grace for such a large ungainly creature, stepped up over the riverbank. It disappeared silently into the trees. The only evidence of its passing was a narrow divide in the cattails where it had crossed the river.

  As they passed the spot, Erin pointed to the separation in floating lilypads and the trail of bent grasses. "That is what we are looking for. A canoe recently passing will make a path like that if it heads to shore. If we see any others, we need to investigate what caused them."

  "What else are we looking for?" Allie was an eager partner.

  "Campfire smoke, disturbed wildlife, anything that might have been discarded—"

  "A note carved into a tree by Lily that says exactly where they've gone?" Allie quipped, finishing her sentence.

  "With a map." Erin loved that girl.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  "You have food!" Minion says. I slowly slide the plastic package from my beef jerky over the edge of the canoe and into the water. I manage a grimace in response. It's not my fault Minion was too stupid to bring anything.

  Minion stops paddling altogether and gawks at me. Let's go. Paddle. I can't tell if that look is angry or sad. Minion's stare is still frozen on me, paddle not moving. The canoe turns sideways in the river and we drift. We are headed for a tangle of branches from a fallen poplar and will be stuck there in a minute. Fine. I dig in my bag and throw the package of cookies over. Minion fumbles and has to scrabble around to grab them before they are soaked in the mucky soup at the bottom of the canoe. I hide my smile. Now keep paddling.

  The sky is dark as mud and the air is cooler, enough to make me shiver, by the time I spot the dead tree ahead. Birch bark peels like sheets of white paper off the trunk and one naked branch signals me to the little creek I've been looking for. I point it out to The Minion who gives me a dumbass look and shrugs like a moron. I have been here before, many times, and what usually takes me twenty minutes in the motorboat, took friggin' forever to paddle.

  My arms are welted with mosquito bites and I splash a little water onto them but it doesn't take the itch. The one thing I forgot was the thing I could use most right now. Everyone knows you don't go into the woods without your bug dope. We hop out at the shore and Minion helps me tug the canoe over a fallen tree blocking our way. We drag the boat through the guck and the fiberglass hull screeches against a rock, startling a flock of sparrows. The commotion in the trees makes me jump.

  "Sheisse!" I yell and duck my head, just in case. "I hate birds." The Minion stares at me again. Would you stop eyeballing me?

  We leave the worst of the mosquitoes behind at the river and haul the canoe to the top of the bank, turning it upside down in the brush. The faded green hull blends into the ground and won't be noticed. I take the knife from my pocket and snap it open, sinking the blade into the bark of the tree above the canoe. It sticks out like a brown handled warning to anyone who might come this way. Caution, danger ahead. Stay out.

  In the trees, the pesky mosquitoes of the river are replaced by swarms of blackflies and a dark cloud of insects hums above me, homing in. Always most hungry before a storm, they bite through the tender skin behind my ears and I swat uselessly. I pull the front of my shirt over my mouth and nose so I can breathe, but they still feast wherever they can. It's enough to make you insane. I see blood drizzling down Minion's neck and I hope his tastes sweeter than mine to the blackflies.

  There is a narrow animal trail along the creek and I lead the way deeper into the bush, my panther feet coming back to me on dry land. The branches whipping by break up the bugs so I move fast to take advantage. Minion follows right behind me and I cinch up my backpack straps to keep it close. A five-minute walk from the main river, where the creek disappears underground, is my secret hideout. It's a one room wooden shack that I found two years ago and it's mine. The metal roof's rusty but it doesn't leak, far as I know. The old door's half busted but it still keeps out the critters. There is plastic covering the single window beside the door and I replace it from time to time with new stuff. I kind of hate letting Minion in on my secret place but today it can't be helped. I twist the latch on the door and we get inside, trying not to take too many flying vampires with us.

  Minion examines the three legged stool, wiggles the little table and kicks at the frame of the wooden bed like a friggin' army inspector. Finally Minion sits. I shake the leaves from the chimney pipe and kneel to light a fire in the stove. It's nothing special, only a square metal box someone hauled out here long before the place was mine. It has a couple of hinges on the grated door in front and a pipe that goes back out the wall under the roof overhang. It works great and I've even come out here on a cool fall afternoon to get away.

  I've barely got the fire going when the rain comes, gentle at first like whispering leaves, then harder, crashing on the metal roof. And the thunder, like all the bastards in hell are shouting at once. I sit on the dirt floor in front of the stove and watch the flames lick up every last bit of wood I stuff in. Just seeing the bright little fingers surround and devour the sticks of wood gives me a tickle in the base of my stomach. Fire is my friend. I could sit here all night but the heat is getting too intense. Sweat beads my forehead and I remember that I am not alone. The invader is here. I close the grated door and back away.

  Minion wants to talk. Talk about our day. Talk about our future. Talk about the fire. Talk about the old man. I can't even hear with the godawful racket of the rain, so I curl up like a big dangerous cat on the other side of the bed and try to keep myself to myself until morning.

  * * *

  "I see something!" Allie scooted forward in her seat to point into the weeds and the canoe teetered dangerously. Fiona whined and Erin calmed her after she stabilized the boat with her own weight.

  "Baby! Don't flip us!" Now Erin spotted it too and dug in her paddle to turn the small craft. Hung up in the lilypads out of the main current was a bright red and orange plastic bag. Allie peered down at it in
the water when Erin steered them past. "We missed the junk food party!" The bag had not had a chance to make it further into the weeds, or to be submerged by the current, and had likely been tossed earlier in the day.

  "Cheetos!" Erin plucked it out of the water and examined it, crushing it in one angry fist. Fiona sniffed the air with interest and she tucked the empty package under her pack on the floor. "I know Striker and Z-man did not have Cheetos. Derek, the lunch thief, must be the junk food litterbug." She clenched her jaw and put more energy into each paddle stroke. If they hurried, they might be able to catch up. Sensing her urgency, Allie matched her stroke for stroke and the canoe skimmed across the water's surface, a sharp V rippling in its wake.

  A half hour later, Allie called out again, this time remaining steadfastly glued to her seat. She balanced her paddle on thighs and pointed a gracefully long finger into the trees. "We need to look there."

  "Do you see something?" Erin squinted. Allie did have better eyesight. She tilted her paddle and steered them toward a flat rock on a sandy stretch of riverbank. As they approached, Erin noted a sharp indentation from a canoe's scraping keel that she had totally missed. There were two sets of footprints in the sand, disappearing into the grass and then returning. In addition to her surprisingly strong paddling, Allie proved to be an observant scout. Like she had been born in a canoe, she vaulted over the bow and pulled the boat onto shore by the painter line. She lifted the relieved dog out over the side and Fiona daintily stepped to dry land, lapping water on her way.

  The women followed Fiona's nose on a quick excursion ashore. The dog led them to a couple of plastic granola bar wrappers and a circle of footprints digging into the sand by the canoe's landing spot. Someone had been waiting here. Were they waiting for something or was this only a resting place? With no questions to their answers, they launched the canoe back onto the river.