* * *
“Mom?”
“Baby?”
“I’m here.”
Her mom’s wonderful voice, staticky or not, was still the sweetest thing Nicki had ever heard.
“Are you safe?” her mom asked. “Where is ‘here’?”
“We’re with Terry.”
“Is that Nicki?” Hannibal squealed. “Want Nicki.”
“Thank God.” Then she paused. “We? Who is ‘we’?”
“Me and Pax.”
“The dog?”
“Where are you?”
“On Lookout Mountain.”
“So are we!”
Her mom sounded near tears. “What kind of miracle…” A honking sound. “Listen. We’re at … what is the address here?” A muffled conversation. “One triple two Rebel Way. Give the phone to Terry.”
“He is asking directions in the store. Here he comes!”
He approached the car, carrying a bag of groceries. When he looked carefully through the window, his face flattened with shock. “Oh, shit! What did you do?”
She blinked. “Mom called. My cell signal sucks. My network is no good. But yours is great.”
He glared at her.
“Did I do something wrong?”
He snatched the phone from her. “Olympia?” Terry said.
“Terry?”
“Where are you?” he asked.
“Outside Dahlonega. One triple two Rebel Road. Can you get here?”
“As fast as we can. Are you with Hani?”
“Yes. He’s fine,” she said. “Just … get here.”
Roughly, Terry thumbed off the phone and ripped out the battery.
He looked as if he wanted to scream at her, and the sudden shockwave of anger took her totally by surprise. She’d never seen anything but kindness or intensity from Terry, but this was anger, deep and savage. Almost as if there were another face beneath the human, struggling to reach the surface.
Then … he took a deep breath and calmed down. And the emergent face was gone. “Listen. I took out the battery so that … certain people wouldn’t know where I am.”
“Why?” Nicki felt confused. Were the people trying to kidnap her tracking his phone as well?
“Too hard to explain.”
“Well … I’m sorry. It’s out now. So you’re safe?”
“I can hope so,” Terry said. He punched the address into the car’s portable GPS unit.
She glanced at it nervously. “Can they trace us through that thing?”
“I don’t think so,” Terry said. “I never gave it my name, so I don’t know how they’d isolate me from all the other GPS systems on the road, even if that’s technically possible. Maybe if they had my identification number or something.”
The GPS spoke in John Cleese’s fussy butler voice: “Take a right turn just ahead, if you can remember how to do that, sir.”
Nicki tried to laugh, but failed. She had put them in danger! “I’m sorry,” she said.
“It’s all right,” he replied. Once again he was calm Terry. Centered Terry. In-control Terry. “We’ll make do.”
Then with a whipping motion of his wrist she wouldn’t have expected to shred a paper bag, he smashed the phone against the steering wheel. It splintered like a cracker. He tossed the wreckage out of the window. She stared at him, expecting the angry face again … but no. Nothing but softness and concern.
“You just wanted to talk to your mom.” He sighed. “I’d give anything in the world to talk to mine one more time.”
Her eyes shone at him as they drove away into the night. But Terry’s eyes were worried.
* * *
Olympia and her new friends sat around the fireplace, the flames popping and crackling and begging for marshmallows as yet unproduced. Somehow, a new and unnamed tension had entered the situation. “Your friends are coming?” Franklin asked.
“Yes.”
“That’s good,” Franklin said. “That’s good.”
He looked at Margerie. She nodded, and he crossed his legs, his foot bobbing rapidly.
“Did I hear you say something about the Sanctuary?” Margerie asked.
“Yes,” Olympia said. “We were there for a tour last summer. Have you been there?”
“Yes,” Margerie replied, but left it at that. Olympia thought she saw Margerie’s eyes shift to Franklin and back again, but wasn’t certain.
Before Olympia could formulate her thoughts, the phone rang. “Excuse me,” Franklin said, and picked up the phone. “Yes?”
He said something she couldn’t hear. His body tensed. His back went to Olympia and Hannibal. Hannibal stared at the television screen. It seemed to be a rerun of Gilligan’s Island, with the professor once again creating laptop computers out of coconuts and seaweed.
“The television isn’t good,” Margerie said. “The local station … nothing but bad news. Everyone’s scared. Frankly, I’m surprised that you got up the road. I’d heard it was barricaded.”
“Some of the smaller roads weren’t blocked.”
“Not really a great time for tourism, dear.”
“No. To tell the truth, we rented a cabin last summer, and I hoped to make it there, maybe have a chance to wait things out. It’s getting frightening down in the city.”
Franklin was talking animatedly on the phone. Quick gestures and a mobile face. Although she couldn’t make out the conversation, and he was turned away from the living room, Olympia’s ears burned.
“Thank you,” Franklin said. He hung up the phone and returned to them.
“So you wanted to get away from the city,” Margerie said. “I can understand that. Nothing down there.”
“How long have you lived up here?” she asked. That phone call. What had the message been? Their faces were unreadable.
“Six years now,” Franklin said.
“What brought you here?”
“Our grandchildren,” he said calmly. The kind of quiet, calm voice one uses with hysterical children.
“Oh?” She hoped her voice was as mild as she intended.
“Yes. They were nearby. We came to be with them.”
“Franklin had just retired,” Margerie said. “He was dealing with job stress.”
Franklin smiled ruefully. “Oh, you can tell the truth.”
“Well, it’s your story, dear,” she said. “If you want a thing told right, you should tell it yourself.”
“My health had collapsed,” Franklin said. “I was a writer in Hollywood.” That condescending voice was gone. Now he was back on more comfortable ground, talking about his own hard-won experience.
“Is that hard?”
“Not if you enjoy idiots, butt-kissers, and tons of money,” he said.
They all laughed. Maybe she was imagining things.
“Oh, that’s an exaggeration, I’m sure,” Franklin said. “It wasn’t that much money once you average it over the months of waiting.”
Olympia looked more closely at Margerie. “Haven’t I seen you before?”
Margerie smoothed her hair. “Oh, my, only if you watch old television commercials.”
“That happy grandmother?”
“Yes. Granny Lee.”
Hannibal sang, “‘Hot dogs. Armour hot dogs. What kind of kids eat Armour hot dogs…’”
Margerie blinked. “Oh, my goodness. He saw that? That must be on one of the retro channels. Nick at Night, perhaps.”
“He remembers everything.”
Margerie laughed. “Yes, that was me. It was silly, but I was happy to get it. Hollywood can be kind of hard on ladies of a certain age.”
“So you came out here from Hollywood to be with your grandchildren?”
“Well, our grandchildren encouraged us to come out. I guess that’s the same thing.”
A horrible possibility collided with Olympia’s growing sense of calm. Calm lost. “They … were at the Sanctuary?”
“Yes, dear.”
From the corner of her eye, she sa
w Hannibal’s mouth tense into a worried frown. Without turning away from the television set he mouthed: get out.
“You said there were stress issues. Were they able to help you?” Olympia tried to keep her voice from sounding leaden and panicked.
“More than I can say.”
“Was that them on the phone?” she asked mildly.
“Yes.” A pause, then: “You really shouldn’t have taken the book, dear. Where is it?”
“There is no book,” she said.
“Franklin?” Margerie asked, curious.
The older man seemed infinitely regretful, but also reproachful, as if irritated that Olympia was forcing him to be inhospitable. “Our guests have light fingers, honey. They took something that doesn’t belong to them. Our friends up the hill asked us to keep our eyes open.” He looked disappointed in his guests, as if he considered this new information a personal betrayal. “And here they are!”
“You don’t understand,” Olympia said. “That’s not the truth.”
Franklin wagged his head. “The good folks at the Sanctuary just want the book back.”
“That’s not what they want,” Olympia said. “They want my son…”
“Now, now,” Margerie cajoled. “I’m sure they just want the book back. Probably won’t even press charges. They’re really the very nicest people.”
Olympia got up. “Hannibal? Come on. We’re going.”
“It’s very cold out there,” Franklin said.
“We’re going.”
“Well, I can’t stop you, dear,” Margerie said. “But you’ll have to leave the book.”
She spread her arms, a search me gesture. “There is no book. They’re lying. We were held captive. Madame Gupta is a monster.”
Franklin turned to his wife. “They said she was emotionally disturbed, that she had been abusing the boy. Child Protective Services released her to their custody in an effort to save the family.”
The corners of Margerie’s mouth sagged. “Is that any way to reward people trying to help you?”
“We’re leaving now.”
The old man lunged and grabbed her arm. She wrested herself away, and he lost balance and tottered back against the wall with a thud, sliding down. His expression was more surprise than shock or pain, but still …
Olympia and Hannibal fled out into the snowstorm.
* * *
In the warehouse, Lee, Pat, Mark, and Father Geek grabbed weapons and equipment: flash grenades, radios, and five beautiful Ares SCR laser-sighted rifles, .223 caliber with sixteen-inch barrels and black hardcoat anodized finish. Lethal, accurate, dependable … and legal in all fifty states.
Geek guided the loading and preparation, then roared: “All right! We’re out. The number faded again. Short call. He probably thought we wouldn’t catch it.”
Mark tied his shoes, then paused. “Maybe he traded phones with someone. He’s using a burner, and this is a decoy.”
Geek shook his head. “If that’s true, why would he take the battery out? Why only talk for thirty seconds? No … I think that’s our baby boy, and I think he made a mistake.”
“Everybody makes one,” Mark said. “He was mine, and it’s time to undo it.”
He looked around at the others. “All right. Dahlonega. That’s sixty miles north. A decent place to hide out. If he stays put, we should be able to get within a couple hundred feet of him.”
“So … he’s somewhere in the Georgia mountains.”
“I wonder what he’s doing there?” Mark asked.
Pat sneered. “He’d better be picking out a grave.”
“Give it a rest,” Lee said. “This is bad enough as it is.”
Mark and Father Geek exchanged troubled expressions: this wasn’t what they had wanted at all.
But damn it, it was sure as shit what Terry had given them.
* * *
Olympia and Hannibal stumbled through knee-deep snow, down the mountainside toward the distant lights. “Cold,” Hannibal said, his breath puffing in wispy white clouds.
“I know, baby,” Olympia said. She peered through a stand of saplings beneath them, able to make out a road. Two sets of headlights heading toward them. Other human figures in the woods, glowing fingers stabbing out into the swirling snow.
“Come on!”
Holding Hani in her arms she waded through calf-deep frozen white, despair beginning to seize at her before she saw a rectangular blue shape half-covered in white: a child’s sled, a Christmas present left out in the night for her to find. Perhaps Franklin and Margerie’s grandchild. No doubt the manufacturer’s specifications would consider it too small for the two of them, but to hell with that: this was another small wonder on a day she would take any miracles she could get.
Olympia pulled the sled out and faced it downhill, deposited Hannibal in her lap, and pushed it into motion. A red-and-white steering rope had been looped to the front end, and she was able to swerve it this way and that, picking up a little speed as they slid. Snow fountained up from the blades and into their eyes and mouths, numbing her fingers so that she couldn’t feel the rope cutting into them as she wove left and right, threading trees. It was a glorious moment, a moment she might have enjoyed had this not been the worst night of her life. The frustrated voices of armed and angry men grew fainter behind her … until they crashed into a snow-covered shrub.
At least, she thought dazedly, as she spit snow, it hadn’t been a rock.
“Whee!” Hannibal squealed.
“Whee. Whee, baby.” She desperately forced merriment into her voice. “We’re having fun. We’re having fun…” She chanted the words over and over again. “We’re having fun.”
Then she heard a woman’s angry voice to her right. “They’re over here!”
“Come on!” Olympia yanked at Hannibal’s sleeve, pulling him to the south.
They tumbled down the slope, earth and sky whirling around them. Their destination: the frosted gingerbread houses below that had seemed so close …
Air, ground, trees … all a thumping tangle and then they hit something soft and were still. Where were they…?
When her vision cleared and she looked up, a man was looming over her, a gun pointed directly at her face. “Where is the boy?”
Suddenly a powder-puff explosion of ice and snowflakes on the side of his head. His feet slipped out from under him, and he fell.
“Bingo!” Hannibal laughed. He’d hit the security man with a snowball! Before he could get up and correct himself, the two escapees were back on the sled and flying down the slope again.
A gunshot behind them. Olympia flinched as she felt something like a white-hot wire scraping across her arm, a sharp gust plucking at her sleeve. Behind her, a thud and a gasp. Then a man’s roar: “Damn it, we need them alive!”
* * *
Their sled hit a road, skidded across, and then slammed into another tree. “Oof!” she groaned as they spilled onto the ground.
She stumbled up as two vehicles approached from opposite directions, pinioning her with their light. A man got out of one, and aimed his gun at her in the swirling snow.
She held Hannibal, wheezing clouds of vapor.
“I’m sorry, baby. I’m sorry,” she chanted, as if saying the words could make things right.
Then—
“Mommy!” Nicki called.
The gunman turned around, but as he did the other vehicle slammed to a stop and from the corner of her snow-blind eye she saw someone vault across the hood of a car, blink-fast, like a gymnast vaulting the horse. The gunman had only begun to turn when feet slammed into the side of his head. The light was too bright to see clearly, but the two collided with a cracking sound. Another man appeared from behind them, but as soon as her eyes focused on him he dropped bonelessly, crunching face-first into the snow.
And … Terry emerged from the light, extending his hand to her. “‘Come with me if you want to live.’”
She stared at him, teeth chattering with adr
enaline, cold, and disbelief. “They’re trying to take my son, and you … you’re quoting The Terminator?”
Terry had been grinning, almost like a kid who has just used a new favorite toy.
“Are you out … out of your…” She broke down, tears choking her throat, and collapsed into his arms.
He blinked. And then the almost childlike glee dissolved, and he finally seemed to understand how inappropriate his words had been. “Hey, hey. I’m sorry. I was just … being an asshole, I guess.”
Olympia’s legs wobbled with anger, relief, and a wave of gratitude strong enough to drown thought. They hugged, and she kissed him desperately hard as Hannibal clung to his leg. “You,” she whispered in his ear, “are the very best asshole in the history of the world.”
“Come on,” Terry said.
In a fumbling welter of hugs and kisses Olympia and Hani piled into Terry’s powder-blue Chevy. “You’re all right!” Olympia said, embracing Nicki. “Thank God!”
Pax slobbered over her cheek, and curiously enough, that was what finally convinced her she wasn’t dreaming.
She and Hannibal clung to Nicki like crazy, and the three of them cried and kissed and huddled. And in the back of Olympia’s mind, she thought: Hannibal is hugging! Touching! I’ve never seen him like this. What did that woman do to him?
“Mom!” Nicki sobbed. “I was so scared.” Olympia held her daughter’s face, gazed into it as if trying to memorize it, hugging her until their tears smeared each other’s faces, and then hugged more.
Never let you go. Never let you go. Never—
“What the hell is going on?” Terry said. “What are you doing up here?” His face twisted in a snarl. “We have to get to the Salvation Sanctuary.”
She froze, and then gripped his shoulder. “Are you out of your mind?”
“What?”
“That’s where we just came from,” she said.
“What precisely are you saying?” Terry said, his voice like grinding gears.
“It was Madame Gupta.”
Terry recoiled as if she’d slapped him. “Madame…”
“Look out!” she screamed.
Another car came roaring in from the side, and smacked against the back end of their Chevy.
The wheels broke traction, and they did a 180.
* * *
Twelve Days Page 31