Here and Gone(79)

He felt her nose crunch beneath his fist, felt the pain of it coursing up his arm from his hand before he knew he’d thrown the punch.

Collins went down hard. The back of her head connected with the tiled floor. She blinked at the ceiling for a few moments. Then she coughed, spat blood into the air as it coursed from her nose over her lips and cheeks.

‘Fuck,’ Whiteside said. ‘Fuck me.’

He pressed his palms to his temples as if to keep his mind in place, as if it might crack and crumble if he didn’t hold on tight enough.

‘Jesus,’ he said, his voice high and whining.

Collins heaved herself onto her side, then onto her stomach. She tried to get her knees under her, tried to crawl away.

Whiteside knelt down, reached for her. She slapped at his arms, but he gathered her up, held her close.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Christ, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that.’

She coughed again, spattering his sleeves with red. Her body jerked and twisted as she tried to pull away.

‘I’m so sorry,’ he said.

Her chin fit neatly into the crook of his elbow as he wrapped his right arm tight around her neck. His left arm curled around the top of her head. He squeezed.

‘So sorry,’ he said.

Her body bucked, her legs kicked, hands grabbing at his arms and shoulders, nails seeking his face.

‘I’m sorry.’

Then she became very still, and he kissed the top of her head as his tears rolled down from his cheeks to soak into her hair.





47


‘DID YOU LOVE him?’ Danny asked.

‘I thought I did,’ Audra said. ‘And I thought he loved me, at first. I wanted it to be true. I told myself things would get better. That he’d change, but he didn’t.’

They each sat with their backs against either side of a tree trunk. A few minutes’ rest from the relentless trek through the forest. Coming up on two hours, according to Danny’s watch. Audra had grown hoarse from calling her children’s names, hearing nothing back but the echo of her own voice. With the air as thin as it was up here, maybe she shouldn’t have wasted her breath on shouting, but it had seemed the only sane thing to do.

With no cell signal out here, they had no choice but to keep moving. The compass app on Danny’s phone had meant they could keep track of their direction. Even so, the risk of getting lost was great. The further they strayed from the cabin where Sean and Louise had been held, the deeper the danger of never finding the way back. Audra had agreed to give it another hour or so, and if they didn’t find anything, they’d retrace their steps, get back to the road, and hope to spot a passing car.

‘Tell me about your wife,’ Audra said.

‘Mya,’ Danny said. ‘She was a miracle. Saved my life. Without her, I’d be in prison or dead. Her and my little girl were everything I had. And those bastards took them away from me. When I find them …’

He didn’t need to finish the thought.

‘I hope you do,’ Audra said.

‘I’ve spent five years thinking about it,’ Danny said. ‘How I shouldn’t have let Mya go that morning. I should have begged her to stay. But I was too proud, too damn stubborn. And now they’re gone and I can’t ever get them back.’

They fell into silence, the trees whispering all around, laced with birdsong.

Audra heard Danny sniff. She turned her head, saw his head bowed. She reached for his hand, took it in hers.

‘We’ll put it right,’ she said. ‘Whatever we have to do, we’ll do it.’

His fingers squeezed hers.





48


THE DRY LAKEBED was wider than Sean thought. It seemed to take an age to cross it, the ground hard like rock beneath their feet. The sun had risen above the trees, and his skin prickled with the strength of it, the heat cutting through the mountain air’s chill.

By the time they reached the other side, the ribbon of smoke had thickened, become darker. Sean kept hold of Louise’s hand as they ascended the slope on the other side and re-entered the trees. Cold again, the sun blocked by the branches.

Sean peered up through the pines, felt a moment of panic when he couldn’t find the smoke. He stopped, released Louise’s hand, and turned in a circle.

‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.

‘I’ve lost it,’ he said.

‘Lost what?’

‘The smoke. We need to follow the smoke, but I can’t find it.’

He turned in a circle, his eyes to the shards of sky he could make out through the canopy. Think, he commanded. Where’s the dry lake? He faced that direction. Now where was the eagle? He stretched out his arm as if it was a needle on a compass, rotated until he felt sure his fingers pointed in the right direction. Then he looked up, stared hard.

There. Thank God, there it was, the pale smear of gray in the sky.

‘Come on,’ he said, taking Louise’s hand again.

They picked their way through the trees, Sean keeping his attention on the smoke, for fear of losing it again. No matter how fast they walked, however long, the smoke seemed to come no closer. A phantom against the blue, a mirage to trick them deeper into the forest.

‘Can we stop?’ Louise asked after a while.