The Trapped Girl (Tracy Crosswhite #4)(106)

Tracy called Faz and told him Andrea Strickland was alive, and Penny Orr was taking them to her. Faz asked if she wanted him to talk to the local police. She told him she didn’t think it necessary, but she would call him back if something changed.

They decided to take two cars, in case they needed to talk with the local police or seek an arrest warrant. Tracy drove Penny Orr’s personal car with Orr in the passenger seat. Fields followed in the rental. Orr said little during the drive, spending most of the time looking out the passenger-side window, fidgeting with her hands, and wiping away tears. At one point she looked over at Tracy and asked, “What will happen to her?”

“It’s really too early to speculate,” Tracy said. “Until we talk to her and get a better idea of what happened and why, I can’t say. What’s her mental state?”

“Her mental state? Fine. Why?”

“Her counselor said it was possible Andrea had a break from reality.”

“A break from reality?”

“He said she could be prone to violent acts if she became desperate. Have you witnessed anything like that?”

“No,” Orr said. “Andrea’s not violent. Is that what you think? Do you think Andrea killed Devin Chambers? Andrea couldn’t kill anyone. She doesn’t have it in her.”

“Does she have access to a car?”

Orr chuckled. “Yes. The family kept a Jeep there but it hasn’t been registered in years.” Orr seemed to give this some thought. “You don’t know.”

“Don’t know what?” Tracy said.

Orr looked as if she were about to speak, then caught herself. “You’ll see,” she said. “You’ll see why she had to run.”

As they continued northeast, the US 395 blacktop with its double yellow line cut a sharp contrast to the brown foothills and smothering pale-blue sky. They drove past dilapidated one-room miner shacks and abandoned towns of cement-block buildings set amid high-desert sage and rabbitbrush, cacti, stands of Joshua trees, and fields of jagged lava rock. As they neared Independence, the scenery again changed, the desolate Onion Valley looming, surrounded by the majestic, jagged peaks of the eastern Sierra Nevada. Mount Whitney, sickly gray and snowcapped, rose as the most prominent.

Near three in the afternoon, they reached Independence. Tracy briefly scanned the town for hotels as they drove through the surface streets, in case they had to spend the night. They turned west on Onion Valley Road, a winding ascent into the foothills that, because of the curves, seemed longer than the posted five miles.

As they approached a stand of trees, Orr said, “Slow down. Turn here.” They left the asphalt for a dirt road, continuing through the trees and hugging a teal-blue mountain stream. After a hundred yards, Orr directed Tracy to a small area cleared of trees where an old Jeep Willys sat. “Park here. The cabin is just up the path.”

Tracy parked beside the Jeep, amazed from its appearance that the car still ran. Fields, following, parked next to her.

“Does she have any weapons?” Tracy asked.

Orr shrugged. “My father has a shotgun. He used it to kill snakes.”

“Where is it located?”

“In the closet in the bedroom. I don’t think it’s been fired in years.”

“Any other weapons? A handgun?”

“No,” Orr said. She let out a painful sigh. “Can I talk to her first and try to explain? She’s not going to understand.”

Not knowing the layout of the cabin, and given that there was at least one weapon inside the building, Tracy couldn’t allow that to happen. “I’m sorry, I can’t do that. But once we get inside and I secure things, I’ll give you time to speak to her.”

They pushed out of the car. The air had become muggy and thick. Billowing white clouds gathered in the distance over the many mountain peaks surrounding the valley. An oval-shaped lenticular cloud hovered like a UFO. Tracy’s father had taught her to read the weather so she would not get caught unprepared. She knew lenticular clouds formed when hot air rose and collided with cooler air. On a mountain, such as Rainier, the clouds could be harbingers of the kind of storms that could kill.

Orr led Tracy and Fields along a dirt path lined with river stones and railroad ties, the only sound the trickling of the stream and the buzz of unseen insects. Another ten yards and Tracy saw a wooden walk, a bridge over a stream leading to a cabin nestled among the pines. Forest-green with a red door, the cabin sat on a foundation of river stones, with a chimney made of the same rocks protruding above the roof. At first glance, the cabin looked like something out of a fairy tale where a gnome or elf might live. It made Tracy think of the Alki Point Lighthouse, and Dan’s desire that Tracy have a fairy-tale wedding. It also made her think the cabin was a perfect place for someone whom the world had crapped on to run and hide.

After crossing the bridge, they stepped down to dirt, then climbed two steps to a small porch. The clunk of their shoes echoed on the wood. Orr knocked on the door. She looked like she’d aged during the drive, like someone about to commit an unspeakable betrayal. Noise inside the cabin indicated someone moving about. Instinctively, Tracy reached across her body and gripped the butt of her gun. Orr didn’t wait for the door to open. She pushed it in and called out, “Andrea?”

Andrea Strickland had been smiling when Orr opened the door. That smile fell quickly, and her expression changed from bewilderment to the purest expression of pain and resignation.