What Doesn't Kill Her (Cape Charade #2)(23)

“Shit!’ Kellen dropped everything, grabbed Rae and bodily carried her, kicking and screaming, back to the protection of the creek bed.

The van went up like a lighter in a whoosh of flame and heat that Kellen felt singe the hair on the back of her head. Kellen clutched Rae, hugged her, held her back.

My God. They’d almost died. Rae had almost died.

Rae struggled and sobbed, “My princesses! My nail polish! My glitter shoes!”

Kellen held her tighter and tried to calm the thunderous beating of her heart. In a voice that trembled, she said, “Honey, we need to have a serious discussion about what to pack next time you stow away for a bonding adventure.”

Kellen looked back at the van. Flames reached up into the Douglas fir. This was Western Washington, the Teflon forest on the Olympic Peninsula, one of the rainiest places on earth.

But it was high summer, the dry season, and the heat of the fire made the cedars and Douglas fir around the van smolder. If their luck turned bad, if the fire caught and spread, they could roast sitting beside a trickling mountain creek.

If their luck was good, they might somehow find their way to a ranger station.

Unfortunately, Horst’s map didn’t show anything but the torturous path to the Restorer.

Kellen looked around. Which way to go?

The Olympic National Forest and the adjoining park were isolated, deeply forested, slashed by freezing rivers, divided by windswept mountain peaks. Narrow paths served the hikers and bikers, but dare to veer off the track into trackless wilderness, and it could be years before anyone found your body. Kellen had a child to care for, and she needed her bag, which was scorched, and she couldn’t leave Rae’s bag. Whatever was inside, they might need it. More than that, no one knew Rae was with her, not even Horst. Whoever he was working with would take her, use her, kill her.

Sure, Kellen’s feelings for her daughter were a confused tangle, but one thing she knew—no one was taking the kid.

Rae won’t burn. She won’t die. I won’t be responsible for another innocent death.

Kellen took Rae’s face between both her hands and turned it to hers. “If you promise you’ll stay here, I’ll see what I can retrieve.”

Rae’s damp brown eyes peered at Kellen. “You’ll save my princesses?”

“I will try.” Kellen peeked at the open pink bag, its contents spilled all over the road. She was pretty sure the fate of at least one doll was grim.

Kellen grabbed the suitcase with the head, her backpack and the pink bag, in that order. She paused only long enough to scoop up one doll with a dishcloth cape—somehow it seemed that Supercotton Dishcloth Princess deserved to be saved—and fling a bunch of other random stuff into the bag. She ran back to Rae, who was standing at the edge of the road and crying.

“It’s okay. We saved almost everything. Look. You’ve got Patrick. You’ve got your blankie, here’s your superhero princess.” Kellen risked a glance at the van and the trees. “And the flames are dying down.”

“I want my daddy!” Rae sobbed.

Of course she did. “Him we don’t have.” Driven by the intense need to hide, to hurry, to run, Kellen pushed Rae up the rocky banks of the creek and away from the road. “But we’re superheroes, aren’t we? We’ll be fine on our own. Won’t we?”

Rae caught her breath, shuddering as she tried to stop crying. “Y...yes.”

“Who are we? ThunderBoomer and LightningBug?”

“ThunderFlash and LightningBug,” Rae corrected.

Kellen offered her fist to bump.

Rae stared, then bumped it.

“Wipe your nose.”

Rae looked around for something to wipe it on.

“On your sleeve.”

“Grandma says I’m not supposed to—”

“Out here, we’re superheroes and we don’t have grandma rules. When we get home—then we’ll put on our disguises and keep the grandma rules.”

Rae wiped her nose on her sleeve.

Kellen was getting pretty good at handling the kid. But she was dragging under the weight of the pink bag, her own backpack and the weight of the suitcase with the head. She looked around. They stood in a grove of tall hemlocks and fir, out of sight of the road. “We have to consolidate our belongings in my backpack.”

“What do you mean?” Rae asked suspiciously; the kid was no fool.

“I mean we have to put all the necessary stuff from your bag into mine so I can carry it.”

“I can carry my bag.”

“You can’t. You need to put all your effort into hiking.”

“You can carry my bag.”

“Can’t. It’s pink.”

“I like pink!”

“It’s bright and we’re superheroes...in hiding.”

“I want my bag!”

“We’ll stash your bag.”

“I have to have all my princesses!”

“Then you’ll have to leave Patrick.”

“But I have to have Patrick!”

“I won’t be able to carry it all.”

“I can carry it.”

And...they were back at the beginning. Kellen had lost track of the issues. The kid had her wound up in knots.

Rae took a long breath, ready to fight or cry or—