What Doesn't Kill Her (Cape Charade #2)(28)

“Yes! My Dorothy magic red sparkly shoes. There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home!”

“You said it, kiddo.” That explained the red sequins tangled in the blond hair. “We’re going to hide your bag. We’ll hang your bag in a safe tree.” Kellen looked up from trying to pack Rae’s blankie into her backpack in time to see tears well up into Rae’s eyes. Rae opened her mouth to sob and Kellen said quickly, “We’ll come back for it.”

“Really?” Rae’s voice quavered.

“Really.” Kellen prepared to climb. “When I was a little girl, my father and mother died, and my uncle and aunt took me in. They were wonderful people, but I was little and they had to clean out my parents’ home. Some of the stuff they got rid of was... I missed it. My ugly baby doll with the hair I had chewed on. She was missing an eye, but I loved her. My comic book collection, and... I had my mother’s records from when she was little. They threw those away. I’m not trying to get rid of your precious things.”

Rae had fixated on one thing. “Your mother and father died? Oh, Mommy, I’m so sorry!” She reached out, all sticky fingers and peanut butter–smeared face, and hugged Kellen.

“It’s okay. It was a long time ago. I’m better now.” Rae looked so distressed, Kellen found her own voice shook. She was okay. She had been for a long time. But looking back, she knew the loss of her parents’ love and support left her so hungry for someone of her own, she’d fallen prey to an older man, a Prince Charming who dramatically transformed into a monster.

She looked down at Rae, at her child, and imagined Rae falling prey to someone like Gregory. Suddenly, fiercely, she hugged her back. “I won’t let anyone hurt you,” she promised.

“I know,” Rae said matter-of-factly. “I won’t let anyone hurt you, either.”

A childish promise made in all sincerity. Kellen quickly kissed the top of Rae’s head, embarrassed now at the display of affection, and yet...inside she felt warm and mushy. “I’ve got to...” She freed herself from Rae’s gummy embrace and hoisted herself into the lower branches of the Douglas fir. “See how this tree leans out over the bend of the creek? I can find it again.”

From below, she heard the crinkle of plastic and Rae’s voice saying, “That’s astonishing.”

“What’s astonishing?” Kellen looked down.

Rae had unwrapped the mummy’s head from its Bubble Wrap and was walking around it, looking at it from every side. “It’s the Triple Goddess!”

“Why did you—?” Kellen sighed. “Never mind.” She perched Rae’s bag in the fork of a branch and slid back onto the ground. She didn’t know whether she should react to Rae describing an ancient artifact as “astonishing,” which seemed a huge word for a seven-year-old, or ask why Rae recognized the Triple Goddess, whatever that was. She settled on the easy one. “I don’t know if you’re right, but I do know it’s definitely not a mummy’s head. It’s white marble, maybe Phoenician or Greco-Roman.”

“Uh-huh.” Rae squatted beside the head. “If you rub a statue of the Triple Goddess, it will bring you good luck.” She rubbed it gently with her palm.

“I sure hope so.” Kellen squatted down and rubbed, too. It couldn’t do any harm. “What’s a triple goddess?”

In an incredibly patient and patronizing manner, her child said, “The Triple Goddess is Mother, Maiden, Goddess.”

Kellen turned the head around to view both sides. Yes, one side portrayed a young female on the verge of womanhood with a riot of curly hair around her youthful, hopeful face. On the opposite side, was a matron, an unsmiling woman with mature features. “Where’s the goddess?” she asked.

Rae pointed at the top of her own head.

Kellen turned the head and jumped. There was a face peering out from the curls and stylings of the mother and daughter, a cruel face that protected, warned and intimidated. “Wow, kid, you really know what you’re talking about. Where did you learn about this Triple Goddess?”

“Comics.” Rae had lost interest. “Can I go wade in the creek?”

“Okay.” Rae was halfway to the water when Kellen suddenly realized she was the parent, Rae was a child and Kellen would have to deal with any wet clothes. “Take off your shoes and socks first and roll up your pants!”

Rae waved at her as if she was being annoying. Which Kellen supposed, to a seven-year-old, she was.

She picked up the Triple Goddess head and strapped a zip tie around the base, not bothering with the Bubble Wrap. The damned thing weighed a ton, and the idea of toting it around the mountains trying to get Rae back to civilization made her—

“Miss Adams, give that to me.”

She looked. A man stood in the shadows on the edge of the clearing. He was tall, young, athletic and definitely one of Group 2. He’d tracked them. He’d found them. He was demanding the head, and he had a rifle pointed at her chest.

“Of course,” she said. “I’m not willing to die for this.” She slung her bag over one shoulder, walked toward him, plastic tie looped to the head’s base in hand, and when she was close, she swirled, swung the head and knocked him in the skull with forty pounds of carved marble.

The element of surprise always worked—once.