What Doesn't Kill Her (Cape Charade #2)(30)

Because maybe the guy was telling the truth; maybe the new boss had called in more searchers. Even if he hadn’t, the other three guys were in the area. The shot would bring them running, and she didn’t have much time to get Rae and the Triple Goddess away from here. Once the other men talked to the guys on the ground and discovered Kellen was on the move with a child, that child became a weapon in their hands. Kellen couldn’t allow that. She didn’t know how long she could hold out, running full tilt with a backpack, the Triple Goddess and a forty-five pound child. Yet she had to save Rae and the marble head.

As they jumped the stream, Kellen dropped the first phone, the broken one, into the water. That should disable the GPS, and hopefully the two guys she’d left behind would remain undiscovered long enough for Kellen and Rae to escape.

“Mommy?” Rae’s voice wobbled pathetically.

Kellen wanted to moan. But she had to save her breath. Rae was going to ask about Kellen’s ruthless treatment of those men. “Rae?”

“I gotta go potty.”

Now Kellen did moan. She took a path that led downhill. “I do, too. Can you hold it for a while?”

“Yes. Is it bad that I just heard thunder?”



14


The rain was brief and violent, a downpour of thunder and lightning that had Rae hiding her face in Kellen’s neck and Kellen squishing through puddles. “This is good,” she told Rae. “The rain will hide our tracks.”

“The rain... I really got to go potty.”

Kellen let her down under a heavy-branched old pine, which protected them from the worst of the downpour. She helped her hang her skinny little bottom over a log, and reflected that she hadn’t changed diapers like Max had, but somehow hearing Rae complain about one sheet of toilet paper made things feel a little more even. Rae’s horror that they had to put the used toilet paper into a baggie to carry out made Kellen waver between laughter and the environmental lecture about carry in, carry out.

The child was shivering in her wet clothes, so Kellen gave the lecture while she dried her with one of her own extra T-shirts, and dressed her in a pair of Rae’s pink tights—

“Mommy, I need panties!”

“Did you bring them?”

—and Kellen’s sweatshirt hoodie. Kellen used the log facilities, shared the last of the water from her canteen and said, “We’re almost out.”

“We can drink some out of a stream.”

“And get giardia.” Shut up, Kellen. “We’ll do that.” She pulled the second phone out of her pocket and in hope and desperation, used her thumb to open it. If she could make one call for help...

But no. Here, now, there was no service and she didn’t dare carry it because she didn’t want these guys, whoever they were, to use it to track her. So she placed it on a rock, slammed her heel into the screen and buried it in a mud puddle.

Rae watched, wide-eyed, and said solemnly, “When I get a phone, I’m not going to let you near it.”

Kellen didn’t think she could laugh. But she did, softly. “That’s probably a smart decision.”

“Where are we going?” Rae asked.

Good question. Kellen had been running without a destination in mind, her sole aim to misdirect anyone who followed. Now she had a decision to make—go down the mountain and try to find a ranger station or head up the mountain and to the Restorer.

Either way, the Mercenaries would try to take a stand between her and her destination, and if that last guy was telling the truth, their orders were to get the woman. That meant the Triple Goddess—and whoever was carrying her. “Maybe we ought to dump the head.” She was merely thinking out loud; she’d taken the job in good faith and she had faith in her ability to survive and deliver the Triple Goddess and keep her daughter from harm.

Until Rae said in an ever-louder voice, “Dump the Triple Goddess? What is wrong with you, Mother? The Goddess deserves our care—”

“Okay, shhh!”

“The Goddess represents us. She is Woman, hear me roar!”

Rae sounded like Kellen herself in a long-ago snit, and if she didn’t shut up, she would announce them to the whole forest.

Kellen wrestled the poncho over the two of them. “Who did you hear that from?”

“After-school cartoons! Rowr!”

Kellen picked Rae up again. “I didn’t know your grandmother let you watch cartoons after school.”

“Um...” Rae squirmed. “Sometimes I go visit my friend Chloe. Her babysitter lets us watch.”

“What else does she let you do?” Kellen ran.

“Eat Fruit Roll-Ups!” Rae shouted right in Kellen’s ear.

“Okay. That was loud. If you promise not to shout again—” at least for the next ten minutes “—I promise I won’t tell Grandma about the cartoons and the Fruit Roll-Ups.”

Rae kept her voice polite and sedate. “Thank you, Mommy.”

Kellen avoided the paths, using the sun as guidance, heading deeper and higher into the wilderness to put some space between her and the guys in the slick suits and the city shoes.

Rae drooped and slept, then roused and in an excited voice said, “Mommy, stop. Stop!”

Kellen was glad to. Her back was creaking, Rae was squirming, and surely they had put any search parties behind. She pulled off the poncho. “Do you need to go potty again?”