What Doesn't Kill Her (Cape Charade #2)(32)

Rae looked around. “Where are we going to have our fire?”

“We’re not going to have a fire.”

“We’re camping. We have to have a fire.”

“We’re not camping. We’re running away.”

“How can we make s’mores?”

“We don’t have graham crackers, chocolate or marshmallows. A lack of a fire is a moot point.” Why was Kellen even saying this stuff? “We’ll eat dinner—”

“What dinner?” Rae asked suspiciously.

Smart kid. “A breakfast cookie with peanut butter on it and some water.”

“I like cookies! I want milk.” Rae started to droop so suddenly, Kellen was caught unprepared. “I’m hungry. I want my daddy.”

“And you’re tired.” Kellen helped her take off her boots.

“No. I’m not!”

“Okay. You aren’t.” Rae’s shoes and socks were still wet. Kellen hung them on a branch and hoped they would dry by morning.

The light was disappearing.

Rae slapped at a leaf. “It’s scratchy in here.”

“It’s our own secret hiding place.” Kellen got out the breakfast cookie, spread it with a thick layer of peanut butter, divided it and gave half to Rae.

Rae scarfed it down and looked for more.

Kellen gave her a drink out of the canteen and the other half of the cookie, and went to work spreading out the all-weather blanket for protection from the cold ground and the sleeping bag on top.

Rae quit at three-quarters of a cookie and whimpered.

It was the first whimper Kellen had ever heard out of her cheerful, chatty daughter. Tears, yes. But never a whimper. “Come on, honey. This is an adventure. Remember?”

“I want my blankie.” Her grubby yellow yarn blankie.

“Coming right up.” Kellen kept her voice cheerful. “Let’s get in there.”

Rae hugged her blankie and climbed in the sleeping bag. “Mommy, I’m scared.”

Kellen took a farewell look at the one-quarter of the breakfast cookie and slid it into a baggie. “Now I’ll take off my shoes and socks and jacket and put them at the bottom of the bag—” and put the pistol, safety on, in its holster close at hand “—and climb in with you.”

“We’ll snuggle!”

“Right. We will.” Rae slid into Kellen’s arms, and Kellen awkwardly rubbed her head.

“My nose is cold.”

“Mine, too.” With the sun gone behind the mountains, the temperature dropped rapidly.

In a serious voice, Rae asked, “Mommy, have you ever seen a dead person?”

The smell of charred wood and burned flesh. A metal coil melted in the dirt and the knowledge of young lives ended too soon. A pain in the region of her heart, and a knowledge that she had done the wrong thing. Such a wrong thing. She knew death—but now, she had delivered victims into death’s bony grip.

“Yes, I have. In Afghanistan. I was in the war. I saw... Yes, I’ve seen dead people.” Kellen thought she ought to say something more, something bracing, so she continued, “Sometimes they were my people.”

“Your friends?”

“Not always, but people who were on my side. Even if we didn’t like each other, we defended each other. We stood back-to-back and we fought for each other. Because when you’re fighting for the same cause, that’s what you do.”

“Like ThunderFlash and LightningBug!”

Hoo boy. “Exactly like that.”

“I haven’t put the Triple Goddess head in our book. When we stop, I’ll draw the head.”

“Are you going to draw all our adventures together? That’s going to be quite a book. We’ve got to walk tomorrow—” and hope to hell none of the hunters found them “—and find a ranger station. You’re up for all that, aren’t you, Rae?”

No answer.

“Rae?”

No answer. Just like that, the kid was asleep.

Kellen sighed in relief, folded Rae’s blankie and tucked it under Rae’s head as a pillow. She didn’t know how they were going to find a ranger station, exactly. Wilderness surrounded them, and they were avoiding the paths where the park signs offered guidance. They were avoiding other hikers who might be able to point them in the right direction. So in the morning, they’d head downhill, because the ranger stations had to be accessible to the most people and the higher and more difficult the path, the fewer people there would be.

Plan in place, she prepared to drift off...

Rae punched her in the ribs.

“Ow!” Kellen reached out. “Honey, don’t—”

Rae kicked her in the thigh, dangerously close to her wounded hip. She was asleep, Kellen could tell, but clearly she did not rest peacefully. Kellen put her arms around Rae’s body and turned her so she faced away. Rae relaxed.

Kellen started to drift off again.

Rae tried to turn sideways in the bag, head toward Kellen, knees scrunched up to her chest. Which wasn’t comfortable for Kellen and couldn’t be comfortable for Rae. And wasn’t because Rae followed that by straightening her legs and hitting Kellen under the chin with a head-butt.

Kellen grunted and woke, rubbed her chin and figured what the hell and turned so her back was to Rae. At least this way, Rae could only take out her ribs and spine.