Where the Forest Meets the Stars(91)

“I doubt it,” Jo said. “Ursa loves thunderstorms.”
Lenora saw where they were headed. “Did she know the name of your hotel?”
“Last week she asked me a lot of questions about where I was staying. I just thought she was bored. She even asked if I used a metal key to get in my room, and I told her about the card keys.”
“That means she’s been plotting this for a while.”
“She was waiting to see how things turned out. She ran today because she’s desperate. She knows no one will help her—not even me.”
“Then maybe she won’t go to your room.”
“I know. That’s what worries me.”
“What if she decided to trust that man like she trusted you?” Lenora said. “If he hasn’t brought her to the police yet, he must have bad intentions.”
“I didn’t bring her to the police, and I didn’t have bad intentions.”
“But how long until that luck runs out?”
“I’ve been trying to tell you that.”
They entered the hotel and rushed to the elevator, Jo limping on her sore leg. The elevator stopped on several floors before they finally arrived at the sixth floor. At room 612, Jo put her key in the slot and pushed the door open.
Ursa wasn’t there. Lenora watched her check under the rumpled comforter and beneath the bed. She looked in the closet. There was only one place left to look. She flicked on the bathroom light and opened the shower curtain. Ursa was curled in a ball in the tub, her clothing and hair soaked with rain. She looked up at Jo with mournful brown eyes. “Jo . . . I ran away,” she said.
“I see that.” Jo lifted her out of the tub and held her.
Ursa clung to her, crying. “Don’t you love me anymore? Why do you want me to go live with those people?”
“I don’t. But there’s nothing else I can do.”
Ursa wept miserably as Jo carried her to the bed. She was wet to the skin and shaking with chills. “We need to get these clothes off, love bug.” Jo sat her on the bed.
“Why is she here?” Ursa said when she saw Lenora.
“I was afraid for you,” Lenora said.
“No matter where you make me go, I’ll find Jo!” Ursa said, new tears falling. “Jo and I know how to be happy without you!”
Jo took off her shoes and stripped away her wet pants and T-shirt. She pulled a clean shirt over Ursa’s quaking body and lifted her into the bed, tucking the blanket and comforter around her. After she turned off the air conditioner, she went into the bathroom to change out of her wet clothes. When she came out, Lenora was pushing numbers on her phone.
“Please don’t have police come here right now,” Jo said.
“I have to tell them to stop looking,” Lenora said.
“I know, but can we just have a moment?”
Lenora nodded. When she connected with hospital security, she said she had found Ursa and asked them to tell all law agencies that she was safe. She took off her raincoat and slumped in a chair with a weary exhalation.
Jo crawled into bed with Ursa. The rule about separate beds didn’t matter anymore. She would give Ursa what she needed. She spooned the small girl against her body and kissed her cheek. “Warm enough?” she asked.
“I want to stay here forever,” Ursa said.
“Me too,” Jo said. “Please never doubt that I love you. No one can take that away from us.”
Thunder growled. Rain clawed at the window. Jo held Ursa in her safe nest, and all the while fate sat watching.


38

A month later, on a rare cool day in late August, Ursa stood between Gabe and Jo, her hands clasped in theirs. Beyond the white marble cross, the minister turned his car onto the cemetery path and drove away. Lenora Rhodes started her car and followed behind him. No one else had come to watch Portia Wilkins Dupree laid to rest, not even her mother. Portia was twenty-six when she died trying to protect her daughter, the same age as Jo.
Ursa let go of Jo’s and Gabe’s hands and spent a minute rearranging the flowers into a new constellation around the grave. “Bye, Mama. I love you,” she said when she finished.
She took hold of their hands again. “I want to see Daddy now.”
They walked to the grave of Dylan Joseph Dupree. He was buried next to his mother, and the empty plot next to her was for her husband. Dylan’s father lived in a nearby nursing home, his mind too impaired by Alzheimer’s disease to understand who his granddaughter was. Because there hadn’t been room to bury Portia next to Dylan and his parents, Jo had purchased a plot as close to Dylan’s as possible. According to Ursa’s wishes, Portia’s cross was the same as the one over Dylan’s grave.
Ursa let go of Jo’s and Gabe’s hands as they arrived at Dylan’s grave. She took a folded picture from her pocket and laid it against the bottom of the cross. It was an image of the Pinwheel Galaxy, located in Ursa Major.
Dylan had loved anything to do with stars. Before his life fell apart, he’d wanted to be an astrophysicist. He’d named his daughter Ursa for the Big Bear in the sky, and he’d taught her the names of stars and constellations. When Ursa was afraid of the dark, he would open her window a crack and tell her good magic that fell out of the stars was coming in her window. He said the magic would always keep her safe. After he died, Ursa opened her window wide every night, trying to let in lots of good magic. That was how she escaped the grasp of the men who nearly killed her.
Ursa walked to the cross and kissed the top of it. “I love you, Daddy.” She pointed behind her. “This is Jo and Gabe. You would like them. Gabe likes stars like you do.” She straightened the picture of the galaxy and turned around.