Cold Springs(83)

“I've already built the shelter.”

It was a pretty bold description for the meager thing she'd constructed—a ragged line of branches propped against the rock face. She'd seen card houses that were more substantial.

“Tomorrow night,” Olsen said, “when you're on your own, try the warm side.”

Mallory bit back a retort.

She added a new branch, which promptly slid down and knocked over half the lean-to.

Mallory wanted to scream.

How could they send her out on her own tomorrow? How could they believe she was ready?

Olsen picked up a branch, offered it to Mallory. “Listen, kiddo, about last night . . .”

Her voice trailed off.

Mallory looked where Olsen was looking and saw Leyland talking to two people—outsiders in what should have been a closed camp. With a feeling of vertigo, worse than spinning in the floodlights the night before, Mallory realized it was Chadwick, tall and gaunt in his beige coat, and that young African-American woman she'd seen that morning at the obstacle course. Leyland was pointing in Mallory's direction, Chadwick's eyes met hers, and Mallory had a premonition that one of her nightmares was about to come true.

Chadwick didn't know any better way to tell her, so he gave her the news as straight as he could.

Mallory stared at the shelter she'd been building.

She looked healthier than she had seven days before. Her eyes were no longer dull. Her hair had been shaved and was starting to grow in again, its regular blond color. She was filling out her black fatigues better.

Her hands dug into the limestone gravel. “My father isn't dead.”

“We don't know that he is, sweetheart. The police—”

“Race told you Samuel was alive? Race said that?”

“Race was scared. He told me what I wanted to hear.”

“You're lying.”

“I was there,” Kindra said. “Man's telling you the truth. You really want to help your parents, maybe you should do the same, huh?”

The sun was going down so fast Chadwick could see the shadows rise from the ground, swell over Kindra's and Olsen's legs like a tide. He could feel the temperature dropping, or maybe that was just the force of disapproval emanating from Olsen. She hadn't said a thing, but he had no doubt how she felt about him being here, interrupting.

Mallory dropped pieces of gravel onto her shoe, as if she were counting money. “Race never told me Samuel was dead, but I think . . . I think maybe he tried to. He said when he was about six or seven—we figured it must have been just after Katherine died—he watched a drug dealer get shot. Race was playing in this abandoned building when this guy came in, so he hid between a couple of crates, in the dark. The next thing he knows a couple of other guys show up, gang members maybe. They start to argue with the first dude.”

“Race saw this happen?”

“Nobody saw him. They start arguing, and the first guy pulls a gun, but he never gets to use it. The other guys shoot him three, maybe four times. They wrap the body in an old piece of canvas and drag it away somewhere—maybe to their car. Race didn't see. He never said anything to anybody. He was scared the killers would come back and get him. He made me promise not to tell.” She looked up, her eyes defiant. “I think he was talking about Samuel. Race watched his own brother get killed.”

Silence except for the river; Leyland's voice at the other end of the clearing, telling one of the black levels how to insulate with moss.

“What about Race's other brothers?” Chadwick asked.

“No way,” Mallory said. “He's only got two others—twins, go by initials, like TJ and JT or ET and TE or something. They're in jail—armed robbery, I think. Been there for years.”

Chadwick thought about what Norma had told him, Race's comment that the person to be afraid of was a she. “Any sisters?”

“One that I know—name's Doreen. I've met her. If you're thinking she's dangerous, you're crazy. She's like a year older than me and stupid as dirt. Lives in L.A. She's eight months pregnant.”

“That leaves Race.”

“Race wouldn't hurt my family. He wouldn't hurt my father.”

“Mallory, there was a video playing in your father's bedroom last night. The Little Mermaid.”

The meaning of his words seemed to sink in slowly. Her hand crept up to her throat.

“Did you tell Race about that video?” Chadwick asked. “Could he have told someone else?”

A tiny orange butterfly cartwheeled across her face, then floated toward the boulders. Mallory didn't even blink.

“Mr. Chadwick,” Olsen intervened. “I think that's enough questions.”

She tried to put her hand on the girl's shoulder, but Mallory pushed it away.

“You don't know everything,” Mallory said, her voice trembling. “None of you do. I was with Katherine the night she died. I know what happened. I swear to God, if my father is hurt . . .”

Chadwick waited. He felt as if the last decade of his life were being compressed into this moment—the sunset streaming into the woods; the cold thickening in the air; the black levels rustling in the clearing; and Olsen and Kindra Jones standing next to him.

Then the wind changed. He tensed, the hairs on his neck suddenly standing on end.