“I almost wasn’t. I took a bad spill on the trail back there and you almost got away from me.”
“I thought you were the cougar.”
“That wasn’t smart, leaving at night without protection, Ren, but I understand. I brought this.” She reached to her belt under her jacket and drew out a big handgun. Again she swung her Maglite toward the jumble of rock and rotted beam a dozen feet in from the mine entrance that barred further entry. “So if she’s not here, where would she be?”
“I don’t know,” he said honestly.
She knelt and picked up a bit of the ash and char and rubbed it between her fingers. “This is old.”
Ren said, “This was the safest place. She should have come here. Unless…” He stopped short of speaking his fear.
“Unless someone intercepted her,” Dina finished for him. She stood up and put a comforting arm around his shoulders. “You know the Odyssey? The story of Odysseus?”
“Yeah,” Ren said. He’d read a Classics Illustrated version. He thought the part about the Cyclops especially was way cool.
“Odysseus survived everything the gods threw at him because of his cunning. He was a very smart guy. That’s Charlie, Ren. She’s very cunning. So I think there’s another explanation for why she’s not here.”
“Really?”
“Absolutely. And when we see her, she’ll tell us what it is. Come on. We should both get back.”
Dina led the way along the Copper River Trail. Behind her, Ren watched with admiration how gracefully she moved. In that, she reminded him a lot of Charlie.
42
W hen the cabin door opened, Cork woke up and rolled over in his bunk. Dina walked in carrying a tray covered with a white cloth napkin.
“Breakfast in bed?” Cork said, easing himself upright.
Dina put the tray on the table and pulled away the napkin, revealing a plate of two eggs over easy, four strips of bacon, two slices of very dark toast, a small glass of orange juice, and a cup of black coffee. “Eat hearty,” she said. “We’ve got work to do.”
He swung his legs out of the bunk and put his feet on the cold floorboards. He’d slept in a gray T-shirt and gray gym shorts, courtesy of Jewell. Like all the clothing she’d loaned him, they’d once been worn by her husband, Daniel. The night before, she’d also supplied him with a pair of clean jeans, a flannel shirt, boxers, and thick socks, all taken folded from the boxes of clothing stacked in the closet. Cork put on the socks and stood up slowly.
Dina pulled out a chair for herself at the table. “How’s the leg this morning?”
“It would be better without holes in it, but I can manage.” He limped over and appreciatively eyed the contents of the tray. “Looks like a condemned man’s last meal.” He sat down, flapped the napkin onto his lap, and took a sip of the juice. “What are we up to today?”
“Trespassing,” Dina said.
While he ate, Dina explained about the night’s events.
“I’ve been thinking,” she said. “Charlie’s a smart kid. Very savvy. I don’t really think she was intercepted on her way to the mine, but I’d like to make certain. If there’s the slightest chance this Stokely got his hands on her…” She didn’t complete that thought.
Cork sipped his coffee. “What did you have in mind?”
“We’re going to the Copper River Club the same way you and Ren did. We’re going to check out Stokely’s cabin.”
“You and me?”
“That’s the plan.”
“What about Jewell and Ren?”
“She didn’t want him missing any more school, and she needed to go to work.”
“They’re both gone?”
“Yes.”
“What time is it?”
“Seven-thirty. Jewell said we could use the ATV.”
“Does she know what you’re planning?”
“Not exactly. I thought it best to keep this between you and me.”
“How do we find the cabin?” he asked.
“I talked to Ren about that. He said to follow the river from where you two encountered Calvin Stokely yesterday. It’s a couple of miles farther on, up a small rise overlooking the river.”
Cork picked up the last strip of bacon. “Stokely’ll hear us coming.”
“He’ll hear you coming,” she said.
“I’m the diversion while you slip into the cabin?”
“You catch on quick. One of the things I like about you.”
In half an hour, he was dressed and ready to go. He slipped the Beretta Tomcat into an ankle holster Dina supplied him. Dina took her Glock and a knapsack she said belonged to Ren. The night before, Jewell had put stitches in Cork’s opened wound. He wasn’t worried about bleeding, but he’d been over the terrain they were about to travel and knew the cost to him in pain. He considered taking a Vicodin but finally decided against it. He needed to be sharp.
The morning was damp and overcast, the temperature in the midforties. There was a dreary feel to the woods, a dismal quiet. Dina drove the ATV; Cork held on behind, shouldering the knapsack. The narrow Killbelly Marsh Trail was a stream of gold leaves wet with dew. At the river, Dina turned west and they went upstream. On this gray morning, the water reflected a slate sky. She stopped a few minutes later and pointed up the hillside to their right.
“The mine where Charlie hid is up there,” she said. “Behind all that brush. Wait here.”
Dina swung herself off the ATV and hiked quickly up the slope. She disappeared behind a thicket and emerged again a moment later. Back at the ATV she said, “Still empty.” She restarted the engine and shot ahead.
In less than fifteen minutes, they reached the creek that marked the boundary of the Copper River Club. Dina stopped again and dismounted.
“Give me the knapsack,” she said.
Cork handed it over and she took out a couple of the Motorola walkie-talkies he recognized had come from the resort. She gave one to Cork, kept one herself. She also took out a compact pair of Leitz field glasses in a case with a belt clip.
“Ren said the cabin’s a couple miles up the river from here. Give me half an hour,” she told Cork. “I’ll raise you on the radio when I’m in position and have the place scoped out, then you come roaring in-I mean loud. If you have to, lead him on a merry chase. Just get him away from the cabin.”
“Yesterday he had a rifle,” Cork reminded her.
“Then keep your head down, cowboy.”
She turned and began a steady lope along the river’s edge in the direction of Stokely’s cabin. She was wearing the camouflage fatigues in autumn color. She quickly blended with the foliage and in a minute he couldn’t see her anymore.
He gave her thirty minutes but didn’t hear anything on the Motorola. The problem might have been interference, or distance, or a malfunction of the units themselves. He wondered if he should be worried about Dina, but dismissed that concern. He gave her an extra five minutes, then decided it was time to move, regardless. He gunned the ATV and headed onto Copper River Club property.
He followed a faint but definite path that shadowed the river. Cork, a hunter all his life and used to tracking, spotted the thinning of the underbrush that indicated occasional foot traffic. He figured it was the patrol route for the security personnel. After a mile and a half, the trail veered suddenly north away from the river. Cork held up,
