Untamed: Duty Bound Book 3 (12 page)

With his hand cupping the youngster’s head, Avery crawled on his knees toward the hole in the center of the tree house. As far as he could tell, the floor had withstood the blast. He didn’t want to test its solidity any longer than necessary. His slow progress was marked with the sliding of timbers off his back. Through the debris, he peered down at a blackened crater in place of the cabin. The devastation sank his heart into the pit of his stomach.
Hannah…

No one could have survived that explosion, and it couldn’t have been an accident. The snowmobiler he saw riding away had to be involved.

Avery cursed himself for not looking when he heard the engine.
Maybe Hannah wasn’t inside. Maybe it was just another threat.

The positive thoughts didn’t offer Avery much comfort. “Grab your dog and hold her tight, little man. We’re going down.”

The wood above his head cracked while he climbed down the tree.
Faster, Stone.
As he cleared the vicinity of the tree house, Snowflake slipped from Rory’s grasp and ran toward the debris.

“Snowflake!” A deafening crash reverberated in the woods, drowning Avery’s call. The boy tensed in his arms. Avery didn’t need to glance behind him to know the tree house had met the same fate as the cabin.

“Close your eyes.” The safety of the only witness to Abbott’s beating was Avery’s priority, but he couldn’t walk away from the crime scene without looking for her. With the boy’s head tucked in the crook of his neck, Avery perused the debris. The explosion hadn’t ignited any fire, but it had obliterated the cabin and damaged the shed.

No matter where Avery looked, there was no sign of Hannah or of any human remains. Rory tightened his grip on his jacket. “It’ll be okay, little man.”

Perpetrators sometimes returned to the scene of their crime. If Avery stayed any longer, he risked a deadly confrontation, something he couldn’t afford in the boy’s presence.

“Snowflake!” The dog was the youngster’s best friend. Avery couldn’t abandon the poor pup in the woods. “Snowflake!” Paw prints ran in circles around the site of the explosion. “Snow—”

An engine roared in the distance. Avery grabbed a branch. As he hurried toward his hidden snowmobile, he dragged it behind him, erasing his footprints.

No one could know that he’d been here or that he’d taken Hannah’s son into protective custody.

***

Matt entered the library, their secret meeting place since they were teenagers. A group of preschoolers wiggled and giggled on the floor as they listened to a story about a blue polar bear named Coconut. He walked by them, then entered the labyrinth formed by the uneven rows of bookshelves.

Unmindful of the patrons browsing in the book aisles, he took a left turn through the G section, a right turn at the Y, another right turn passed the biographies.

There she was, seated alone by a window. The setting sun shone through the glass streaked with fingerprints, fashioning a golden halo around her head. As if she sensed his presence, she looked above the edge of her book and flashed one of her mystic smiles.

“Hello, babe.” He looked around. Once he ascertained they were alone, he leaned in for a kiss before sitting by her side. “Miss me?”

“Always.” A deceptively innocent smirk played on her lips. “Did you take care of the problem?”

“She put up a fight and hit Vic, but I caught up with her. She’s at the bottom of a pond.”

Upon meeting back in the woods, he and Vic had agreed on a version of the events that didn’t include the ghost. To remind the beautiful woman by his side of their failure five years ago would only upset her, thwarting his chance of spending the night in her bed.

“The bastard?”

Her qualms about the boy eluded him. “He wasn’t with her.”

“He wasn’t?” Fine lines creased her forehead as she closed the book on her lap. “She wouldn’t leave him with anyone but Fred, and I saw him an hour ago. The bastard wasn’t with him. Did you check the cabin? I wouldn’t pass it by the wretch to lock him alone inside.”

“Vic blew up the propane tank attached to the house.” His friend had brought the C4 from work in case they’d needed it to break the ice, and Matt applauded Vic’s shrewdness. “I rode by the clearing on my way home. The explosion flattened the landscape. If the kid was hiding inside the cabin, there’s nothing left of him, and if he was outside, he’ll die of exposure tonight.”

It might be days or weeks before anyone ventured near the cabin.
If the cold doesn’t kill the boy, the coyotes will.

Children yelled and clapped. Unfortunately, the end of storytime also marked the end of their meeting.

“I guess I owe you.” The furtive caress she bestowed over the zipper of his jeans as they both stood up boded well for tonight. “Come around midnight. I’ll have a treat for you.”

***

It didn’t matter that the doctor doubling as medical examiner was Hannah’s only relative, Avery wasn’t ready to entrust the boy in his care, not when Fred hadn’t recognized his nephew’s mittens.

Who else?
Searching for a solution, Avery wandered through the woods on his snowmobile. The youngster sat quietly in front of him. With his thighs and arms forming a barrier on each side of the child’s body, Avery kept him safe and steady.

Officially requesting protective custody when he didn’t know who he could trust within the detachment equaled playing Russian roulette with Rory’s life. Of all the scumbags Avery had encountered in his career, corrupted officers were the ones he despised the most. Duty wasn’t just a word, it was an oath…an oath he might be forced to break in order to protect an innocent boy.

The sun caressed the treetops, creating monstrous shadows on Avery’s path. In the forest, the temperature dropped sharply with the last rays of light. Wandering alone after nightfall was dangerous.

On a night like this one, Avery missed the sunsets over the ocean, the sound of the waves breaking against the cliff, the…

Buccaneer.

***

The racket resounding in her head filtered through the haze cloaking her mind, rousing her senses.

A warm cloth patted her forehead and liquid trickled down her heavy eyelids. She struggled to open her eyes. The withered face of a woman…of two women…two identical women…loomed over her. Their lips moved in perfect synchronization, forming words she didn’t hear…couldn’t hear. She tried to focus on one of the aboriginal women…they traded places, swirling up, down, and around.

Frustrated by her failed attempts to make sense of the images and the lack of sound, she shook her head.

A flash of light blurred her vision as a blaze of pain radiated through her entire body.

She welcomed the darkness embracing her.

Chapter Nineteen

Avery paused at the edge of the woods. Across the snowy field was his mobile home with his Chevy Blazer parked on the other side. He’d hardly driven his old vehicle since he’d arrived, favoring the RCMP truck instead, but he’d taken it for an oil change a week earlier and filled it up. All Avery had to do was sneak the boy into the backseat without anyone noticing and drive away.

A lantern near the front door of the detachment illuminated the entryway, but no light shone from inside the building. The windows were dark and the parking lot was deserted. Cooper and Reed had chosen a good night to not be around.

Avery raced across the field and parked his snowmobile by the side door, near the Blazer.

The car keys were on the counter by the microwave. He scooped up the boy. As he unlocked the door of the house, an engine sputtered down the road. The high beams pointed in his direction.
Cooper.

The constable had been instructed to take the cruiser for a tune-up, but Cooper had yet to conform to the sergeant’s directive.

Avery kicked off his boots before hurrying down the hallway in the dark. While Cooper was more than likely heading for the detachment, Avery couldn’t rule out the possibility that his colleague might stop by for a visit—an untimely visit.

“You need to be very quiet,” he whispered in Rory’s ear. “Can you do that for me?” The youngster knocked on Avery’s shoulder with his head. “Good boy.”

As soon as Avery lowered him into the closet, the child recoiled against the back of the wall, his heartbreaking resilience playing in their favor.

“You wait here until I come back. I won’t be long.”

Avery didn’t close the closet, but he shut the bedroom door. As he crossed the living room, he turned the television on to drown out any sound coming from the bedroom.

From the kitchen window, he followed the progression of the RCMP cruiser. Cooper didn’t seem to be in a hurry. Avery suspected no one had been made aware of the explosion yet. He wanted to report it, but he couldn’t risk anyone knowing he’d been in the vicinity.

Hannah…

Leaving the scene had been a derelict of duty. He should have kept looking for her, not run away with her son.
I needed to keep Rory safe.
Unfortunately for him, repeating the excuse didn’t lessen the guilt knotting in his stomach.

The cruiser pulled in front of the garage. A tall silhouette exited. Once inside the detachment, Cooper wouldn’t be able to see Avery’s side door. As soon as his colleague disappeared from sight, Avery collected the keys from the counter, turned the television off, and grabbed some civilian clothes along with the youngster. “We’re going for a ride, little man.”

To hide Rory on the backseat under a fleece blanket violated every safety rule he believed in, but he had no choice. “I need you to stay still, okay?”

The ripples in the fabric stopped undulating. Avery slipped behind the wheel and drove away.

Once he cleared the town, he buckled up the youngster.

***

The soothing scent of burning wood teased her nostrils and heat warmed her face. She made a fist. Downy fur tangled between her fingers, awakening her senses.
A boy…

The image slipped out of reach. Unable to recapture it, she opened her eyes. Flames undulated on a ceiling, highlighting strange protuberances. Unfamiliar with the sight, she moved her head, stirring a dull pain inside her skull. Memories of another occurrence surfaced in her mind.
Two women…two elderly women…

Careful about making any sharp or sudden head movement, she took in her surroundings. A fire burned in the middle of the room.
No, not a room, more like a cave, a cozy cave.
She lay on a soft, short-haired pelt—moose from the feel of it—with a black bear skin covering her up. More animal skins were discarded on an empty a bed of evergreen branches.

Sparks flew quietly in the air and the flames reached up, illuminating a small table pushed against the wall of the cave. Mesmerized by the eerie silence and the crooked legs of the table, she didn’t notice the shadowy figure poking a stick into the fire until the person held it up, its tip glowing like a neon red dot. The figure looked in her direction.

She gaped, as it was the same person who’d loomed over her.
Where’s the other woman? Or did I imagine the woman’s twin?

The woman’s lips moved without making a sound, but amidst the shadows created by the fire, some words registered in her mind.
Blow. Awake.

“I…I can’t hear you.”

The woman approached and stroked her forehead. A kind smile softened her shriveled face. “I’m Greta. What’s your name, child?”

Unnerved by her ability to understand, she searched her memory for an explanation—and encountered an insurmountable void.

“I…I don’t know.”

***

During the four-hour trip to Port aux Basques, Avery stopped twice. Once on the side of the road to change into civilian clothes and to accommodate the urgent nature calls of a wiggling boy, and a second time at a busy restaurant in Corner Brook to make a collect call from a pay phone.

He entered Port aux Basques at half past ten. With the ferry for Nova Scotia scheduled to depart in seventy-five minutes, Avery didn’t have time to plan an elaborate diversion. He approached an open gas station and instructed Rory to hide under the blanket once again.

“You stay quiet, little man. I’ll be right back.”

While filling up his tank, he looked through the tinted window of his Blazer. Nothing moved. Pride swelled inside his chest. Not only did Rory trust him, he obeyed him to the letter.

Avery entered the gas station and picked up some items. At the cash register, a teenage attendant played with his cell phone. He didn’t lift his head until Avery dumped a six-pack of beer and a can of tomato juice on the counter.

“Hurry up, pizza face.” Bullying a kid went against Avery’s nature and every principle he believed in, but he had no choice. To ensure Rory’s protection, he needed to be remembered. “I don’t have all night.”

It saddened him to see the attendant ring the transaction with his eyes cast down.

“Don’t ignore me when I’m talking to you.” Avery slapped his credit card on the counter. Once the case was closed, he would come back and apologize to the teenager. “How much do hot chicks cost in this crappy town?”

Neither disappointed nor offended by the despondent shrug he received in response, Avery proceeded toward the back of the store. An ATM stood under the washroom sign.

He withdrew a thousand dollars.

***

Diffused light filtered through the ceiling of the cave. Although she couldn’t see any gaps between the layers of rocks, there was no mistaking real sunlight, as faint as it might be.

The elderly woman she’d glimpsed during her brief moments of lucidity pressed a goblet against her mouth. Her name was Greta, that much she seemed to remember.

“Drink, child.”

She still couldn’t hear, but she read the gentle command on the woman’s lips. A hand palmed the base of her skull, tilting her head forward. Cold liquid moistened her dry lips.
Water.
She gulped down a sip, then another one. There was as much water trickling down her throat as there was running down her chin. She was thirsty, so thirsty.