Jeffery Deaver - The Bodies Left Behind

Motion. In the bushes. Brynn tensed and Amy looked at her warily.

Was it Hart and his partner?

Was it the wolf who’d attached himself to them?

No. Brynn exhaled long. It was Michelle.

The young woman was crouching, like a huntress. The spear in one hand and something in the other-the knife, it seemed. Waiting for the killers, defiant, tense, as if daring them to try to hurt her.

Brynn and the girl started to make their way toward the woman. In a whisper Brynn called, “Michelle! It’s me.”

The woman froze. But then Brynn moved forward and stepped into a wash of azure-white light from the moon.

“Brynn!” Michelle cried, slipping the knife into her pocket and running forward. She stopped, seeing Amy standing bewildered behind Brynn’s back.

The women embraced briefly and Michelle dropped to her knees, hugging the girl. “Who’s this?”

Amy eased free from the overly emotional embrace.

“This’s Amy. She’s going to come with us.” Brynn shook her head, foregoing for now the story of how she’d come by the new companion. The young woman was sensitive enough to ask no questions.

“You’re adorable! And who’s this ?”

“Chester.”

“He’s as cute as you are.”

The little girl remained somber, sensing the atmosphere of tragedy if not comprehending the actual events that had caused it. If she didn’t know about her mother’s fate, maybe she hadn’t witnessed the other killings.

The moon was lower now, darkness was deepening. Curiously, Amy was the only one among them who didn’t seem uneasy at this. Maybe if you have parents like hers, fear of the dark doesn’t figure much in your life.

The girl blinked at a flying squirrel as it sailed past. Brynn hoped she’d laugh, or show a bit of delight at the bizarre animal. Nothing. Her face was a mask.

“I heard some noises,” Michelle said. Meaning the gunshots. “Our friends…?”

“Still with us. One hurt a little more but mobile.”

“So they could be on the way here.”

“We have to get going. To the Snake River. We’ll climb the gorge and be at the interstate in forty-five minutes. An hour, tops.”

“You said there was an easier way.”

“Easier but a lot longer. And Hart thinks we’re going that way.”

Michelle blinked. “You talked to him?”

“Yep.”

“You did?” the woman whispered in astonishment. “How’d that happen?”

She told her briefly about her captivity in the van.

“Oh, my God. He nearly killed you.”

It was pretty close to mutual, Brynn reflected.

“And what’d he say?”

“Not much. But I told him we were making for the interstate, so he’ll think we’re going toward Point of Rocks.”

“Like reverse psychology.”

“Yep.” Brynn dug the map out of her pocket and opened it.

“Where’d you get that?”

“Stole it from him-our friend Mr. Hart.”

Michelle gave an astonished laugh.

Brynn oriented herself and pointed out where they were. She didn’t need a compass reading. The map was detailed and it was easy to tell from landmarks the best route. She pointed out the direction to head.

“I want my mommy.”

Brynn shook her head at Michelle and said to the girl, “Honey, we have to get out of here before we can find her. And that means walking. Do you like to walk?”

“I guess.”

“And then we’re going to climb a hill.”

“Like rock climbing? There’s a climbing wall near my school. Charlie said he’d take me but he never did.”

“Well, this’ll be like that. Only more adventurous.”

“Like Dora the Explorer,” Michelle said. “And Boots…” When Amy looked at her blankly the young woman added, “The monkey.”

“I know. I just, like, haven’t seen that for years. That’s not what Mom and Charlie watch.”

Not wishing to speculate on what was viewing material in that household, Brynn said cheerfully, “Let’s go.” Then to Michelle: “You keep the spear. You can use it for a crutch. Let me have one of the knives.”

Michelle pulled a Chicago Cutlery out of her jacket and handed it to Brynn.

A bit of control. Not much. But better than nothing.

A faint laugh. Brynn turned to Michelle, who was studying her. “Do I look as bad as you?” the young woman asked.

“Doubt it. I just experienced my second car wreck of the night. I win. But, yep, you’re not so hot either. I wouldn’t go out on the town without a makeover.”

Michelle squeezed her arm.

They started hiking.

The Snake River was closer than she’d estimated. They made it in a half hour and that included keeping to the thickest cover and pausing to look behind them frequently for the men.

Of whom there was no sign. This was reassuring but Brynn wouldn’t allow herself the thought that Hart had fallen for her bluff and was in fact headed in the opposite direction along the riverbank.

They paused in a circle of tall grass to look up and down the bank of the wide, shallow river punctuated with rocks, logs and small islands.

No one.

“Wait here.” Clutching the knife, Brynn eased forward. She knelt on the bank and immersed her face in the freezing water. Now she didn’t mind the cold, which dulled the pain in her cheek and neck. Then she drank what must have been a quart. She hadn’t realized she was dehydrated.

She studied the otherworldly landscape, saw no one else and motioned to Michelle and Amy to join her. They too drank.

Then Brynn gazed up the hill, in the direction of the interstate. It couldn’t be more than a mile away.

Though a mile straight up.

“Jesus,” Michelle said, following Brynn’s eyes. About fifty feet away the landscape went up at a steep angle-at least thirty degrees, though at points it seemed forty-five. There were also vertical faces. They couldn’t climb those, of course, but Brynn knew, from the search-and-rescue a few years ago, that they wouldn’t have to. It was possible to hike up if you picked your route carefully. There were also a number of wide plateaus that were more or less flat and filled with vegetation for cover.

They now walked to the beginning of the hill, the churning river on their right, where the gorge began.

Looking back, Michelle gestured at the muddy ground behind them. “Wait, our footprints.”

“They don’t look too obvious.”

“They will to somebody with a flashlight.”

“Good point.”

Michelle ran back to where they’d taken their drinks and broke some branches off an evergreen bush. Then backing toward the cliff, she swept the leaves over the mud, wielding the improvised broom furiously, obscuring their footprints. Brynn could hear her gasping hard. Michelle ignored her injured ankle, though the pain must have been significant.

Brynn was watching a woman very different from the rich dilettante of earlier in the evening, bragging about future stardom and whining about other people’s shoes and thorn pricks. Brynn had known people who collapsed under the smallest stress and people who unexpectedly rose to meet impossible challenges. She’d been sure that Michelle fell into the first category.

She was wrong.

And she knew now she had an ally.

The young woman joined the others.

Amy yawned. “I’m tired.”

“I know, honey,” Michelle said. “We’ll get you to sleep soon. Can I put Chester in my pocket?”

“Will you zip it up so he won’t fall out?”

“You bet.”

“But don’t close it all the way. So he can breathe.”

Acting so much younger than her years, Brynn reflected sadly.

Michelle slipped the stuffed animal into her pocket and they started to climb as in the distance, on the interstate, a truck’s engine brake rattled harshly, beckoning them forward.