Plan B. She needed a Plan B, desperately. She couldn’t stay in the cabin any longer because the kidnapper would know she set the outhouse fire. Maybe she should make her way to the shoreline and steal his boat after he tied up. Yes.
She did a quick search of the cabin for anything that would help keep her warm out there, but there was nothing. Her sea slug costume would have to do. Steeling herself, she stepped into the clearing.
Smoke stung her eyes and for a moment she thought she was hallucinating. Someone had seen the smoke. In the shadows at the edge of the clearing stood a young girl, about thirteen or so. Her white snowsuit and pink knit cap with a pompom make her easy to spot in the darkness. Lulu felt a moment of envy for her warm winter clothes.
But the girl looked off…ill, even. Her eyes were swollen and her nose red. A rash covered her face.
“Hullo there,” Lulu called to her. “I’m Lulu. What’s your name? Do you live around here?”
The girl coughed, then said, “Iris,” in a hoarse voice. “I’m sick. Everyone’s sick. We don’t know what it is. Our generator died and we can’t charge our phones. We need help. I tried to drive to Grantview but a tree fell across the road. I saw your fire…” She stopped to cough again. “Can you call for help?”
Lulu’s heart turned over. She was in such dire straits herself, how could she be of any use to this girl? Of all moments to run into someone even worse off than her. She’d just have to do whatever she could. “I don’t have a phone. But I’ll help any way I can. Maybe together we can get the tree off the road. Lead the way, Iris.”
She bounded across the clearing, wondering if she should try to mask her footsteps from the kidnapper. On the other hand, if rescue came, she’d want them to follow her. So she decided to take her chances. If Iris had seen the fire, surely someone else had too.
“How far do you live?” she asked as she followed the girl through the woods. Iris had a headlamp, luckily. That single beam of light provided their only illumination. Lulu didn’t have snow boots like the girl did, so she aimed for the deep footprints Iris left.
“I don’t know. A mile maybe.”
A mile of walking in the snow in black neoprene wetsuit footies. At least they were waterproof. And at least she was free…for now.
“You said your whole family’s sick? How many?”
“Thirty.”
“Thirty?”
“It’s several families. There’s a longhouse and a farm and we all live together. We’re homeschooled. First my dad got sick, then everyone else did too. Everyone’s in bed and can hardly move. I couldn’t even get up at first, but then I felt a little better so I got out of bed and brought water to everyone. My dad told me to get help any way I could. But I couldn’t.” She gave a sob and a shiver.
“Hey, hey. You came and got me, didn’t you?”
“Are you a nurse or a doctor?”
“No. But I have a lot of experience with sick people. And maybe I can get that tree off the road for you. There’s got to be something I can do.”
Iris paused to catch her breath. She glanced over her shoulder at Lulu and gestured at her neck. “You should put that on.”
Lulu touched her neck, realizing that her blindfold was still there, knotted around her neck. “Oh, this is a blindfold…long story, I’ll tell you some time.”
Apparently too ill to be intrigued, Iris just shook her head. “Over your nose,” she explained. “So you don’t get sick too.”
“Of course. Right.” Thank you, Seb Antonov, she thought as she settled the black cloth over both her mouth and her nose, then tightened the knot at the back. If I don’t get sick, I guess I owe you one.
“Do you ever think that things happen for a reason?” she asked Iris, her voice muffled by the dense fabric.
“What?”
“Never mind.” She gestured for the girl to continue on. Using Iris’ bootsteps, she followed after her, blocking out the cold seeping in around the edges of her dance costume. Each step crunched on the icy snow. Silent trees watched from all sides. The darkness intensified along with the cold. A winter night in the wilds of Alaska.
I’m really living now, Mum. I’m tromping through the snowy woods in a sea slug costume using my kidnapper’s blindfold as a mask so I don’t get a mysterious disease. How about that?
And then it occurred to her that she might get sick. Or she might actually freeze in these woods before she’d walked that mile. Or…or…or…
Tristan. She wanted to see Tristan again. Just one more time, she wanted to touch him and kiss him. If she got the chance, she’d drop the jokes and the teasing and the flirting and tell him the truth. She loved him.
After an endless rattling drive, Lucas and Tristan finally reached a small clearing lit by the last embers of a small structure fire. Beyond the fire sat a rough abandoned cabin.
Leaving his headlights on, Tristan swung out of the truck. He snapped on his headlamp so he could scan the rest of the area. “Hello?” he called.
No answer. He heard the sound of the driver’s door closing, then joined Lucas at the pile of charred wood that used to be…
“Looks like an outhouse burned down,” said Lucas. “That’s odd.”
“Then someone burned it down. No reason it would just spontaneously catch on fire.” Tristan played his headlamp across the snow. “Footprints. Lots of them.”
“Let’s check the cabin.”
Stepping around the existing footprints, just in case, they made their way into the cabin. Empty. Goddamn it. Tristan breathed deep, smothered in disappointment, and smelled…strawberries.
“She was here,” he said with absolute certainty.
Lucas didn’t argue. “Think she set the outhouse on fire and then ran? Why?”
“No idea. Let’s see if we can find her trail.”
They went outside and searched the clearing for any signs of Lulu’s footprints. The area between the fire and the cabin was filled with a jumble of prints. Another overlapping set of prints led to a path that clearly went toward the shoreline. Tristan followed it, spotted an old concrete pile of pier blocks at the water, and the running lights of the Desperado just offshore.
He set his headlamp to a flashing pattern and called Ralphie. “Do you see us?”
“Sure thing. Is Lulu there?”
“She was. We’re on the right track. Can you stick around here and give me a call if that Hewescraft shows up?”
“Aye, Captain.”
“Found something,” Lucas called. Tristan jogged back up the path and found the other man crouching over a set of footprints to the south of the clearing. “I see two sets here, but then they kind of meld into one. And one of them…looks small. Like a kid. Does Lulu have small feet?”
“Not especially, no.”
“Well, what do you think?”
It only took Tristan a micro-second to decide. He had no idea why a kid was involved in this situation. Maybe Lulu hadn’t been the only one kidnapped. But if there was one thing he knew for sure about Lulu, it was that she’d be making sure no harm came to that kid. “Let’s follow them.”