Run to Me (26 page)

But trying to dissuade the man from his plan was clearly a mistake. She’d been fool enough to think his lingering silence had meant he was over the worst of his fury.

‘So what do you say? That sound like a fucking plan to you?’

She stared straight ahead. ‘Yeah, sounds fine.’

Four steps – turn – four steps – back. Four of her strides. That was the entire length of the sick room. After two hours shut up inside it, and on top of all her other fears, Shyler was beginning to feel claustrophobic.

During that time she’d divided her attention between Jesse – now dozing on the bed – the phone, and watching out the window. It appeared Chase had at least told the
truth about the men being loggers. So far none of them had burst through the door and tried to kill them. But there was still the matter of the police.

The phone light had come on several times – once when Chase had rung the hospital to summon an ambulance, the rest when the men had called their families to tell of the accident. With her heart in her throat she’d listened in on every call. None
of them had been to the police. But that didn’t mean they weren’t coming. Someone in this building would surely have a mobile.

Yet as bad as that possibility was, there was still a worse one: that the men from the cabin had tracked them here. That they were, even at that moment, gathering outside. She’d
certainly given them every chance. By staying in one place she’d allowed them the time to
follow their trail and make preparations for a fresh assault. She never should have agreed to stay here this long. They should have left the instant she’d gotten the medicine!

She reached the wall again, turned and surveyed the narrow room. Like many old New England buildings the ceiling was low. So low she could reach up and touch it. Or was that simply her imagination? Just as it might be her
imagination that it was now getting lower by the second.

Twisting the rifle stock in her hands she tried to slow her breathing. Ten counts in, ten counts out.

Please, not now
.

Beads of sweat broke out on her face. She felt the sudden drenching beneath her armpits, the familiar flutter inside her chest. When the door opened she almost screamed.

Chase slipped silently into the room. ‘I’m sorry
I couldn’t get away sooner but I had to stabilise one of the men.’ He went straight to the bed, pulled up the chair and placed a hand on Jesse’s forehead.

Shyler stood taking in slow steady breaths. The attack seemed to be easing off. Even the ceiling was slowly receding. Perhaps the brief instant the door had been open . . .

‘How has he been?’ Chase said.

‘Sleeping, mostly.’

At hearing the
residual tremor in her voice Chase turned around. ‘What about you?’

She nodded, then shrugged.

‘You’ll have to let me look at that arm later. I’m afraid it’s going to need re-suturing.’ He pushed to his feet and ran a hand through his dishevelled hair. ‘Shyler, I . . .’

She went rigid. ‘What?’

‘There’s an ambulance coming to pick up one of the injured men. It’ll be here any minute. When it
leaves, I think Jesse should be on it.’

Her eyes widened. ‘To a hospital? No.’

‘Shyler, listen to me. I didn’t get a chance to say this before but I’m afraid Jesse is very sick.’

‘Well, of course, he’s got a fever but –’

‘It’s more than a fever. He may be developing septicaemia.’

Fear raked her heart as she turned to stare down at the boy.

‘If the infection reaches that stage he’ll need
to be hospitalised. I don’t have the facilities here to care for him properly.’

‘But he was getting better. Back at the cabin, his temperature went down when he started the antibiotics.’

‘It’s certainly an encouraging sign, yes. Unfortunately he missed two doses and his fever’s up again. I can’t guarantee it’ll work a second time.’

Shyler stood weighing all the factors – the chance of infection,
the risk of people asking more questions, the possibility they might be followed.

‘We’ll stay,’ she said.

‘Shyler, please –’

‘You’ll treat him here. If he doesn’t get better we can take him then.’

‘But why take a chance when –’

‘You don’t know what could happen to him there!’

Chase paused, lowered his voice. ‘No, I don’t. Can’t you tell me?’

When she didn’t respond he took a step closer.
‘Shyler, I know you have no one. Your father’s dead, you’re estranged from your mother, your husband’s gone. Wouldn’t you feel better facing whatever this is with someone helping you?’

His words brought the sting of tears to her eyes. That he should know such things about her – let alone that they were true – seemed an absurd humiliation.

She looked up and met his gaze defiantly. ‘I’m not alone.
I have Jesse.’

The bed of dead leaves crunched beneath Vanessa’s boots as she kicked it apart. Judging from the still warm remains of the fire, Zack and the woman had been here only a few hours ago. If Tragg had listened to her and come straight here they would have been in time. They could have caught them! But she’d put out her eye with a rusty screwdriver before mentioning that fact to him just
at the moment.

She slid a cautious glance at the man as he stood, shoulders stiff, expression grim, inspecting the camp. He hadn’t said a word since leaving the car. She almost pitied the two runaways when he finally caught up to them. She turned away.

At the edge of the pond directly below them lay a red canoe. It had to belong to the woman from the cabin because there were no other buildings
or people in sight. No fisherman would abandon their only means of transport. Plus there were the tracks. Two sets of footprints – one adult, one child – leading up from the water’s edge.

Consulting the map, she faced the direction the pair would have headed after leaving the area. ‘This is the closest they could get to town. Just over that hill is the general store, a few houses, the offices
of the logging company and the local GP.’

Her thoughts trailed away, diverted by a sudden connection. She reached in her pocket, pulled out the bottle she’d found at the cabin and stared at its label. ‘Maybe we should pay the doctor a visit.’

‘You feeling sick?’

‘No, but I think one of them might be.’ She tossed him the bottle. ‘I found that at the cabin. They’re antibiotics. Bottle holds thirty
and there’s twenty-seven left. I counted them.’

‘So, one of them’s got a cold.’

‘You don’t take that stuff for a cold. It’s powerful. I had it for an impacted wisdom tooth once.’

He sent her a glare – get to the point.

‘I saw bloody bandages in the trash at the cabin. And there was gauze and a tube of antiseptic cream lying near the couch.’

Tragg returned his gaze to the bottle. ‘You think
the kid’s hurt.’

‘Whichever one it is, they’ll be feeling sick again fairly soon. Three doses wouldn’t have been enough to cure anything.’

He thought a moment. ‘It’s Sunday. Doc’s office won’t be open.’

‘There might be a contact number on the door, maybe an address. If they’re desperate enough they might try to see the doctor at home.’

Tragg clenched the bottle in his fist. ‘Let’s go.’

The light in the room was more golden than before. He must have been asleep for quite a while. Shyler still sat at the sick room window, peering out between the partly drawn curtains.

‘What’s happening?’ he said.

She looked around at him, then pulled her chair up beside the bed. ‘We’re just waiting for the last of the loggers to leave. How are you feeling?’

‘Okay,’ he lied. ‘Still
kinda hot.’

‘That’s the fever. Don’t worry, the doctor’s taking good care of you.’

Zack shook his head. ‘He gives me medicine.
You
take care of me.’

She leaned down and stroked his face. ‘You bet.’

For a moment he let himself drift on the feeling. She had more than a couple of marbles missing, yet he trusted her totally. The knot that had tied up his guts for so long almost unravelled. But
as always a shadow passed over the sun. ‘What’s going to happen to us?’

Her smile dimmed. She didn’t answer.

‘We don’t have any money. We don’t have a car. We don’t even have any other clothes.’

She laced her fingers through his hair and tugged gently. ‘Now you listen to me. I don’t want you to worry about those sorts of things. That’s my job. You just concentrate on getting better. Okay?’

He didn’t know what made him do it but suddenly his arms were around her neck. It wouldn’t last, he knew it wouldn’t; it never did. Maybe that was why he was trying to hold on.

Chase pressed the last strip of tape in place, securing the cardboard over the window. The hole was now sealed against the weather. Tomorrow he would get the glass replaced.

He’d already swept up all the shards and plucked
the slivers from the cabinet door. If he was going to abide by Shyler’s wishes – something he had vast misgivings about – he had to convince Elaine he had been responsible for the office breakages. Otherwise the first thing she’d do when she came in tomorrow would be call the police. With the matter now sorted he stepped to the sick room door and opened it.

Shyler sat bending over the bed holding
Jesse in a tight embrace. Though her gaze flicked across to see who had entered she made no move to pull away.

Chase waited. After a moment she laid the boy back and he took a step closer. ‘Everyone’s gone.’

The pair stared up at him, Shyler with her arm still draped protectively over her son’s chest while holding the rifle in her other hand. By the red-rimmed look of Jesse’s eyes Chase sensed
he’d interrupted something.

‘I’m sorry it took me so long. After the second ambulance left I still had the minor injuries to deal with. Then I had to wait for the last man’s wife to come and pick him up.’

Again no answer. With the rigid wariness of prey for the hunter they simply watched him.

He stood a moment tugging his earlobe then threw up a hand. ‘Well, I don’t know about you two but I’m
famished.’

Their wariness dropped a notch to uncertainty.

‘We’ve got a kitchen here, but there’s not much in it besides tea and coffee, and the general store’s closed. So you have your choice – you can either let me run home and bring you back something –’

‘You’re not going anywhere,’ Shyler whispered.

‘Or,’ he continued, ignoring her words, ‘you can come there with me.’

She blinked at him
as though he’d gone mad. He couldn’t blame her. An hour ago, when he’d first had the thought, he’d felt the same way. But further contemplation had changed his mind.

After seeing how agitated she’d become just from having the loggers here, and knowing that tomorrow the office would be open . . . Well, he couldn’t imagine she’d cope any better with patients coming and going all day. Armed with
a rifle and in an agitated state she might injure someone, if only accidentally.

But at home, in a quieter, safer environment, she might relax. Perhaps even enough to let him call the police. And since there was little chance the pair had been followed he wouldn’t be placing his father at risk.

‘Jesse needs to eat if he’s going to recover,’ he reasoned softly. The last thing he wanted was to
make her feel pressured.

Shyler turned to the bleary-eyed boy.

‘I am kinda hungry,’ Zack confessed.

‘That’s a good sign.’ Chase looked at Shyler. ‘What do you say? You can even stay there. I’ve got two spare rooms, both with beds, and I can bring everything with me I need to treat him.’

‘Do you live with anyone?’

‘Just my father. But he’s in a wheelchair and never comes upstairs, which is
where you’ll be. He’ll never even see you.’

She reached out again and cupped the boy’s face. As though gaining courage and strength from the contact, she finally nodded.

A cold front had moved in since they’d left the pond. Rain glazed the windshield, reducing their view of the doctor’s office to a house-sized blur. In the waning light the place looked deserted, but the sign near the gate gave the doctor’s name, address and phone number.

Vanessa knew his name already, of course, but saw no reason to mention that to Tragg. In fact she saw one very good
reason not to tell him that Corey had been treated here or that she’d come here herself in order to learn where they’d sent the boy. The man’s mood was black enough at the moment.

She located the address on the map and felt her heart sink. ‘Well, so much for my idea.’

Tight-lipped and glaring, Tragg waited for the explanation.

‘The doctor’s house is a good six miles from here. If one of them’s
as sick as I think they are, it’s doubtful they could’ve walked that far.’

She slapped the map down as though disappointed. In truth she wished only to hide her unease. Tragg’s silences were every bit as frightening as his outbursts.

‘There’s always the chance they called someone,’ she reasoned, nervousness making her blurt her thoughts. ‘But the bitch didn’t even have a phone at her house.
What are the odds she’s carrying a mobile?’

She turned to stare out at the deserted building. Anything to avoid Tragg’s unrelenting gaze. She felt it boring into the back of her head and gave a shudder.

‘I think they’re nearby, though,’ she offered hopefully. ‘They must be. They’ll keep out of sight and wait for the office to open in the morning.’

Tragg reached down with a black-gloved hand
and shifted the car into drive. ‘Which leaves us with nothing better to do than stake out the doctor’s house till then.’

‘Stop right here!’

Startled by Shyler’s anxious words, Chase hit the brakes, stopping the Land Rover twenty yards short of the foot of his driveway.

‘I thought you said you only lived with your father,’ she accused.

‘I do.’

‘Then who are all these other people?’ She pointed
at the six cars parked in front of and across from his house.

‘I’m sorry, I forgot. It’s my father’s book club. They meet every Sunday afternoon.’