Chapter 24
TWENTY-FOUR
CARA
Hey y’all, check out my new dance. I call it rich lady dancing with bears.
As Cara inhaled the aromas of nutty coffee and crisp pine with subtle notes of musty loam, she felt safe, warm, and protected. She was in Ojai, glamping with Karl.
Or were they in the Sahara?
Cozy beneath the fluffy duvet of a king-sized, four-poster bed in a tent appointed with colorful rugs and priceless Moroccan antiques, they snuggled together, drinking spiced tea he’d brewed for them and gazing out the window at the dunes they planned to zip-line over at sunset.
Setting aside his mug, Karl leaned over and kissed her passionately.
“Your love is worth all my gold,” he said, looking deeply into her eyes with his baby blues. “What’s left of it.”
Then her lawyer, Roy Abel, entered through the tent’s open flap holding a hammer wrapped in an evidence bag.
“Did you forget something?” he asked.
Laughing, he rushed toward them and began hitting Karl in the head.
Cara reached out to stop the attack but couldn’t. The bed was gone. She was sinking into the sand.
Why was Abel wearing a black ski mask? She hooked her thumbs into the mask’s eyeholes and pulled it off. It wasn’t Abel—it was the grandmotherly jury foreman, her purple hair glowing menacingly.
Then she morphed into Cara’s stepdaughter, Taylor.
“Guilty as charged!” Taylor said, aiming her hammer at Cara.
“Over my dead body,” Karl said. He laughed, like he always did, at his own joke.
The bright red blood spewing from the top of his head was anything but funny.
Cara screamed and opened her eyes.
She definitely wasn’t glamping. She wasn’t even in a tent. She was lying on hard, rocky ground, looking up at a pine tree and sweating in a mildewed sleeping bag. Her mouth was so dusty she must have been inhaling dirt while she slept.
Fisk was crouched next to a small gas stove, watching her as he stirred instant coffee in a banged-up metal camping cup.
“Bad dream?” he asked.
“A nightmare. And I’m still not sure I’m awake.”
He stood up and brought her the cup.
Backlit by the hazy dawn, his curly hair formed a wispy aura around his head. Cara couldn’t help but notice the coarse gray tufts sprouting from his ears and nose, and couldn’t help hoping no strays had fallen into her coffee.
“Drink up,” he said matter-of-factly. “We need to rock and roll.”
He’d used exactly the same words the previous night when he’d opened the trap door and dropped into the bunker with a shotgun tucked under his arm.
All she could think to do at that moment was try to make things as personal as she could in the hope of delaying whatever lay ahead.
“How long have I been down here, Fisk?” she’d asked.
“Too long,” he’d grunted.
“I hope it’s OK that I ate a little bit of your food.”
Fisk had eyed the cracker crumbs, open peanut butter jar, and Hershey bar wrappers. “More than a bit by the looks of it.”
“My name’s Cara, by the way.” Thinking she might as well be honest this time.
“Oh, I know.”
He’d stepped past her, matter-of-factly noting the tools missing from the open bin.
She had flinched as he stuck a key into the deadbolt lock.
That door led to another one—large and metal with a built-in combination lock.
He had twisted the tumbler until it clicked, the heavy door swinging open ominously on well-oiled hinges.
Inside was a stockpile of firearms so extensive that the hammer and wrench she’d hidden suddenly seemed about as useful as water pistols. Fisk had quickly traded his shotgun for a black assault rifle and wordlessly pointed her up the ladder.
They’d hiked into the night, leading a heavily laden mule with white-ringed eyes, the goat, and two sheep, while carrying heavy backpacks themselves.
Cara stumbled over rocks and tree roots, trying to keep up.
Her feet were sore, her knee throbbed, and the backpack straps dug into her shoulder, but she didn’t dare complain.
Finally she grew so lightheaded that she tottered with every step.
Fisk must have taken pity on her because he eventually let her lie down. She passed out immediately.
Now it was morning and her captor or savior was serving her coffee. She had no idea how long she’d been out or if Fisk slept at all.
He handed her a thick hunk of homemade-looking jerky. “Eat up. You’ll need the energy for today.”
Beef, she reassured herself. Turkey at worst.
After breakfast, Cara stuffed her sleeping bag and put it into her backpack while Fisk reloaded the mule with the white-ringed eyes, whose name she now knew was Maybelline.
He had a warm heart for his animals, given the affectionate way he baby-talked to them and patted them sweetly after they negotiated tight turns.
She still wasn’t sure how he felt about humans.
“What else do you know about me?” she asked, hobbling stiffly as the little party started moving.
Fisk didn’t even look over his shoulder. “Cara Campbell, convicted of first-degree murder. You escaped after your prison van was in an accident, and now you’re on the run.”
Either he’d fired up his dial-up internet or adjusted the rabbit ears on his black-and-white TV, or he’d been filled in by whoever tripped the bells on his homespun Ring system. “Did the sheriff tell you that? Was he the one who showed up looking for me?”
Fisk spat the blade of grass he’d been chewing into the dirt. “Him and a few friends with armor and automatic weapons.”
The hunt for her had ballooned even faster than she’d imagined. “Did they see the bunker?”
“They didn’t see shit.”
“I’m innocent,” she pleaded.
“Doesn’t much matter to me either way,” he responded, leading them straight uphill.