Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Wolf
The sun rose as they walked, and a tense silence settled over them. Wolf hated it, and he hated feeling so awful, and he missed her being kind of crazy about him.
He said, “Did you know my mom was bipolar?”
He was working things out in his own mind and talking to her about it fresh from there. He had to do something, and telling her how he felt about her wasn’t an option—not when he was still figuring that out himself.
Camellia slowed her pace. She’d been speeding along the trail four paces ahead of him, walking off her anger, he hoped. She slowed though and let him catch up. He fell into step beside her. “No. She never told me that.”
“I was in middle school when she was diagnosed. I learned what to watch for, you know.” They were close to the river, which hummed deep and splashed in the background. “Whenever Ma started saying things that sounded…unlikely, it always meant she was off her meds. It was one of her first signs.”
“I’m not bipolar, though.”
“I know that. It was just a…” He held up a palm, searching for the word. “Reflex.”
Camellia sighed. And then she said, “We’re here.”
They were. They’d hiked the short distance to where the refuse—what his mom had called river-treasures in her journal—piled up along the riverbank.
They walked several yards further upstream, to the finger of ground that made the river bend around it.
The little stone cairn the group of paddlers had left stood there still.
It felt like a sacrilege to tamper with the cairn, but Wolf had decided to put absolute faith in Camellia from now on. She’d got him this far, after all. He’d been watching the area around them, especially behind, but there’d been no sign of Earl.
As he knelt at the cairn, he hesitated.
She came and knelt beside him, sliding off her backpack.
She said, “I’m super sensitive about not being believed.
I think because it was so hard to get anyone to take me seriously about Earl when the stalking started.
Even people who knew me got that skeptical look in their eyes.
Now that I’m self-analyzing, I realize that’s why I had such a rivalry with the second-best student in that PI course I took over the summer. She doubted me. Repeatedly.”
Wolf listened to her, really listened and took her words to heart, even though he felt a little sorry for her PI-school nemesis, whoever she was. “I’m not gonna doubt you again, Camellia. That’s a promise. Soon as we get a signal, I think we should notify the local police about Earl.”
“Yeah, I was gonna do that anyway,” she said. But then she smiled at him. “Thank you for believing me. Now let’s see what they left here.”
He nodded and carefully removed the first few stones until there was room to see inside. “This is probably nothing to do with me,” he said, his hand hovering over the opening. “It feels intrusive.” It was growing warmer as the sun rose a little higher.
She put a hand over his. “We can put it right back. But we have to be sure.”
He looked up and into her blue, blue eyes. They were sparkling. She was excited, certain this was going to be a clue. She was in her element just then, he thought. Lit up, dang near beaming. He looked at her with her peaches-and-cream skin and pink cheeks, from their walk and the warm sun.
And that was when he knew it. He was done. She was it for him.
Not knowing Wolf’s world had just titled on its axis, Camellia pressed his hand.
He reined in his focus and reached into the little stone volcano to gather up what was there—a small pouch and an envelope.
The pouch was brown with a drawstring, and it held some herbs and some stones.
He peered inside, then drew it closed again, and turned it over.
On the underside, the letters “JWB” had been stitched in blue thread.
He traced the letters with his thumb, then he put the pouch back, and opened the envelope carefully.
It wasn’t sealed. It contained a photograph of a beautiful Native woman in a hospital bed, holding a newborn baby.
Beside him, Camellia gasped, and when he looked at her, she met his eyes and whispered, “Wolf, the bracelet.”
He looked at the photo again, at the baby’s tiny arm and the brown band tied around his impossibly small wrist. His eyes shot to the woman’s face again. She was gazing at the baby with more love than he’d ever seen.
“Wolf, this is your mother,” his beautiful companion said.
His eyes welling, he looked at Camellia. She pressed a hand to his cheek. Her eyes were brimming too.
“You did this,” he told her. “You’re incredible, Camellia, and I—”
Her gaze shifted away from his eyes and a look of stark terror took her face just before something smashed into the back of Wolf’s head.
He slammed face-first into the ground, clinging to consciousness.
“No!” Camellia shrieked. “Let go of me! Dammit, Earl, let me go!”
Pushing himself up, Wolf got to his feet and tried to see around the large black spots in his vision. A big man with beach boy looks had Camellia by one arm.
Wolf lunged after them as Earl tried to pull her away with him, toward a canoe beached nearby. There was blood running down Wolf’s neck. He felt it as he reached up and grabbed the guy by one shoulder, spun him around, and drove a fist into his chin, then another into his belly.
The guy barely flinched, then he came at Wolf roaring like a bull.
Suddenly, Camellia had a gun in her hand. Wolf saw it, stunned, but Earl didn’t—his back was toward her as he hit Wolf so hard his he left ground before smashing down again.
A gunshot rang out. Camellia had fired into the air.
Wolf picked himself up again as Earl surged toward her. He ran after Earl and dove onto the big guy’s back, clubbing his ears, but Earl ignored him, focused entirely on Camellia. It was like he couldn’t even feel Wolf hitting him.
Camellia was pointing her gun at Earl, while Wolf rode on his back, pummeling him. In a second, Earl grabbed her wrist in a crushing grip, twisting and squeezing.
The gun went off.
Wolf felt like a post-maul hit him. The impact launched him off Earl’s back. He hit the ground and he couldn’t inhale.
Camellia’s screams sounded far away. He looked up as Earl punched her in the head and she dropped to the ground like her bones had dissolved, out cold.
He tried to get up, but his body wasn’t moving.
Only his head, his eyes. He tried to open and close his hands but couldn’t tell if they were moving.
The sun climbed higher, clearing the rocks and beaming down full force.
Earl threw Camellia over his shoulder and strode away along the riverban, going downstream toward that canoe.
Wolf pushed himself up onto his side as Earl lowered Camellia into the boat, then got in himself and pushed them off from shore.
“Camellia!” Wolf pressed a palm to the ground to push himself upright. But his hand slipped in warm blood and then everything went dark.
Willow
Willow had wandered outside with her first cup of coffee, drained it dry and was wishing for a refill. Nothing had come to her overnight. She’d been hoping she’d have a dream or something.
Ethan had found a cell signal a mile away last night, so he was able to reassure himself and get some sleep. He’d driven back to that spot this morning, even before the killer breakfast Orrin and Trevor had cooked up for everyone. He reported back that Lily was still doing fine in his absence.
Willow missed Jeremiah like she’d miss a limb.
Maybe she should let the gang off the hook, and the two of them could come back here.
Bring Frankie along, camp out in the park.
She wondered if dogs the size of small horses were allowed as she walked down across the backyard to the riverbank, where a well-worn trail meandered right alongside. Something compelled her to walk it.
“Will?” Drew called. Because, of course, the little worrywart had followed.
Willow was about to ask for some privacy when sunlight picked out something in the water about a hundred yards further downstream. She frowned, then arched her brows. “Hey, Drew, look where we are!”
Drew looked. “Is that—?”
“The spot with the garbage,” Willow said. “What are the odds my friend’s cabin would be that close to that spot? I’m telling you, something is—” Her words were cut off by the sound of a gunshot.
Willow froze, her gaze shooting to Drew’s.
“You armed?” Drew asked.
Willow shook her head side to side and a second shot rang out. “Get the others,” she said and she took off running, leaping roots and boulders, dodging brush and ducking limbs.
A long way down the trail, she spotted someone lying on the ground up ahead, right in the spot where they’d done the ceremony for Wolf.
Her heart pounded even harder when the blood on the ground beneath him became visible, too.
Racing closer, she saw the man was Native, like her, with sun-kissed brown skin and long black hair.
When Willow finally knelt beside him, she smacked his cheeks, then tore open his shirt and saw that the blood was coming from a hole high on his chest, more like the front of his left shoulder. She asked if he was all right and got no response.
“He’s been shot!” she cried, looking up and back, knowing there’d be family on the way.
Her cousins were coming, Drew in the lead, sprinting like a tiny blonde gazelle.
“Is he alive?” Drew shrieked as she landed on her knees near Willow.
“I don’t know.”
Ethan stopped a couple yards away, and kept his back to her, watching for threats, while the others followed suit, except for Maria, who arrived several steps behind the others, a small first aid kit in her one hand.
Willow reached for the man’s wrist to check for a pulse and saw the dark brown bands of a bracelet tied around it. Her hand stopped moving, and she just stared.
Drew glanced at her. “What is it, Will?”