CHAPTER 25
Deakin slept very little that night. Eden woke up several times and watched as he stood at the window and stared at the ocean. She’d found them a small motel right on the coast. Finally, she got up and stared out the window with him. Without a word, they both dressed and left the room. They held hands and walked for hours along the beach, letting the stiff breeze blow them around. Toward dawn, they sat on the sand and leaned their backs against a brick seawall which separated the motel from the beach. Eden leaned on Deakin’s shoulder and fell into a light doze. Deakin let her sleep as long as he could stand to be still and then pulled her to her feet. They showered and then went for breakfast. Eden stared stupidly at the plate of pancakes in front of her and wondered just who had ordered them.
Deakin poked them with his fork and said, “Eat them, like a good girl. We need some food before we visit these people. I know it’s not what you usually get but eat it anyway. I at least got you scrambled eggs and no bacon or sausage. Give me a little credit.”
Eden smiled wanly at him and pushed a fork into her eggs. “Do you think this man’ll remember your mother? What do we do if he says he never saw her?”
Deakin shrugged and stuffed a forkful of pancakes into his mouth. When he could speak again, he said, “We try something else or we give up. That’s for later, Eden. Right now we’re going to see some nice older people who just might have an answer for us.”
Eden stared at the large wooden house perched on the cliff. The wind had scoured off much of the paint and the windows were coated with salt residue. She carefully walked up the steps and knocked on the door. It was promptly opened by a small round woman with white hair piled on top of her head. The hair reached only as high as Eden’s chin. She smiled down into a pair of clear blue eyes with a twinkle hiding way in the back.
“Hello, I’m Eden and this is Deakin. He’s the one who called you last night. May we come in?”
The woman held the door wide and watched the two walk into her home. “I’m Ella, short for Eleanor, you know. And this is my husband, Orris.” She raised her voice and said, “Orris, we have company like I told you at breakfast. This is Eden and her friend Deakin. They want to talk to you about the old times when you took people out in your boat. Here, son, you sit over here where he can see you. He’s a little deaf so you might should talk a little louder than normal. Girl, you sit on this chair. I’ll get us some lemonade and cookies and be right back. You just go ahead and ask him whatever you want.”
Deakin stared at the face in front of him. The man’s head hung down as if it were too heavy for his neck and his hands twitched in his lap. Very slowly and easily he reached out and touched the man’s hands. Slowly the large head lifted to look at Deakin. A slightly humorous gleam looked the two of them over and a rusty voice said,
“What kin I do for the two of you? I can’t take you out fishing so why’re you here? You’re no kin of mine ‘cos you don't have your hand out waiting for me to put something in it.”
Deakin smiled and said clearly, “Deakin Kimbrough, sir, and this is my friend, Eden. We came to tell you a story of something that happened a long time ago and we hope you can tell us the end of that story. Will you try?”
“Sure, son, I’ll try. In fact, it’s easier for me to remember the past than present. Tell your story. At the very least, it’ll pass the time for me.”
Deakin launched into an abbreviated version of his mother’s journey. He confined himself to the bare bones of the story, leaving out the deaths that happened later on. The old man listened carefully and then seemed to turn in on himself as if he were playing all the old videos of his life. Finally, he shot a shrewd glance into Deakin’s eyes and said,
“You’re not telling me the whole story, are you, boy? Don't worry, I don't want to know it all. I know too many stories already. Well, I kinda think I remember your mama. A young woman with thick long hair. She was a very sad person. That’s why I believed her story. She carried a wooden box on her lap and she said it held the ashes of her father. He’d always wanted his ashes thrown in the sea so she asked me to take her out. I did and she did and that was the end of it. I never saw her again. It sure was a lot of ashes, though. That was only one of the times I took people out to scatter ashes. I took a lot of them in my time. Not near as many as I took fishing. All in all, it was a good life. I had me a good wife and a good life and if I didn’t have a son to follow me, I sure had a houseful of good women. Me and the wife had five daughters and every one of them as smart and pretty as their mama. They’re all married and have kids of their own now. Four of them went to college and the other one is married to a minister up in the Portland area. Well, I hope that was what you wanted to hear. I don't know no more about your mother. I just saw her that one day and I never thought about her again until today. Here comes Ella with some drinks and cookies. She makes the best cookies I ever ate. You’d better stay and have some or you’ll hurt her feelings. You can hear some of my fishing stories too. I don't often get an audience who hasn’t heard any of them before so I try to take advantage of any what come along.”
Deakin and Eden sat in that small room and listened to the old fisherman’s voice drone on as long as they could stand it. Then they stood at the same time, thanked the man and his wife, and escaped.
“End of the story. I guess there’s no more to find out, is there, Eden? She obviously destroyed all the records of the research. Do we just give up?”
Eden took his face in her hands and looked deeply into his eyes. Then she softly kissed his mouth and said,
“There’s always Seattle. We haven’t met your aunt yet. Let’s go there. She won’t tell us anything else but at least she’s family. Let’s go. We may just decide to stay there for awhile. You can work for Alden. Start a Seattle branch of the Bandits. What d’you say, Deakin? North to Seattle or south to Los Angeles.”
Deakin stared at the ocean rolling in and crashing on the rocks below the small house. Then he grabbed Eden in a large hug and said,
“North to Seattle.”
FINIS
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Saturday, March 21, 2009
THE BANDIT QUEEN - Chapter 24
CHAPTER 24
Deakin left the hospital two days later but he only made it as far as the F.B.I office in Portland. Eden jumped up from her chair when he limped into the room and grabbed his arm to help him walk. He jerked it out of her grasp and carefully lowered himself into the chair in front of the desk. He leaned to the right to take pressure off his left leg and stared at the man across the desk from him.
A quiet well-dressed businessman watched the boy keenly and then said, “It’s nice to meet you, Deakin. I’m Clark Duncan and I’m sorry to say I sent that man to find you. To my credit, I did try to call him off but he was out of control by then. How are you feeling, son?”
Deakin unconsciously touched his leg but no sign of pain showed on his blank face. In a carefully controlled voice, Deakin said, “I’m not your son and it’s my business how I feel.”
Clark shook his head wearily and said, “You have no reason to love any of us, do you? We certainly did not do very well by you. I can only say, in my own defense, that it wasn’t my project to begin with. I tried my best to clean it up after it happened but there wasn’t much for me to do.”
A dark scowl dropped over Deakin’s face and he harshly replied, “Is that all you have to say? ‘It’s not my fault.’ That’s it. My parents are dead. I grew up with no family and was left to live or die on my own. I don’t think that’s good enough, Mr. whoever you are. Just how do I get you to leave me alone? And what about Eden? Are you going to put her life back together? The last we heard, she was charged with hit and run and God knows what else? Can you make all that go away?”
Clark patted the air with his hands and said, “Just calm down, s..Deakin. We’ve already taken care of your friend here. We even dropped the charges for assault on a federal agent and theft of his weapon. That’s all gone, okay? There’s no way to undo the past though. The only thing we can do is send you out of here with a clean slate. I am sorry about your parents. That was a different world then, but there really is no excuse for what happened.”
Clark Duncan stood up behind the desk to signal the end of their discussion. Deakin slowly limped to the door with Eden close behind him. Just as he grasped the knob on the door, Clark cleared his throat. Deakin turned his head to stare back at the man.
“Deakin, if you ever find what your mother hid away, will you let me know? Eden has my number. Just out of curiosity, I’d like to know if she saved it or destroyed it.”
Deakin leaned wearily against the door and then said, “I might or I might not. I don't know how I’ll feel about that until it happens.”
He nodded goodbye and limped through the door. Eden closed the door behind them and walked slowly beside him down the hallway. When they walked out into the bright sunshine of a winter’s day, Deakin shook like a dog after a bath.
“Let’s get out of here, Eden.”
Eden led the way to her red convertible, conveniently delivered to her in close to pristine condition. She shoveled Deakin into the passenger seat and climbed in behind the wheel.
“Uh, where are we going?”
Deakin grinned a little smile and said, “Nowhere near that big rock. We’ll have to go there later, much later, when everyone has quit watching us. Where’s the rest of our merry band of treasure seekers? Martin, Mala and Ian.”
“Mala left for California yesterday. The doctors didn’t want her to travel but she wouldn’t stay. Ian flew to Chicago this morning. I have phone numbers for both of them, in case we find anything. I have no idea about Martin. The rangers and the deputies never saw him. He must have run away after that awful man shot you and fell off the rock. Somehow, I have the feeling he’s hanging around the rock out there and waiting for us to show up.”
Deakin grimaced as he tried to find a comfortable position for his leg. Eden reached over to help him but stopped herself before she touched him. She turned quickly to start the car and pull out of the parking lot.
“I guess that means we head back to LA then. I at least have an apartment we can live in. What do you say? We go to my place and decide what to do after that.”
Deakin reached out and touched her cheek. Eden glanced quickly over at him with a glint of tears in her eyes and let out the breath she’d unconsciously held. Deakin nodded and settled back for the long trip to Los Angeles.
Months later, just before the beginning of the summer, Deakin and Eden carefully loaded up the car and drove north. Deakin no longer looked like a boy who’d grown too fast for his clothes. Eden had pushed him to make many changes during the time they’d lived together. He was working on his high school diploma but not actually going to class. In his situation, home schooling was the only way to go. Eden planned to go back to UCLA in the fall, but she had no idea what she wanted to study. Deakin leaned back in the seat and tipped his ball cap low over his eyes. A lazy smile flitted across his face and Eden felt a glow of satisfaction. She’d forced him to visit an orthodontist and have his braces removed. He grudgingly agreed that she was right and he was happy to have the braces off.
They took turns as they drove lazily up the coast of California. As far as they could tell, no one was following them around any more. When they’d first returned to LA, they constantly checked the people and the cars around them. Now, they’d almost forgotten what it was like to be followed by professionals.
As they neared the city of Salem, Eden realized her shoulders were tense. She slowly relaxed them and forced herself to look around at the countryside they passed through. She glanced across at Deakin and noticed the whiteness of his knuckles on the steering wheel. She flicked his hand with her finger and said,
“Relax, Deakin. There’s nobody around. At least, I don't think there’s anyone around who’s interested in us.”
Deakin kept his eyes on the road. “I’m not really worried about someone following us. I’m just kinda anxious about what we’ll find. Do you really think we’ll find anything?”
Eden shrugged her shoulders. She really didn’t care whether they ever found what Deakin’s mother had hidden. That adventure was over and they’d come out of it better than she’d ever expected. They were alive. They weren’t being chased by federal agents. Martin Wolfe called them on a weekly basis. He wanted them to continue searching for the lost computer files but Eden always put him off. Hopefully he wouldn’t follow them to the park.
Deakin pulled off the road into the parking lot of the small state park. Deakin pulled a backpack out of the car and swung it onto his back. Eden slipped her arms through a similar pack and followed Deakin along the familiar path. Deakin’s bullet wound had healed with only a small scar to remind them. They marched down the path through the dappled shade from the trees around them. Eden didn’t recognize much of landscape they walked through. Winter and spring made a big difference. She followed Deakin up the steep path without a word until they came to the ledge they’d rested on before. Deakin dropped to the ground and swung his legs over the edge. Eden dropped next to him and stared at the view in front of them.
Deakin reached for her hand and said, “Remember the last time. You thought we should live up here instead of LA. Have you changed your mind?”
Eden leaned her head against his shoulder and said, “We can go anywhere. This feels like a good place. We should drive to the coast after we leave here. I’ve heard it’s really beautiful.”
Deakin kept his eyes on the hills around them and nodded easily. “C’mon, Eden, let’s get this over with. It’s like something we have to do before we can move on.”
Deakin pulled Eden to her feet and climbed the rest of the way to the top of the rock. Eden stepped out on top and felt the wind blow through her. She held her arms out and turned a slow circle while the wind ruffled her clothes and her hair. Then she looked around to get her bearings and walked toward the rocks and scrub bushes that had hidden the tire iron for so many years. She dropped her pack on the ground and unzipped it. From its depths she pulled out several small gardening tools along with the tire iron. Deakin wandered around the rock to check for other climbers and returned quickly.
Eden had already levered out several small rocks and set them to the side. Deakin took the lever out of her hand and gave her a flashlight to hold for him. Before long they had cleared a good sized hole in the ground without finding any treasure. When Deakin shoved the tire iron into the ground one more time, they were rewarded with a metallic sound. Eden took the iron out of his hand and gave him the gardening tools. Deakin carefully dug out dirt and rocks until he could see part of a coffee can buried on its side. Roots had wound around the can over the years and the plastic lid had lost its hold. It took them quite a while to get the can loose and pull it out of the hole.
They sat on the ground with the can between them and just stared at it. Without taking her eyes off it, Eden reached into her pack and pulled out a camera. She took pictures of the can and pictures of the rocks that had hidden it all this time. A shadow passed over them and a shiver ran up Eden’s spine. She looked fearfully around and realized for the first time that black clouds had moved in from the west and covered half the sky. She quickly packed the tools away and took one more look into the hole to make sure nothing else had been buried there. Then she scooped the rocks and dirt into the hole. Deakin took the flashlight from her hand and illuminated the interior of the can. A glass jar lay inside with the lid screwed shut. Deakin glanced up at the sky and chewed on his thumb in indecision. Then he made up his mind and picked up the can. He slid the glass jar out onto a plastic trash bag they’d spread on the ground between them. He glanced up at Eden’s face and flashed her a quick smile before he rolled the jar around. Finally he took a deep breath and twisted the lid off before he could think of any more reasons not to do it.
The wind picked up again and swirled around the rocks, carrying dust and grit in its wake. Eden held her hair out of her face and scooted around to become a human windbreak. Deakin reached carefully inside the jar and pulled out a thick wad of papers. The smell of must, mold and peanut butter came out with the papers. He unfolded them and held them down by the corners. He threw a wild look at Eden and croaked,
“It’s the same writing as the other letter. The one my aunt had. Help me read this top one. The paper has turned darker and the writing is a little smeared.”
Eden leaned against his shoulder and stared at the neat precise writing on the page in front of them. Deakin began reading slowly out loud.
Dearest Alex,
I hope you are the one who finds these papers. I gave one letter to my sister in Seattle and sent one to Mala. They are the only other people who love me unreservedly like you do. I have done a terrible thing, my dear. I turned into a scientific machine and lost my humanity for a while. But now I have regained it and realized what a mistake I made. I thought that because I could never use my laser design for any wicked purpose, no one else would either. There are so many terrific uses for my discovery but there are just as many, if not more, terrible uses. I decided I have to destroy all my work before I lose control of it. I have no choice. When I look in the face of our child, I cannot allow him to grow up in a world where governments have control over the immediate creation and destruction of everything. There is no human being anywhere on earth who can wield that power. Not even I and I made the damned thing.
I don't know what will happen when I get back to the lab. The baby is safe with my sister. The computer disks and files we took have been destroyed totally. I hope you destroyed the computers and the prototypes. I will leave here and take one last look at the ocean before I come home. The wind and the water will surely wash away the grit and ashes. I can only hope that nobody else will be able to reconstruct our research. Whatever happens is in someone else’s hands now. Maybe you and I will stand on this rock in a year or so and dig up these papers together. If not, never forget that I love you and I love our son.
Helena
Eden wiped a few tears from her eyes and carefully took the page from Deakin’s hands. She slipped it in a thick plastic envelope and reached for the next page. She quickly scanned the page and handed it Deakin. His eyes misted over as he stared at his parents’ wedding license. Next was his birth certificate and Helena’s Russian visa. The last page had been torn from a child’s book of nursery rhymes. One side of the page showed a small boat with three babies in it. The other side of the page showed blackbirds flying out of a large pie. Deakin looked blankly at Eden and shook his head. A sudden gust of wind swirled around them and a few drops of rain hit their shoulders. Deakin hurriedly slid the papers into the plastic envelope and dropped everything into his backpack. Eden brushed the dirt smooth and followed Deakin quickly down the path back to their car.
Occasional drops blew into their faces but the rain held off until they made to the shelter of the car. Deakin held his pack tightly on his lap and watched Eden climb into the driver’s seat.
“Where do we go now? I certainly don't want to camp out in this rain.”
Eden started the car and drove smoothly away from the park. She turned to car west and headed for the Pacific coast. The storm strengthened as they drove along the twisting road. Deakin pulled the package out of his pack and carefully removed the papers from their plastic covering. He read the letter from his mother over and over, taking comfort from the knowledge that his mother had written every word on the page. He flipped through the other pages once and returned to the letter. Then he held up the page torn from the book. He rummaged through Eden’s pack and found her flashlight. He still didn’t find any marks or clues on the page.
Eden glanced at him with a crooked smile and said, “Maybe she kept it because you drooled on it. Maybe it meant something to her or to your father. Someone must have read to you. Your ‘mother’ in Dallas said you already knew several nursery rhymes when you came to live with her.”
Deakin shook his head in indecision. “I don't know, Eden. I think she put it in the jar for a reason but I don't know what it was. You know, she never did say what she did with all the research files. There must have been boxes and boxes of papers and notes plus the computer disks. Back then, people still did a lot of work by hand and transferred it to the computer. There must have been stacks of stuff.”
Eden wrinkled her forehead in thought and then said, “Well, it sounds to me as if she never wanted anyone to duplicate her research so I think she destroyed all of it. Maybe she burned it. That’s what I’d do if I had that much paper to get rid of. She did mention fire in that letter, didn’t she?”
“No, she mentioned ashes, but it would be sort of symbolic, wouldn’t it? You know, purification and all that stuff.”
Eden made a sudden left turn and parked the car in the parking lot of a lookout point. The rain had moved inland leaving forests that had been washed clean. Directly in front of them was the ocean still churning from the strength of the wind. Eden stepped out of the car and leaned against the waist-high rock wall at the edge of the parking lot. The land dropped off just beyond the wall into a sheer cliff. A couple of hundred feet down was a small beach littered with large black rocks. The waves crashed on the rocks and sprayed streams of water partway up the cliff. Deakin joined her and stared at the wild waves which started far out in the ocean and rolled steadily into the earth just below their feet.
“This is like the edge of the earth, isn’t it? We’re safe on land while any boats out there are in danger of going under.”
Deakin put his arm around Eden and said, “It’s only relative safety, Eden. We have our own predators on land. The fish out there are relatively safe in their own environment, but they have predators too, not just man. Wait a minute. I just thought of something. What is that you were telling one time? You know, about wind, fire, water. There was more to it too. What was that?”
Eden smiled and said, “You mean what I said about feng shui. It’s also part of Chinese horoscopes too. The five elements: wood, water, metal, fire, and earth. What does that have to do with your mother? Or even with us right now?”
“Think about it. We’re standing on the edge of the earth. Water is right in front of us. We came in a metal car. There are forests all around us. The only thing missing is fire. I think my mother started with fire. She burned the papers and gathered up the ashes. Then she took me to Seattle, stopped here to bury her little coffee can, and then came this way just like we did. She left the earth and sailed off in a boat – either metal or wooden. Just like the babies on that page she buried. What is that rhyme about Wynken, Blynken and Nod? They sailed away, didn’t they? Out there somewhere is the resting place of those ashes. I wonder if we’ll ever know what she really did.”
After fifteen or twenty minutes, Eden returned to the car and started it. Deakin dropped into his seat and opened his mouth to speak. Eden shook her head and drove off in silence. She pulled into the first town they came across and drove up and down the streets. Finally she stopped at a small bait shop and went inside. Deakin rolled down his window and wrinkled his nose at the smell of rotting fish. The ocean looked much tamer from the pier out beyond the shop. Eden walked quickly out the door and jumped back into the car.
“Whew! That is one smelly place. Leave your window down. I need to air out. There’s a small motel down this road. We’ll stay the night there and try to figure out the last clue your mother gave us, okay?”
The two young people sat on the deck of a seafood restaurant and stared out at the wide expanse of blue water. Neither had spoken for the last five minutes or so. Finally, Deakin turned to the girl across the table from him and said,
“I’m out of ideas, Eden. This whole coastline is littered with tiny towns and fishermen. We’ll never find anyone who saw my mother. You know, even if someone did talk to her, they probably won't remember it after all these years.”
“Don't be so cranky, Deakin. It won't hurt to try. Let’s get out of here. I’d like to find a beach or a pier. Dangle my feet in the water or walk barefoot along a beach. What d’you say?”
Deakin stood up without a word and herded Eden out the door. She immediately turned back and grabbed a tourist brochure. She tossed it in Deakin’s lap in the car and said
“Look for my beach in that thing.”
Deakin flipped the brochure open and looked at the small map of the town. He gave Eden directions and soon they stood on a tiny slice of beach. They walked along the beach and dropped to the sand next to a large rock. They stared out at the darkening ocean and lost themselves in the movement of the waves. Soon the water crept up the sand and tickled their feet. Finally they walked back to their car in silence. Eden drove along the main street of town and stopped the car in amazement. Deakin looked around but could find nothing to account for Eden’s actions. He nudged her shoulder and she jerked out of her trance. She smiled widely and pointed out the windshield. Deakin looked out at the row of commercial buildings lining the main street. They had seen their best days about fifty years in the past but new businesses were beginning to open. He shook his head and said,
“Why did you stop here? I don't see anything but a few shops and offices. What?”
“I just saw something that could solve our latest puzzle. Look at that sign hanging there. What do you see?”
“Duh! Just the name of the shop and the address.”
“Think, Deakin. Your mother left us a number puzzle. The page from that book had the blackbird rhyme on it. Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie. Well, maybe we need to look for an address with those numbers in it. 420 something. If we look in the phone directory, we might find a boat rental place with that address. It’s worth a try.”
Deakin’s frown disappeared and he laughed out loud. “Boy, you sure are reaching. Don't hit me. I can’t hit you back. You’re driving. Find us a directory and we’ll check it out. Just don't hope too much, okay?”
Eden muttered under her breath, something about men who didn’t know a good idea when they heard one, and drove determinedly to the nearest open shop. Deakin wheedled the directory from the teenaged girl behind the counter and tossed it to Eden. She set the book on the hood of the car, opened it to the yellow pages and ran her finger down all the listings for boat dealers and rentals and anything else similar that she could think of. None of them came close to her numbers.
“It’s a very small directory. We could go through all the pages in an hour. What do you say, Eden?”
She tossed it in his lap and said, with a sigh, “You can do what you want. I thought that was going to be the answer. Maybe this is the wrong town. You said there were towns all up and down the coast. How can we try all of them?”
Deakin flipped desultorily through the pages. All at one his attention sharpened on one page and he grabbed Eden’s arm.
“What did you find, Deakin?”
He laughed again and his eyes sparkled as he looked across the car at Eden.
“You found it! You found it! Show me!”
“Hey, give me the book back! I haven’t actually found it. I just figured the puzzle out. You know my mother was a scientist so she thought differently than most people. Actually she probably thought more in numbers than in words. So, think about that nursery rhyme. Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie. Well, just change it to say Four and twenty blackbirds baked in pi. What does that say to you?”
“I don't get it.”
“Well, what’s pi?
“It’s dough and fruit baked in a round pan.”
“No, P I, not P I E.”
“Oh, 3.1414, and on and on and on.”
Deakin smiled at her and said, “So, what’s the answer?”
Eden wrinkled her forehead in thought and then shrugged her shoulders in defeat. “I guess you’ll have to tell me.”
“Okay, think about it this way. Four and twenty make twenty-four. So you have twenty-four baked inside pi. So, what if the answer is a phone number? Twenty-four inside pi. If you put the twenty-four where the decimal point is, you come up with 324-1414. If you look in this book, you’ll see that lots of the phone numbers begin with 324.”
Eden let out a yell and grabbed Deakin. She pounded her fists on his chest and danced around the parking lot. When she finally ran out of breath, she leaned against Deakin and asked,
“Well, do we just call that number and see what happens? Right now?”
Deakin rubbed his hand down the side of his shorts and looked around at the darkness.
“How late is it?”
“9:30.”
“Let’s do it now. What’s the worst that could happen? They can just hang up on me.”
Deakin walked slowly over to the pay phone mounted on the side of the building. He pulled some change out of his pocket and determinedly slid the coins into the phone. He carefully punched in the number and leaned his head against the wall as he listened to the ringing of the phone. He was almost surprised when the phone was answered after the seventh ring. He stuttered a little as he began his story, but the person on the line listened until he’d finished. Then a soft, elderly voice said,
“Son, you must be looking for my husband. He used to fish around here and took people out for boat rides. He hasn’t done that in years and years though. You’d best come by the house in the morning and talk to him. He’s usually pretty alert during the morning. He sleeps the rest of the time. You just come about nine or so and I’ll have him ready to talk, okay?”
“Th-th-thank you. Where do I come? I mean, what’s your address? I only have your phone number.”
The woman gave him directions and left him standing with the receiver in his hand. He turned to Eden with a look of wonder.
“Tomorrow morning at nine o’clock. He’s an old man and he might not remember but she said he used to have a boat for rent. Maybe he’ll remember something.”
Deakin left the hospital two days later but he only made it as far as the F.B.I office in Portland. Eden jumped up from her chair when he limped into the room and grabbed his arm to help him walk. He jerked it out of her grasp and carefully lowered himself into the chair in front of the desk. He leaned to the right to take pressure off his left leg and stared at the man across the desk from him.
A quiet well-dressed businessman watched the boy keenly and then said, “It’s nice to meet you, Deakin. I’m Clark Duncan and I’m sorry to say I sent that man to find you. To my credit, I did try to call him off but he was out of control by then. How are you feeling, son?”
Deakin unconsciously touched his leg but no sign of pain showed on his blank face. In a carefully controlled voice, Deakin said, “I’m not your son and it’s my business how I feel.”
Clark shook his head wearily and said, “You have no reason to love any of us, do you? We certainly did not do very well by you. I can only say, in my own defense, that it wasn’t my project to begin with. I tried my best to clean it up after it happened but there wasn’t much for me to do.”
A dark scowl dropped over Deakin’s face and he harshly replied, “Is that all you have to say? ‘It’s not my fault.’ That’s it. My parents are dead. I grew up with no family and was left to live or die on my own. I don’t think that’s good enough, Mr. whoever you are. Just how do I get you to leave me alone? And what about Eden? Are you going to put her life back together? The last we heard, she was charged with hit and run and God knows what else? Can you make all that go away?”
Clark patted the air with his hands and said, “Just calm down, s..Deakin. We’ve already taken care of your friend here. We even dropped the charges for assault on a federal agent and theft of his weapon. That’s all gone, okay? There’s no way to undo the past though. The only thing we can do is send you out of here with a clean slate. I am sorry about your parents. That was a different world then, but there really is no excuse for what happened.”
Clark Duncan stood up behind the desk to signal the end of their discussion. Deakin slowly limped to the door with Eden close behind him. Just as he grasped the knob on the door, Clark cleared his throat. Deakin turned his head to stare back at the man.
“Deakin, if you ever find what your mother hid away, will you let me know? Eden has my number. Just out of curiosity, I’d like to know if she saved it or destroyed it.”
Deakin leaned wearily against the door and then said, “I might or I might not. I don't know how I’ll feel about that until it happens.”
He nodded goodbye and limped through the door. Eden closed the door behind them and walked slowly beside him down the hallway. When they walked out into the bright sunshine of a winter’s day, Deakin shook like a dog after a bath.
“Let’s get out of here, Eden.”
Eden led the way to her red convertible, conveniently delivered to her in close to pristine condition. She shoveled Deakin into the passenger seat and climbed in behind the wheel.
“Uh, where are we going?”
Deakin grinned a little smile and said, “Nowhere near that big rock. We’ll have to go there later, much later, when everyone has quit watching us. Where’s the rest of our merry band of treasure seekers? Martin, Mala and Ian.”
“Mala left for California yesterday. The doctors didn’t want her to travel but she wouldn’t stay. Ian flew to Chicago this morning. I have phone numbers for both of them, in case we find anything. I have no idea about Martin. The rangers and the deputies never saw him. He must have run away after that awful man shot you and fell off the rock. Somehow, I have the feeling he’s hanging around the rock out there and waiting for us to show up.”
Deakin grimaced as he tried to find a comfortable position for his leg. Eden reached over to help him but stopped herself before she touched him. She turned quickly to start the car and pull out of the parking lot.
“I guess that means we head back to LA then. I at least have an apartment we can live in. What do you say? We go to my place and decide what to do after that.”
Deakin reached out and touched her cheek. Eden glanced quickly over at him with a glint of tears in her eyes and let out the breath she’d unconsciously held. Deakin nodded and settled back for the long trip to Los Angeles.
Months later, just before the beginning of the summer, Deakin and Eden carefully loaded up the car and drove north. Deakin no longer looked like a boy who’d grown too fast for his clothes. Eden had pushed him to make many changes during the time they’d lived together. He was working on his high school diploma but not actually going to class. In his situation, home schooling was the only way to go. Eden planned to go back to UCLA in the fall, but she had no idea what she wanted to study. Deakin leaned back in the seat and tipped his ball cap low over his eyes. A lazy smile flitted across his face and Eden felt a glow of satisfaction. She’d forced him to visit an orthodontist and have his braces removed. He grudgingly agreed that she was right and he was happy to have the braces off.
They took turns as they drove lazily up the coast of California. As far as they could tell, no one was following them around any more. When they’d first returned to LA, they constantly checked the people and the cars around them. Now, they’d almost forgotten what it was like to be followed by professionals.
As they neared the city of Salem, Eden realized her shoulders were tense. She slowly relaxed them and forced herself to look around at the countryside they passed through. She glanced across at Deakin and noticed the whiteness of his knuckles on the steering wheel. She flicked his hand with her finger and said,
“Relax, Deakin. There’s nobody around. At least, I don't think there’s anyone around who’s interested in us.”
Deakin kept his eyes on the road. “I’m not really worried about someone following us. I’m just kinda anxious about what we’ll find. Do you really think we’ll find anything?”
Eden shrugged her shoulders. She really didn’t care whether they ever found what Deakin’s mother had hidden. That adventure was over and they’d come out of it better than she’d ever expected. They were alive. They weren’t being chased by federal agents. Martin Wolfe called them on a weekly basis. He wanted them to continue searching for the lost computer files but Eden always put him off. Hopefully he wouldn’t follow them to the park.
Deakin pulled off the road into the parking lot of the small state park. Deakin pulled a backpack out of the car and swung it onto his back. Eden slipped her arms through a similar pack and followed Deakin along the familiar path. Deakin’s bullet wound had healed with only a small scar to remind them. They marched down the path through the dappled shade from the trees around them. Eden didn’t recognize much of landscape they walked through. Winter and spring made a big difference. She followed Deakin up the steep path without a word until they came to the ledge they’d rested on before. Deakin dropped to the ground and swung his legs over the edge. Eden dropped next to him and stared at the view in front of them.
Deakin reached for her hand and said, “Remember the last time. You thought we should live up here instead of LA. Have you changed your mind?”
Eden leaned her head against his shoulder and said, “We can go anywhere. This feels like a good place. We should drive to the coast after we leave here. I’ve heard it’s really beautiful.”
Deakin kept his eyes on the hills around them and nodded easily. “C’mon, Eden, let’s get this over with. It’s like something we have to do before we can move on.”
Deakin pulled Eden to her feet and climbed the rest of the way to the top of the rock. Eden stepped out on top and felt the wind blow through her. She held her arms out and turned a slow circle while the wind ruffled her clothes and her hair. Then she looked around to get her bearings and walked toward the rocks and scrub bushes that had hidden the tire iron for so many years. She dropped her pack on the ground and unzipped it. From its depths she pulled out several small gardening tools along with the tire iron. Deakin wandered around the rock to check for other climbers and returned quickly.
Eden had already levered out several small rocks and set them to the side. Deakin took the lever out of her hand and gave her a flashlight to hold for him. Before long they had cleared a good sized hole in the ground without finding any treasure. When Deakin shoved the tire iron into the ground one more time, they were rewarded with a metallic sound. Eden took the iron out of his hand and gave him the gardening tools. Deakin carefully dug out dirt and rocks until he could see part of a coffee can buried on its side. Roots had wound around the can over the years and the plastic lid had lost its hold. It took them quite a while to get the can loose and pull it out of the hole.
They sat on the ground with the can between them and just stared at it. Without taking her eyes off it, Eden reached into her pack and pulled out a camera. She took pictures of the can and pictures of the rocks that had hidden it all this time. A shadow passed over them and a shiver ran up Eden’s spine. She looked fearfully around and realized for the first time that black clouds had moved in from the west and covered half the sky. She quickly packed the tools away and took one more look into the hole to make sure nothing else had been buried there. Then she scooped the rocks and dirt into the hole. Deakin took the flashlight from her hand and illuminated the interior of the can. A glass jar lay inside with the lid screwed shut. Deakin glanced up at the sky and chewed on his thumb in indecision. Then he made up his mind and picked up the can. He slid the glass jar out onto a plastic trash bag they’d spread on the ground between them. He glanced up at Eden’s face and flashed her a quick smile before he rolled the jar around. Finally he took a deep breath and twisted the lid off before he could think of any more reasons not to do it.
The wind picked up again and swirled around the rocks, carrying dust and grit in its wake. Eden held her hair out of her face and scooted around to become a human windbreak. Deakin reached carefully inside the jar and pulled out a thick wad of papers. The smell of must, mold and peanut butter came out with the papers. He unfolded them and held them down by the corners. He threw a wild look at Eden and croaked,
“It’s the same writing as the other letter. The one my aunt had. Help me read this top one. The paper has turned darker and the writing is a little smeared.”
Eden leaned against his shoulder and stared at the neat precise writing on the page in front of them. Deakin began reading slowly out loud.
Dearest Alex,
I hope you are the one who finds these papers. I gave one letter to my sister in Seattle and sent one to Mala. They are the only other people who love me unreservedly like you do. I have done a terrible thing, my dear. I turned into a scientific machine and lost my humanity for a while. But now I have regained it and realized what a mistake I made. I thought that because I could never use my laser design for any wicked purpose, no one else would either. There are so many terrific uses for my discovery but there are just as many, if not more, terrible uses. I decided I have to destroy all my work before I lose control of it. I have no choice. When I look in the face of our child, I cannot allow him to grow up in a world where governments have control over the immediate creation and destruction of everything. There is no human being anywhere on earth who can wield that power. Not even I and I made the damned thing.
I don't know what will happen when I get back to the lab. The baby is safe with my sister. The computer disks and files we took have been destroyed totally. I hope you destroyed the computers and the prototypes. I will leave here and take one last look at the ocean before I come home. The wind and the water will surely wash away the grit and ashes. I can only hope that nobody else will be able to reconstruct our research. Whatever happens is in someone else’s hands now. Maybe you and I will stand on this rock in a year or so and dig up these papers together. If not, never forget that I love you and I love our son.
Helena
Eden wiped a few tears from her eyes and carefully took the page from Deakin’s hands. She slipped it in a thick plastic envelope and reached for the next page. She quickly scanned the page and handed it Deakin. His eyes misted over as he stared at his parents’ wedding license. Next was his birth certificate and Helena’s Russian visa. The last page had been torn from a child’s book of nursery rhymes. One side of the page showed a small boat with three babies in it. The other side of the page showed blackbirds flying out of a large pie. Deakin looked blankly at Eden and shook his head. A sudden gust of wind swirled around them and a few drops of rain hit their shoulders. Deakin hurriedly slid the papers into the plastic envelope and dropped everything into his backpack. Eden brushed the dirt smooth and followed Deakin quickly down the path back to their car.
Occasional drops blew into their faces but the rain held off until they made to the shelter of the car. Deakin held his pack tightly on his lap and watched Eden climb into the driver’s seat.
“Where do we go now? I certainly don't want to camp out in this rain.”
Eden started the car and drove smoothly away from the park. She turned to car west and headed for the Pacific coast. The storm strengthened as they drove along the twisting road. Deakin pulled the package out of his pack and carefully removed the papers from their plastic covering. He read the letter from his mother over and over, taking comfort from the knowledge that his mother had written every word on the page. He flipped through the other pages once and returned to the letter. Then he held up the page torn from the book. He rummaged through Eden’s pack and found her flashlight. He still didn’t find any marks or clues on the page.
Eden glanced at him with a crooked smile and said, “Maybe she kept it because you drooled on it. Maybe it meant something to her or to your father. Someone must have read to you. Your ‘mother’ in Dallas said you already knew several nursery rhymes when you came to live with her.”
Deakin shook his head in indecision. “I don't know, Eden. I think she put it in the jar for a reason but I don't know what it was. You know, she never did say what she did with all the research files. There must have been boxes and boxes of papers and notes plus the computer disks. Back then, people still did a lot of work by hand and transferred it to the computer. There must have been stacks of stuff.”
Eden wrinkled her forehead in thought and then said, “Well, it sounds to me as if she never wanted anyone to duplicate her research so I think she destroyed all of it. Maybe she burned it. That’s what I’d do if I had that much paper to get rid of. She did mention fire in that letter, didn’t she?”
“No, she mentioned ashes, but it would be sort of symbolic, wouldn’t it? You know, purification and all that stuff.”
Eden made a sudden left turn and parked the car in the parking lot of a lookout point. The rain had moved inland leaving forests that had been washed clean. Directly in front of them was the ocean still churning from the strength of the wind. Eden stepped out of the car and leaned against the waist-high rock wall at the edge of the parking lot. The land dropped off just beyond the wall into a sheer cliff. A couple of hundred feet down was a small beach littered with large black rocks. The waves crashed on the rocks and sprayed streams of water partway up the cliff. Deakin joined her and stared at the wild waves which started far out in the ocean and rolled steadily into the earth just below their feet.
“This is like the edge of the earth, isn’t it? We’re safe on land while any boats out there are in danger of going under.”
Deakin put his arm around Eden and said, “It’s only relative safety, Eden. We have our own predators on land. The fish out there are relatively safe in their own environment, but they have predators too, not just man. Wait a minute. I just thought of something. What is that you were telling one time? You know, about wind, fire, water. There was more to it too. What was that?”
Eden smiled and said, “You mean what I said about feng shui. It’s also part of Chinese horoscopes too. The five elements: wood, water, metal, fire, and earth. What does that have to do with your mother? Or even with us right now?”
“Think about it. We’re standing on the edge of the earth. Water is right in front of us. We came in a metal car. There are forests all around us. The only thing missing is fire. I think my mother started with fire. She burned the papers and gathered up the ashes. Then she took me to Seattle, stopped here to bury her little coffee can, and then came this way just like we did. She left the earth and sailed off in a boat – either metal or wooden. Just like the babies on that page she buried. What is that rhyme about Wynken, Blynken and Nod? They sailed away, didn’t they? Out there somewhere is the resting place of those ashes. I wonder if we’ll ever know what she really did.”
After fifteen or twenty minutes, Eden returned to the car and started it. Deakin dropped into his seat and opened his mouth to speak. Eden shook her head and drove off in silence. She pulled into the first town they came across and drove up and down the streets. Finally she stopped at a small bait shop and went inside. Deakin rolled down his window and wrinkled his nose at the smell of rotting fish. The ocean looked much tamer from the pier out beyond the shop. Eden walked quickly out the door and jumped back into the car.
“Whew! That is one smelly place. Leave your window down. I need to air out. There’s a small motel down this road. We’ll stay the night there and try to figure out the last clue your mother gave us, okay?”
The two young people sat on the deck of a seafood restaurant and stared out at the wide expanse of blue water. Neither had spoken for the last five minutes or so. Finally, Deakin turned to the girl across the table from him and said,
“I’m out of ideas, Eden. This whole coastline is littered with tiny towns and fishermen. We’ll never find anyone who saw my mother. You know, even if someone did talk to her, they probably won't remember it after all these years.”
“Don't be so cranky, Deakin. It won't hurt to try. Let’s get out of here. I’d like to find a beach or a pier. Dangle my feet in the water or walk barefoot along a beach. What d’you say?”
Deakin stood up without a word and herded Eden out the door. She immediately turned back and grabbed a tourist brochure. She tossed it in Deakin’s lap in the car and said
“Look for my beach in that thing.”
Deakin flipped the brochure open and looked at the small map of the town. He gave Eden directions and soon they stood on a tiny slice of beach. They walked along the beach and dropped to the sand next to a large rock. They stared out at the darkening ocean and lost themselves in the movement of the waves. Soon the water crept up the sand and tickled their feet. Finally they walked back to their car in silence. Eden drove along the main street of town and stopped the car in amazement. Deakin looked around but could find nothing to account for Eden’s actions. He nudged her shoulder and she jerked out of her trance. She smiled widely and pointed out the windshield. Deakin looked out at the row of commercial buildings lining the main street. They had seen their best days about fifty years in the past but new businesses were beginning to open. He shook his head and said,
“Why did you stop here? I don't see anything but a few shops and offices. What?”
“I just saw something that could solve our latest puzzle. Look at that sign hanging there. What do you see?”
“Duh! Just the name of the shop and the address.”
“Think, Deakin. Your mother left us a number puzzle. The page from that book had the blackbird rhyme on it. Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie. Well, maybe we need to look for an address with those numbers in it. 420 something. If we look in the phone directory, we might find a boat rental place with that address. It’s worth a try.”
Deakin’s frown disappeared and he laughed out loud. “Boy, you sure are reaching. Don't hit me. I can’t hit you back. You’re driving. Find us a directory and we’ll check it out. Just don't hope too much, okay?”
Eden muttered under her breath, something about men who didn’t know a good idea when they heard one, and drove determinedly to the nearest open shop. Deakin wheedled the directory from the teenaged girl behind the counter and tossed it to Eden. She set the book on the hood of the car, opened it to the yellow pages and ran her finger down all the listings for boat dealers and rentals and anything else similar that she could think of. None of them came close to her numbers.
“It’s a very small directory. We could go through all the pages in an hour. What do you say, Eden?”
She tossed it in his lap and said, with a sigh, “You can do what you want. I thought that was going to be the answer. Maybe this is the wrong town. You said there were towns all up and down the coast. How can we try all of them?”
Deakin flipped desultorily through the pages. All at one his attention sharpened on one page and he grabbed Eden’s arm.
“What did you find, Deakin?”
He laughed again and his eyes sparkled as he looked across the car at Eden.
“You found it! You found it! Show me!”
“Hey, give me the book back! I haven’t actually found it. I just figured the puzzle out. You know my mother was a scientist so she thought differently than most people. Actually she probably thought more in numbers than in words. So, think about that nursery rhyme. Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie. Well, just change it to say Four and twenty blackbirds baked in pi. What does that say to you?”
“I don't get it.”
“Well, what’s pi?
“It’s dough and fruit baked in a round pan.”
“No, P I, not P I E.”
“Oh, 3.1414, and on and on and on.”
Deakin smiled at her and said, “So, what’s the answer?”
Eden wrinkled her forehead in thought and then shrugged her shoulders in defeat. “I guess you’ll have to tell me.”
“Okay, think about it this way. Four and twenty make twenty-four. So you have twenty-four baked inside pi. So, what if the answer is a phone number? Twenty-four inside pi. If you put the twenty-four where the decimal point is, you come up with 324-1414. If you look in this book, you’ll see that lots of the phone numbers begin with 324.”
Eden let out a yell and grabbed Deakin. She pounded her fists on his chest and danced around the parking lot. When she finally ran out of breath, she leaned against Deakin and asked,
“Well, do we just call that number and see what happens? Right now?”
Deakin rubbed his hand down the side of his shorts and looked around at the darkness.
“How late is it?”
“9:30.”
“Let’s do it now. What’s the worst that could happen? They can just hang up on me.”
Deakin walked slowly over to the pay phone mounted on the side of the building. He pulled some change out of his pocket and determinedly slid the coins into the phone. He carefully punched in the number and leaned his head against the wall as he listened to the ringing of the phone. He was almost surprised when the phone was answered after the seventh ring. He stuttered a little as he began his story, but the person on the line listened until he’d finished. Then a soft, elderly voice said,
“Son, you must be looking for my husband. He used to fish around here and took people out for boat rides. He hasn’t done that in years and years though. You’d best come by the house in the morning and talk to him. He’s usually pretty alert during the morning. He sleeps the rest of the time. You just come about nine or so and I’ll have him ready to talk, okay?”
“Th-th-thank you. Where do I come? I mean, what’s your address? I only have your phone number.”
The woman gave him directions and left him standing with the receiver in his hand. He turned to Eden with a look of wonder.
“Tomorrow morning at nine o’clock. He’s an old man and he might not remember but she said he used to have a boat for rent. Maybe he’ll remember something.”
Saturday, March 7, 2009
THE BANDIT QUEEN - Chapter 23
CHAPTER 23
Walt stared out the windshield of the rental car and watched the traffic in front of them. This far north the days grew dark in late afternoon and the flash of oncoming headlights tired his eyes. He finally closed them and leaned his head back against the headrest. Harris drove at a steady pace along the highway south from Seattle toward the border with Oregon. They had already passed through Tacoma when Walt’s phone had rung. He jerked it out of his pocket and answered it brusquely. Harris caught the eyes of his partner in the rearview mirror and shook his head slightly. Neither of them was very happy with their situation and wished themselves anywhere but here. In the back seat, Sven shook his head in resignation and leaned back into the darkness of the back seat.
Walt listened in grim silence to the voice of Tom Adams telling him to abandon his quest and head back to the main office. Without a word, he flipped his phone closed and stuffed it in his pocket. After a few seconds, he pulled it back out and clicked off the ringer. No desk jockey was going to pull him off a job before it was finished. He’d just refuse to quit. Sven and Harris didn’t have to know either. Walt crossed his arms and dropped his chin. Harris glanced at him several times before he got up the nerve to ask him about the phone call.
“Have they spotted that rental car yet? Do we know whether we’re going in the right direction or not?”
Walt tipped his head to the side and said, “I’ll call in and check about that right now.”
This time when Walt flipped his phone shut, he spoke curtly to his subordinates. “No word yet on the car. How much father to Portland?”
“Maybe an hour and a half, maybe a little more.”
“Just get us there as soon as you can. We’ll find a place to stay the night and head out again in the morning.”
On that note, he leaned against the door and closed his eyes to prevent further questions. Harris was rather perplexed about the situation. He drove on through the gathering darkness with a head full of questions.
The next morning found them threading their way out of Portland during the morning rush hour. This time Sven drove them south along I5. About halfway to Salem, Walt received a call about the car. It had been spotted at a motel in Salem. The police had lost it but were checking all the roads out of town. As they neared the city, they found out the car had left Salem heading west toward the coast. Sven skirted the edge of Salem and took the same road west. Heavy traffic spread out in front of them for miles. Walt pulled out the binoculars and scanned each car they passed. The traffic thinned out but they still didn’t find the car Martin had rented. Walt tossed the map into the back seat and growled at Harris.
“Did you see anywhere they could have turned off? Check out that map. We must have missed them somewhere along the road.”
Harris ran his finger along the map and tried to remember what he had seen. Finally, his finger stopped and he said, excitedly,
“State park, back along this road. It’ll be on our left. Unless they stopped in one of these little bitty towns or at some private house, that’s the only thing I see.”
Sven pulled into the parking lot of the park and drove slowly along the line of parked cars. There, big as life, sat the car. Walt jumped out and felt the hood of the car.
“It’s still warm. They can’t be very far ahead of us. Harris, check out the office. Find out where they went. You know, a map of the park trails, that sort of thing.”
Harris plodded over to the small building and conferred with the inhabitants. He returned shortly with a handful of simple black and white maps. Walt grabbed one out of his hand and took in the map with one glance.
“Sven, I want you to take that path around the rock and come up the path on the other side of the rock. Harris and I will take this other one and climb up the front of the rock. We’ll wait ten minutes when we get to the base of the rock. That should give you time to get into position. I want all three of us to hit the top about the same time.”
Sven nodded and jogged off down his chosen path. Harris followed Walt along the main trail to the rock. Off to their right, Walt caught a glimpse of red. He stopped short and trained his binoculars on the bright color. A small woman moved into focus as she walked slowly through the bushes at the base of the rock. Walt gestured silently to Harris and the two of them ran toward the woman.
Mala turned a frightened face toward the advancing men and tried to run away from them. She slipped on an open stretch of smooth pebbles and fell. Walt and Harris hurried up to the motionless form on the ground. Harris dropped to one knee and placed his fingers on her neck. He was reassured by the strong pulse beating on her throat. He carefully turned her over and brushed the dirt from her face. A darkening bruise showed on her left temple. Her breathing was quiet but even. Walt pulled on his arm and dragged him back to the trail.
“I just saw a couple of kids sitting on a ledge up there. It could be the ‘Deakin’ boy and his girlfriend. Maybe they’re all meeting up there. We have to get to the top right now. She’ll be okay for now. Follow me up the path.”
The two men hurried up the trail. Even though they were in good physical shape, the steepness of the path and the altitude forced them to stop and rest halfway up. They both dropped to the ground and took deep breaths, letting their heart rate drop back closer to normal. Harris tried to talk, but Walt cut him off abruptly. The sound of voices drifted down from the top of the rock. The two men listened intently but neither one of them could make out any words. As soon as they could, they clambered back to their feet and continued to the top.
Walt led the charge over the edge and swept his gun in a circle. Harris followed him up on top and moved immediately to the side. He followed the sound of voices around the top of the rock until he caught a glimpse of color through the branches of a bush. He moved carefully around yet another pile of rocks in order to get a better view of the bush. Nothing. Whoever had hidden behind the bush had moved on. He ducked behind another large rock and listened intently. Walt’s voice drifted across the open area on top of the rock, calling for the kids to come out of hiding. A small slither of rocks pulled his attention to the left but he was too late. All he saw was the shadow of the man who whacked him on the head with a heavy stick. Harris slipped to the ground in a daze. Martin quickly felt his pulse to make sure he’d only knocked him out and then pulled him into the shadow of a large rock. The sound of a stealthy footstep sent Martin scrabbling for cover.
The bush shielding Deakin and Martin shook as the men changed position. The gunman in front of Eden homed in on the movement and slid into the shelter of his own bush. Eden swung the tire iron at the side of his head and he immediately dropped to the ground in a heap. She carefully peeled his fingers from the butt of his gun and slid on the safety. Then she slid the gun into her waistband and searched her pockets for something to tie his hands with. In one pocket she found a scrunchy to tie up her hair but she rejected it for the purpose at hand. A glint of metal below her sent her searching through the man’s pockets. The first thing she found was a leather wallet with a badge and identification card in it. Her eyes widened as she realized who’d been chasing them. The F.B.I. is not the adversary of choice for most ordinary people. She slid the badge back into his jacket pocket and knocked her knuckles against a pair of handcuffs. With a satisfied smile, she slid them around the man’s wrists and moved him into the shadow left by a stunted tree. She mouthed a silent apology to the man on the ground and ran her fingers softly across the knot on his head. She let out a sigh of relief when he moaned slightly and twitched. Eden peered around the bush at the action in front of her. With a bright red scrunchy holding her hair out of her face and a tire iron in her hand, Eden was definitely a force to be reckoned with.
Two men had climbed onto the top of the rock from the main path. The older man held his gun in front of him and scanned the area. The younger man moved to the side and slid around a waist-high pile of rocks. Eden ducked down and headed for the last place she’d seen Deakin. When she reached the bush, she found no one but she did hear someone crunching across the rocks to her left. A quiet hiss jerked her head around. Deakin grabbed her wrist to keep her from swinging the tire iron at his head. Then he pulled her behind a rock and whispered in her ear,
“Martin has gone to the left, around that outcropping, to come up behind that man over there. He said that guy right there, the tough looking one, is the leader. Martin said there should be at least three of them.”
Eden nodded her head vigorously. “I knocked out the third guy and left him back over there.” She slid her hand under her sweatshirt to pull out the gun when an unwary step sent a slither of pebbles over the edge. Deakin shoved her behind him into the shadows and faced the direction of the sounds.
It was too late to give the gun to Deakin so she wiped her hand down the side of her jeans and gripped her tire iron tightly. She turned her back to Deakin and guarded the rear. Stealthy steps sounded all around her but she didn’t know who was making the sounds. Good guys or bad guys? Were the F.B.I. guys really the bad guys or did they wear gray hats? Was her own hat a white one or was it gray also? Just what could happen to her for knocking that agent on the head and leaving him tied up? Did she really want to be around when he woke up? Decisions, decisions. Her attention wandered and she listened as the breeze rustled the leaves of the tree behind her. A small brown bird landed on the highest branch and surveyed his kingdom. A stealthy arm reached through the branches and grabbed Eden’s left arm. She screeched and tried to pull her arm away. When that didn’t work, she raised her tire iron and slammed it down on the man’s wrist. He howled and floundered around in the branches of the small tree. Deakin pulled Eden away from the man and around the top of the rock. Eden looked over her shoulder as Deakin dragged her away and stumbled over a foot-sized rock. She fell to her knees and closed her lips tightly against a howl of pain. Deakin turned to help her but never made it that far. A harsh, lined face appeared over Deakin’s left shoulder and a strong arm slipped around Deakin’s throat. The man held his gun to the side of Deakin’s face and smiled crookedly at the girl sprawled on the ground. Eden stood slowly up, keeping her eyes on the man holding Deakin. She left her tire iron on the ground next to her right foot. She held her hands up in the air and waited for the man’s next move.
“Well, well, what have we here? Does this mean I’ve found the famous Deakin and his trusty sidekick? Did you two think you could get away from me? That I wouldn’t ever find you? Boy, were you ever wrong? I think it’s about time the three of us had a little discussion. You, girl, move over there and sit your little butt on that rock. Now!”
The cruel, gloating voice echoed in her ears but it was the sight of the gun jammed against Deakin’s head that pushed Eden to sit on the rock. She listened desperately for Martin but heard only the panting of the man in front of her.
“Harris, Sven, over here. I’ve got them.” Walt turned his head slightly to listen and then said, “Goddamnit, where are those two idiots? At least I have the keys to the car.” He tightened his arm across Deakin’s throat and pulled him to the side away from Eden.
Deakin’s foot slid on the smooth rock and he leaned against Walt to catch his balance. He felt Walt wobble a little before he regained his balance too. Deakin flicked his eyes to his right away from the edge of the rock over and over until Eden got the message. Then he dropped his entire weight down and cannoned back into the gunman behind him. Walt’s left arm left Deakin’s neck and windmilled behind him in a desperate attempt to keep on his feet. Deakin jabbed a sharp elbow into the man’s stomach and dropped to the ground away from the gun. Eden lunged for her tire iron but missed it in her haste. She scrabbled through the pebbles and finally got a grip on the smooth piece of metal. She jumped back to her feet with the tire iron raised above her head to strike the gunman. She watched in amazement as the man stumbled backwards away from her. He raised his gun and tried to shoot her but his aim was hopeless. The first shot ricocheted off the rocks to her right. The second one grazed Deakin’s leg as he tried to crawl toward the man. The other two or three shots, Eden was never sure how many there were, fired harmlessly into the air as the man tripped over a root and fell backwards. He hadn’t realized how close to the edge of the rock he was. He landed on his back halfway over the edge and made a serious mistake. Instead of trying to halt his slide over the edge, he took one last shot at the two kids on the ground and missed them both.
Walt screamed all the way down to the ground below. The branch of a tree flipped him upside down and broke his back ten feet from the ground. He was dead when he landed in the shade of the tree. Eden spared no thought for the man. Blood stained Deakin’s jeans and dripped out onto the rocks below him. Eden pulled off her sweatshirt and wrapped it around Deakin’s upper leg. She tied the arms of the sweatshirt tightly over the wound. Eden paid no attention to anything that happened until a ranger found them and called for an ambulance. He wrapped Eden in his jacket and carefully lifted the gun from her waistband. The deep shock in her eyes let him know it was useless to question her right now.
Actually, he was in shock too. Nothing like this had ever happened in his park. There was a dead man down in the trees along with an unconscious woman. Two more men with head wounds and F.B.I. badges littered the top of the rock. One of them was probably going to be pretty happy his gun had been found. The ranger dropped to the ground next to Eden and watched her and the boy until help arrived.
Walt stared out the windshield of the rental car and watched the traffic in front of them. This far north the days grew dark in late afternoon and the flash of oncoming headlights tired his eyes. He finally closed them and leaned his head back against the headrest. Harris drove at a steady pace along the highway south from Seattle toward the border with Oregon. They had already passed through Tacoma when Walt’s phone had rung. He jerked it out of his pocket and answered it brusquely. Harris caught the eyes of his partner in the rearview mirror and shook his head slightly. Neither of them was very happy with their situation and wished themselves anywhere but here. In the back seat, Sven shook his head in resignation and leaned back into the darkness of the back seat.
Walt listened in grim silence to the voice of Tom Adams telling him to abandon his quest and head back to the main office. Without a word, he flipped his phone closed and stuffed it in his pocket. After a few seconds, he pulled it back out and clicked off the ringer. No desk jockey was going to pull him off a job before it was finished. He’d just refuse to quit. Sven and Harris didn’t have to know either. Walt crossed his arms and dropped his chin. Harris glanced at him several times before he got up the nerve to ask him about the phone call.
“Have they spotted that rental car yet? Do we know whether we’re going in the right direction or not?”
Walt tipped his head to the side and said, “I’ll call in and check about that right now.”
This time when Walt flipped his phone shut, he spoke curtly to his subordinates. “No word yet on the car. How much father to Portland?”
“Maybe an hour and a half, maybe a little more.”
“Just get us there as soon as you can. We’ll find a place to stay the night and head out again in the morning.”
On that note, he leaned against the door and closed his eyes to prevent further questions. Harris was rather perplexed about the situation. He drove on through the gathering darkness with a head full of questions.
The next morning found them threading their way out of Portland during the morning rush hour. This time Sven drove them south along I5. About halfway to Salem, Walt received a call about the car. It had been spotted at a motel in Salem. The police had lost it but were checking all the roads out of town. As they neared the city, they found out the car had left Salem heading west toward the coast. Sven skirted the edge of Salem and took the same road west. Heavy traffic spread out in front of them for miles. Walt pulled out the binoculars and scanned each car they passed. The traffic thinned out but they still didn’t find the car Martin had rented. Walt tossed the map into the back seat and growled at Harris.
“Did you see anywhere they could have turned off? Check out that map. We must have missed them somewhere along the road.”
Harris ran his finger along the map and tried to remember what he had seen. Finally, his finger stopped and he said, excitedly,
“State park, back along this road. It’ll be on our left. Unless they stopped in one of these little bitty towns or at some private house, that’s the only thing I see.”
Sven pulled into the parking lot of the park and drove slowly along the line of parked cars. There, big as life, sat the car. Walt jumped out and felt the hood of the car.
“It’s still warm. They can’t be very far ahead of us. Harris, check out the office. Find out where they went. You know, a map of the park trails, that sort of thing.”
Harris plodded over to the small building and conferred with the inhabitants. He returned shortly with a handful of simple black and white maps. Walt grabbed one out of his hand and took in the map with one glance.
“Sven, I want you to take that path around the rock and come up the path on the other side of the rock. Harris and I will take this other one and climb up the front of the rock. We’ll wait ten minutes when we get to the base of the rock. That should give you time to get into position. I want all three of us to hit the top about the same time.”
Sven nodded and jogged off down his chosen path. Harris followed Walt along the main trail to the rock. Off to their right, Walt caught a glimpse of red. He stopped short and trained his binoculars on the bright color. A small woman moved into focus as she walked slowly through the bushes at the base of the rock. Walt gestured silently to Harris and the two of them ran toward the woman.
Mala turned a frightened face toward the advancing men and tried to run away from them. She slipped on an open stretch of smooth pebbles and fell. Walt and Harris hurried up to the motionless form on the ground. Harris dropped to one knee and placed his fingers on her neck. He was reassured by the strong pulse beating on her throat. He carefully turned her over and brushed the dirt from her face. A darkening bruise showed on her left temple. Her breathing was quiet but even. Walt pulled on his arm and dragged him back to the trail.
“I just saw a couple of kids sitting on a ledge up there. It could be the ‘Deakin’ boy and his girlfriend. Maybe they’re all meeting up there. We have to get to the top right now. She’ll be okay for now. Follow me up the path.”
The two men hurried up the trail. Even though they were in good physical shape, the steepness of the path and the altitude forced them to stop and rest halfway up. They both dropped to the ground and took deep breaths, letting their heart rate drop back closer to normal. Harris tried to talk, but Walt cut him off abruptly. The sound of voices drifted down from the top of the rock. The two men listened intently but neither one of them could make out any words. As soon as they could, they clambered back to their feet and continued to the top.
Walt led the charge over the edge and swept his gun in a circle. Harris followed him up on top and moved immediately to the side. He followed the sound of voices around the top of the rock until he caught a glimpse of color through the branches of a bush. He moved carefully around yet another pile of rocks in order to get a better view of the bush. Nothing. Whoever had hidden behind the bush had moved on. He ducked behind another large rock and listened intently. Walt’s voice drifted across the open area on top of the rock, calling for the kids to come out of hiding. A small slither of rocks pulled his attention to the left but he was too late. All he saw was the shadow of the man who whacked him on the head with a heavy stick. Harris slipped to the ground in a daze. Martin quickly felt his pulse to make sure he’d only knocked him out and then pulled him into the shadow of a large rock. The sound of a stealthy footstep sent Martin scrabbling for cover.
The bush shielding Deakin and Martin shook as the men changed position. The gunman in front of Eden homed in on the movement and slid into the shelter of his own bush. Eden swung the tire iron at the side of his head and he immediately dropped to the ground in a heap. She carefully peeled his fingers from the butt of his gun and slid on the safety. Then she slid the gun into her waistband and searched her pockets for something to tie his hands with. In one pocket she found a scrunchy to tie up her hair but she rejected it for the purpose at hand. A glint of metal below her sent her searching through the man’s pockets. The first thing she found was a leather wallet with a badge and identification card in it. Her eyes widened as she realized who’d been chasing them. The F.B.I. is not the adversary of choice for most ordinary people. She slid the badge back into his jacket pocket and knocked her knuckles against a pair of handcuffs. With a satisfied smile, she slid them around the man’s wrists and moved him into the shadow left by a stunted tree. She mouthed a silent apology to the man on the ground and ran her fingers softly across the knot on his head. She let out a sigh of relief when he moaned slightly and twitched. Eden peered around the bush at the action in front of her. With a bright red scrunchy holding her hair out of her face and a tire iron in her hand, Eden was definitely a force to be reckoned with.
Two men had climbed onto the top of the rock from the main path. The older man held his gun in front of him and scanned the area. The younger man moved to the side and slid around a waist-high pile of rocks. Eden ducked down and headed for the last place she’d seen Deakin. When she reached the bush, she found no one but she did hear someone crunching across the rocks to her left. A quiet hiss jerked her head around. Deakin grabbed her wrist to keep her from swinging the tire iron at his head. Then he pulled her behind a rock and whispered in her ear,
“Martin has gone to the left, around that outcropping, to come up behind that man over there. He said that guy right there, the tough looking one, is the leader. Martin said there should be at least three of them.”
Eden nodded her head vigorously. “I knocked out the third guy and left him back over there.” She slid her hand under her sweatshirt to pull out the gun when an unwary step sent a slither of pebbles over the edge. Deakin shoved her behind him into the shadows and faced the direction of the sounds.
It was too late to give the gun to Deakin so she wiped her hand down the side of her jeans and gripped her tire iron tightly. She turned her back to Deakin and guarded the rear. Stealthy steps sounded all around her but she didn’t know who was making the sounds. Good guys or bad guys? Were the F.B.I. guys really the bad guys or did they wear gray hats? Was her own hat a white one or was it gray also? Just what could happen to her for knocking that agent on the head and leaving him tied up? Did she really want to be around when he woke up? Decisions, decisions. Her attention wandered and she listened as the breeze rustled the leaves of the tree behind her. A small brown bird landed on the highest branch and surveyed his kingdom. A stealthy arm reached through the branches and grabbed Eden’s left arm. She screeched and tried to pull her arm away. When that didn’t work, she raised her tire iron and slammed it down on the man’s wrist. He howled and floundered around in the branches of the small tree. Deakin pulled Eden away from the man and around the top of the rock. Eden looked over her shoulder as Deakin dragged her away and stumbled over a foot-sized rock. She fell to her knees and closed her lips tightly against a howl of pain. Deakin turned to help her but never made it that far. A harsh, lined face appeared over Deakin’s left shoulder and a strong arm slipped around Deakin’s throat. The man held his gun to the side of Deakin’s face and smiled crookedly at the girl sprawled on the ground. Eden stood slowly up, keeping her eyes on the man holding Deakin. She left her tire iron on the ground next to her right foot. She held her hands up in the air and waited for the man’s next move.
“Well, well, what have we here? Does this mean I’ve found the famous Deakin and his trusty sidekick? Did you two think you could get away from me? That I wouldn’t ever find you? Boy, were you ever wrong? I think it’s about time the three of us had a little discussion. You, girl, move over there and sit your little butt on that rock. Now!”
The cruel, gloating voice echoed in her ears but it was the sight of the gun jammed against Deakin’s head that pushed Eden to sit on the rock. She listened desperately for Martin but heard only the panting of the man in front of her.
“Harris, Sven, over here. I’ve got them.” Walt turned his head slightly to listen and then said, “Goddamnit, where are those two idiots? At least I have the keys to the car.” He tightened his arm across Deakin’s throat and pulled him to the side away from Eden.
Deakin’s foot slid on the smooth rock and he leaned against Walt to catch his balance. He felt Walt wobble a little before he regained his balance too. Deakin flicked his eyes to his right away from the edge of the rock over and over until Eden got the message. Then he dropped his entire weight down and cannoned back into the gunman behind him. Walt’s left arm left Deakin’s neck and windmilled behind him in a desperate attempt to keep on his feet. Deakin jabbed a sharp elbow into the man’s stomach and dropped to the ground away from the gun. Eden lunged for her tire iron but missed it in her haste. She scrabbled through the pebbles and finally got a grip on the smooth piece of metal. She jumped back to her feet with the tire iron raised above her head to strike the gunman. She watched in amazement as the man stumbled backwards away from her. He raised his gun and tried to shoot her but his aim was hopeless. The first shot ricocheted off the rocks to her right. The second one grazed Deakin’s leg as he tried to crawl toward the man. The other two or three shots, Eden was never sure how many there were, fired harmlessly into the air as the man tripped over a root and fell backwards. He hadn’t realized how close to the edge of the rock he was. He landed on his back halfway over the edge and made a serious mistake. Instead of trying to halt his slide over the edge, he took one last shot at the two kids on the ground and missed them both.
Walt screamed all the way down to the ground below. The branch of a tree flipped him upside down and broke his back ten feet from the ground. He was dead when he landed in the shade of the tree. Eden spared no thought for the man. Blood stained Deakin’s jeans and dripped out onto the rocks below him. Eden pulled off her sweatshirt and wrapped it around Deakin’s upper leg. She tied the arms of the sweatshirt tightly over the wound. Eden paid no attention to anything that happened until a ranger found them and called for an ambulance. He wrapped Eden in his jacket and carefully lifted the gun from her waistband. The deep shock in her eyes let him know it was useless to question her right now.
Actually, he was in shock too. Nothing like this had ever happened in his park. There was a dead man down in the trees along with an unconscious woman. Two more men with head wounds and F.B.I. badges littered the top of the rock. One of them was probably going to be pretty happy his gun had been found. The ranger dropped to the ground next to Eden and watched her and the boy until help arrived.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
THE BANDIT QUEEN - Chapter 22 continued
Deakin and Eden stepped into Martin’s motel room and faced the stares of three people. Deakin carried the two children’s books in his hand. He set them down on the small table and held out his hand for the letter Mala held in her two small hands. She took one last look at the yellowed envelope before she handed it over. Deakin dropped into a chair and stared at the neat writing on the envelope. He turned it over in his hand and looked solemnly at the signature on the back. This was actually his mother’s handwriting. He was holding in his hand something his mother had left for him. He’d never thought he’d ever get this far. He’d started out searching for a name, his real name. Along the way, he’d found not only his name but family and friends who had known both his parents. He glanced over at Eden and realized he’d also found a best friend. Did he really need to go any farther? He looked around at the circle of faces in front of him and answered his own question. Yes, he did. A great injustice had been done to his mother and his father and to him. He pulled a small penknife from his pocket and slid the blade under the flap of the envelope. He certainly wasn’t going to rip through his mother’s signature. He raised his eyes just before he pulled out the folded papers. Eden smiled a tiny encouraging smile and nodded her head for him to continue. He unfolded the pages and read them all the way through before he refolded the pages and slid them back into the envelope. Martin held out his hand for the envelope but Deakin shook his head and kept the envelope in his hand.
“Eden, where’s the list of letters I found in one of the books? I know where my mother went when she left Seattle, at least I know the direction she went. Those letters from the book will tell us the exact place. We were right about the numbers. They are the latitude and longitude of Salem so we’re in the right place.”
Eden slipped a small piece of paper from the center of one of the books and handed it to Deakin. Martin and Ian paged through the book and searched for any letters Deakin might have missed. They came up with several more. Deakin showed them the page and the five of them pored over the letters.
“Mala, what was Helena interested in besides her work? Where would she and Alex have gone to get away from everything? A museum, a movie, a book store? Maybe camping or hiking or something like that?”
“She and Alex liked to get away from the city. I would guess they’d go camping or boating, perhaps.”
“Do you have a state map? We may be looking for some place a short ways away from Salem? We have one in the car.”
Ian reached into a small duffle bag and pulled out a large atlas containing maps of the entire United States. He paged through it until he found the map of Oregon. Mala stared at the list of letters and tried to arrange them in some kind of order. Finally, she tore a piece of paper into small squares and wrote one letter on each, rather like Scrabble tiles. Then she moved them into different sequences without any luck. Eden moved next to her and helped her make words while Ian and Martin called out the names of different parks and towns near Salem.
Mount Hood National Forest
Fogarty Creek
Gleneden Beach
Cape Kiwanda
Cape Lookout
Cape Mears
North Santiam
Dallas
Monmouth
Lincoln City
Grand Ronde
Sheridan
“We could go on for hours calling out names. Give us some clues here, Mala.”
Mala looked up from the table with several squares of paper in her hand and laughed at Deakin. “Well, there are no ‘F’s’ in the list so that would leave out all the forests. There is no ‘P’ either so we can’t do ‘Park’ or ‘Cape’.”
Eden moved small slips of paper around swiftly and lined up several of them. She called out a question. “Any places with the word ‘rock’ in them? Or how about ‘tick’ or ‘track’ or ‘trick’ or ‘tack’ or ‘take’ or ‘rake’?”
Deakin grabbed the laptop and plugged it in. Then he searched for state parks in Oregon. There he found the mother lode. A great website popped up on the screen. He picked the search option and typed in the word ROCK. He drummed his thumbs on the edge of the computer as he waited. It didn’t take long for a list of cities to appear. He scrolled through the alphabetical lists and called out any hot prospects.
Arock
Cascade Rocks
Fort Rock
Otter Rock
Pilot Rock
Rockaway Beach
Seal Rock
Then he switched to the website belonging to the Oregon State Park Department and keyed in the search word “Rock”. Two parks showed up on the screen. Smith Rock State Park and Erratic Rock Natural Site were the only contenders. Mala and Eden tossed strips of paper around the table and tried to match their letters with any of the cities or parks Deakin had found.
Eden squealed and grabbed a scrap of paper from Mala’s fingers.
“And the winner is Erratic Rock. That’s what the letters match up to. Where is it?”
Deakin clicked on the icon for it and waited for the info to appear of the screen. “Uh, it’s a huge rock dropped by an iceberg 20,000 years ago. Six miles east of Sheridan on Hwy 18. Find it on the map.”
Martin hunched over the state map and ran his finger down the list of names until he found Sheridan. Then he turned the map over and searched for the correct highway.
“I found Sheridan but the park isn’t shown. It’s west of here, about halfway to the coast. Let’s ride. Do we all go in the same car?”
Eden quickly glanced at Deakin and then said, “Deakin and I will follow you. It’ll be too cramped if we all ride in one car.”
She gathered together their things and herded Deakin out the door before anyone else could offer an alternative plan. She stuffed him into the car and slammed the door. She had the car started and waiting at the edge of the parking lot when the others dithered their way downstairs and into their car.
“Why were you in such a hurry, Eden? We could have all gone together.”
“I don’t like that ‘Martin’ guy very much. He gives off some really pushy vibes. He can go along with us but he doesn’t have to hang over our shoulders. I have the feeling he has a very different agenda than we do. He really wanted to read your letter, you know. I think he intends to read it, no matter what.”
Deakin’s hand strayed to his pocket and unconsciously checked the safety of the letter. He stared out the windshield at the car in front of them and said, “He’s not going to see it. It has nothing to do with him or his mother or anyone else. My mother wrote it to my father. It really has very little to do with our search. There’s only one sentence in it that even brings up the theft of the project files. She just says she hid the stuff and the clues are in the books. Hey, I just thought of something. Do you think she hid it at this park or did she leave us another clue there? And how will we know it’s a message from her?”
Eden shrugged her shoulders and said, “If we see anything that refers to nursery rhymes, we can be pretty sure it came from her. We can’t even speculate about anything. Just drop it until we get there and take a look at the place. Maybe she carved something on this huge rock or on a tree or something like that.”
Deakin slumped back in his seat and shook his head. “I don’t see how we can find out anything else.”
“Don’t be so grouchy. Haven’t we already gotten farther than you ever thought we could? Hey, we found out what happened to your parents. You now have an aunt and grandparents and cousins. So what if we don’t find what she hid. It’s been a great adventure so far. We’re both still alive and there’s lots more stretching out in front of us. Smile and watch for any bad guys. We’ve been without them for so long that I’ve forgotten to look for them.”
With a start, Deakin turned in his seat and stared at the road behind them. Eden laughed at him a little and he poked her in the ribs.
“Hey, don’t hassle the driver. It’s not a good thing to do, especially at the speed I’m driving.”
Deakin punched her lightly in the arm again and resumed his scrutiny of the road. For a narrow state highway, it was definitely well-traveled. Cars zipped past constantly as they wound through the countryside. Martin drove directly in front of them and kept them at the constant speed of 65 mph. Eden considered passing him but gave it up. The traffic piled up behind her and she began to feel pressured by a truck hugging her bumper. She pulled over in the first tiny town and waited for the cars and trucks to stream past. Then she pulled back out on the highway and followed the line of cars through the town and out into the country.
After a few miles, Eden noticed the driver of the car in front of theirs. He continually edged over the center stripe to try to pass the car in front of him and then jerked back into his lane because the traffic was too steady. The other two men in the car watched the traffic through small binoculars. Eden dropped back slightly and nudged Deakin.
“Speak of the Devil. Check out those guys in front of us. They’re sure looking for someone. I don’t recognize them, do you? I wonder if they’re following Martin’s car.”
“Pull up closer to them and let me take a look. I can’t see much from back here.”
Eden sped up to give Deakin a chance and then she backed off. Deakin pulled out his cell phone and called Mala’s number.
“Mala, this is Deakin. We’re way back in the pack, probably half a mile behind your car. There’s a car in front of us with some strange men in it. They’re using binoculars to check out the cars around them. Has anyone been following you?”
“Oh, dear, do you think they’ve found us? Some men talked to Evan in California and then tried to talk to me but I’d already left. They showed up to question Marianne in Chicago but she wouldn’t tell them anything. They must have followed us from Chicago. We’re still driving the car we rented in Seattle. Have they recognized you?”
“No, they aren’t paying any attention to us. We’ll stay behind them and keep an eye on them. How far away is this big rock?”
“Martin says maybe a mile or so. Actually we can see it off to the right. Maybe we can pull into the park before they see us. We certainly won’t stop in clear view of the road. Thank you, Deakin. We’ll see you soon.”
Deakin flipped his phone closed and relayed the conversation to Eden. She nodded and concentrated on the car and the road in front of her. Deakin slid down in his seat and watched for the entrance to the park. The driver of the car in front of them drove straight past the entrance to the park without a second glance. Eden quickly pulled into the small parking lot and drove to the far side of the small rustic building housing the ranger’s office. Mala ran quickly over to their car and handed a park pass through the window.
“Follow us along that road over there. We have to walk to the rock. I asked the ranger how long this park has been open and she said it has been here for at least twenty-five years, maybe even more.”
Eden parked her car at the end of the lot in the deep shade. A minivan blocked the car from any casual observers. She and Deakin slipped out of the car and stretched the stiffness out of their bodies before they headed for the beginning of the path. A wide well-used trail led through the dappled shade of tall evergreen trees. Silence descended on them as they moved purposefully down the path. Martin led the way with Eden directly behind him. Deakin brought up the rear behind the other two members of their party.
Mala turned to him and asked, “What are we looking for? Do you have any ideas?”
Deakin shook his head and said, “It’ll have to be something that’s fairly permanent. It has been almost seventeen years, you know. Would she have carved something into the rock?”
Mala shook her head doubtfully and answered, “I can’t imagine her defacing any natural site but she was in a desperate situation. She was capable of anything. She was certainly strong enough to do something like that.”
Bright sunlight marked the end of the path and the five of them stepped into the clearing in front of the rock. Deakin stared up in amazement. “Rock” was not exactly the word he would have used to describe the vision in front of him. A rock is small enough to pick up and toss into a creek. This was not just any old rock. It was a huge chunk of mountain weighing around forty tons. In the far distant past, a glacier had carried it on its back until it had melted and left it resting on the floor of a wide valley. Bushes and trees grew on it now and paths wound up the side to the lookout points on the flat top.
Mala looked sadly at her thin leather shoes and said, “You’ll have to climb without me. These shoes will never make it. I’ll follow the path around the rock and check the sides of the rock for any graffiti Helena could have left.”
Deakin followed the others along the well worn track up the side of the rock. He ran his fingers along the rock, feeling for any indentations or gouges. Martin spotted several places that had once been spraypainted but they were too close to make out what the words might have spelled out along the side of the giant rock. Occasionally he caught a glimpse of Mala as she moved slowly along the path around the base of the boulder. She waved and pointed at parts of the rock and then shook her head. Eden dropped back to climb with Deakin. She murmured softly in his ear.
“Martin tried to find out if I read the letter but I blew him off. Look, he’s really moving fast. There he is, over to the right, almost to the top edge. Can you see Ian? Oh, I see him now over by that small tree.”
“Mala is down there. You can just see the red of her blouse through those two trees.”
“Where, Deakin? I don’t see anything red.”
Deakin looked again and then moved slowly along the ledge they stood on. About ten feet to the right, he stopped and looked down.
“I can see red from here. She’s down there between those trees. Now, she’s moving farther around the rock. She must not have found anything yet. Let’s follow Martin to the top.”
Deakin and Eden moved back to the trail cut into the side of the rock. Steps had been chiseled out of the smooth sections and large chunks of rock had been piled in strategic locations to make the climb accessible for more people. Deakin followed Eden up a rather long flight of steps which ended at another wide ledge littered with small pebbles. Eden massaged the tight muscles in her calves. Then she sat down and dangled her legs over the edge.
“Sit down for a minute and rest. It’s a great view. Look out over the valley to those mountains over there. Wouldn’t it be great to live around here? The air smells so clean, doesn’t it? Shall we move up here when this is all over?”
Deakin looked down at Eden’s tangled hair blowing in the breeze and let out a huge sigh. Then he dropped down next to her and began dropping small pebbles over the side. Eden took his hand and held it in her lap. She filled her lungs with the crisp air and laughed loudly.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing, nothing at all. Just because I laugh doesn’t mean I’m laughing at you. Sometimes I laugh just ‘cause everything’s great. Look, there’s Mala down there. She may have found something interesting. She’s just standing there.”
Eden leaned farther over the side of the ledge until Deakin was sure she was going to overbalance and join Mala at the base of the rock. He threw his arm around her waist and held her steady while she stared down at the trees and bushes below them. She turned a worried face up to his and said, anxiously,
“I think something might have happened to Mala. She’s not moving at all. Do you think she hurt herself? Someone else is down there with her. You can just see them through the branches.”
Deakin leaned slightly over the edge and stared below. Then he quickly climbed to his feet and pulled Eden up also. He peered over the edge once again and met the eyes of a pair of binoculars scanning the side of the rock. He turned to survey their path up the rock. He shoved Eden in front of him and hustled her up the path.
“There’s someone down there with Mala but I don’t think they’re helping her. I saw the flash from a pair of binoculars. Those guys must have backtracked and found Martin’s car. Let’s get up to the top and tell the others about them.”
Eden stopped short and turned to him with a mulish set to his mouth. “What about Mala? Shouldn’t we make sure she’s all right?”
Deakin shook his head. “We’ll just run right into those men. We have to get to the top and take a different path back down. Do you have a map of the park? I know Martin had one.”
Eden checked her pockets and shook her head. Then she made up her mind and headed quickly up the path in front of her. The closer they came to the top of the rock, the steeper the path grew. They were both out of breath when they pulled themselves up onto the top of the huge rock. The 360 degree view stopped Eden in her tracks. She turned a slow circle and realized for the first time why people climbed mountains. She felt closer to God than she ever had and the wind seemed to scrub her inner self clean. Deakin set off to catch up with the other two men. Martin was checking the top of the rock for markings while Ian ran his fingers over the wooden posts of a large signboard.
Deakin reached Ian first and joined him in his search. “I think our shadows came back. I saw someone down at the bottom near Mala. I hope they haven’t hurt her. Where are the other paths off this rock?”
Ian turned a shocked face to the boy and darted a hunted look around the rock. “My god, surely they wouldn’t hurt her, would they? We have to get down there.”
He looked around once again and then turned helplessly to Deakin. There wasn’t a flashing neon sign pointing to another path so he really didn’t know what to do next. Deakin looked closely at the signboard in front of them and ran his finger over the wooden surface of a map of the park. There was even a little sign that said, “You are here.” Without a word, he pointed off to his right and sent Ian on his way.
Eden joined Martin in his search and told him about the men below. He looked quickly around and picked up a long stick from the ground. He leaned on it to test its strength and swished it through the air a few times. Eden followed his lead and walked over to an outcropping of rocks to pick up her own stick. As she stepped to the other side of the pile of rocks, she tripped over the exposed root of a small tree. The toe of her shoe dislodged several more rocks. She brushed them out of her way and reached for a branch that was wedged between several large chunks of rock. When she picked it up, she realized it wasn’t a branch. It was a tire iron. She brushed off the caked dirt and poked around the rocks with it. How on earth did a tire iron find its way to the top of a huge rock? A vague idea flitted through her mind and she glanced around for Deakin. He stood halfway across the rock with Martin and both men were staring at the edge of the rock. Scrabbling sounds and muttered curses drifted up over the edge. Eden slipped to the other side of the rock and checked for more intruders. She hid behind a large boulder and watched fearfully as a filthy hand reached up over the edge and felt around for a firm hold. Without a thought she bonked the knuckles of the hand with her tire iron and listened to a muted screech of pain. The body attached to the hand slipped back down the path. Eden heard the shower of pebbles which accompanied the man’s retreat. After a minute, the man crept up to the edge and peered over. Then he heaved himself up and crouched down on the other side of Eden’s rock. Eden peered over the top of it just as the man stood up. Their eyes widened in surprise and they both ducked down again.
This time Eden peered around the edge of the rock and the same thing happened again. She jerked back again and almost laughed out loud. This was too much like being in the middle of a cartoon. The smile dropped off her face when she heard a metallic click from the other side of the rock. She scrabbled quickly backwards and worked her way around another large rock. She slid her eyes around the squared off edge of the rock and watched a black gun float through the air, followed by the rest of the man. She pulled back out of sight and looked around the rock for the cavalry. Deakin and Martin stood halfway across the rock and faced the opposite direction. They didn’t know about this man. She bent down, picked up a handful of pebbles and tossed them at the feet of the man with the gun. Martin whirled around at the sound and pulled Deakin into the shelter of a thick bush. Eden stood motionlessly until the man began moving again. Then she stepped with each movement of his feet. Her only option was to get behind the man and clunk him on the head with her tire iron.
“Eden, where’s the list of letters I found in one of the books? I know where my mother went when she left Seattle, at least I know the direction she went. Those letters from the book will tell us the exact place. We were right about the numbers. They are the latitude and longitude of Salem so we’re in the right place.”
Eden slipped a small piece of paper from the center of one of the books and handed it to Deakin. Martin and Ian paged through the book and searched for any letters Deakin might have missed. They came up with several more. Deakin showed them the page and the five of them pored over the letters.
“Mala, what was Helena interested in besides her work? Where would she and Alex have gone to get away from everything? A museum, a movie, a book store? Maybe camping or hiking or something like that?”
“She and Alex liked to get away from the city. I would guess they’d go camping or boating, perhaps.”
“Do you have a state map? We may be looking for some place a short ways away from Salem? We have one in the car.”
Ian reached into a small duffle bag and pulled out a large atlas containing maps of the entire United States. He paged through it until he found the map of Oregon. Mala stared at the list of letters and tried to arrange them in some kind of order. Finally, she tore a piece of paper into small squares and wrote one letter on each, rather like Scrabble tiles. Then she moved them into different sequences without any luck. Eden moved next to her and helped her make words while Ian and Martin called out the names of different parks and towns near Salem.
Mount Hood National Forest
Fogarty Creek
Gleneden Beach
Cape Kiwanda
Cape Lookout
Cape Mears
North Santiam
Dallas
Monmouth
Lincoln City
Grand Ronde
Sheridan
“We could go on for hours calling out names. Give us some clues here, Mala.”
Mala looked up from the table with several squares of paper in her hand and laughed at Deakin. “Well, there are no ‘F’s’ in the list so that would leave out all the forests. There is no ‘P’ either so we can’t do ‘Park’ or ‘Cape’.”
Eden moved small slips of paper around swiftly and lined up several of them. She called out a question. “Any places with the word ‘rock’ in them? Or how about ‘tick’ or ‘track’ or ‘trick’ or ‘tack’ or ‘take’ or ‘rake’?”
Deakin grabbed the laptop and plugged it in. Then he searched for state parks in Oregon. There he found the mother lode. A great website popped up on the screen. He picked the search option and typed in the word ROCK. He drummed his thumbs on the edge of the computer as he waited. It didn’t take long for a list of cities to appear. He scrolled through the alphabetical lists and called out any hot prospects.
Arock
Cascade Rocks
Fort Rock
Otter Rock
Pilot Rock
Rockaway Beach
Seal Rock
Then he switched to the website belonging to the Oregon State Park Department and keyed in the search word “Rock”. Two parks showed up on the screen. Smith Rock State Park and Erratic Rock Natural Site were the only contenders. Mala and Eden tossed strips of paper around the table and tried to match their letters with any of the cities or parks Deakin had found.
Eden squealed and grabbed a scrap of paper from Mala’s fingers.
“And the winner is Erratic Rock. That’s what the letters match up to. Where is it?”
Deakin clicked on the icon for it and waited for the info to appear of the screen. “Uh, it’s a huge rock dropped by an iceberg 20,000 years ago. Six miles east of Sheridan on Hwy 18. Find it on the map.”
Martin hunched over the state map and ran his finger down the list of names until he found Sheridan. Then he turned the map over and searched for the correct highway.
“I found Sheridan but the park isn’t shown. It’s west of here, about halfway to the coast. Let’s ride. Do we all go in the same car?”
Eden quickly glanced at Deakin and then said, “Deakin and I will follow you. It’ll be too cramped if we all ride in one car.”
She gathered together their things and herded Deakin out the door before anyone else could offer an alternative plan. She stuffed him into the car and slammed the door. She had the car started and waiting at the edge of the parking lot when the others dithered their way downstairs and into their car.
“Why were you in such a hurry, Eden? We could have all gone together.”
“I don’t like that ‘Martin’ guy very much. He gives off some really pushy vibes. He can go along with us but he doesn’t have to hang over our shoulders. I have the feeling he has a very different agenda than we do. He really wanted to read your letter, you know. I think he intends to read it, no matter what.”
Deakin’s hand strayed to his pocket and unconsciously checked the safety of the letter. He stared out the windshield at the car in front of them and said, “He’s not going to see it. It has nothing to do with him or his mother or anyone else. My mother wrote it to my father. It really has very little to do with our search. There’s only one sentence in it that even brings up the theft of the project files. She just says she hid the stuff and the clues are in the books. Hey, I just thought of something. Do you think she hid it at this park or did she leave us another clue there? And how will we know it’s a message from her?”
Eden shrugged her shoulders and said, “If we see anything that refers to nursery rhymes, we can be pretty sure it came from her. We can’t even speculate about anything. Just drop it until we get there and take a look at the place. Maybe she carved something on this huge rock or on a tree or something like that.”
Deakin slumped back in his seat and shook his head. “I don’t see how we can find out anything else.”
“Don’t be so grouchy. Haven’t we already gotten farther than you ever thought we could? Hey, we found out what happened to your parents. You now have an aunt and grandparents and cousins. So what if we don’t find what she hid. It’s been a great adventure so far. We’re both still alive and there’s lots more stretching out in front of us. Smile and watch for any bad guys. We’ve been without them for so long that I’ve forgotten to look for them.”
With a start, Deakin turned in his seat and stared at the road behind them. Eden laughed at him a little and he poked her in the ribs.
“Hey, don’t hassle the driver. It’s not a good thing to do, especially at the speed I’m driving.”
Deakin punched her lightly in the arm again and resumed his scrutiny of the road. For a narrow state highway, it was definitely well-traveled. Cars zipped past constantly as they wound through the countryside. Martin drove directly in front of them and kept them at the constant speed of 65 mph. Eden considered passing him but gave it up. The traffic piled up behind her and she began to feel pressured by a truck hugging her bumper. She pulled over in the first tiny town and waited for the cars and trucks to stream past. Then she pulled back out on the highway and followed the line of cars through the town and out into the country.
After a few miles, Eden noticed the driver of the car in front of theirs. He continually edged over the center stripe to try to pass the car in front of him and then jerked back into his lane because the traffic was too steady. The other two men in the car watched the traffic through small binoculars. Eden dropped back slightly and nudged Deakin.
“Speak of the Devil. Check out those guys in front of us. They’re sure looking for someone. I don’t recognize them, do you? I wonder if they’re following Martin’s car.”
“Pull up closer to them and let me take a look. I can’t see much from back here.”
Eden sped up to give Deakin a chance and then she backed off. Deakin pulled out his cell phone and called Mala’s number.
“Mala, this is Deakin. We’re way back in the pack, probably half a mile behind your car. There’s a car in front of us with some strange men in it. They’re using binoculars to check out the cars around them. Has anyone been following you?”
“Oh, dear, do you think they’ve found us? Some men talked to Evan in California and then tried to talk to me but I’d already left. They showed up to question Marianne in Chicago but she wouldn’t tell them anything. They must have followed us from Chicago. We’re still driving the car we rented in Seattle. Have they recognized you?”
“No, they aren’t paying any attention to us. We’ll stay behind them and keep an eye on them. How far away is this big rock?”
“Martin says maybe a mile or so. Actually we can see it off to the right. Maybe we can pull into the park before they see us. We certainly won’t stop in clear view of the road. Thank you, Deakin. We’ll see you soon.”
Deakin flipped his phone closed and relayed the conversation to Eden. She nodded and concentrated on the car and the road in front of her. Deakin slid down in his seat and watched for the entrance to the park. The driver of the car in front of them drove straight past the entrance to the park without a second glance. Eden quickly pulled into the small parking lot and drove to the far side of the small rustic building housing the ranger’s office. Mala ran quickly over to their car and handed a park pass through the window.
“Follow us along that road over there. We have to walk to the rock. I asked the ranger how long this park has been open and she said it has been here for at least twenty-five years, maybe even more.”
Eden parked her car at the end of the lot in the deep shade. A minivan blocked the car from any casual observers. She and Deakin slipped out of the car and stretched the stiffness out of their bodies before they headed for the beginning of the path. A wide well-used trail led through the dappled shade of tall evergreen trees. Silence descended on them as they moved purposefully down the path. Martin led the way with Eden directly behind him. Deakin brought up the rear behind the other two members of their party.
Mala turned to him and asked, “What are we looking for? Do you have any ideas?”
Deakin shook his head and said, “It’ll have to be something that’s fairly permanent. It has been almost seventeen years, you know. Would she have carved something into the rock?”
Mala shook her head doubtfully and answered, “I can’t imagine her defacing any natural site but she was in a desperate situation. She was capable of anything. She was certainly strong enough to do something like that.”
Bright sunlight marked the end of the path and the five of them stepped into the clearing in front of the rock. Deakin stared up in amazement. “Rock” was not exactly the word he would have used to describe the vision in front of him. A rock is small enough to pick up and toss into a creek. This was not just any old rock. It was a huge chunk of mountain weighing around forty tons. In the far distant past, a glacier had carried it on its back until it had melted and left it resting on the floor of a wide valley. Bushes and trees grew on it now and paths wound up the side to the lookout points on the flat top.
Mala looked sadly at her thin leather shoes and said, “You’ll have to climb without me. These shoes will never make it. I’ll follow the path around the rock and check the sides of the rock for any graffiti Helena could have left.”
Deakin followed the others along the well worn track up the side of the rock. He ran his fingers along the rock, feeling for any indentations or gouges. Martin spotted several places that had once been spraypainted but they were too close to make out what the words might have spelled out along the side of the giant rock. Occasionally he caught a glimpse of Mala as she moved slowly along the path around the base of the boulder. She waved and pointed at parts of the rock and then shook her head. Eden dropped back to climb with Deakin. She murmured softly in his ear.
“Martin tried to find out if I read the letter but I blew him off. Look, he’s really moving fast. There he is, over to the right, almost to the top edge. Can you see Ian? Oh, I see him now over by that small tree.”
“Mala is down there. You can just see the red of her blouse through those two trees.”
“Where, Deakin? I don’t see anything red.”
Deakin looked again and then moved slowly along the ledge they stood on. About ten feet to the right, he stopped and looked down.
“I can see red from here. She’s down there between those trees. Now, she’s moving farther around the rock. She must not have found anything yet. Let’s follow Martin to the top.”
Deakin and Eden moved back to the trail cut into the side of the rock. Steps had been chiseled out of the smooth sections and large chunks of rock had been piled in strategic locations to make the climb accessible for more people. Deakin followed Eden up a rather long flight of steps which ended at another wide ledge littered with small pebbles. Eden massaged the tight muscles in her calves. Then she sat down and dangled her legs over the edge.
“Sit down for a minute and rest. It’s a great view. Look out over the valley to those mountains over there. Wouldn’t it be great to live around here? The air smells so clean, doesn’t it? Shall we move up here when this is all over?”
Deakin looked down at Eden’s tangled hair blowing in the breeze and let out a huge sigh. Then he dropped down next to her and began dropping small pebbles over the side. Eden took his hand and held it in her lap. She filled her lungs with the crisp air and laughed loudly.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing, nothing at all. Just because I laugh doesn’t mean I’m laughing at you. Sometimes I laugh just ‘cause everything’s great. Look, there’s Mala down there. She may have found something interesting. She’s just standing there.”
Eden leaned farther over the side of the ledge until Deakin was sure she was going to overbalance and join Mala at the base of the rock. He threw his arm around her waist and held her steady while she stared down at the trees and bushes below them. She turned a worried face up to his and said, anxiously,
“I think something might have happened to Mala. She’s not moving at all. Do you think she hurt herself? Someone else is down there with her. You can just see them through the branches.”
Deakin leaned slightly over the edge and stared below. Then he quickly climbed to his feet and pulled Eden up also. He peered over the edge once again and met the eyes of a pair of binoculars scanning the side of the rock. He turned to survey their path up the rock. He shoved Eden in front of him and hustled her up the path.
“There’s someone down there with Mala but I don’t think they’re helping her. I saw the flash from a pair of binoculars. Those guys must have backtracked and found Martin’s car. Let’s get up to the top and tell the others about them.”
Eden stopped short and turned to him with a mulish set to his mouth. “What about Mala? Shouldn’t we make sure she’s all right?”
Deakin shook his head. “We’ll just run right into those men. We have to get to the top and take a different path back down. Do you have a map of the park? I know Martin had one.”
Eden checked her pockets and shook her head. Then she made up her mind and headed quickly up the path in front of her. The closer they came to the top of the rock, the steeper the path grew. They were both out of breath when they pulled themselves up onto the top of the huge rock. The 360 degree view stopped Eden in her tracks. She turned a slow circle and realized for the first time why people climbed mountains. She felt closer to God than she ever had and the wind seemed to scrub her inner self clean. Deakin set off to catch up with the other two men. Martin was checking the top of the rock for markings while Ian ran his fingers over the wooden posts of a large signboard.
Deakin reached Ian first and joined him in his search. “I think our shadows came back. I saw someone down at the bottom near Mala. I hope they haven’t hurt her. Where are the other paths off this rock?”
Ian turned a shocked face to the boy and darted a hunted look around the rock. “My god, surely they wouldn’t hurt her, would they? We have to get down there.”
He looked around once again and then turned helplessly to Deakin. There wasn’t a flashing neon sign pointing to another path so he really didn’t know what to do next. Deakin looked closely at the signboard in front of them and ran his finger over the wooden surface of a map of the park. There was even a little sign that said, “You are here.” Without a word, he pointed off to his right and sent Ian on his way.
Eden joined Martin in his search and told him about the men below. He looked quickly around and picked up a long stick from the ground. He leaned on it to test its strength and swished it through the air a few times. Eden followed his lead and walked over to an outcropping of rocks to pick up her own stick. As she stepped to the other side of the pile of rocks, she tripped over the exposed root of a small tree. The toe of her shoe dislodged several more rocks. She brushed them out of her way and reached for a branch that was wedged between several large chunks of rock. When she picked it up, she realized it wasn’t a branch. It was a tire iron. She brushed off the caked dirt and poked around the rocks with it. How on earth did a tire iron find its way to the top of a huge rock? A vague idea flitted through her mind and she glanced around for Deakin. He stood halfway across the rock with Martin and both men were staring at the edge of the rock. Scrabbling sounds and muttered curses drifted up over the edge. Eden slipped to the other side of the rock and checked for more intruders. She hid behind a large boulder and watched fearfully as a filthy hand reached up over the edge and felt around for a firm hold. Without a thought she bonked the knuckles of the hand with her tire iron and listened to a muted screech of pain. The body attached to the hand slipped back down the path. Eden heard the shower of pebbles which accompanied the man’s retreat. After a minute, the man crept up to the edge and peered over. Then he heaved himself up and crouched down on the other side of Eden’s rock. Eden peered over the top of it just as the man stood up. Their eyes widened in surprise and they both ducked down again.
This time Eden peered around the edge of the rock and the same thing happened again. She jerked back again and almost laughed out loud. This was too much like being in the middle of a cartoon. The smile dropped off her face when she heard a metallic click from the other side of the rock. She scrabbled quickly backwards and worked her way around another large rock. She slid her eyes around the squared off edge of the rock and watched a black gun float through the air, followed by the rest of the man. She pulled back out of sight and looked around the rock for the cavalry. Deakin and Martin stood halfway across the rock and faced the opposite direction. They didn’t know about this man. She bent down, picked up a handful of pebbles and tossed them at the feet of the man with the gun. Martin whirled around at the sound and pulled Deakin into the shelter of a thick bush. Eden stood motionlessly until the man began moving again. Then she stepped with each movement of his feet. Her only option was to get behind the man and clunk him on the head with her tire iron.
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