“Charlotte isn’t a liar. The last thing she wanted was trouble. She didn’t intend to tell me or anyone else what happened.”
Aunt Alex moved around Sam and bent over Charlotte, suddenly patient and conciliatory. “I’m not going to punish you, I promise. I know it’s been hard for you to adjust to losing your mother. I miss her too. I know it’s easy to become confused, to want attention and comfort so badly that you’ll do reckless things to make people notice you.” She took Charlotte’s hands. “But you have to tell me the truth, and then I’ll help you.”
Charlotte made a choking sound. “I already did.” She jerked her hands away and ran from the room. Sam started after her, but Alexandra grasped her arm. Sam faced her furiously. “I told myself you loved her—that you had her best interests at heart even if sometimes you get them confused with your best interests. But you couldn’t really care about her—not and condemn her the way you’re doing.”
“Did Dr. Raincrow put these ideas into your head yesterday?”
Sam recoiled. “You’re so bitter toward the Raincrows that you look for any excuse to blame them for your own problems.”
“You’re the one who’s looking for excuses. If you think you and Charlotte can mastermind some scheme to put me at a disadvantage—if you think you can cry wolf and leave this house with Charlotte under your self-righteous wing—forget it.” Aunt Alex released her and, taking a deep breath, stepped back. “I’ll fly to Durham this morning and find Tim at the university. I’ll talk to him face-to-face and get his side of this ridiculous mess.” She paused, her eyes narrowing as Sam simply stood, gazing back at her with unwavering contempt. “And when I return with him this afternoon, I’ll expect a full retraction from both you and Charlotte, and an apology.”
“You won’t get either.”
Aunt Alex raised a warning hand and pointed at her slowly. “You’ve heard of ‘tough love’? Charlotte needs help. If she doesn’t come to her senses, I’ll have no choice but to send her where she can get that help.”
Sam’s head reeled. “What do you mean?”
“I mean a private psychiatric hospital.”
She is evil. Mrs. Big Stick’s words had sounded melodramatic to Sam, but now they didn’t. Any small illusions she’d had about her aunt’s compassion vanished. She was looking at a woman who would strike viciously, even against the people she claimed to love. And if she’d treat them this way, what was she capable of doing to others? My God, she really would destroy Jake and his family if I went to them for help.
“All right,” Sam said carefully. “While you’re gone, I’ll see what I can do. Maybe Charlotte did overreact.”
Aunt Alex looked surprised. She studied Sam shrewdly, and Sam returned her gaze with unblinking sincerity. Aunt Alex’s face relaxed, but her eyes still glittered. “You’re a fast learner. I’m proud of you. I was a fast learner at your age too.” She breezed past Sam, then stopped at the door and looked at her. “Don’t let second thoughts get the best of you. Barbara and Matilda will be in the house all day. I’m afraid, considering the mood you’re in, I’ll have to ask Barbara to monitor the phones.”
Sam didn’t breathe. “There’s no one I’d call. I take care of my own business.”
“Good girl. Once this misunderstanding is settled, I’ll take you—and Charlotte—to Atlanta for a weekend. We’ll spend an obscene amount of money on new wardrobes for both of you.”
“I like that kind of bribe.”
Aunt Alex stiffened, but smiled. “You are a fast learner,” she said, and walked out.
The house was quiet. Matilda brought lunch to them. It sat on a tray atop the dresser in Sam’s bedroom, untouched. Sam told the housekeeper they were exhausted; they were going to take a nap. Sam accompanied her to the balcony overlooking the grand marble staircase at the front of the house, thanked her for the food, and leaned on the balustrade, watching innocently as the stout woman disappeared through a downstairs door to the dining room and kitchen. Barbara walked through the foyer, a stack of paperwork in her arms, and halted, eyeing Sam uncertainly. Sam realized that neither Barbara nor the housekeeper knew what the trouble was, but like good soldiers, they wouldn’t question their guard duty.
“We’re going to take a nap,” Sam called. “Will you come up and knock when my aunt gets back?”
Barbara looked relieved. “Of course. Oh, by the way, Mrs. Lomax told me to call the shop and say you wouldn’t be in to work today.”
“Thank you.” Sam watched the secretary glide out of sight under an archway to Aunt Alex’s office, and thought, Tell Patsy I won’t be coming back at all.
She returned to her bedroom. Charlotte slipped out of the bath between their rooms. “Are you finished packing?” Sam asked her. Charlotte nodded. “I put everything I could in Dad’s old duffel bag.”
Sam was extraordinarily calm. She’d made her decision, and she refused to think about it. “I wish I had one.” She pulled her cloth tote bag, the one she used to carry her knitting projects, from under her bed. It bulged with clothes. “Get a towel,” she told Charlotte then jerked her head toward the tray of food. “Wrap up the sandwiches and fruit.”
“Okay.” A map of the mountains hung open in Charlotte’s hands. It trembled in her grip. “It’s miles to the next town. Right through the mountains. You really think we can make it?”
“Yes. And catch a bus there.”
Charlotte pointed to the map, her jittery fingertip making the paper dance. “Sammie, we have to cut close to Raincrow Cove. Couldn’t we ask Dr. Raincrow—”
“I’m not getting anyone else involved in this. I won’t take the chance that Aunt Alex might find out.” Sam went to her and grasped her hands. “Do you trust me? This is going to be hard, but we can make it. We’ll go so far that nobody will ever find us.” Not even Jake, she thought, and it nearly destroyed her. “I’ll get a job.”
Charlotte straightened proudly. “I’ll go anywhere you say.” She deflated a little and added, “But what about money? We’ve got only fifty bucks between us.”
Sam turned back toward the door. “I’m going to take care of that right now. Hide everything. Get in bed and stuff some pillows beside you in case anyone wanders up here to check on us. I’ll be back in a couple of minutes. And then, little sister, we’re climbing out the window of the back guest room and down the jasmine trellis like a pair of human flies.” She twisted the doorknob slowly, her heart in her throat.
“Where are you going?” Charlotte whispered anxiously.
Sam looked back at her as she slipped from the room. “To steal a piece of Aunt Alex’s jewelry.”
Charlotte gasped. Sam tiptoed out. Every nerve alert, she crept through the halls to their aunt’s suite, went into her dressing room, and searched each delicate little drawer of the jewelry cabinet until she found what she wanted.
She gripped the gold necklace and pendant in her fist. It felt oddly warm, and made her queasy just to hold it. But she felt no guilt. Tim had used this stupid bauble as an excuse to hurt Charlotte. Aunt Alex had a peculiar obsession with the thing. Pawning it for enough money to fund their escape would be a perfect good-bye.
For a moment grief enveloped her. She’d already said good-bye to Jake, as if she’d seen it coming.
Snow and sleet were falling, making a lacy curtain in the light of a tall lamp beside the open gate at Highview, forming a thin crust on the two Sheriff’s Department cruisers parked in the entrance. The snow peppered Jake’s slouched, wide-brimmed hat as he strode up to a car and rapped on the window. The gut feeling of anxiety, the need to hurry home, had become a sharp command when he’d seen the cars as he drove past.
A deputy slung the door open. Jake knew the man. “What’s the trouble?” Jake asked.
“Where the hell have you been, hoss? Sheriff’s been looking for you since dark.”
“Ice on the road. I came up from Georgia. Had to detour north of the state line.” Jake jerked his head toward the house, where every window
blazed with light. There were cars all around it. Something happened to Samantha. His legs felt rubbery. “What’s going on?” he demanded.
“Looks like Mrs. Lomax’s nieces took a hike.”
“When?”
“We don’t know exactly. The last time anyone saw them was around lunchtime. The younger one was home sick from school, and the other was supposed to be looking after her. Mrs. Lomax’s secretary checked on them about five, and they were gone, man. Looks like they meant it too. Took some clothes with ’em. A back window was open. Must have climbed down a trellis there. Sheriff has put every man he’s got on the lookout, but the damned weather is a problem.”
Jake gripped the car door with both hands. Samantha’s too smart to head out in weather like this. Unless she was too desperate to care. What could have made her that desperate? “Where are you looking?”
“We figure they hitched a ride. Nobody saw ’em walking. No way they’d try to walk far in weather like this.” The deputy reached for his radio. “Lemme tell the sheriff you’re—”
Jake spun on his heels and ran. As he reached the old Caddy, where Bo was pressing his nose against the driver’s side window in watchful excitement, the deputy yelled, “Don’t you need something of theirs to give ol’ Bo the scent?”
Jake didn’t answer. He threw himself in the car, shoving Bo aside, and floored the accelerator.
He slid the car to a stop in the freezing slush beside his porch, and Ellie ran out to meet him, her long hair stuffed under a yarn cap, her hands shielding her eyes from the snow. Home from school for the weekend. He remembered that information vaguely, his thoughts riveted to Samantha. “We heard the news,” she said flatly as he ran passed her with long strides, headed for the door. “The sheriff’s been calling. Wait!”
“I have to get the quilt she made.” He jerked the front door open. “See what I can feel about her.” Ellie caught up with him and grabbed his arm. “I have something better.” She held out her bare hand. Jake stared at Samantha’s old ruby in sick bewilderment. “She gave it to Father yesterday,” Ellie told him hoarsely. “Her kid sister fainted in town, and he was there.” Ellie curled her fingers over the stone. “I can’t feel where she’s gone, but I know she wasn’t planning to leave when she gave this to Father. Something happened after that. Something that scared the hell out of her.”
Jake took the necklace in both hands and shut his eyes. He shivered. “She didn’t get in a car. She’s still out there. She’s cold. She’s lost. She … there’s a bus station at Stecoe Gap.”
“Oh, my God, that’s ten miles from here. She and her kid sister couldn’t be on the road—somebody would have seen them.” Ellie looked at him with grim astonishment. “Do you think she tried to cut through the mountains to Stecoe Gap?”
He jammed the ruby into his coat pocket and ran back to the car, jerking the key from the ignition and then going to the trunk. He opened it, grabbed a backpack and heavy-duty flashlight, and started toward the woods. “Go home,” he called to Ellie. “Tell the folks where I’ve gone. If the sheriff calls, tell him you haven’t seen me.”
“Wait! Let me call Mother and Father! Then I’ll go with you!”
“Can’t wait.” He turned at the edge of the forest, sidestepping toward the inky woods filling with snow. “They’ll freeze if I don’t get to them soon.”
Then he turned and disappeared into the darkness, Bo loping to keep up with him.
“We’re not lost,” Sam told Charlotte again. “We’re temporarily confused.”
Huddled beside her in a narrow, dark, cold cave just big enough for the two of them to sit inside with their bags underneath their rumps, Charlotte wearily raised her head, two dangling silver earrings swinging from each small ear. Charlotte’s short, feathery blond hair was limp with melted snow. “It’s all right, Sammy. I’d rather be freakin’ lost and frozen than ever go back to them.”
“We’re not lost,” Sam repeated. “All we have to do is wait until the snow stops, then keep heading north until we reach the Stecoe road and find the bus station.”
“Those big round things in front of us are mountains.”
“They’re not mountains, they don’t have names. They weren’t on the map.”
“Sammie, that doesn’t mean they aren’t out there. We can’t move ’em just because somebody left ’em off the map.”
Sam gazed miserably into the black wilderness and swirling snow. During the hours before dark they’d had good luck, moving quickly, staying on course. But the modest-looking topographical lines on the map hadn’t prepared Sam for reality.
Between them and the Stecoe road was a vast network of steep, criss-crossing ridges, and forest so tall she hadn’t been able to see the faint western glow of the sun. By nightfall they’d been exhausted and lost.
They’d moved on, slower, not saying much. Sam wouldn’t admit her growing panic, and Charlotte, she knew, was afraid to ask her if they were lost.
When Charlotte spotted the tiny cave, they staggered to it and collapsed. They ate the food; all they had left was a pack of chewing gum that Sam had discovered in the bottom of her purse. Now she tugged the wrapping off with her teeth, tore the gum awkwardly, her fingers numb and shivering, and gave Charlotte half.
Charlotte sighed. “Bon appétit.”
Sam savored the pathetic morsel. Her thoughts were fuzzy; she shut her eyes and tried to think. When a person studied all the details and made orderly plans, those plans should go right. She scrubbed a damp strand of hair back from her forehead, pulled a stretchy white ski cap lower over her ears, and straightened her white cloth coat. She would look presentable when she froze.
They sat there, shivering. Sam studied her wet feet, the snow melting on her long wool skirt and white socks, little rivulets of icy water sliding down her dirty jogging shoes. Her feet were so numb she couldn’t move her toes, and muscles spasmed in her stomach from the chills.
Charlotte, wearing a quilted jacket, army fatigues, and snub-toed leather boots, was better dressed for this blizzard. When they’d decided to run, they hadn’t had much time to make plans. Pandora was too small a town for them to just hitch a ride with a stranger. People knew one another there; people talked. And there were only three roads out of the place, all patrolled by the well-fed, overeager deputies of the Sheriff’s Department of a ritzy resort town isolated by miles of high mountains. Mayberry on designer steroids.
“I wonder what Mom would do,” Charlotte said, rubbing her face with the sleeve of her jacket.
Sam said wearily, “She’d go back to town and consult an astology chart. Wait for Jupiter to jump Venus, or something. Waste time.”
Charlotte looked wounded. Sam patted her head in apology.
“They must be looking for us bigtime by now,” Charlotte said, her voice high and thready. “God, if we get caught, what’ll they do?” Charlotte sucked in a sharp breath. “They can’t hold on to you, but I’m only fifteen. They might stick me in one of those homes that are really just lock-’em-ups for junior criminals. They might—”
“Nobody’s going to find us. Nobody’s going to separate us. And besides, you’re not the criminal. I am. I made you leave with me.”
Sam thought of Aunt Alex’s necklace, which she’d tucked in a deep pocket of her skirt. She had always considered herself too good to sink to anyone’s level, regardless of what they did to her, but now she was a thief.
A remorseless thief, too.
There was a fine line between being gifted and being cursed, and Jake spent every day of his life walking it like a tightrope. No room for a wrong step, no safety net, no place to rest. He could move only straight ahead, alone, toward a destination he might never reach, fighting a weight that could drag him either way if he held out a hand to anyone else. Alone, he kept his balance.
Samantha didn’t know it, but she was pulling him both ways at once. He halted atop an open precipice of granite covered in ankle-deep snow to get his bearings—or, rather, her bearings,
since he knew the ancient, forested ridges, the hidden hollows, the soaring overlooks and narrow, dark glens of the Cove as well as the backs of his own large, callused hands.
So many generations of his family—both Cherokee and white—had roamed these wild places. The Cove was the only sanctuary he had. And he sensed that Samantha had come into it.
Where? Where was she? And why hadn’t she come to his house? She could have found it easily. She should have known he’d do anything, whatever it took, to help her.
She knew. But she didn’t want me caught in the middle. She’s trying to get her sister away from Alexandra.
He took the old stone from his pocket and rubbed it between his bare, numb hands. Please, please tell me what I need to know to find her.
She was nearby. That shook him. He closed his eyes briefly. The caves. That image was strong, certain. His lonely talent would not let him down.
His prayer had been answered.
Charlotte gasped. “I hear footsteps!”
Sam, who had fallen into a lethargic doze, jerked her head up. “Quiet,” she whispered. “It might be an animal. A bear.” She slid her hand into her coat pocket and made her stiff fingers close around the only weapon she had. A metal nailfile.
She brought it out, then got on her knees with her back to Charlotte, holding the file like a knife. She didn’t know what good it would do them, but she wasn’t leaving this cave without a fight.
Sam stared out into the curtain of snow. Now she heard the footsteps too—muffled crunches of sound, slow and measured. A pair of long, sturdy legs in faded jeans moved in front of the cave’s small opening. They disappeared into heavy hiking boots sunk into the snow. She saw the bottom of a bulky khaki coat. Bo’s large wet face pushed inside the opening at a level with her eyes.