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Don’t panic. Not yet. Scotty had his inhaler. He was due for a new one soon, but this one should last a couple of days. And he would be okay without the other meds for a day. Swallowing hard, she clenched the purple disc. He had to. Please, please, don’t let him have another big attack.
“How could you? How could you? How could you?” Gritting her teeth, she searched Scotty’s room for what was missing. His red backpack. His yellow fleece jacket. His camouflage pants. His hiking boots. Tiny bits of armor that would have to protect her son in whatever shortsighted foolishness Tommy had led him into. She batted at the runaway tears.
Tommy had put her in a sticky spot. But maybe she could rescue both father and son from the Colonel’s sure punishment. She had to stall. Buy them time.
And find them both. The sooner, the better.
Back at the desk, she rubbed at the writing on the note as if it were a magic lamp. Tommy had given her the map. All she had to do was figure out the key to his insanity.
Scotty’s okay. He’s with his father who loves him. Everything will be okay.
She hung on to that thought and let it pulse a backbeat as she tried to decipher Tommy’s code.
“Band on the Run” by Wings. She plunked her elbows on the desk and raked her hands through her hair. Think! What does it mean? Did he want her to focus on the title or were the lyrics part of the key? Was he running with someone else? Why was he running in the first place?
She dug her fingers into her scalp. “Route 66” by Bobby Troup. Was he really taking Route 66 or was he going two thousand miles or was it the kicks part she was supposed to make something out of?
“Deep Water” by Richard Clapton. She rubbed the heels of her palms against her pulsing temples. Was he drunk? Heading to California?
She fisted both hands into her hair and pulled. What was it with all the road songs? None of this made sense. Tommy, help me out.
“Where’s the boy?”
Nora started and spun the desk chair around, instinctively blocking the note from the Colonel’s view. He stood in the doorway, suit-clad body army-straight and stiff, white hair—what was left of it—cut military-short around the shiny pink dome, brown mustache and eyebrows accent marks on an already well-punctuated face.
“I thought he was with you.” Of course her treacherous cheeks had to blush, giving away her lie. “You shouldn’t force him to go to a party he doesn’t want to attend.”
The Colonel’s nostrils flared at her inappropriate challenge. “James Enger is a fine, upstanding young man with a bright future ahead of him. It’s never too early to make connections.”
She knitted her hands in her lap to keep them from fidgeting like a nervous recruit. “I’m sure Scotty’s around somewhere. He wouldn’t want to disappoint you.”
“I want him dressed and ready to go in ten minutes.” The unspoken or else hung in the air.
“Yes, sir.”
Shoot. What was she supposed to do now? Give Tommy up? No, not yet. There was still time to keep the peace.
As the Colonel left, she whipped back to the note. A fist of panic gripped her chest. You can work through this, Nora. Deep River. Maybe Tommy had taken Scotty for a hike along the Flint River. They loved to hike together, but two hours of visitation every other Saturday didn’t give them much time. Not that she wanted Scotty stuck on the side of a hiking trail while having an asthma attack.
She shook her head. Don’t go to the worst-case scenario. Find them. Bring them home. She dashed to her room, slipped the note, Scotty’s Advair and a fresh inhaler in her purse, then headed toward the garage. Her lips disappeared into her mouth as she listened for the Colonel and tiptoed along the precisely cut diagonal limestone tiles in the hallway.
She was reaching for the key to her Mercedes on the pegboard by the garage door when the Colonel marched into the hall, steps thundering.
“Where’s the boy?” he asked.
“Scotty’s already in the car. I, uh, had to go back for something. We’re heading off to the party. As ordered.” Shoot, her face was flaming again.
The Colonel waved an envelope. “He forgot James’s present.”
“I’ll take it.” She reached out for the check.
The Colonel jammed it in his breast pocket. “I’m driving.”
Double shoot. The Colonel stepped past her, the drumming heels of his boots a reminder of his power, and into the garage where half a dozen cars were parked. “Where is he?”
“In my car.”
Oh, great, now she’d have to make Scotty look like an ungrateful grandchild to cover her lie. She pretended to look in the backseat, then under the car. “Scotty? Come out right now!”
“You need to keep a tighter hand on that child. A boy needs to know who’s in charge. All this lack of discipline leads to insubordination.”
“He’s just a boy.”
“He’s a Camden. He has obligations. A reputation to uphold.” Blocking her escape with his broad shoulders, the Colonel flipped open his cell phone and pressed a speed-dial button. “Prescott is missing.”
Nora bit the tip of her tongue to keep herself from pleading Scotty’s case. That would only make things worse. Choose your battles. Better to wait until she’d found him.
The Colonel’s already ramrod-straight body stiffened. “I’ll take care of it. Find the boy. Bring him to me.”
Siccing hired muscle after a ten-year-old boy. Her fingers clenched around the strap of her purse. What was wrong with him? The bruiser would find Scotty all right, scare the snot out of him, then hand him to the Colonel. And the Colonel would feel obliged to punish Scotty for his unsoldier-like behavior. She couldn’t let that happen.
Breathing in courage, she shored up her defenses. The thug might be good at tracking, but Scotty was her son, and she understood how his mind worked—and Tommy’s, too, as fried as it was. The muscle would scour the estate, but she already knew Scotty and Tommy were gone. Key tight in hand, she wended her way around the Colonel’s Cadillac toward her car.
“Where do you think you’re going?” the Colonel barked at her.
“For a ride.”
“Now?”
“I need fresh air.” In spite of her best effort for a show of strength, she squirmed into position behind the wheel and reached for the armor of the door.
The Colonel grasped the top of it in one hand and denied her a shield. The pointed end of his icy stare pinned her against the blood-red leather upholstery. He knew. She swallowed the series of hard knots notching her throat. He knew she was holding something back. He knew that she wasn’t telling the truth.
“If you’re abetting Tommy’s folly, you’ll pay the price.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You lost the boy.” In the cavernous garage, the Colonel’s voice rumbled in warning.
“He isn’t lost.” He’s with his father.
The Colonel’s gaze slitted to a knife edge. If she wasn’t careful, she’d end up filleted. “I don’t want you anywhere near that boy until I’ve had a talk with him about responsibility.”
More like a hazing. A snort escaped her. “He’s not a soldier. He’s a little boy.”
“He’s a Camden.”
Reminding her once again that only his benevolence allowed her to stay at the mansion. But what choice did she have? Scotty had never signed on for this tour of duty. If she tried to leave, the Colonel would use all of his influence to take her son away from her. The threat of loss ripped through her, leaving her clutching the edges of her seat to keep balanced. At least this way, she had a say. She could protect her son—the way Tommy’s mother never had. The way her mother never had.
Nerves rattling, she ratcheted her chin up one notch…two. “I know where he likes to go when he’s scared.”
The Colonel’s face quivered in a purple mottle. “You’ve turned him into a sissy boy.”
I’ve made him into a sweet, mostly happy boy. Knowing her chances of searching for Scotty depended on the Colonel’s goodwill, she submissively lowered her head. “I’ll bring him home.”
“See that you do.”
With a shaky hand, Nora cranked the engine over and backed out of the garage bay. She stopped at the gate and waited for the iron monstrosity to lumber open.
The situation was getting worse. Every year the Colonel expected more out of Scotty, and his expectations were beyond Scotty’s age capacity, especially with the asthma factored in.
She had to get her son out. Somehow. She had to find a way. But how? A sea of tears formed in her chest, swirled into a hurricane and threatened the back of her eyes with landfall. Dumpster-diving for food was no life for a sick boy. How could she get him the medicine he needed, the education he deserved, the safe home every child should have?
The Colonel would never stop looking for them. She blinked against the coming storm of tears. He’d made that immensely clear after she’d had the nerve to divorce Tommy. And he’d follow up on his threats. Scotty was his only grandchild. His only heir now that he’d disowned Tommy. He had the resources—money, influence, power.
Her mouth opened, greedy for air. And she had nothing. No money, no family, no job.
She’d seen him break more than one person to get what he wanted—starting with his own wife and children. She couldn’t leave Scotty alone to be raised by such a hard man.
She rolled through the gate and shuddered. Once past the corner of the property, the concrete holding her shoulders stiff and high cracked, releasing them, and her breathing became freer. She’d often wondered if Scotty’s asthma was related more to the caustic air in the mansion than to inflamed lungs.
At the stop at the end of Camden Road, she hesitated, her foot tap, tapping the brakes. Tommy, where are you?
Band on the Run. Route 66. Deep Water. Graceland. Talking Heads: 77. What are you trying to say?
The blast of a horn behind her jolted her in her seat. She signaled a right and, after checking both ways, turned. She searched all the places Tommy liked to take Scotty. The ice-cream parlor on Juniper Street. The school playground off Red Barn Road. The pet store on Woodpecker Lane.
By lunchtime, she’d looked in every park and playground of Camden, at every trailhead, at every boat ramp, and she hadn’t spotted Tommy’s battered Jeep. He wasn’t answering his cell phone and, according to his boss, he’d cashed in his two weeks of vacation time.
What if, as the titles suggested, he’d run? Ice doused her veins. No, he wouldn’t do that, not knowing how much it would hurt her. He’d have included her in any escape plan. He knew Scotty was her life.
Unless.
The rock of her heart sank to her shoes and a cold sweat soaked her through.
Hadn’t Tommy said that the Colonel had first shipped him out to military boarding school at eleven? And military school hadn’t suited Tommy—just as it wouldn’t suit Scotty. If he was off his meds, then Tommy could become fixated on saving Scotty.
Cold seeped into her bones, clacked her teeth. What if he was headed to California and planned to hide with Scotty—as far away from the Colonel as he could get?
You should have talked to me, Tommy. The Colonel and I have an agreement. No boarding schools. Ever.
Bent over the steering wheel, peering out the windshield for any sign of her son, she inched on White Mountain Road along the Flint River. She cranked up the heat and the radio. She wasn’t panicked. Not yet. “Tommy, please help me.”
“Burning Down the House” by the Talking Heads blasted over the speakers. Her brain fired with a bright light, and she bobbled the steering wheel, lurching toward the rain-swollen river. She jammed on the brakes, crunching on the shoulder’s gravel, and part of Tommy’s message became clear. “Oh, no, Tommy. What have you done?”
Chapter Two
Nora braked to a halt on the gravel shoulder. On the other side of the car, the Flint River pulsed and pounded over its rocky bottom in perfect imitation of Nora’s gushing thoughts.
Talking in code had been the only way to communicate certain things while living under the Colonel’s prying eyes. Talking Heads—telephone. 77—the last two digits of the emergency number Tommy had given her in one of his delusional phases. Her hands shook on the steering wheel, and she gripped it harder.
If you’re ever in trouble, Nora, Tommy had said, instructing her to memorize the number in blue ink he printed on her forearm. Call this number. Next to you, Sabriel’s the only person in the world I trust. He’ll help you. He owes me.
Sabriel Mercer. Tommy’s best friend. Anna’s husband. One of the unfortunate victims of the Colonel’s vengeful bent. He’d been Tommy’s best man at their wedding. That was the one and only time she’d met him. They’d barely exchanged more than a few words. She couldn’t even bring up a clear picture of the man other than dark and brooding—a little scary, actually, with those feral green eyes peering out of the shadows of the room. The ex-Ranger seemed alone even in the roomful of acquaintances Tommy had gathered to witness their exchange of vows—an event unsanctioned by the Colonel. She’d had no idea the flak that would cause once he heard the news.
She didn’t know much else about Sabriel Mercer, except that something had happened to him and Tommy at Ranger School, something that Tommy would never talk about. Something that had changed them both.
And if Tommy was asking her to call Sabriel Mercer for help, something was terribly wrong.
The mountains spread out in front of her in an endless vista. The rusty blanket of dying autumn leaves faded to blue and purple in the distance. Centuries of wind and rain had sculpted the granite and trees. Those mountains were both an awe-inspiring beauty and a treacherous territory that swallowed up hikers like sacrificial offerings. They were the only place Tommy had ever felt at home. The only place his broken spirit could rest.
A sinking feeling weighed her down into the seat, making it impossible to breathe. Band on the Run. Like he had that summer with Sabriel when they were fifteen? If he’d sought refuge in the mountains, then she would never find him, and the Colonel would win. Scotty would lose his father, and she would lose another foothold in directing Scotty’s upbringing.
Her chest stuttered. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t go into those mountains and hope to find her son. Not alone. She didn’t even know where to start.
But Sabriel would.
The tightness holding her breath hostage released a finger of its hold. Sabriel had wandered those mountains with Tommy. He might know what Route 66, Deep Water and Graceland stood for. He’d know where to look. He’d know where to find Tommy before the Colonel’s trackers did. And if she brought Scotty home instead of the hired muscle, then the Colonel would have to respect the status quo.
The tires squealed as Nora pulled a U-turn in the middle of White Mountain Road and pointed the car toward Camden. She’d grown paranoid over the years and was sure the Colonel somehow monitored her cell phone as well as her social calendar and her food intake. After all, she was a Camden and Camdens were expected to behave in a certain manner.
She piloted the car to the local gas station—a lowly place the Colonel would never frequent—and parked in front of the convenience store. The crazed ding-ding-ding of the open car door chased her to the pay phone. The expectant hiss of the receiver added to the static of her mind. Squeezing her eyes closed, she brought up the image of Tommy inking Sabriel’s number on her forearm. She fed coins into the machine, dialed and waited, biting her lower lip, while the number rang and rang and rang.
“Mercer.”
Nora jumped at the terse sound of the voice. “Tommy’s friend?”
“Who’s asking?”
“Nora Camden.” She wriggled her body until she faced the parking lot and Main Street, scanning both for signs of the Colonel’s men. “Tommy told me that if I was ever in trouble, I should call this number.”
Silence. Had the line died? “Mr. Mercer?”
“Are you in trouble?”
She scraped her fingernails along her scalp, pulling her hair tight when she reached the crown of her head. “Yes. No. I mean, Tommy’s in trouble.” She puffed out a breath. “He took our son. If the Colonel finds him before I do, he’ll take Scotty away from me, and he’ll deny Tommy visitations forever. You know how the Colonel is. No give. Those visitations mean the world to Tommy. He needs them as much as Scotty.”
More deafening silence.
Nora cradled the receiver with both hands. “Mr. Mercer? Are you there? If Tommy’s off his meds, then Scotty could be in danger, too.”
Still no response. But in the background, a voice intoned some sort of incantation.
“Scotty has asthma,” Nora continued, compelled to plead her case. Surely Sabriel wouldn’t be heartless enough to let a sick boy die. “He left with an inhaler that’s almost empty. I need to get his medicine to him. If he has an attack out there, he could die.”
Her top teeth sank into her bottom lip and drew blood. He doesn’t care. Tommy was wrong. Sabriel wasn’t going to pay his debt. She blinked back the tears scoring at her eyes. “I think he’s planning on hiding Scotty from the Colonel. I think he thinks he’s helping Scotty. I think he’s gone into the mountains.”
“Was there a note?”
