What the hell’s going on?
He blinked.
A white room, and some noise off to his side.
He closed his eyes again and tried to recall the last thing that had happened.
Night. The forest. No, a house in the forest. He’d been at a…a door. He’d been trying to talk to the…woman inside. What then? The window, right. He’d moved over to it and…and…and the current pulled back and she was there, looking startled. And then…?
There was no “and then.” This was the “and then,” this room. He’d been standing on the woman’s porch, and now he was lying in this room, apparently injured.
Why had he been out at her house in the first place? Why had he wanted to talk to her?
He tried to remember the reason, but his mind was still mush.
He heard a door open. When his eyelids parted again, a man in a white jacket with a stethoscope around his neck was standing next to his bed. A doctor, Ash guessed. That would make sense, wouldn’t it? But Ash had never seen him before.
The doctor was taking Ash’s pulse. As he finished, he noticed that Ash’s eyes were open.
“Welcome back,” the man said.
Ash licked his lips. “Where am I?”
“That’s a good question,” the man said. “Not really sure I know the answer.”
“I…don’t understand.”
“Hold on.”
The doctor disappeared from view. There was the sound of the door opening again, and then the doctor’s voice saying, “He’s awake.”
There were more voices, far away and not easy to understand. When the doctor finally came back to the bed, a familiar woman was with him.
“Captain Ash,” she said, smiling. “How are you feeling?”
“I know you,” he said.
“Lily,” she told him.
Right. Lily. Nurse at the Ranch. Then this must be…
“The Bunker?” he asked.
“That’s right.”
He looked over at the doctor, confused.
Lily said, “That’s Dr. Gardiner. He saved your life.”
“Thank you.”
“Apparently we’re even,” the doctor said as he pulled back the sheet and looked at the wounds on Ash’s torso.
“Even?”
The doctor answered with only a smile. When he finished his examination, he pulled the sheet back into place. “I’ll check back in a little while.”
Once he was gone, Lily said, “Chloe kind of, well, kidnapped him and his family from Great Falls. If she hadn’t, they would’ve died there. Coming here to save you meant they got inoculated.”
The door burst open, and Matt and Rachel rushed in.
“Thank God,” Rachel said, grabbing Ash’s hand and smiling. “How are you feeling?”
“He still needs a lot of rest,” Lily told them.
“Of course, of course,” Matt said.
It seemed to Ash as if they were all going to leave again. “Hold on. I…I…”
“What is it?” Lily asked.
He gave himself a moment to get his words in order. “Why am I here? What happened?”
“You don’t remember?” Matt asked.
“I remember standing in front of a house. That’s it.”
“The house exploded,” Matt said. “Knocked you into the yard. Thankfully Miller was with you, or you’d have died out there.”
“But why were we there?”
Matt’s brow furrowed, surprised. “You were looking for Brandon.”
Brandon! It all came back in a rush.
He tried to sit up, but his torso screamed in pain.
“You just had surgery yesterday,” Lily said. “You need to conserve your strength.”
Ash grabbed Matt’s wrist. “He wasn’t in the house, was he?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely.”
“You found him?” Ash asked, hoping that’s what Matt had meant.
“Not quite. But we’ve found his trail, and think we know where he is.”
Ash put his palms on the mattress, intending to try to sit up again, but Lily held him down.
“Let me go,” he said. “I have to find him.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” she said.
“You need to rest,” Matt told him. “Don’t worry. Chloe went to get him.”
“Chloe?”
“She’ll bring him back.”
Ash relaxed. Though he’d rather be getting Brandon himself, he trusted Chloe to handle it.
He could feel his eyelids growing heavy again. Forcing them to stay open, he said, “Josie, how is she?”
“She’s fine,” Matt said after a brief pause.
Good, Ash thought. This time he didn’t fight it as his eyes closed. Brandon on the verge of being found, Josie safe — that was as much as he could ask for at the moment.
18
Martina’s hands ached from gripping the steering wheel of the Webers’ car so tightly. The drive off the mountain had been the most nerve-wracking experience of her life.
While there had been areas where the snow barely covered the road, in other parts, the swirling winds had piled up drifts two — and even three — feet high. Every time she encountered one of these, she had to slow the car to a near standstill and find a way around it.
Then there was the ice. More than once, the car skidded on an unseen patch, threatening to slide off the road. She was pretty sure there was at least one time the tires on the passenger side had moved off the asphalt, edging dangerously close to the ditch that paralleled the road.
The scariest part by far, though, was when she reached the section of road that led down the canyon to the desert. Two lanes, barely any shoulder, no guardrails, and a seventy-degree downward slope on her right that promised a plummet to the rocky chasm floor several hundred feet below if she made even the slightest error.
Since there didn’t appear to be any other vehicles using the road, she stuck to the middle of the asphalt and kept her speed low and steady. About the only good thing was that the snow was only at the very top, and it wasn’t long before her worries simply consisted of taking a turn too wide and driving off the cliff.
When they finally reached the bottom, Martina stopped the car at the side of the road and climbed out. Leaning against the fender, she took several deep breaths until her body stopped shaking, and her heart rate slowed enough for her to concentrate on what to do next.
They were near the north end of Indian Wells Valley. Along the west side were the towering Sierra Nevada Mountains that she and Riley had just descended. Across the north was the smaller yet still imposing Coso Range. Hills in the south, and the gradual rise of the valley in the east served as the last two boundaries. In the distance on the east side, she could see the hump that was B Mountain. It was a big hill, really, located on the China Lake naval base. Its name was courtesy of the giant B the students at Burroughs High School — her alma mater — repainted on its rocks each year.
Home.
She looked toward the highway about a mile away. Usually during the week between Christmas and New Year’s, US 395 was packed with skiers from LA headed to Mammoth Mountain three more hours to the north, but today there wasn’t a car in sight.
She climbed back into the sedan and settled into her seat, her gaze pausing on the gas gauge. It had been at a little more than a quarter tank when they’d set out, but now it was nearly empty. Having never driven the Webers’ car, she had no idea how far it could go on fumes. Ridgecrest was at least twenty miles away. And while the much smaller Inyokern was closer, it was still a good ten miles. What if they ran out of gas before then? Riley was in no condition for any kind of long hike.
Wasn’t there something to the north? The last time she’d gone any farther in that direction had been a couple years earlier when the Burroughs softball team went to a tournament up in Bishop. She closed her eyes and tried to remember.