There was one perk to their relationship with their guardians. Hawaii. Their aunt and uncle, who they privately referred to as Dick and Jane, owned a time-share on Kauai, where the four of them vacationed together every year. Or at least they traveled there together. Typically, as soon as they arrived at the condo, Dick and Jane split. Dick was a cheap strip bar savant, a womanizing drunk, and Jane was of the same class, a needy, slutty drug addict—incredible how sudden fortunes can really transform some people. Blake’s parents had left Dick and Jane with a few million in their will to raise the kids. Blake and Kaci saw little of that, but Dick and Jane still managed to burn through it like toilet paper.
Blake had done his best to shield Kaci from Dick and Jane as they grew up. Hawaii was their annual chance to “escape the tyranny,” and they took full advantage of that on each trip. They were constantly planning what they’d do when they were old enough to break off on their own. Blake could have moved out when he was eighteen, but he stayed two more years for Kaci…waited two more years to tell Dick and Jane to go screw themselves.
When Kaci turned eighteen, the two of them found an apartment together. Blake turned twenty a month later, and their family lawyer signed over twenty million dollars to him from his parents’ will. His aunt and uncle knew nothing of that money, and couldn’t have touched it if they had. Kaci would get another twenty million on her twentieth birthday as well. They were set for life.
Finally independent, they were now free to do what they wanted, spend what they wanted, and go where they wanted without their relatives having any say. Blake dropped out of college, Kaci never entered college, and they dedicated themselves to seeing the world.
Every trip was to somewhere new; they seldom returned to a place they’d already been…except Kauai. There was something special about that island. Although they never went to their aunt and uncle’s condo again, they returned to Kauai every year, sometimes even more than once, always looking to make it a permanent part of their lives, if they could find the right place. Finally, they did.
Three years ago at a bar in Kauai, Blake had met a girl named Alexa whose family owned the island of Niihau, just west of Kauai. A dramatic seismic shift had splintered the former island into two pieces. The smaller southernmost piece had slipped several hundred yards east of the larger part of the island. It was stable and secure, covered with tons of trees and beautiful beaches, but not of any use to Alexa’s family. Her family was going to keep the main island, but Alexa offered to talk to them about Blake and Kaci buying the small twenty-acre island. The family signed off, and the two of them purchased the island for a cool twenty million cash in December of 2018. That twenty million was worthless now, but the island was still Blake’s, if he could ever get there.
The second Sunday in October, just two days before the attack, Kaci had left by herself for a week on their island. They’d been building a couple houses there and had made monthly visits the past six months to check on the progress. Blake was supposed to join Kaci a week later, but he had first agreed to help a close friend paint her house.
Blake watched his sister board the plane without him. She called him from Denver later that evening, and then the attacks hit and he never heard from her again. He didn’t know if she made it. Didn’t know if she’d survived. But he was motivated to get to Hawaii and find out.
A couple American soldiers had passed through Medora before Danny and his family had, and told everyone about the attacks. Most of the people had dismissed their warnings but not Blake. He hadn’t been able to reach Kaci or Alexa or anyone else on his phone. Their words of warning made sense to him. He had intended to make the cross-country trek on his own, and then Nathan had volunteered to go with him. Then the Miners arrived in Medora and he listened to Danny speak at the town center. Blake was confident Danny was a guy who could help him get where he wanted. He could hopefully help him get to Kaci. He had no idea how skilled Danny, and Cameron, would turn out to be. They had thoroughly impressed him since, and this journey had given Blake a unique bond to the two of them… to all of them.
Still, Blake hadn’t mentioned a word of his hopes regarding his sister, except to Hayley, and she’d sworn herself to secrecy. Blake was reluctant to put any emotional investment in his sister’s survival. But the chance, however slim it might be, well, it was more than enough to keep him plodding through the chest-high snow right now. The girl he carried in his arms—he kept telling himself to pretend she was Kaci. Just as he’d done for years with his own little sister, he needed to take care of the vice president’s daughter tonight.
Blake glanced back at Hayley helping Cameron behind him. Blake was doing his best to make his tracks as wide as possible, to help Cameron as much as he could, but he knew the guy had to be absolutely miserable. This wasn’t the ideal way to travel even when you weren’t torn up and bleeding. He couldn’t imagine what it must be like when you were.
Danny was a short ways behind them, trying to cover their trail of footsteps and blood. He was hopeful the snow would continue to fall and mask it even more, but they weren’t moving nearly as fast as he wanted. It was almost six o’clock now, and they still had the two most treacherous miles to go, across the face of Bighorn Mountain to the cave. It didn’t matter that it was only Colorado’s 1,567th tallest peak; climbing even halfway up was as daunting as facing off with Mount McKinley at this point. Danny was just starting to wonder how much longer his injured friend could hold out, when Cameron collapsed into the snow.
Definitely not the answer he was hoping for.
SIXTY-ONE: “Man Down”
At 6 a.m. sharp, Eddie gave his men their instructions. Plows were brought in to clear the roads alongside them as they walked the tracks. A dusting of snow had filled the footprints in, to an extent, but not enough to completely cover them. But then they reached Black Canyon Creek, and the tracks disappeared. Eddie figured they’d walked through the water for a ways, so he had his men spread out and proceed until the tracks picked up again.
They finally found a set of fresh tracks a half-mile north, about two miles from the hotel, where Devil’s Gulch Road broke east. But there were only two sets, and they didn’t look human. Big, but not human. Like lions, but not his lions.
Eddie contemplated the options. The tracks were fairly fresh, so the animals had crossed here recently. He decided to call in the helicopter for an overhead view. If there weren’t any signs of people up ahead, they were wasting their time. A few minutes later, the helicopter hovered above them, and Eddie ordered it to move on. The helicopter whirred up the canyon, and a minute later the pilot called in that he’d found bodies and a ton of blood about a mile ahead. Eddie ordered him to hold his position until they arrived, and he and his men picked up their pace to where the helicopter was waiting. There was nowhere for him to set the chopper down, and Eddie couldn’t handle the noise directly overhead, so he told the pilot to take a run five miles or so up the canyon and then come back down.
As the pilot followed his orders, Eddie and his men approached the bodies surrounded by the tracks they’d seen earlier and many other sets of tracks. Human tracks this time. The bodies were the lions, mountain lions, and by the looks of it there’d been one hell of a battle here. The cats had done their damage, but the guns had won. Although it struck Eddie the hole in the neck didn’t look like a bullet hole.