Atwood looked up and grinned. “A little more subtly than your lady did?”
Ben lifted a brow. “I’m assuming you have more experience at that sort of thing.”
“I can get in and out without leaving any tracks,” he drawled as he walked to Ben. “What about the old lady?”
“Emma said Greta was coming out to Medicine Creek this afternoon to start the wedding plans.”
Atwood’s face lit up. “Congratulations. You’re really going to tie the knot?”
“Just as tight as I can.”
He had no second thoughts about marrying Emma and legally adopting Mike. And if the small army he’d brought from New York couldn’t put Wayne Poulin away, Ben was taking his new family to the other side of the earth until this was finally settled. One way or another, he wasn’t letting the evil touch them.
“Go ahead on back,” he told Atwood. “I’m going to hang around a while longer.” He looked at the forest again. “The key to this puzzle is here. I can feel it.”
“We rode out here together. How you planning on getting home?”
Ben shrugged. “I tossed a pack in the truck before we left. I’ll walk back.”
Atwood looked incredulous. “It’s over twenty miles.”
“It’ll give me time to think. And according to the map, those old hot springs are between here and home. I think I’ll stop and check them out.”
Atwood turned wary. “That could be dangerous, what with all the tremors lately. There could be noxious gases escaping.”
Ben started walking to where they’d parked the Suburban. “I’ll be careful.”
Atwood fell into step beside him. “You want me to do any checking on the dam that was blown up fifteen years ago while I’m in town?”
“Leave that to the others. We’ll get together tonight and discuss what we’ve found.” He stopped and looked back at the forest. “My gut says it’s all connected. I don’t know how yet, but I think Poulin had something to do with Charlie Sands’s death and Kelly’s disappearance.”
At the truck, Ben pulled out his pack and the high-powered rifle he’d borrowed from Emma’s gun cabinet that morning. Then he lifted out the small cage that held Homer.
“You’re really getting into this woodsman stuff, aren’t you?” Atwood said with a chuckle.
“When I mentioned to Mike I was coming out here, he asked me to bring Homer with me and let him go. He wants to find out if the bird can find his way back without the benefit of having flown here,” Ben said.
The wilderness did intrigue him, though. More than that, he was beginning to find a contentment he hadn’t known existed.
Atwood shrugged and climbed into the driver’s seat.
Ben settled his pack on his back, and picked up his rifle and Homer. “While you’re in town, find out when the plane will be in. Push it if you have to. I want it here by Thanksgiving.”
Atwood grinned. “A wedding present?”
“Yup. That way she’ll have to accept it.”
“She’s gonna be one grateful bride. The plane you ordered makes the stealth fighter jet look like a relic. It’s got every electronic toy known to man.”
“Every groom deserves a grateful bride, don’t you think?” Ben said as he slapped Atwood on the shoulder. “I’m counting on it.”
Atwood started the truck and drove off. Ben watched the Suburban slowly make its way down the overgrown road, waiting until it was out of sight before he headed back to the one spot in this vast, beautiful forest that seemed to be lacking a soul.
The fall morning was crystal clear, the sun bathing the land with warmth. Yet when he stepped into the realm of Wayne’s coordinates, it was like stepping into a cold, lifeless circle of evil.
Chapter Eighteen
“B eaker, I’m going tostep on you if you don’t get out of my way,” Emma warned for the fifth time.
For some mysterious reason, the dog had been glued to her side all morning. She had already given the clinging animal numerous cookies trying to calm him, but now she was feeling ill from eating all the chocolate centers.
With a sigh of defeat, she sat down on the couch and patted a place beside her. Beaker immediately jumped up and laid his head on her lap.
“What’s bothering you?” she asked, scratching his ear.
He lifted only his canine brows and whined.
Emma gave him the attention he needed as she stared into the crackling fire in the hearth. Maybe the dog had caught the mood of the lodge’s other inhabitants. It was like there was a pregnant cloud hanging over Medicine Creek Camps. Heck, even the woods had been rumbling.
The phone rang, and Emma got up to answer it. “Hello.”
“Emmie? Is that you?”
Emma went utterly still.
“Are you there, Emmie? Hello?”
“K-Kelly,” she whispered. “Kelly? Is that you?”
“Hello, sister.”
Emma gripped the phone with both hands. “Where are you?”
“In Bangor. I need you to come see me, Emmie. Right now. Please? I have to talk to you.”
“You’re in Bangor?”
“At the mall. I’ll be at the center court waiting for you. Hurry up.”
“Wait. Kelly!”
A dial tone answered her urgent plea.
Emma stared at the phone until it started buzzing loudly. She finally set it down, though it took her three attempts to put it on the charger because her hands were shaking so much. And still she continued to stare, not seeing anything but Kelly’s face in her mind’s eye.
Kelly hadn’t even asked about her son. Emma’s gaze drifted to the picture on the mantel, of her and Kelly and five-year-old Michael on his first day of school. “What sort of mother doesn’t even ask about her son?” she whispered into the stark silence.
Beaker whined and nudged her thigh. Emma looked down at the dog staring up at her with large brown eyes. “Maybe she’s … do you think she could be scared, Beak? Ten years is an awful long time.”
Emma knelt down to hug the dog, and let out a shuddering sigh. “Here I go again, making excuses for her. But just hearing her call me ‘Emmie’ … I—I guess I should pity her more than hate her.” Emma buried her face in Beaker’s neck. “She missed so much not being here to watch Michael grow up.”
Emma considered stopping at the high school and picking up Mikey before heading to Bangor. He deserved to see his mother, and truth be told, she wasn’t sure she was emotionally strong enough to face Kelly alone. “No, that wouldn’t be fair to Mikey,” she muttered into Beaker’s neck, stifling a sob. “He deservesthis reunion to be right here, in his home, where he’ll have some sense of control.”
Emma finally stood up, brushing away the tears streaming down her face, and took a deep breath. So Kelly wanted to talk, did she? Well, by God, she would talk to allof them, Ben included. She intended to drag her sister back here kicking and screaming if she had to. “Come on, Beak. We’re going for a ride.”
She blindly strode to her truck, and Beaker jumped up on the driver’s seat ahead of her. He stood in her spot, whining, not letting her in the truck.
“I know you don’t want me going anywhere, Beak, but I have to go get Kelly.”
The dog whined, not budging an inch. Emma ended up pushing him over and scooting behind the wheel despite his protests. “If you don’t want me leaving you here, you better hush up and sit down. It’s a two-hour ride.” Emma started the truck and backed it out of the yard, spitting gravel as she headed for the main road.
The dog scrambled to remain upright. “It’s okay, Beak.” She pushed him into a lying position. “That’s a good boy. You like riding. Just relax and watch out the window.”
Emma took a deep breath to calm her racing heart and slowed the pickup to a safer speed. She was contemplating various ways to approach Kelly when she rounded a curve and had to slam on the breaks to avoid running into Wayne Poulin.