Great. More uphill. He guided her progress with a hand on her waist as she led him to a blind cliff with fallen rocks at its base.
“There’s an opening to the left of those trees,” she said weakly.
Ben scooped her up in his arms and picked his way through the jumble of weather-worn talus. He heard the trickle of water before he saw it. Steam emanated from a crack in the cliff as water gurgled directly out of the mountain and flowed toward the valley below. The first thing he noticed as he approached was the heat; the second thing was the smell of rotten eggs.
Sulphur? That meant the cave would be uninhabitable.
Ben set Emma in a concealed spot before he took off his pack and leaned his rifle against a rock next to her. Then he carefully tested the temperature of the water.
The spring wasn’t hot, but warm enough to produce steam in this cold weather. He moved to the entrance of the cave and peered inside, sniffing the air, faintly smelling sulphur. He decided to move Emma just inside the mouth of the cave so there would be plenty of fresh air.
He made his way back down to where he’d left her, only to find her staring at his pack. “Ben? Your backpack is making funny noises.”
Chapter Twenty
“O h, shit! The bird!”Ben grabbed the canvas bag and unzipped it, peeling back the top flap. He pulled out the small dented cage and peered inside.
The pigeon peered back at him.
“Homer!” Emma cried, her voice weak but with welcome animation. She looked at Ben. “How come you have him?”
“Mike sent him with me this morning. I put him in my pack to protect him from the cold.” He set the cage inside the entrance. “Let’s get you out of those clothes,” he said when he returned, and lifted her to her feet. “The entrance is just big enough to get through. I brought some dry clothes with me. We’ll get you into them, then I want you to sit near the mouth of the cave.”
“But it opens up into a small room,” she said, hobbling over the rocks beside him, leaning against him when she nearly fell.
“There’s been a lot of seismic activity. I don’t know if it’s stable or gaseous.”
She stopped and glared at him weakly.
“What?” he asked.
“You put Homer in the cave.”
“Damn right I did. He’s our canary. If he croaks, we’re outta there.”
She gasped, and Ben carried her the rest of the way. As soon as they were completely inside the cave, which indeed opened up into a small chamber, he felt the warmth. It was no sweat lodge, but it was just what Emma needed. As he undressed her, she sat like a child.
He was starting to get really scared. This wasn’t at all like Emma. She was a proactive person, not passive. And she still wasn’t shivering.
Ben dumped the contents of the pack onto the cave floor and rummaged through its contents until he found a sweatshirt. He pulled it over her head, silently thanking Mike for helping him pack that morning.
Ben had been appalled at the things the boy had insisted he take: a complete change of clothes, a first-aid kit, a flashlight, a pot, rifle shells, four different maps, and the GPS. The pack also contained a survival kit that held matches, fishing line, safety pins, aluminum foil, a candle, a mirror, and duct tape.
Ben found the socks and put them on her feet, then worked the jogging pants over her legs. They were his and would probably come all the way up to her armpits. As he worked them on, he noticed one of her knees was swollen and both legs were marked with bruises. Her skin was icy cold to the touch.
He was sweating.
He shook his parka and laid it on the floor, eased Emma down onto it, then crawled behind her and wrapped her up in his arms, cocooning her in his heat.
Ten minutes passed before she stopped shivering, and Ben took his first easy breath since he’d found her. She was going to be okay. He continued to hold her until the shivering ebbed to tiny spasms, eventually stopping completely. She finally stirred with a moan.
“Thank you,” she whispered, turning to face him. She reached up and cupped his cheek. “You saved my life.”
“Are you lucid enough to explain what you’re doing here? I left you in front of a roaring fire with a book.”
She lowered her gaze and began picking at a button on his shirt. “Kelly called me,” she whispered.
He stiffened, then lifted her face up. “Kelly’s dead, Emma.”
“I know now,” she whispered. “Wayne tricked me. I think he killed her. How … how do you know Kelly’s dead?”
Ben cupped her head, pulling her face into his chest. He couldn’t look at her anguish any longer. “Atwood and I decided Wayne’s coordinates were her grave.”
She popped her head back up to look at him. “When?”
“A few days ago, after we came out here and looked around ourselves. The investigators I have working in New York couldn’t find a trace of her; it’s as if Kelly disappeared off the face of the earth ten years ago. And when I came out here, it was as if … that’s when everything added up.”
He ran his fingers through her hair, wishing he could soothe her sadness. “Your sister would have contacted you if she were still alive. She never would have abandoned you and Mike. People mature. They regret decisions. They wonder. Kelly couldn’t have stayed away. That meant she must be dead.”
Emma buried her face in his chest with a sob. “I’ve spent the last ten years of my life hating my sister, and all this time she’s been dead!” She looked at him, grabbing his shirt in a desperate grip. “She never abandoned us. She never abandoned Mikey. But … she did leave a note. She said she was leaving, and that she would call us.”
“There’s a good chance Kelly wasleaving. I think she was scared of Wayne, and she felt the safest thing to do for Mike was to leave. I also think she did plan to contact you when she was safe. Only she never made it out of Medicine Gore—Poulin got to her first.”
She hid in his shirt again. Ben wrapped her up in as fierce a hug as he dared, and rocked her back and forth.
“He killed my father.” Emma looked up again, and Ben saw outrage through her tears. “Then he set it up to look like you were responsible!”
He sighed, not really surprised, as he brushed the tears from her face. “Yeah. And it worked well for him.”
“Until Kelly found out.”
“And you went snooping in his room.”
“He’s the one who got the environmentalists involved, too. He knows this area is slated for clear-cutting next summer, so while he appearsto be on the side of the mills, he’s been quietly stirring up trouble.”
“The logging operation might have uncovered Kelly’s remains. And Poulin knew he would be the prime suspect.”
“We have to stop him before he gets away,” she said, trying to sit up.
He held her down. “We’ve got to get ourselves out of here first. Poulin doesn’t know I’m with you. He thinks he’s hunting a battered, half-drowned woman, so he’ll have wasted a lot of time looking for you downstream. Does he know about this cave?”
She settled back against him. “He must. He’s cruised these woods for the mills. This is his backyard.”
Ben sat up, bringing Emma with him. “Then I’m afraid we’re going to have to keep moving. Do you think you’re up to it?”
She stared at him with an expression of surprise.
“What?”
She suddenly hurled herself into his arms and kissed his chin. “I loveyou, Ben.”
“I’m pretty sure we established that fact last night,” he said with a chuckle, feeling her body was once more producing its own heat.
She popped her head up, clipping him in the chin. “Was it just last night?”
Ben kissed her deeply, tasting her sweet aliveness. He urged her mouth open with his tongue and invaded it with the passion of a man very grateful to have his woman alive and well again.