The Baker's Wife (31 page)

Ed tried to picture his pastor-father throwing punches in a makeshift schoolyard ring. Couldn't see it. Estrella returned with cream for Leslie's new friend. The cat got up at once and started lapping.

“I got carried away at a protest once—all that moral indignation creates its own kind of high. I threw a punch aiming for some guy's kidney, hit his spine instead, kicked him when he was down.”

“You never told me that.”

“The time never seemed right.”

“What happened?”

“He lost the use of his legs and decided not to sue me.”

“What? Why?” Ed couldn't imagine anyone not wanting justice for something like that.

“Because sometimes mercy is the best weapon against evil.”

Jack's tapping reached the industrial refrigerator.

“Sometimes,” Ed said.

Geoff sighed. “Most of the time.”

“But in this case—”

“Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe I should have fought back. I don't know.”

“There's still time to fight. We should do something.”

His father shook his head. “Trusting God is what I do best. I don't have all the answers, as much as I always wanted you to think I did.”

Jack had circled the kitchen and was coming back around to the little room.

“God will lead you, Ed. You'll make your own mistakes and find wisdom in them. He'll give you answers that your mom and I don't have. And we'll watch and be amazed.”

Ed looked at the floor. The others in the room were pretending to be deaf.

Jack came back in. The weapon slapping his thigh missed a beat and Ed felt the man's attention on him, suspicion that some conspiracy against him was brewing.

Maybe it was. Ed lifted his eyes to Jack's gun and, with the same intense concentration that Leslie had applied to her math, began to make some calculations of his own.

The gate across the road to Miners Rest was good for deterring law-abiding citizens and maybe some opportunists. Otherwise, it was no match for Geoff's heavy 4x4. Audrey looked in the rearview mirror at the twisted frame dangling from its support pole.

“You don't hold your meds very well,” Miralee observed.

“That had nothing to do with meds,” Audrey said.

A bend in the road put Audrey's driving violation firmly behind her.

“What's your plan to find the truck?” Diane asked.

“I don't think we'll see it from the road,” she said. “Or even in any obvious place. The rangers wouldn't have closed the gate without checking for vehicles first.”

“I'll bet vehicles get stranded up here all the time,” Miralee said.

“We'll have to follow my gut.”

“We're following an intoxicated gut,” Miralee said to Diane.

The snow on the road to Miners Rest wasn't enough to slow them down, but the journey was more precarious than ever, with plunging slopes and no guardrail to the south. Audrey looked at the clock on the dash, feeling more anxious by the blinking second. If the truck was still parked at the trailhead (which it wouldn't be), and if Julie was sitting in the cab waiting for them (which she wouldn't be), it would be nearly eleven by the time they arrived, and it would take more than an hour and a half to get back to cell-phone reception.

Audrey begged God to stay Jack's hand. To give Wilson or Geoff or Ed some kind of divine inspiration.

“I was here just yesterday with Ed,” she told them. “He told me you'd stayed in the cabins at Miners Rest, Miri.”

“My mom and I did once, during her summer break. She likes it up here.”

“When Ed and I were driving by there, I started to feel sick.”

“O-
kay
,” Miralee said.

“I think your mom and I are connected spiritually.”

Miralee squared off her shoulders with the front window. “I can't believe this. My dad was right. You two are psychos. You
know
my mom's up here because you
brought
her here, didn't you? Did Ed help you? Are our families going to be locked in some tit-for-tat war until we wipe each other off the map?”

“Absolutely not. Listen to me.”

“I can't. I can't believe I am even here. You know, I come across pretty cold sometimes, I'm aware of that, but deep down I suppose I had some kind of little-girl-needs-her-mom moment, and I was sorta hoping you might be telling the truth about being very highly motivated to find her, about how deeply you care about her and all that religious mumbo jumbo. I've had it. Let me out!”

Miralee tried to climb over Diane's side of the front seat and fought her for the door handle. Audrey slammed on the brakes, and Miri rocked over into the dashboard.

“Stop it! I need your help . . . I need you to tell me everything you can think of about Julie and how she spent her time up here. Do you hear me? Because if I can't find her, and Jack keeps his word, I'm going to lose the only thing that really matters to me. Okay?”

“I assure you, losing your family is entirely survivable! You'll get over it, no need for my assistance!” Miralee scrambled again.

Audrey expected Diane to all but fall out of the cab getting out of Miralee's way. Instead, she squared her wide back against the exit and blocked the girl's escape, unflinching even when Miralee's fingers caught in her hair and gripped the silky auburn strands. Diane gripped Miralee's wrist and drove her own thumb into the soft spot at the joint, forcing her to release the rope of hair. The teenager cursed and threw herself back toward Audrey's seat. Diane held on.

“Where are you going to go?” Diane asked her. “We're thirty miles from anyone who can help you.”

“Does it matter?”

“For you, yes.”

“You're going to kill me!”

“No one's going to kill you, Miralee.” Diane looked at Audrey, who could not have been more surprised by Diane's boldness. “Why do teenagers always think I'm trying to kill them?”

Audrey stared.

“Miralee,” Diane said without compassion, “you haven't lost your family. You've just walked away from them, and the thing that made it survivable for you is that you know you can walk back home whenever you want. You don't lose your family until you walk back and learn that they've forgotten you. And few people actually survive that.”

Miralee wrenched her arm out of Diane's grip.

Diane continued, “When we can't find your mom because she's dead, and your dad goes crazy because he's lost her forever, and gets shot up by his own people when they try to stop him from a slaughter, then we'll see how you do.”

Miralee clenched her teeth together and faced forward. Audrey placed her hands back on the wheel and felt the sharp pain of her raw blisters. The wheels of the truck started rolling again like millstones.

“Tell Audrey where your mom liked to come up here.”

Miralee muttered something.

“Speak up,” Diane ordered.

“I don't
know
.”

“Then tell her where the two of you stayed that one time.”

“In Miners Rest, in the cabin at the back of the property.”

“We'll start there, then,” Audrey said. The truck took a slow grinding turn around a hairpin corner.

“They'll be locked up for winter, won't they?”

“Maybe.”

“What did you mean by
spiritually connected
?”

“I think your mom's alive, and that she's sick. Sometimes I feel things, physical sensations, that seem like they should belong to another person.”

“I don't buy it.”

“Remember when I asked you about talking to you through the window? I was led to your house—”

“Led. You are
way
out there.”

“I felt this deep, deep sadness. I thought I was talking to you, that you were upset about the breakup—”

“I wasn't.” Miralee crossed her arms.

“Right. It wasn't you after all, Miri. I think it was your mom.”

“You believe her?” Miralee said to Diane.

“Yes.”

“She can't know this stuff. It's impossible.”

“Maybe it's only impossible for people who don't want to know,” Diane said.

“But that was eons ago,” Miralee said to Audrey. “Do you stay connected to people forever or something?”

“No. Usually I bake them a loaf of bread and stay for a while, and then I go home.”

Miralee laughed.

“But we never got to that point. That was my fault, probably. I should have done more.”

“Done more? What did you do?”

“Nothing. I left her. I walked away. And now her pain won't let go of me.”

Diane was looking at Audrey's hands. “When was the last time you felt something?”

“At Julie's house. That nausea.”

“What about those blisters on your palms?”

“You saw me get those,” Audrey said.

“But they remind me of something. This time . . . this time Donna and I went up to Mammoth to ski with some friends. When we were in line for the lift, Donna took off her gloves to fish some Chapstick out of her pocket, and she didn't have time to put them on again before the lift came around. Her hands were sweaty, she sat down and grabbed the bar to pull it over our heads.” Diane gestured to Audrey's bandages. “Same thing happened.”

“You think Julie might have hurt her hands?”

“You'd know better than I would,” Diane said.

“How could something like that happen out here? No skiing, not even any sign poles to lick, not really.”

“There are snow-marker poles,” said Diane.

“A car door handle,” Audrey said. “Or a bumper. Any part of a car.”

“Buried treasure and a medieval sword,” Miralee said through downturned lips.

“An outdoor water pump,” said Diane, and her face paled.

Miralee said, “None of the cabins at Miners Rest have outdoor water pumps
or
swords.”

“Not those,” said Audrey, “but the old cabins. The ones from the mining days. Problem is, there are dozens.”

“My grandparents had a cabin up here,” Diane said. “They said it belonged to Great-Great-Grandpa Hall, the one who found the diamond in that necklace. I have no idea whether it's still in the family, or even if it's still standing.”

“But do you know where it is?” Audrey asked.

“Off the Silver Gap trail,” Diane said. “I can take you there.”

“I know that trail,” Audrey said. “It's where I got sick yesterday. That's where you said you and your mom used to go all the time, Miralee.”

“She never took me to any special family cabin,” she said.

Diane muttered sarcastically, “I wonder why.”

CHAPTER 30

Audrey wasn't sure whether it was the pain medication or the supernatural peace of God that was preventing her from feeling panicked, but by the time the women left the Silver Gap trail for the off-map cabin, she had come to terms with the fact that she couldn't get back to Geoff and Ed in time. It might have been the first stage of grief she was feeling, that denial of reality that would give way soon enough to anger and depression.

The Halls' gray truck wasn't in the trailhead parking lot. Diane led the way up the uneven ground slowly, more slowly than Audrey wished. In fairness, fresh snow and the passage of decades had transformed landmarks once familiar to Diane. And though Audrey knew the trail well enough, she wasn't one to go wandering far from it.

So she followed Diane, and Miralee straggled behind her. “Are you sure we should have left Geoff's truck running?” Miralee asked when they went over a hill and the parking lot dropped out of sight.