Living with the Dead - By Kelley Armstrong Page 0,79
look. Hope met it without flinching. Robyn continued to stare, trying to make Hope look away, give another nervous laugh. When she did neither, Robyn strode toward the forest. She got to the edge. Then Karl’s hand fell on her shoulder.
“You’re going to the car,” he said.
There was no menace in his voice. No room for questions either.
She looked back at him, lifting her chin to meet his eyes.
“Yes,” he said. Nothing more. It could have meant “yes, you’re going to the car” or “yes, I will stop you from taking another step.” But she knew it didn’t. It meant “yes, you’re right.” That was all she needed. She backed onto the path and followed Hope.
IT TOOK NO MORE THAN FIVE MINUTES to walk from the forest. As Robyn saw the woods opening up, the field ahead, she slowed, certain the edge couldn’t be so close. When she’d been running she’d told herself repeatedly how small the woods had to be, but with everything that had happened in there, it felt like those trees should go on forever, that they’d been miles from civilization.
And here, just ahead, was civilization, as garish as it got. The fair. The music still boomed. The kids still screamed. The lights still colored the night sky. The air smelled, not of fear and blood and dirt, but of corn dogs and cotton candy.
Robyn rubbed her arms and blinked. They’d been gone less than an hour, but she’d somehow expected to walk out and find the fair packed up, the field a desolate wasteland of half-filled Coke cups and unwanted prizes. She felt like Lucy, stepping from the wardrobe to see that despite everything she’d seen in Narnia, the everyday world had continued, oblivious.
“Where’s the car?” she finally asked. Her first words since leaving Karl.
Hope didn’t break her silence—only pointed at the fair, then headed deeper into the field, leaving Robyn squinting to see why she wasn’t taking the direct route along the fence. When she asked, Hope just shook her head.
“Hope?”
Her friend stopped. It was a moment before she turned. The moon had slid behind wisps of cloud, leaving Hope’s face shadowed, her expression unreadable. It was another moment before she spoke.
“You said Adele can find you anywhere.”
Robyn nodded.
“I’m making sure she doesn’t.”
Hope resumed walking. Robyn trudged behind her, the late-night dew soaking her shoes. Exhaustion slumped her shoulders, the injured one aching. The adrenaline rush from earlier was long gone. Like a midafternoon caffeine-and-sugar-crash, all she wanted to do was follow Hope, let her worry about Adele and find them someplace safe to hide, and to hell with the questions, the whys and hows. But those questions buzzed in her brain like bees, stinging her every time she tried to ignore them.
How did taking this route protect her from Adele? The field was empty—all Adele had to do was glance out when the moon reappeared and she’d see them.
She remembered when they’d first entered the forest, the man saying it was “suitably nondescript” and would keep Adele from finding them.
“She can see me, can’t she? She’s . . . like one of those psychics the police use to find people.” Even as Robyn heard the words, she couldn’t believe she was saying them, and worse, saying them as if she believed them.
“Adele sees me,” she pressed on. “She sees what’s around me and that’s how she tracks me down. If there aren’t any hints in the landscape—”
“—then she can’t find you.”
There, Hope had admitted it.
They traveled another twenty feet before Hope stopped. “Going to the car might not be the wisest idea. Something tells me Adele wouldn’t hesitate to turn the parking lot into the O.K. Corral.” She took the gun from her waistband. “We’ll wait for Karl to come. He’ll find us.”
Of course he would. He always did. An unnatural ability to find them anyplace they left a trail. Like a tracking dog. She shivered and looked over at Hope. She was scanning the field. At a glance, Robyn could see there was no one around, but Hope kept looking, slowly turning. Robyn leaned toward her to say something. Hope’s eyes were closed.
“Hope?”
She lifted a finger, telling her to wait. After a few seconds, Hope flinched and went rigid. Her eyes flew open, gaze swinging to something white in the grass a dozen feet away.
Robyn walked closer and saw a small, white cross with a faded plastic wreath. “Someone must have died here.”