Courage Under Fire (Silver Creek #2) - Lindsay McKenna Page 0,2

back door to watch the firefighters as they tramped through the house and out the rear door. It was then that Cari silently slipped back among them, no one having missed her presence under the circumstances.

Just as Cari got comfortable on her little bed in the corner of the nap room, she heard the door open and close, the clomping of heavy boots, the firefighters moving back near the front door and the nap room.

“Well?” Mrs. Johnson demanded. “Did you see them?”

“No, ma’am,” the lieutenant said. “They’re gone.”

“What? No! That’s impossible!” she said, hurrying past them, disappearing as she headed for the rear door.

Cari held her breath for a moment. The bees were gone! Relief made her sag, her small back against the corner of the two walls. She heard the click-clack of Mrs. Johnson’s low-heeled shoes echoing and coming closer and closer.

“They are gone!” she exclaimed to the firefighters. “Where did they go? Are they hanging around? Will they come back?”

“No, ma’am, they’re gone and we don’t know where they flew. That’s a swarm. In the spring, honeybees will swarm if their hive is too crowded. They’re harmless, really. When they’re swarming, they don’t sting anyone. They’re following their queen to a new home, is all.”

“So? They won’t return to harm the children?”

“They would never harm anyone,” the lieutenant said. “Now, it’s safe to let the kids out into the playground.”

“Heck,” one of the other firefighters said, “you might even use this as a teachable moment for the kids, ma’am. Let the children learn about bee swarms and why they happen?”

Mrs. Johnson curled her lip, glaring at the younger man. “Never! This was a dangerous situation to my children! I’m charged with their safety and welfare. I hate insects!”

The lieutenant shrugged and lifted his hand. “Come on,” he told his team, “we’re done here. You and your children are safe now, Mrs. Johnson.”

And so were her bees, Cari thought, staying silent, remaining the shadow that she was. When she got home this afternoon? She’d tell her parents what happened. They’d be proud of her for helping the queen and her worker bees to safety. But she could never tell the teacher what really happened. Not ever. Mrs. Johnson would not be happy, and Cari knew she’d get five minutes of detention staring at a corner if she was found out. Secrets were good.

* * *

When the dream ended, Cari opened her eyes, awake in the darkness of her bedroom in her San Francisco loft. Looking at a digital clock, the red numbers said 3:13 a.m. Ugh. Why did she have such a rich dream life? Most nights, she had happy dreams. Flights of fancy. But tonight? This one was different.

Sitting up in bed, she rubbed her face, pushing back strands of her black hair away from her face. At twenty-nine years old, her life was like a dream come true. She was a beekeeping consultant with an MBA and worked with countries around the world, showing them how to make beekeeping and the honey they made in their hives a commercial venture.

Because the bee populations around the world were nosediving thanks to pesticides, hive collapses, and loss of rural land for the bees to gather pollen from local flowers, they were in a crisis. A global one.

Cari worked for the state of California as their bee expert and was always busy with the farmers from the Imperial Valley, where so many crops grew. The many almond orchards thrived and all were dependent upon bee pollinators. That was where she came in, giving them sound, healthy advice on what beehives need in order to pollinate the crops successfully. No cutting corners, no use of bee-killing pesticides, she tried to get farmers to work with more organic and sustainable ways to grow their crops, as well as to protect the sagging honeybee population.

She saw herself as a Don Quixote tilting at windmills at times, because agriculture wanted to use pesticides. Now there was a global clash on using them, and billions of bees were dying off at such a swift rate, it would take a toll on how many crops would not be pollinated. No pollination? No food. Starvation could occur. Combine that with a horrifying loss of birds—another pollinator—every year, Mother Earth was in a real crisis, thanks to man.

She felt like a frontline warrior trying to help both types to not only survive, but thrive. There were many raptor rehabilitator activists and bird sanctuaries around the world fighting right