and sliced through the night, roughly paralleling a four-lane highway. Houses and stores blurred beneath them.
“This road we’re following goes to Pamplona,” Garza said. “Probably another six, seven minutes to the house.”
The land looked surprisingly open beyond the strip of homes and stores that paralleled the highway. Villages were scattered in the night, islands in a sea of darkness. Rebecca understood better now how the kidnappers could have moved Kira here without being noticed.
Soon enough, the helicopter banked right. She saw the fire now, the orange glow in the night. Blue lights flashed near it, tiny in comparison.
Below and ahead, off the highway, more blue lights, taller, no doubt belonging to the fire trucks. They moved weirdly slowly through the darkness, reminding her of Garza’s warning about the road.
The helicopter turned off the highway, quickly passing the trucks. As they closed in the power of the blaze became apparent. It was uncontrolled, shooting into the night. If Kira had been inside the house—
Nothing from Brian, but then she hadn’t texted either. What could she say? Yeah, it’s burning.
Now they were only a few hundred yards away. The helicopter’s spotlight swept over the scrubby ground, past a single strand of bushes that shook in the rotor wash, a row of skeletal houses.
The burning house stood at the end of a cul-de-sac. The flames reached hungry into the night. The police sedan was parked well back, nothing the cops could do. The helicopter slowed abruptly now, the pilot hesitating, looking for the right spot. It moved forward and set down fast. Rebecca’s head bobbed as its skids bounced and settled on the hardpack dirt road.
She unbuckled herself even before the helicopter stopped moving. Garza reached for her but she shook off his hand, jumped out, ran toward the house. The cops on the ground watched her, and one stepped toward her, in case she wanted to try a heroic and pointless rescue. But even twenty feet away the heat was huge, painful. Even if Rebecca had known Kira was inside, she couldn’t have forced herself through it.
The house would collapse soon; it was tilting, sending embers through the night. Some had already settled on other roofs.
The fire trucks were close enough now for her to hear sirens.
Until someone proved otherwise, she had to assume Kira was not in there. The kidnappers had moved her, set fire to the place, a plan to distract the cops while they collected the ransom.
Or Kira had escaped somehow, beaten them, and they’d burned the house to destroy the evidence.
Think.
If she’d escaped, she was close.
She would have run for the highway. She was too much of a city girl to head to open ground. She would want to find a phone as soon as she could.
But she hadn’t been on the road. Why not?
Rebecca walked away from the house, up the road, trotting now. Garza called to her. She ignored him. Maybe she was wasting time, but she couldn’t wait here and watch. Kira was out there. Not inside that house-sized barbeque. Not stuffed in some trunk. Out there. And close. Rebecca had to believe.
Then why hadn’t she called? Why hadn’t she come out when the police showed up?
Think.
Because she was injured, wounded. Even seeing the cops couldn’t get her to move—
The bushes she’d seen, the movement. Not rotor wash. The helicopter had been too far away.
An animal. A person.
Rebecca ran now. She topped the hill, nearly tripped on a chain the cops had knocked aside, kept running. The fire engines were only a few hundred feet away. Their headlights appeared, coming faster than she expected. They bounced down the hill toward her and honked ferociously. She angled aside and kept running, feeling the rush of air as they passed. And then she had the night to herself, none of the cops chasing her, Let her go, she’s emotional.
She ran.
To the top of the second low hill. Where had the bush been? On the downslope.
There.
The leaves shaking. Behind them—
Something, someone, moving.
Rebecca ran down, cutting toward the bush, skidding in the soft dirt, screaming for her daughter.
The bush twisted.
And the voice, weak and thin across the night, just one word:
“Mom?”
A question. As if Kira couldn’t believe her mother had found her.
As if she might ever have doubted.
VI KIRA AND BRIAN
(SIX MONTHS LATER)
34
Chevy Chase, Maryland
The cliché was true. Three inches of snow and D.C. shut down. Like no one had ever driven on a wet road. Waze almost made matters worse; it sent everyone skidding down the same side