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“And then go back for Daddy?” Kimmie asked tearfully, clearly distraught that they’d left the bastard behind to fend for himself.
Skye shook her head and turned around, scanning for any sign of the road in the distance. I had no idea how far we’d run, but I told myself we had to be getting close. The sun was dipping farther toward the horizon, and the girls had been running off and on for more than an hour now, after walking plenty before that.
April nodded confidently and raked her sweaty hair back with one hand. “You don’t need to worry about him, sweetheart. Rest a few more seconds, and then we’ll keep going.”
* * *
It was Skye who finally, jubilantly, announced that we were almost to the main road. The turnoff to the paved Highway 55 was still at least a mile away—she’d run ahead—but it was just within reach. Another half an hour, if we kept up this pace. We were going to make it. The girls were exhausted and soaked in sweat. Every time they took another short rest, April’s hands shook while she scanned the trail they’d traveled. I knew she was practicing her speech for if he found them. But I knew as well as she did that there was nothing she could say. James wouldn’t buy the bear line. He knew he was the bear.
“I kept going to see how close we are to town, and it’s not far at all,” Skye said. “Maybe another five miles along the road? She’s a white lady with kids. Someone will stop and give them a ride. She’ll flag someone down, right? Then call the police?”
I smiled, ready to celebrate. And that was when April suddenly fell, landing flat against the dirt while Kimmie and Emma turned to her in shock.
At first, I thought she had passed out. It would have made sense. She hadn’t had anything to drink—while running for her life—for hours now.
She wasn’t lying still, though. She motioned for the girls to lie next to her, hissing for them to be quiet in the same voice she’d used to tell them about the bear. In a tone that I imagined mothers have used in dire moments for as long as they have gathered their children under their wings when death approached. A tone that said, There is no room for questions. The worst is coming, and these words combined with your exact obedience are your only hope for safety.
I stopped listening to April and the girls and turned my attention to the danger. The sound of cracking branches and heavy footfalls was approaching fast. It would have been futile to run when he was this close. If he stopped and listened, even for a second, he was close enough to hear them now. Maybe he’d already heard them.
I went out to meet him, while Meghan and Skye stayed with April and the girls. When I glanced back over my shoulder, the only person I could see was Meghan, her arms wrapped around her stomach as she watched me go. The others were completely hidden from this vantage, next to a toppled tree trunk that butted up to a couple of mossy boulders.
He was coming from the direction of the road. When I caught sight of him, I could still see the minivan perched precariously along the narrow dirt shoulder at the top of the steep graded slope. In our scramble through the woods, we’d moved closer to the road than I’d thought.
Oblivious to the noise he was making, James growled as his shirt got caught on a dead tree branch, ripping part of it. His eyes scanned the diverging deer paths in front of him, looking for any sign of April or the girls. As he crashed toward me, I could see that he was clutching something in his hand. It was the multitool from the survival kit: half ax blade, half hammer.
There was no more pretense. The jig was up. There was no trace of the collected, methodical planning in this person moving toward me. His hair, sweaty against his forehead, was matted and wild. His eyes were hard and full of rage. There were no more games to be played or time to bide. April had betrayed him. She’d run away before he was ready to finish her off. And he was going to kill all three of them as soon as he found them.
I didn’t know what he was thinking at this moment. I didn’t want to. But I could feel the desperation and rage coming off of him in thick waves through the air between us as he passed me, whipping his head from side to side and scrutinizing the terrain.
That desperation was the only comfort I could find. He’d been up and down this dirt road in that damn minivan all these hours without success. Maybe, just maybe, he’d turn around and drive a little farther when he didn’t find them near the road.
But he barreled forward, letting out another grunt of rage. I followed him, powerless as ever to do anything to stop him if he found them.
46. SKYE
Cascade, Idaho
At first, I stayed hidden with April and the girls, terror squeezing me like a tube of toothpaste as I heard him get closer. I knew he couldn’t see me, but part of me was certain that if I poked my head up over the fallen log, I’d see those dark eyes lock with mine.
Meghan didn’t seem to share my irrational fears. She stood where she was next to us, arms wrapped around herself like a desperate hug as if trying to hold herself together.
April had been right to tell the girls a bear was chasing us. Because that’s exactly what he sounded like, thumping his way down the deer paths, cracking branches and making that angry, awful noise in his throat. He sounded just like an animal: an animal hell-bent on tearing someone apart.
The girls stayed completely still and silent, the only movement the quaking of their little bodies and the heaving of their chests.
Kimmie had her face turned toward the dirt, her body tucked most of the way under April’s arms. Emma was huddled at the edge, her blue Elsa shirt clutched tight in April’s grasp as her chest rose and fell in fast, shaky gasps.
He drifted a little farther, then a little closer. He was sweeping the area.
When he stopped, a stone’s throw away, I finally couldn’t help myself. I looked in the direction Meghan was facing, eyes wide, and saw him standing just like I’d feared, staring back at us.
He was breathing hard, his mouth open in a gaping scowl as he caught his breath and looked down the deer path that forked in front of him. Did he see us? Did he hear the girls? It might not matter. Because if he went any farther in this direction, he would walk right past us. And he would see them.
In his right hand, he held the multitool, gripped tight. His gaze traveled down the narrow paths in front of him, and I tried to see what he saw.
There were no footprints in that direction. No disturbed ground. We’d come from the other side of the path. I was almost positive he couldn’t see any sign of us. Not yet.
He made a noise low in his throat and took a step forward.
