She looked through the windshield and frowned. “Where are we going?” Gabe had driven past the cottage and was heading toward the trees at the back of the property.
“Have you been back to the hideout since you were shot?”
Natalie swallowed the knot of fear in her throat. “No.”
“Do you want to go there now?”
Gabe stopped the truck and goose bumps crawled along her skin. She took a deep breath and thought about her granddad. About the sculpture that had saved her life more than fifty years after he’d made it.
She searched Gabe’s face. He knew how difficult it was for her, how much she wanted to move on with her life. “Okay.”
“Are you sure?”
She opened the door and stepped onto the dry grass. “No, I’m not sure, but I need to do this at some point. It might as well be today. How do you feel about going back?”
Gabe wrapped his hand around hers. “As uncertain as you are. We can do this together.”
* * *
Steppinginto the forest had never been more difficult. Natalie’s feet moved in time with Gabe’s. The scent of pine filled her lungs as they walked beyond the first few feet of trees. Drawing strength from his silence made the first part of the journey bearable. By the time they’d found the sculpture she was a nervous wreck.
“My granddad made this when he was about twenty-five years old.”
Gabe touched the gnarled wood, the holes where the knots had crumbled over time. “Why did he place it here?”
“It used to be in grandma’s garden, but they moved it when I was about six years old.” She took a deep breath, allowing her memories to soothe the chaos. “Granddad would go to his hideout most afternoons. Sometimes he was late getting home for dinner, so grandma and I would go into the forest to find him.” She ran her hand along the sculpture’s long, skinny beak. “As long as we followed the direction of the hummingbird’s beak, we wouldn’t get lost.”
“And that’s what you did when Chapman was chasing you?”
She nodded, half-listening for the sound of footsteps behind her. “I didn’t know where to go. When I saw the sculpture, I knew.”
Gabe’s hand tightened on hers. “What did you do next?”
“I ran. I ran so hard that I thought my lungs would explode.” She pulled Gabe toward the overgrown trail that would take them to the hideout. “Chapman was yelling the whole time, telling me about the women he’d killed. I tried to block out his voice, but I couldn’t.”
“If it’s any consolation, you left an easy trail for Sherlock to follow. As soon as he sniffed one of your T-shirts, he knew where you were.”
“I prayed so hard that he’d find me. When I was in the treehouse and heard Sherlock bark, I thought Chapman would go away. But he didn’t. He kept telling me how he was going to kill me, how good it would feel to hear me scream.”
She took a deep breath, tried to control her pounding heart. When they arrived at a small clearing she studied the forest floor. Specks of yellow fluorescent paint were attached to some of the leaves. “This is where I hurt my leg.”
“The paint will be from the crime scene investigation.”
She nodded, then looked farther along the trail. “The hideout isn’t far from here.”
No matter how hard she tried, her legs wouldn’t move.
“It’s okay. There’s no rush.”
She studied Gabe’s face, the beads of sweat covering his forehead. It was bad enough reliving the time she’d spent in the forest. For Gabe, it was worse. His memories of the day were connected with what had happened to Michelle. Except Michelle had died. She hadn’t.
Her family had shown her what it meant to be courageous. It was time to pull herself together and help Gabe. Jaydon Chapman would never be coming back and from today, she didn’t want him in her dreams, either.
She squeezed Gabe’s hand. “We can do this together.”
He took a deep breath and stepped forward.
A few minutes later, they were standing below her granddad’s great big tree, each lost in their own memories.
