“He was a swabbie, not a marine.” Archie’s insult dripped with good-natured distaste.
Cullen put the spinach back. “How about peas instead?”
“Yes, peas will do. Oh, and here’s Cheerio-type things. We gotta have that. You pour a handful of those out, and it teaches her how to grab stuff and feed herself if the Rice Krispies things are too small,” Archie insisted. While they debated with all the seriousness of a United Nations inquiry, Kit edged past them a few paces and gathered warmoutfits that appeared to be Tot’s size, socks, blankets, a jacket, a cap knitted to resemble a strawberry, and several packs of diapers.
Archie looked up from perusing a shelf. “Okay, so we got bottles and plenty of formula and food. Some clothes and a supply of diapers. She use a binky?”
Kit frowned. “A what?”
“A pacifier,” Cullen translated.
“Oh.” Did Tot use one? She hadn’t seen any in the duffel bag, but there might have been one buried in her car seat when they’d snatched her and run.
“One way to find out.” Cullen ripped open a packaged pacifier and offered it to Tot, who’d begun to fuss. She gulped it like a baby bird after a worm. All three of them watched Tot suck contentedly.
“Guess that answers the binky question,” Cullen said. “Look at her go on that thing.”
Kit rolled her eyes at Cullen. “You mean we didn’t have to listen to her wailing for hours after you dropped her off the roof?”
“What?” Archie’s eyes went as round as Oreos. “Dropped her where?”
“Uh, that sounded worse than it actually was,” Cullen said.
“No, it didn’t.” Kit enjoyed Cullen’s discomfiture.
“Never mind,” Archie said stiffly. “I don’t wanna know.” He gathered Tot closer, mumbling something under his breath. Their last acquisition was two sleeping bags for Cullen and Kit.
“We got enough for now,” Archie said. “Can always come back if things remain stable.”
Stable. The word jarred. Did that mean if the volcano didn’t go ballistic or the men didn’t show up to kill them?
On the reverse trip, she returned under her own steam to the library, lugging a bag of items that Cullen had meticulously listed on the whiteboard behind the counter along with his name and cell number. He’d laid down the cash he had and inked the remaining amount in the form of an IOU. The mom and pop would be astonished to know they’d supplied three grownups and a baby when they came back ... if there was anything left to return to.
Her cheeks went stiff in the frigid wind. The temperature was dropping steadily. Grateful her feet were protected, she hustled inside. As the door closed behind her, she thought of Annette. Was she alive? Out there somewhere in the elements? Had she been caught? By Nico? And if he was after Annette, why was he also terrorizing them? Did the person after them think they’d recovered her after she bolted and were helping her flee with his money?
A darker thought slithered through her brain. Maybe he’d already killed her and was coming for his other property. The cash and...
Tot.
An iron band formed in her chest as she watched Archie unwrap the sleeping Tot and gently transfer her into the warmer pajamas they’d picked out, yellow with rubber duckies that reminded Kit of Cullen stuffed into her raincoat. The cloth legs were too long, Tot’s toes not quite reaching the ends. The baby winced, squinching up her mouth as if she would cry out, but she didn’t.
You’re noone’s property,Tot.
And she realized in that moment that she’d fight any man to her last breath if he tried to take the child. It would be the hill she’d die on. Her truck and this baby, those were the two things that mattered, and one was out of her control ... but not Tot. It felt strange to have a stranger’s baby suddenly rearrange everything, but Nico had done the same when he snatched Annette away from all of her girlish plans and aspirations. What had it felt like to Annette’s mother to worry and grieve every single day of her life for her missing daughter? She thought of her own mother, a woman she’d come to realize was not a perfect, larger-than-life figure but a fragile human with weaknesses and flaws of her own. The hurt of what she’d done to Kit’s father still throbbed, but maybe a bit less painfully. They still had time to work through what had happened. Didn’t they?
Cullen was fiddling with an ancient-looking transistor radio he’d found, trying to get a news station for an update on the volcano. He twisted the metal antenna to the right and then the left before he sat back with a frustrated sigh, glancing at her.
He frowned. “We forget something at the store? I can go back.”
“No.” She busied herself unbagging the groceries. “Mind wandered is all.”
Archie laid the sleeping Tot on a mat in a section of floor in the children’s library that was padded with foam tiles. Kit wanted to cover her with blankets, but that urge had to be resisted. Hopefully Archie’s generator would keep the heat at a reasonable comfort level.
She organized the foodstuffs on the counter in the breakroom, baby foods, baby supplies, adult snacks, water bottles neatly lined up. When she’d finished, the radio crackled, and Cullen gave himself a silent fist in the air as he adjusted the volume.
The broadcaster’s voice was tinny and distant. “As Mount Ember steams under her snowy blanket, scientists sent up choppers again this morning to get new aerial photography of the summit. Most ominous of the findings was that the bulge on the east side of the mountain continues to grow. This bulge has already moved some three hundred feet up and out from where it was at this date last year. Couple that with swarms of earthquakes numbering into the thousands, and the alarm levels are increasing. Local county sheriffs have enacted blockades on the two major roads leading to the mountain, and the FAA has extended their no-fly zone from five miles to ten. All residents are urged to evacuate immediately due to...”
The radio dissolved into static. Cullen grumbled under his breath. No amount of fiddling with the dials brought it back. He stared at the device, fists on hips.
