He whipped his head around while Tot tried again to chomp his finger.
“There’s something in the bottom of the duffel, underneath the liner. I can feel it.” She’d carefully unloaded the contents and stacked them neatly on the seat while she searched.
“Can you get it out?”
She peeled the bottom panel from the bag, putting the rigid plastic liner on top of the unloaded supplies.
He kept a palm on Tot as he watched Kit remove a small clasp envelope secured in a zip-top bag.
“Bingo,” he murmured. “Good search, Garrido.”
She held it up, opened the plastic bag.
So this was it, the prize that Nico and Simon were willing to kill for, had killed for. Cullen could taste it againon the edges of his tongue, the hint of justice, close and pungent. It was now in their possession.
“And there’s something else ... a lump—”
An odd sound caught his attention. “Did you hear that?”
“Uh-huh.”
It was a roiling, billowing boom as if an enormous load had been dropped from a great height. The vehicle began to shudder, and the spilled puffs of cereal fell off the seat. The tremoring grew more pronounced.
Kit dropped the envelope back into the duffel. “Earthquake.”
“Worse. Buckle in,” he snapped. He handed Tot over into the back seat and she did so.
“This is going to be rough,” he said.
“What is it?”
But he didn’t need to explain. She’d looked out the passenger side window and seen the enormous belch of smoke cloaking the slopes above the valley, the roiling clouds of debris gathering into a monstrous river above the trail as the cliff above them collapsed. Landslide.
He heard her gulp.
A tsunami of timber, rock, and earth was headed right at them.
He put it in gear and punched the ATV out of the blackberry brambles. How fast could he go without hitting a tree or rock that would immobilize them? And Tot with no car seat, nothing to protect her from impact except Kit’s determined hold.Lord,get us out of here.
In the back of his mind, he thought of Archie.
He wouldn’t have had time to hike far enough to be out of range.
Cullen sped through the trees, avoiding a collision with a boulder at the last minute. Each ticking second revealed the sickening truth. They wouldn’t outrun the onslaught. The edges of it were already outpacing the ATV, slithering trails of debris that would engulf the tires soon enough. Their only shot was to find something, anything that would protect them.
“The lumber mill,” he shouted over the growing din.
She might have answered, but he was barely able to control the ATV.
A pile of loosened rocks he hadn’t noticed slid across his path. He braked hard, corrected, and avoided the slide. Around and in between and behind, he drove frantically, riding the gas and brake pedals. Tot cried as Kit struggled to keep her in place.
The far edge of the hollow appeared, close. Movement in the rearview made his heart stop. An ocean of debris behind them, swelling with every passing moment as the fallen trees knocked over standing ones, ripping them from the ground and snapping them like matchsticks. The sheer enormity of it took his breath away for an instant.
He goosed the gas, launching the ATV clear of the hollow and onto a smoother hillside where he pushed the speed. The wheels bumped and ricocheted as they traversed the shuddering ground. Fewer trees here also meant the monster behind them would surge unimpeded.
The jutting remnant of the lumber mill appeared above the choking clouds.
Those old bones had withstood decades of punishment.
