They both look at the baby, who’s wrapped in a blanket, kicking her feet, wailing away.The mom pulls her blanket a little tighter, then looks at me and shrugs, a half-smile coming onto her face.
“We were in pure survival mode anyway,” she says.“I’ve barely noticed we’re not at our house.”
Yikes, I think, looking at the baby’s tiny, angry face.
“Well, good luck,” I say to them.“It can only get better from here.”
I close the door gently and leave.
Turning the corner, I nearly run head-on into another woman.
“Sorry!”I say, holding out my hands.
“Do you work here?”she asks, taking my shoulder firmly in her hand.
“I’m with the Forest Service,” I say.
She takes a deep breath, and my stomach tightens, because this woman is obviously justbarelykeeping it together.
“I can’t find my daughter,” she says.
I nod, and strangely, a sense of calm washes over me, now that I have a task, something todobesides trying to be useful and thinking about Hunter.
“What’s her name?”I ask.
“Delilah Clark,” the woman says.“I’m Kim Clark.She was spending the night at a friend’s house, and, you know, I’ve been so busy lately with the kids and work and school that I wasn’t watching the news or listening to the radio, and I didn’t know we were being evacuated...”
“Kim, I’m gonna take you to the gym, where we can sort this out,” I say, even as a flutter of anxiety ripples through my stomach for Delilah.“She’s gotta be somewhere, and we can sort of it out there.”
Kim just nods, her eyes lowering.She’s clearly about ten seconds away from total meltdown, and I lead her toward the gym where my bosses and the Red Cross volunteers are gathered.
The short version is that Kim didn’t realize they were under evacuation orders, and let Delilah spend the night at a friend’s house in Coldwater.The moment she realized, she tried to call Delilah, the friend, the friend’s parents, but couldn’t findanyof them.
She drove over, but the house was empty, a red EVACUATED sticker on the front door.
“That means Delilah is safe,” I say, pushing open the door to the gym.
“From the fire,” Kim says.“I hope, anyway.”
I’d be willing to bet fifty bucks that Delilah is safe and sound somewhere, and hasn’t been kidnapped into an international sex trafficking ring.
I know better than to say the wordsinternational sex trafficking ringto Kim right now, though, even if I were trying to reassure her.We walk toward the knot of people gathered around folding tables in the corner.
“Jen, Mike,” I say.“This is....”
They both turn around and look at me, their faces so pale andstrickenthat the words die on my lips.
“Clementine,” Jennifer says, her voice a scratchy whisper.“There you are.”
Suddenly I feel like there’s a clamp on my chest, metal teeth bearing down.I forget all about Kim and Delilah, and I look from Jennifer to Mike and back.
“What?”I ask.
ChapterThirty-Two
Hunter
I don’t question Porter,I just make for the boulder scramble as fast as I can.I know he’s right.If we can get down and around the shoulder of the hill before the fire reaches that point, we might make it back into the black.
