“Hobson was tied up, right? Your father, too. That only leaves Cammie and that Preacher fellow.”
Stella looked around the room, seemingly for the first time. “Where are we now?”
“You don’t remember leaving Whidbey?”
She shook her head.
I told her about the second call from my father’s lookout. His seaplane. The drive from Devil’s Lake back to Pittsburgh.
She took all this in. “What is today’s date?”
“August 13.”
Her mouth fell open. “Five days,” she said softly. “I’ve never gone five days.”
Although the fruit had helped, Stella was still horribly pale. Her eyes were sunken and red. When her legs became wobbly, I grabbed her with the towel and held her up.
“I shouldn’t be near the others,” she said in a quiet voice. “Can you bring one of the cots in here?”
“Are you sure?”
She nodded. “It will be safer.”
Using the towel as a buffer, I helped her to an aluminum bench so she could sit. “Wait here.”
I went back out to the bunk room and grabbed her duffle bag, one of the cots, and a thick comforter I found folded up on top of one of the other cots. My father was awake now. They all watched me but said nothing.
I set up the cot in a small alcove behind some lockers.
Stella’s legs were weak. I worried they might buckle with each step, but I got her there.
She peeled off her wet clothes, dropped them in a pile on the floor, and put on a long-sleeve black dress I found in her duffle.
I had picked up her black gloves, both dripping wet. When I gave them to her, she wrinkled her nose. “These are disgusting. I need to wash them properly.”
The box of latex gloves was on the floor back at the shower. I retrieved it and handed her a pair. “Here. They’re not stylish, but at least they’re dry.”
She put them on, then climbed back into the cot, tugging the comforter over herself. “All will be over soon, Pip.”
Stella fell asleep then, and for that moment at least, she seemed at peace.
I washed her black gloves in the sink using some liquid soap, then I hung them over a towel rack to dry.
Before leaving her, I placed the remains of the fruit bowl within reach on the ground beside her, and I brushed her wet hair from her face and brow.
Then I peeled off my own gloves and went back to the others.
Back in the bunk room, Cammie sat with her daughter, watching her work in a coloring book. She looked up at me wearily. Preacher huddled over a table of weapons with two of Dunk’s men—I spied everything from AR-15 assault rifles to handguns and knives. He had added our own guns to the pile along with all the headphones, unboxed and lined up.
Hobson sat in one of the chairs, his blindfold off. My father sat in a chair, facing him with a bottle of Jägermeister perched between them on an old wooden milk crate. Hobson’s hands were no longer bound. Both raised shot glasses to their lips and drank. I spotted another shot glass on the floor next to Cammie and an empty one in Preacher’s hand.
“Seriously? You’re all drinking right now? Why’s he untied?”
“Do you want one?” my father said, refilling both him and Hobson.
“No, of course not.”
For some reason, this drew looks from everyone.
