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“Just in case someone’s watching, let’s stay as quiet and invisible as possible. No head lamps. Dark clothes. No neon-yellow sports bras or sexy reflective strips.”
She laughed. “You think my reflective strips are sexy?”
“Hell yes. It’s the way they outline your shape. Sexy as fuck.”
She had to admit, she liked a man who came right out and called you sexy. The men she’d dated weren’t generally like that—maybe because they were mostly other lawyers and it was an occupational hazard to keep your cards close to your vest.
She was touched to discover that Sam already packed up some food for Elias. He insisted that she wear the dark gray hoodie she’d already grabbed, and she turned her joggers inside out to hide the strips. Sam put Buttercup on a leash, which clearly wasn’t her favorite thing in the world.
When they were both suitably dressed, each with a backpack filled with water and food, they slipped out a back door. The moon hadn’t risen yet, and the deep darkness was interrupted only by starlight, which filled the sky with dazzling brilliance, but did little to light their way.
She followed close behind Sam and Buttercup, breathing as shallowly as she could so as not to make a sound in the still night. Using a woodshed as cover, then a pile of lumber with a tarp over it, they made their way into the woods behind his house. There, the forest enveloped them in a darkness so deep that Molly clutched at Sam.
He put his arm around her and whispered in her ear. “The woods are our friend. When it’s this dark and the trees this thick, we’re safe. Even with infrared goggles, you wouldn’t be able to get a clear shot.”
Infrared goggles? She hadn’t even thought of that. What the hell had she gotten herself into?
Her heart raced and skipped a few beats. Darkness was one of those primal fears that must be left over from caveman days, she told herself. When you had no way of knowing what was out there, your imagination went wild. Lions, tigers, bears, gun-wielding birth-control users with infrared goggles!
Which made her wonder….
After they’d put some distance between them and Sam’s house, with no sign of anyone else besides sleepy annoyed squirrels, she whispered, “Why did you have to bring Soraya her birth control in secret?”
“I didn’t ask. That’s her business. But I assume that she and her husband weren’t on the same page.”
“So if he found out, he’d be mad at her?”
“Maybe mad enough to throw a punch at me, but not shoot me.”
“No, but…I don’t know, maybe Soraya got so scared that her husband would find out that…”
“That she decided to take me out because I could incriminate her in wanting birth control? Seems pretty farfetched.”
It did. It seemed absurd. But why would a woman who was so capable with a weapon need to sneak around to acquire birth control? That didn’t make sense to Molly either. She didn’t understand the Chilkoots at all. Her impression of Luke and Naomi had been that they kept to themselves, focused on their family, lived off the grid, did things their own way, and had a thing for red hair.
Where did firing bullets into a house fit into all that?
Elias might be able to explain it. Now that she knew the Chilkoots were under investigation, she realized what a breakthrough it might be to be able to question a member of the family.
“Were you hoping Soraya would be your source?” she whispered to Sam, who had paused next to a swollen creek to determine the best way to cross it. He could barely hear her over the constant roar of water over rocks, so she asked again, louder. Even if they were being followed, they couldn’t be heard over the sound of this rushing torrent.
“I asked her a few questions now and then, but she never answered them. So yeah, at first I had hopes. But nada.”
Sam picked up a branch and tested the depth of the creek water. It was about six inches deep—but very fast-flowing, and probably icy. Buttercup sniffed the water, then recoiled when his nose hit the frigid flow. He’d let Buttercup off his leash now that they were in the forest, but he was still sticking close.
“How did she reach out to you about the birth control in the first place?”
“She and one of her brothers were picking up a shipment of groceries for the family. He stepped away to take a leak, and she slipped me a note asking to meet me at the Fire Peak trailhead. She asked me if I’d mind picking up something for her the next time I was in Blackbear.”
“How did you know it was birth control?”
“I peeked,” he admitted. “I am surveilling them, after all. But after a couple months, she told me anyway.”
“So it’s the Pill that you bring her?”
“Yup. Every month she re-ups.”
“That’s weird.”
