Voracious - Alice Henderson [113]
To one side of the desk stood a massive false rock face with a taxidermied mountain goat on top. She ducked down a narrow passageway to her left, winding by displays on logging and early tourism industry in the Canadian Rockies.
Finally she found a quiet little corner by a luge display and sat down next to its red and white sled. What could she do? What were her options? She could rent a car, but she didn’t know of any nearby places, and it would take her a while to find them. She’d also have to scare up a ride to the rental location if it was too far away.
She could hitchhike. But at this point, paranoia was tightening its already considerable grip on her perceptions. The creature could be any person who picked her up along the road. Stefan would just have to steal a different car, assume a different form, and nonchalantly pick her up from the side of the road.
She put her head in her hands.
“You okay?” asked a young voice next to her. A little blonde-haired girl stood there, a rubber lizard in one hand.
Madeline smiled. “Yeah. Just got a headache.”
“You should take aspirin. My mom gives me this orange-flavored aspirin. It’s pretty good.”
Madeline guessed at the girl’s age. Five. Maybe six. Kate’s age. In all the panic of the last few days, she’d nearly forgotten about the little girl she’d pulled from the dam. She hoped Kate was okay.
“Cool lizard,” Madeline said, indicating the girl’s rubbery companion.
“It’s a gecko. His name’s Dexter.”
“Hiya, Dex,” Madeline said.
The girl laughed. A woman walked up behind the child and put her hands on the small shoulders. “Ready to go? We’ll go get ice cream.”
“Really? I’m ready!”
She turned without a word and grasped her mother’s hand. Together they walked away, rounding a corner beyond further displays.
Madeline returned her head to her hands. “What am I going to do?” she whispered.
Outside, the distinct shriek of a train whistle sounded. She lifted her head.
The train. Lots of people would be on it. And the station was just around the corner from the visitor center. The whistle pierced the air again.
She was out of the visitor center in a flash, pushing past a family that was dithering over a map of Banff National Park in the doorway.
Outside, she ran up a small rise and saw the silver of an Amtrak train sitting at the station.
Scanning the road, she saw no sign of George or the car.
She rushed toward the station, hoping the train would stay at the station for a few more minutes.
Madeline ran to the ticket window, trying to catch her breath to talk to the cashier there. An elderly man with a neatly trimmed white mustache, he waited patiently while she gasped and tried to swallow away the dryness in her throat. “Does this train go through Mothershead?” she asked.
The cashier shook his head. “Nope. This is the Empire Builder. It goes west from here but stops along the way in Whitefish, and you can take a bus from there.”
“Great,” she said between gasps. “Is it leaving soon?”
“At 5:46 p.m.” He looked at his watch, a gold-banded thing with a black face. “That’s in about twenty minutes.”
“Terrific.” She pulled her wallet from the roomy back pocket of Noah’s jeans. Fishing her credit card out, she passed it across the counter.
He totaled up her ticket and finished the sale, handing her a small folder with her ticket inside. Then he pulled out a piece of paper and wrote something on it. “These are the bus times out of Whitefish,” he explained, “and directions to get to the bus station from the train.” He slid that paper across the counter, too.
“Thanks,” she said, taking the offered paper and envelope.
“You can go ahead and board, if you like. Might be a good idea. You can get a better seat.”
She nodded and turned away from the counter. Light from the setting sun streamed into the little train station, and she squinted against the golden brightness.
Outside the train waited, and uniformed Amtrak employees