When the Wind Blows - James Patterson [89]
But a strange, intuitive feeling stopped me from yelling, “Hey, we’re over here.”
Kit and the children were being very quiet, too.
Then Kit pointed to the left and I saw our salvation: a black Jeep. Our Jeep.
Unfortunately, Vaughan and the male nurse had discovered it, too. They were trying the doors.
Kit forced a clip into his gun. His face was grim, stretched tight. His concentration was total.
He kept his gun in shooting position. They finally walked away from the Jeep. They were looking for something—us? Their eyes kept scanning the surrounding woods. Thank God, they didn’t see us. I threw a deep, audible sigh.
Something bright flashed in my peripheral vision. I jumped back. What now?
Kit was holding up the car keys.
“Whatever made you lock the car?”
Flashing a grin I hadn’t seen in a while, he said, “It’s what city kids do.”
Chapter 94
WE HOPED AGAINST HOPE that no one was looking for Kit’s Jeep. We hoped they didn’t know who he was, or why he was out here in Colorado. Then we worried about the FBI’s lack of involvement, and specifically why Kit had been taken off the investigation. We had our plates full with worry.
This was not good. None of it was. We piled into the Jeep and Kit drove fast, almost dangerously, down the narrow, twisty mountain road we’d come on. The kids loved it, urging him to go even faster.
As we rounded a sharp curve over a ravine, I saw a small group of men and women standing by one side of the road. Hikers? They looked harmless enough.
Then I recognized them and my heart nearly stopped. They were from the hospital in Boulder, too. Some of them were wearing headphones with tiny mikes near their mouths.
Three men and a woman—all of them doctors at Boulder Community. Wearing headphones to go hiking? Damn. I didn’t think so. I wasn’t real big on conspiracy theories, but I had a lot of faith in what I saw with my own two eyes.
“Get down. Please get down!” I told the kids. “Get down below the window.”
The suspicious doctors looked up at our speeding Jeep, but the children stayed down, and the docs from Hell didn’t seem to notice anything wrong.
“They’re from Boulder Community Hospital.” I told Kit the latest bad news. “This is getting so damn creepy. I can’t stand it. I wish I was being paranoid.”
He stepped up the speed, and the kids whooped and hollered again. Even under the circumstances, it was a joyride to them. They were absolutely fearless. Somehow, we made it to the bottom of the mountain in one piece, and as far as we knew, without being spotted.
I remembered that Oz, the twins, and Icarus had never been outside the school before this. It was all brand-new to them. They were on overload, complete overstimulation, maybe even more than me.
“Welcome to Bear Bluff, Colorado,” I said. I looked back and tried to make a happy face. “It’s actually a pretty nice place to live.”
“It’s even creepier than the School,” Max said in a deep, croaky voice. She laughed. “Just kidding, Frannie and Kit. It is nice. If you like to eat red meat. You’ll love it, guys. Not! ”
“I’m really, really scared,” Wendy trilled. Her brown eyes were bulging, and she did look petrified now.
“So am I,” said Peter.
“Care Bear stare!” Max said to them. Obviously, it was something they shared, a lucky saying, a charm.
“Care Bear stare!” the others chorused. “Care Bear stare! Care Bear stare!”
Unfortunately, Max was right about the creepy part.
Now, two army Jeeps were approaching in the opposite direction. Army Jeeps? Was the army part of this, too? How could that be? Who were they? Everybody but us?
“Down in back,” I whispered and the kids ducked again. I ducked down as well.
We passed by the grunting and groaning U.S. army Jeeps without incident.
“Kit, please tell me this can’t get any worse,” I said as we got on the last stretch toward my place. I needed to stop at the Inn-Patient for medical supplies. I had to treat the lacerations and bruises from our