Winter Prey

Chapter 22

Chapter 22

Caleb kept his focus on the snow-banked roadway, trying without success to think of something to calm Kymbria's tenseness. Distracted and uneasy, she sat on the passenger seat, hands fisted in her lap. Her posture mirrored his own inner unrest, although he hoped he was covering it up better than her. He was trying, anyway, to keep a lid on nearly the same bundle of emotions he'd suffered through back in Colorado. This situation was way too close to what he'd gone through then. It was one thing to be chasing this damned entity at a distance. Now that it had started its actual hunt, taken a little boy's mother -

Kymbria abruptly turned toward him.

"Sorry. I'm falling down as navigator. You just missed the Tallbear's driveway."

"No prob," he assured her and pulled into a convenient wide spot to turn his truck around. A moment later, Kymbria pointed. "There."

A pair of blue spruce grew on each side of the lane, the mailbox barely visible beneath the overhang from the pine on the right and snow piled up by the plow. Caleb drove between the two spruce, down a narrow trail, bumpy with uneven layers of packed snow.

Behind the tidy brick one-story with red shutters on the windows lay a fairly small lake. Smoke curled from one of several ice-fishing shanties in a thin, dark path against the cloud-laden sky. A backdrop of green pines interspersed with white birch lined the shore. The smaller lakes would be shallower and freeze over earlier than the large ones. Experienced ice fishermen knew which lakes were safe at this point in the season. Caleb wished himself out on the lake, nothing on his mind except when the yellow flag would flicker, indicating a possible walleye or northern pike nibbling at his minnow. Perhaps Kymbria with him in the close confines of one of those small four-sided buildings, her excitement tangible when they caught a fish.

An acre of cleared land surrounded the home, and snowmobile tracks littered the area from both the lake and sides of the house. Three machines sat in front of the door, a fairly new four-wheel drive pickup and a sporty restored white Mustang beside them. He pulled his truck in beside the Mustang.

"That's Donnie's car," Kymbria said, indicating the Mustang. "Amber's son. He bought it several years ago from money he earned himself. Before he could even get a driver's license. Donnie and Bob, Amber's husband, restored it. The pickup's Amber's. I guess Bob had to go to work. His truck can't be in the garage. There's no room there for any vehicles. It's packed with all sorts of sporting goods and Bob's boat."

Caleb let her ramble on. He understood her reluctance to enter the house, no matter how deeply she cared for her friend and wanted to be there for her. His own lack of enthusiasm stemmed from a different reason - knowing a small, terrorized boy waited inside.

"I wish Mom had come with us. She's so much better at nurturing than I am. With my patients, I can distance myself."

"You left her the keys," Caleb reminded her. "Your mother will be here as soon as she gets her car taken care of."

Kymbria stared at the snowmobiles. "One of those belongs to Bob, but I don't recognize the other two. Amber must have someone here with her already. I'm sure the moccasin telegraph has been hot this morning."

"Do you still want to go in?"

She looked at him as though he'd called her a nasty name. "Of course. I'm her friend."

She threw the passenger door open and started to slide out, then sighed. "I'm sorry, Caleb. I know you didn't mean it that way. I...I am - honestly - afraid to go in there and become an integral part of this trauma right now. I asked to be relieved of my counseling duties the last month I was in the Army. I just couldn't face other people's problems, let alone help them overcome them. But I have no choice here. Amber's been my friend for most of my life."