"It seems to be your day to be attacked by overzealous males," he observed dryly. Grabbing the dog by the collar, he offered Crysta a hand up. "Come on, we've got a storage building to break into."
The Rottweiler accompanied them through the rows of buildings as if it were his role to play guide. Crysta, giddy with relief, had to laugh at how friendly he was. "You can tell he's used to having people come in here during the day."
Sam threw the dog a measuring glance. "His looks are enough to scare most people off. It really isn't necessary for him to be vicious."
When they reached Riley O'Keefe's storage building, they found themselves faced with a new problem. Studying the door, Sam said, "We need a crowbar to bust the lock."
With that, he left Crysta to wait by the building with the dog. Several minutes later, he returned with a crowbar.
"Talk about luck. Where did you find it?"
Sam quirked an eyebrow. "Would you believe it was lying on the office porch?" He inserted the tip of the crowbar under the edge of the garage-style door. "Remind me never to store my stuff here." Sam heaved downward, and on his third try, something inside the door gave a loud pop. An instant later, he shoved the portal up on its runners.
Giving the crowbar a toss, he flashed her a grin. "How's that for Tarzan?"
"You're getting there." Crysta stepped into the enclosure, squinting to see. Boxes, several rows deep, lined all three walls. Each container was about two feet long and over a foot wide. Recalling boxes exactly like these in her first dream, Crysta related that information to Sam and grinned with delight. "Pay dirt."
Wasting no time, Sam stepped around her and seized the taped lid of a box, ripping it open. Rising on tiptoe, Crysta peered inside. Small round tins gleamed up at her in the dim light. "What is it?"
Sam swore under his breath. "Canned salmon!"
With the explanation, he unended the box, dumping cans and cardboard dividers on the concrete floor. Using the toe of his boot to scatter them even more, he swore again.
"Nothing! Can you believe it? Nothing but canned salmon."
Crysta dropped to one knee, seizing a can. "Let me have your knife. Let's open a few and check what's inside."
Sam pulled his knife from its scabbard and took the can. Jabbing the lid with the blade tip, he cut around the rim in a rocking motion. Peeling back the lid, he said in a dry voice, "Surprise, surprise—salmon."
Unwilling to give up so easily, Crysta busied herself opening more boxes while Sam checked the contents of several other cans. In the end, their findings were the same. The boxes in Riley's storage building held nothing but canned salmon, which was not, by any stretch of the imagination, an illegal commodity.
When it became apparent that their visit to the public storage unit had proven a dead end, Sam glanced at his watch. "Shriver's expecting us back at the airport in forty minutes. We'd better close down and get out of here."
Working in tandem, they returned the tins of salmon to the boxes, discarding the few they had opened in a garbage can outside. When the evidence of their visit had been erased, they left the storage area, and Sam drew the door closed.
"With any luck, they won't know the lock's been broken until Riley makes another visit," Crysta said.
To her relief, Sam found an empty oil drum outside one of the buildings so they could stand on it and climb back over the fence. Once they had gained the other side, Crysta poked her fingers through the chain-link to bid the friendly Rottweiler goodbye.
During the rough flight back to Cottonwood Bend, Crysta's spirits plummeted and gave way to a numbing sense of defeat. Time was running out for Derrick. All her and Sam's efforts had gotten them nowhere. She had to think of something, fast, or her brother was going to die.
Shriver seemed intent on guiding the small aircraft through pockets of turbulence, a result of the inclement weather. Stomach knotted with anxiety, she softly quizzed Sam about small cabins near the lodge where her brother might have gone to hide.
With a preoccupied expression on his dark face, Sam turned to look at her. "There were several, like I told you, most of them miles from the river near small lakes."
"Could we check some of them out?"
Sam's expression altered to one of exasperation. "I suppose we could ride double on the all terrain four-wheeler and go to one tomorrow. We'd have to go partway on foot, so it would probably involve an overnight stay. We'd be wasting two days, which we can ill afford to lose."
"In other words, no."
His eyes held hers with unwavering intensity. "Crysta, it's your brother. I won't say no. But understand that if we pick out a cabin and go there, it's a crapshoot. Do you want to take a gamble, knowing how precious time is?"
"Well, it's better than doing nothing. I'm out of ideas. Aren't you?"
"For the moment. That doesn't mean I'm not thinking about it, or that something won't come to me. Let me regroup."
Crysta leaned away from him to gaze forlornly out the window. The endless sweeps of landscape she saw only served to depress her. Sam was right, and she knew it. They couldn't help Derrick by wandering aimlessly around out there.
Crysta's silence afforded Sam a chance to think. Pressing his knees against the seat in front of him, he leaned back, closed his eyes and carefully reviewed their day. Up until he had opened that box of canned salmon in the public storage unit, he had been certain Riley O'Keefe was their man. Now he was no longer so sure. Canned salmon? The amounts Riley had stockpiled boggled Sam's mind, but, like it or not, canned salmon was in no way suspicious. Maybe Riley was selling the damned stuff, making spending money on the side.
Had Sam aimed his suspicions at the wrong man? It was a possibility he couldn't ignore. Which would mean that he and Crysta had wasted an entire day. Maybe picking out one cabin at a time and investigating it wasn't so impractical an idea.
When the plane pulled up to the island, Crysta followed Sam out onto the wing, silently accepting his hand as she made the jump to dry land. Turning to Shriver, she expressed her thanks to him for allowing them to ride free of charge. Then she struck off along the footbridge. When she reached shore, she veered toward the trees.
Halfway there, Sam caught up with her. "Can we talk a sec?"
The last thing Crysta needed was company. At the moment, what she really needed was privacy. "What about?"
He drew up beside her. "I want to apologize. If you want to check out a cabin or two, let's do it."
Perilously close to tears, Crysta wandered off a few feet toward the trees. Over her shoulder she said, "No, Sam. You're right. It'd be a crapshoot, at best. I'm sorry that I keep circling back to that idea, but when I run out of things to do, I start to feel frantic, you know?"
"I know."
She glanced over her shoulder at him, wishing he hadn't followed her. There were times when something hurt so badly, one's only alternative was to weep; this was one of those times for her.
"I, um, think I'll take a little walk."
"I'd really rather you didn't," he said in a gentle voice. "After what happened yesterday in the sauna, I'm not sure it's safe."
The gentle whispering of the cottonwood leaves beckoned to her. She wanted to weave her way through the shadows and lose herself. "But, Sam, right now I need to be alone."
He stepped around so he could see her face. "Are you so upset you can't even talk about it?"
Trying to keep her features carefully blank, she ignored his question. "I'll stay within shouting distance of the lodge."
"Crysta, come here." As he spoke, he clasped her arm and pulled her toward him. "This is no time for you to be alone."
"Yes, it is. Please go, Sam."
He drew her against him, looping an arm around her shoulders and cupping a hand to the side of her face.
"Don't," she whispered. "I don't want company right now."
"I know." Pressing her face against his chest, he hunched his shoulders around her. "There's a problem with that, thou
gh. I can't walk off and leave you."
"I'm going to cry," she squeaked, "and when I cry, it's not a pretty sight. I never have figured out how some women manage it without turning red and getting all puffy."
He ran his fingers into her hair and rested his cheek atop her head. "Do you always try to joke when you're upset or frightened?"
"The alternative is worse."
"I'll risk it."
"I don't want you to see me like this."
"I'll wring out my shirt afterward and never tell a soul."
A sob caught in Crysta's throat. Leaning against him, she lost her battle to control her tears. They rushed from her eyes, streaming down her cheeks in hot rivers. "Oh, God, Sam, I'm afraid for him. Time is running out. I can feel it."
"We'll find him. If he's lasted this long, Crysta, he can hang on another day or two."
"What about infection? Or blood loss? Not to mention food and water. No one can hang on forever."
"We'll find him."
"Maybe not in time, though." A tremor shook her. "I need to call my mother, but what can I say to her? He's alive, Mom, but I can't find him? Prepare yourself for the worst?"
Sam's guts wrenched at the pain he heard in her voice. Closing his eyes, he tightened his hold on her. Her hair, thick and vibrant, slid over the back of his wrist like warm silk.
"Have you ever wished you could just run away from who you are?" she asked in a tremulous voice. "My mom will never understand my not being able to find him. Never. She'll think I haven't tried, that I'm blocking him out!"
"Why in heaven would she think that? You love Derrick. Anyone can see that."
"Because..." Going tense, she made fists in his shirt and pressed closer to him. "Oh, Sam, because I've tried to do just that. God forgive me, I've tried to do just that."
Suddenly, it was brought home to Sam just how difficult Crysta's life had been. A telepathic link. To an onlooker, it sounded almost fun, being able to communicate with someone without words, receiving messages long distance, seeing images. But it hadn't been fun for her. Nor for Derrick. And now, the telepathic link between them had turned
Derrick's disappearance, which would have been horrible for anyone, into a nightmare. Crysta felt responsible for finding her brother in a way other people couldn't comprehend. If he died out there, it was possible she might never recover from it.
"I guess we all wish we could be someone else sometimes," he whispered raggedly. "But in the end, we're stuck with being ourselves. All you can do is your best, Crysta. No one can expect more than that from you—not your mother, not Derrick and not you. Don't set yourself up for a big fall in this."
"I should be able to find him. Can't you understand that? I should be able to see where he is, and I can't."
Sam grasped her shoulders and set her a step away from him so he could look into her eyes. He wondered if he was plunging in way over his head, but the pain in her expression made him take the leap, anyway. "Can you tap into Derrick's thoughts at will?"
"No, but-"
"You listen to me, okay? You're asking things of yourself that other people wouldn't even consider—all because you have a gift? You can only see snatches, not the entire picture. It's unreasonable to blame yourself."
She gazed up at him with injured, tear-bright eyes, her pale face streaked with wetness. Sam winced when he realized how stern he sounded. She needed a good listener, not a lecture.
"Come on, let's go sit down for a while."
Taking her by the hand, he led her to a nearby stand of cottonwood. Picking a grassy spot, he sat down, bracing his back against a silvered trunk, pulling her down beside him. She withdrew her hand from his, looping her arms around her knees. The anguish in her face made him long to wrap his arms around her.
"Talk to me, Crysta," he said softly. "You know what I'm hearing in your voice? Guilt. Layer upon layer of guilt. Why? There's more to this than your not being able to find Derrick, isn't there? Something you're not saying."
She took a moment to answer. When she did, she turned haunted eyes on him. "You're Derrick's friend. You'll never forgive me if I tell you."
"Try me."
With a soft moan, she dropped her head onto her knees. "All right, you want to hear the real truth, Sam? As much as I love my brother, there's a part of me that—"
She began to shake. Sam saw her throat go taut, but the words she was trying to say wouldn't come.
"You hate him just a little, don't you?" he asked her.
She swallowed and lifted her head. "I don't hate Derrick. But there's a part of me that resents what he's done to my life." She swiped at her cheek with her sleeve and sniffed. "For a while there I really believed I had escaped him. I was beginning to buy into the analyst's theory—that it was all nonsense that our mother had drilled into our heads. That all I had to do was ignore the dreams, and they would go away."
"Was that what you wanted, for it to be nonsense?"
She fastened bewildered eyes on him. "Yes. Do you remember what I said to you, about marriage not being the be-all and end-all of my existence? It was a lie, Sam. I wanted children, a family. For as long as I can remember, that was what I wanted more than anything. Derrick stole that chance from me."
"Did he, Crysta? Or was it simply that you fell in love with the wrong man?" Before she could protest, he held up a hand. "Oh, I know, it isn't easy to admit. Loving the wrong person hurts like hell, and it isn't easy to face. I think I know that better than almost anyone. But it happens."
"You don't understand. It wasn't Dick's fault."
"Make me understand, then. From what I've been hearing, the guy sounds like a selfish jerk."
"He wasn't, though. No one would put up with what he did. My getting constant flashes of Derrick? You've no idea...."
"Tell me."
"Sometimes, the flashes come at difficult moments." She pushed her hair from her eyes, then plucked a piece of grass.
"It wasn't so bad the first couple of years of our marriage. I'd get flashes of Derrick, sometimes, but I never saw anything alarming. Then he broke up with Eileen." She paused and licked her lips. "Derrick went off the deep end for a while. He started drinking. He had terrible mood swings. And my emotional balance went on the roller-coaster ride with him. Once, Dick and I had just gone to bed, and right—" her face went crimson "—in the middle of everything, I got a flash of Derrick breaking a whiskey bottle against the sink. He put the jagged edge to his wrist. I jumped up and left Dick with his face planted in the pillow. At that time, Derrick only lived a few blocks away, and I felt I had to go to him. Dick was furious."
"Furious?" A surge of anger shot through Sam. "Surely he could understand that you had to get up. What were you supposed to do, let Derrick slash his wrists?"
"You have to remember that Dick didn't believe in my gleanings. He thought the entire thing was baloney. He wanted me to put Derrick out of my mind, out of my life."
"And when you couldn't?"
Another flush crept up her neck. "He accused us of—" She broke off and averted her gaze. "He started feeling jealous. To him our relationship went beyond the acceptable, and he began to suspect that perhaps there was something unhealthy going on."
"Something incestuous, you mean?"
"Yes."
"And how does that relate to your feeling that your mother will hold you to blame for all this?"
"Dick insisted that I choose between him and Derrick, never understanding that I had no choice." Fresh tears filled her eyes. "I loved Dick, so I tried. I stopped seeing Derrick. I even stopped seeing my mom. But the dreams still came, the flashes still came, and Dick just kept getting more and more paranoid. Then Derrick had the car wreck. I woke up in the middle of the night and started packing. Thirty minutes later, I was on my way out the door to the airport. That was it as far as Dick was concerned. Soon after, he walked out on me."
Sam tipped his head back, staring at the canopy of leaves that shimmered above them. "T
aking his exit when you needed him the most."
"What man wouldn't have? That's why I continued the counseling. I realized I would never be able to lead a normal life unless I somehow grew separate from Derrick." She closed her eyes, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. "I wanted to be free of him. And now I am."
The pictures came clear for Sam. "And your mother knows you wanted to be free."
"Yes. But worse than that, I know it."
"Crysta." Sam finally gave in to his urge and wrapped his arms around her. "Honey, you can't wish someone gone. Besides, what you were really wishing for wasn't Derrick's disappearance, just a chance to have what other people have—love and kids and a normal home life. It's not wrong to want those things."
"It's my fault I can't connect with him!" she cried. "Can you understand that? I tried and tried for so long not to feel anything from him, and now, when his life depends on it, I can't! Don't you see? My mother will never forgive me, and I don't blame her."
Sam did see, with a clarity that cut clear through him. He also saw that there were no words that could possibly soothe her. Barring Derrick's rescue, Sam wasn't sure anything ever could. If Derrick returned, he and Crysta needed to talk this out and toss away the emotional garbage both of them were lugging around. But what if Derrick didn't return?
The sound of a snapping twig caught Sam's attention, and he glanced over his shoulder to see Todd Shriver approaching through the trees.
"She okay?" the pilot called. "Not an easy trip for her, huh?"
"She'll be fine," Sam replied. "Right now, she just needs to be alone."
Shriver nodded in understanding and immediately retraced his footsteps. Sam sighed and tucked in his chin to study the top of Crysta's bent head. He had no easy answers for her. He only knew that he had come to care about this woman he held in his arms, that he shared in her pain. Suddenly, he had a double stake riding on his finding Derrick alive: his own peace of mind, and Crysta's.
Chapter Thirteen
Firelight danced upon the knotty-pine walls of Sam's living room, bright and cheerful, in direct contrast to Crysta's somber mood. The blackout shades were drawn, casting the room into shadow, giving her a much-needed feeling of privacy. Sam had thoughtfully left her here alone for a while, taking Tip with him, so she could regain her equilibrium before she called her mother.