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  “Stay here.” Orion turned and jogged after Ratboy, who was already halfway to the bend in the road.

  At the sound of his footsteps Ratboy spun, his fists rising, but he relaxed when he recognized Orion. When Orion reached him they spoke for a few moments, Ratboy’s hands slashing the air angrily while Orion made conciliatory gestures. Then Ratboy turned his back and strode off despite Orion’s entreaties, and after trailing him for a few paces Orion let his arms fall to his sides in defeat.

  Alerted by a familiar whiff of body odour and marijuana, I turned to see Skidmark approaching from behind the garage, reefer in hand. He ambled over to stand beside me. “Man, that is one uptight dude,” he mumbled. “What’d you do this time?”

  “Apparently I forced him to wreck the truck. All my fault.”

  Skidmark wheezed amusement. “Damn girl mechanics.”

  Orion strode up, frowning. “You shouldn’t have hit him, Storm. The Earth Spirit wants us to live in tolerance and harmony.”

  Jerk.

  I stared at him for a moment, fighting the urge to tell him exactly what he and the Earth Spirit could do with their tolerance and harmony. Since I couldn’t summon a civil response I drew a deep breath and turned to Skidmark instead. “I’m sorry about the truck. I should have stuck around to make sure Ratboy did it right. When can I help you repair it?”

  Skidmark sucked a lungful of smoke. “No sweat,” he mumbled after a moment, smoke wisping out along with his words. “This afternoon.”

  “I’ll be here.” I picked up the bird book I had dropped in the attack, shaking small stones out of it and smoothing the bent pages. Tucking it under my arm, I indicated the binoculars around my neck. “Well, if you don’t need me until later I’m going to go and do some birdwatching.”

  Skidmark nodded without interest and drifted toward the garage, trailing a streamer of smoke like an underpowered locomotive. Orion stood in awkward silence for a moment, then smiled and said, “Enjoy your birdwatching. See you later.”

  I nodded and headed for the bench.

  Sinking onto it, I eased out a long, slow breath. Then drew in another. In. Out. Nice and slow. Calm.

  After a few minutes of belly breathing, I thought I might be able to hold the binoculars steady enough to see something besides a wildly-vibrating blur. Focusing on the renters’ camp, I pressed the image stabilization button and studied the layout across the river.

  The trees were so thick I couldn’t see much more than I had with my naked eyes. The field I had thought of as a firing range turned out to be some kind of obstacle course. The well-trodden areas contained various types of walls and barriers and a couple of mannequins dressed in combat fatigues.

  I spotted some tents whose locations I’d guessed based on the heat signatures the previous night, but the main tent was featureless and the rest of the encampment was hidden by trees.

  I lowered the binoculars with a sigh. That wasn’t helpful.

  “See anything interesting?”

  Orion’s voice made me start violently and corkscrew around on the bench.

  “Goddammit!” I clutched my chest in an attempt to keep my heart from jumping out. “Stop sneaking up on me like that!”

  “Sorry.” He smiled and came over to sit on the other end of the bench. “You were a million miles away.”

  “Yeah, I guess I was.” Wondering how long he’d been standing there, I decided to play it safe. “I was just sitting here trying to calm down.” I gave him a wry grimace and hefted the binoculars. “I figured when I’d stopped shaking enough to focus on something big like that tent over there, I might have half a chance of holding the focus on a bird.”

  Orion nodded. “I’m sorry, I should have asked if you were all right. I didn’t mean to sound critical before.”

  “I’m fine.” My words came out sounding a little more clipped than I’d intended.

  “That’s good.” He hesitated as if searching for a topic of conversation. “Those are nice binoculars,” he said after a moment. “May I try them?”

  “Sure.” I unslung them from around my neck and handed them over.

  Peering through them, he focused on the renters’ tent as I had done. “Nice,” he said as he lowered them. “Those image stabilizers make all the difference, don’t they?”

  “Yeah.”

  He passed them over, and I stood and added, “Well, I think I’m ready to ramble. See you later.”

  He rose hurriedly. “Storm, wait.” When I eyed him, he shuffled his feet, looking uncomfortable. “I just… be careful, okay? I didn’t like that crack Ratboy made about making you pay. Maybe you should just lie low for a while.”

  A little late for the ‘concerned’ act, buddy. Maybe you should have tried it earlier instead of sucking up to Ratboy.

  I shrugged. “I’ll be out in the woods where nobody can find me. The only places I’ve ever run into him are up here at the garage and once at the kitchen. I should be pretty safe.”

  He let out a breath. “Okay. Be careful.”

  I nodded and strode down the path, my back tingling with the knowledge that his gaze was following me.

  The gravel crunched under my boots, increasing my unease. Last night I’d heard Skidmark coming long before he got within visual range. I would have heard Orion today if he’d been using the path, or even if he’d been walking casually through the undergrowth.

  So he had deliberately sneaked up on me.

  A shiver coiled down my spine and I quickened my pace.

  Chapter 18

  When I was a good distance away from the garage, I abandoned the path and struck out into the woods. Safely concealed, I peeked into my pocket to check the tracker. Orion’s red dot showed he was still in the vicinity of the garage.

  Why would he keep hanging around there? He hadn’t given any indication that he had any interest in vehicles, and the garage certainly wasn’t the most attractive part of the commune, nor its social hub. The only other people who seemed to spend any time there were Skidmark and me.

  And Ratboy.

  I unslung my binoculars and scanned the trees for the benefit of anybody who might be watching me.

  Dammit, Orion and Ratboy were definitely much closer friends than Orion was admitting. So if Orion was a threat to Moonbeam and Karma, Ratboy might be, too, along with who-knew-how-many of their cronies from across the river. Casting my mind back to the previous night, I visualized the rows of coloured glows I’d seen through the night vision goggles.

  At least five rows, with probably six or seven people in them. So around thirty new suspects to worry about.

  I gulped. If they were enemies, I was in deep shit.

  Realizing I’d been standing staring through the binoculars at nothing, I replaced them around my neck and wandered on, trying to look casual.

  Maybe tagging Orion hadn’t been such a great idea after all. Maybe I should have tagged Moonbeam and Karma instead so I’d know where to find them at all times.

  But that would be practically impossible. They weren’t nearly as predictable as Orion with their footwear, and I couldn’t think of any other place to put the tracer.

  I let out a sigh and kept walking, stopping frequently to peer through the binoculars.

  By the time I got back to the commune’s encampment I had mentally mapped several new routes to follow while making my clandestine reports to Stemp, and my stomach was growling.

  Plodding toward the kitchen, I flinched at the sound of Aurora’s voice behind me.

  “Hey, Storm, did you enjoy your meditation?”

  I turned and summoned the best smile I could manage under the circumstances. “I did, thanks.” I held up my binoculars. “I saw some birds, too.”

  “Oh, really? I love bird-watching! What did you see?”

  “Um…” I racked my brain for something plausible. “I’m just getting started with birding. I saw, um… some robins and chickadees?”

  “Oh, yes, we have chestnut-backed chickadees here, they
’re so cute! What else?”

  “Some… um… little brown birds…”

  Aurora brightened. “Did they have creamy yellow around the tips of their wings?”

  “Yes,” I lied cautiously.

  “Oh, those will be the pine siskins. Did you go down to the river? I’ve seen an American Dipper there in the shallows several times. And you must have seen the juncos foraging on the ground, they’re all over.”

  “Um, yeah, they’re the ones with…” I hesitated, hoping she’d fill in the particulars.

  “Black heads and brown bodies, yes!” She smiled so brightly I could almost forgive her strident voice. “And the woods are full of red-breasted nuthatches, too; you must have seen some.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed, making a mental note to look up nuthatches in the bird book.

  “Oh, that’s so exciting. I love it when the Earth Spirit shares its little creatures with us, don’t you?” I flinched in spite of myself as her voice rose in enthusiasm.

  “Uh, yeah.” I turned away, trying to look nonchalant. “Well, I guess I’d better-”

  “Oh, wait, Storm, there was a phone message for you.” I turned back reluctantly as she continued, “A Nichele Brown called. I couldn’t find you so I wrote her number down and left the message for you on the bulletin board by the phone.”

  “Okay, thanks.” I backed away. “I’d better go and check it right away. It might be urgent.”

  “I think it might be.” Aurora’s big blue eyes were wide. “I saw three other messages for you up there, too, all with her name and number on them.”

  “Oh.” My heart lurched. “That doesn’t sound good. I’ll go call her right now. Talk to you later.” I turned to hurry away, throwing a ‘thanks’ over my shoulder.

  By the time I got to the phone in the main building, my pulse was racing from more than just my brisk walk. Nichele wouldn’t call me four times in a row unless something was really wrong.

  I swallowed hard. Oh, God, don’t let it be Dave. Visions of his highway tractor crumpled somewhere beside the road made my mouth go dry. With all the miles he covered, he was bound to be involved in an accident sooner or later even though he was the best driver I knew. It was just the law of averages.

  Preoccupied with my frightening thoughts, I had dialled Nichele’s number from memory and my blood pressure increased while the phone rang and rang on the other end. When her answering machine kicked in, I hung up the receiver, more worried than ever.

  Then I realized it was a weekday and drew a deep breath. Stupid. Of course she’d be at work. I unpinned the messages from the board and checked the phone number.

  Shit, that wasn’t Nichele’s work number. And it wasn’t her cell phone, either.

  Jaw clenched, I dialled the unfamiliar number and waited. After only a couple of rings, Dave’s cheerful voice made my knees weaken with relief.

  “Dave’s Trucking, Dave speaking.”

  I managed to keep the tremor out of my voice. “Hi, Dave, it’s Aydan. How are you?”

  His reply held a note of tension. “Okay, I hope. Hang on a sec.” The phone made a hollow sound as though he’d placed a hand over its speaker and his voice was muffled when he spoke again, obviously not to me. “Honey, it’s the dispatcher. Just gotta go check, um… something. Sit tight. Be right back.”

  There was a pause followed by the sound of wind whistling over the speaker as he apparently stepped outside. “Aydan, shi… crap, finally!” he said in hushed tones. “Nichele left four messages for you; didn’t you get them?”

  “I just did.” My belly knotted. “What’s wrong?”

  “Well, nothing, I hope, but…”

  “Just tell me, Dave! What the hell’s going on?”

  “Think I might’ve screwed up big, Aydan.” I heard him take a deep breath. “I asked Nichele to marry me.”

  “Oh, shit!” The words popped out before I could stop them.

  He groaned. “It’s bad, isn’t it? Shi… crap, knew I should’ve talked to you first…”

  I backpedalled hurriedly, grasping at straws. “Maybe not, Dave. Was that her you were just talking to? Is she with you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay… well, it’s not really, really bad, then. If it was really, really bad she’d have dumped you on the spot.”

  “Oh, shit!” His words came out in a groan, his despair evidenced by his failure to correct ‘shit’ to ‘crap’ for my sensitive ears.

  “No, don’t panic, Dave. You’re on the road together, right? So that’s good. She’s with you and she’s still talking to you. Where are you?”

  “That’s the bad part.” He sounded defeated. “We’re in Victoria. As soon as she found out I had a delivery out here, she said she’d come with me and I could take her up to visit you. You oughta see the size of her suitcase. Looks like she’s leaving for good.”

  “She’s coming here? Shit! Dave, I’ve got, um… some stuff happening here. It’s really not a good time for a visit.”

  His voice dropped to a whisper. “You mean, like…” he paused significantly. “…stuff? Is it dangerous?”

  “I hope not. But can’t you talk her out of it?”

  “Tried. You know what she’s like.” Worry vibrated in his voice. “Didn’t want to fight her too hard in case I pushed her away. Well, further away.”

  I sighed. I knew all too well what she was like. If she had made up her mind to visit me, nothing would stop her. And I couldn’t turn her away without blowing my cover.

  Another big sigh escaped as I succumbed to the inevitable. “Okay, Dave. Don’t worry, she always takes a giant suitcase even if she’s just going overnight, and she loves her swanky condo in Calgary far too much to leave it. If she rode with you, it’s a good sign, and I guarantee she won’t want to stay here for long. If you can just hold out for a few days, she’ll be begging for a ride home. Are you going to be in Victoria for a while?”

  “Got another load going back to Calgary later today, but I’ll tell ‘em I’ve got engine trouble and they’ll have to get somebody else.”

  “No, hang on, let’s think about this.” I thought for a moment. “What about after that? Where are you going to be?”

  “Back in Victoria the day after tomorrow.”

  “Okay, how about this, then? Drop her off here and head out as usual. Just pretend everything’s fine. It’ll take a few days for her to admit she hates it here. By then you’ll be back and she can ride home with you, but she won’t feel pressured with you hanging around waiting for her. What do you think?”

  Dave’s voice sounded stronger. “I’ll do it. Thanks, Aydan. How do I get to the commune?”

  I gave him directions and hung up, my mind racing. Shit, now I’d have to go to Moonbeam and Karma and tell them I’d lied about an audit and ask them to support my story.

  What if they wouldn’t? They were so big on honesty; what if they told Nichele I was there to recover from some mysterious trauma? Nichele would freak-the-fuck-out and badger me until I told her something plausible.

  And what if I had another run-in with Ratboy? He’d sounded pretty serious about revenge. If he attacked me I couldn’t pull my gun with Nichele watching.

  I groaned aloud as another thought occurred to me. Where would she sleep? Would she have to bunk with me? And if she did, how would I hide my concealed weapons when I was getting undressed for bed? And how could I sneak away to report to Stemp or keep up my surveillance on Orion and Moonbeam and Karma?

  Shit, shit, shit!

  Maybe I should phone Dave back and tell him I’d changed my mind and Nichele couldn’t stay here after all. I could say… what?

  Wild ideas rocketed through my brain. Some kind of contagious disease? A toxic spill that closed the road? No extra tents? A prohibition by the Earth Spirit?

  Lame. And completely implausible.

  I turned to thump my forehead against the wall.

  “Storm Cloud Dancer, whatever is wrong?”

  I turned to meet M
oonbeam’s worried gaze and groaned. “I’m an idiot, that’s what.”

  “Merciful Spirit, dear, you’re certainly not an idiot.” Moonbeam took me gently by the arm and led me over to sit on the bench by the phone. She perched beside me and took my hand in both of hers, smoothing it with her fingertips in a soothing gesture. “Now please tell me what’s wrong.”

  I hung my head. “You know how I lied to my friend Nichele about you and Karma… sorry, I mean, Karma Wolf Song, being my aunt and uncle?”

  She nodded, her brow furrowing.

  “Well…” I drew a deep breath and poured out my story. “That wasn’t all I lied to her about. I told her I was helping you with the commune’s books while you went through an audit and I used that as an excuse for why I couldn’t come home. I didn’t want her to worry about why I’m really here. And now she’s coming to visit me. She’ll be here in a couple of hours. I don’t want to tell her the truth, and I don’t want to share my tent with her.”

  I studied my toes while Moonbeam sat in silence. “Oh, dear,” she said at last. “That does put you in a spot, doesn’t it? Why don’t you just tell her the truth?”

  “I can’t!”

  “Of course you can.” She placed firm fingertips under my chin and forced me to meet her eyes. “Recovering from a trauma is nothing to be ashamed of. And if she’s a good friend, she would be terribly hurt if you didn’t trust her with the truth.”

  “I know, but…” I stared helplessly at Moonbeam, groping for a reason that didn’t include ‘I’m an undercover agent and she can’t know’. “…but if I told her, she’d feel terrible, too,” I finished. “And I can’t bear other people’s pity. If I told her, she’d never look at me again without feeling sorry for me. I just can’t do it.”

  Moonbeam held my gaze for a moment before letting out a sigh. “I truly believe that is the wrong decision. Your fear is preventing you from realizing the joy of being completely loved and accepted in all your glorious imperfection.”

  “Please,” I whispered. “Please don’t tell my secrets.”

  “Oh, my dear.” She drew me into a hug, her slim arms strong around me. “Your secrets are yours alone. We’ll play along while your friend is here. And we keep a spare tent available for visitors. Your friend can stay there. What is her full name, and how long do you think she’ll be staying?”