ruffled his hair and wiped his tears away with her fingertip. “Yes, sweetie. Bruce is taking you all to Father Michael’s church hall. You’ll stay there until the firemen put the fire out. He and Cindy will stay with you all night. Maisie will drive in later and help bring you back when it’s safe. Don’t you be afraid. You’re a brave boy, Joshua. If you can survive all the pain from your leg surgeries, you can do this. You help Bruce with the younger boys, okay?”
“Okay,” Joshua replied, pursing his lips and slamming his back against the seat.
Cindy came rushing up with five-year-old Ricky Sanders, the youngest child at the camp that week. He was a foster child, hoping to be legally adopted by his new foster parents, and was Cindy’s personal favorite. “Did one of you get the Dunning boys?”
“Eli and Chris are in the last cabin,” Beatrice replied. “I thought you were getting them.”
“I was...” Cindy hesitated, looking at Ricky. She put Ricky in his child’s seat and belted him in. She turned away from the boy so that only Beatrice could hear her. Nearly in a whisper Cindy said, “They weren’t there. That’s why I thought one of you might have gotten to them already.”
“What?” Chills spread over Beatrice’s body faster than any fire could eat a dried leaf.
“Tell Maisie to check the common areas. I’ll do a sweep of their cabin.”
Beatrice had been a runner all her life. Track. Five-k races. She’d won them all, but never in her life had she run as fast as she did now toward the last boys’ cabin. She flung open the door.
“Eli? Chris?” she shouted. Their bedcovers were pulled back, but the boys clearly hadn’t been in bed for a while. She ran to the small bathroom, which had been the most recent one to be modernized. Right now, though, the last things on her mind were tile, plumbing or the new toilet she’d found on sale. The bathroom was empty.
“Eli! Chris!” she shouted, going around to the back of the cabin. Thinking the boys might have gone down to the lake past their curfew, she ran down the grassy slope. The cabins were outfitted with motion lights that illuminated the area like daylight for her.
The little lake was placid with a ribbon of silver moonlight gleaming across the surface. No one was on the diving raft. No one on the short pier. No one hid near the kayak rack or the beached canoes.
She ran back to the driveway.
She whispered to Bruce, “They weren’t there. Take these kids to Father Michael’s. Cindy will drive the other SUV. I’ll keep Maisie here with me while we keep looking for Eli and Chris.”
“You’re sure?”
She nodded. “Call me when you get there. I have to know the kids are safe.”
The screams of the sirens grew louder.
Bruce climbed in the SUV and started the engine. Beatrice walked back to the second one and gave Cindy a thumbs-up.
As they drove away, Maisie jogged up to Beatrice. “I’ve just checked the kitchen and the activity room. I can’t find Eli or Chris anywhere. Where on earth could they be?” she asked.
Beatrice heard fear trembling in the raven-haired girl’s voice.
“I don’t know.”
The sirens wailed to an earsplitting level as they barreled down the country road.
Beatrice looked at the fire. It was clearly raging now. She was glad the gravel road put distance and a natural fire barrier between her camp and the fire.
Then her mind recognized a figure standing behind a wall of flame on the other side of the road.
“Eli! Eli!”
Beatrice ran into the fire.
BEATRICE HEARD MAISIE scream for her to come back. But if anything happened to Eli or Chris, Beatrice’s life would be over. She’d never handle the guilt or the sorrow.
Smoke filled the air, but the heat was so intense, Beatrice couldn’t smell it. For that she was thankful, because she hadn’t thought to cover her nose and mouth. She hadn’t thought about protective clothing, either. Not even a long-sleeved shirt. She still wore one of her lake-water-blue youth camp T-shirts and the navy shorts that she slept in every night. She was ill-prepared for saving anyone.
“Eli!” she called.
From between a curtain of flames on either side of him, little six-year-old Eli stood frozen to the spot, tears spilling down his cheeks.
“Miss Beatrice!”
“Don’t move, Eli! I’m coming to get you!”
“I’m scared!” He started to take a step.
She kept running, dodging puddles of smoldering pine nettles, hoping her sneakers didn’t melt from the heat. Even if they had, she wouldn’t have stopped. Nothing would stop her. She had to save Eli.
Fortunately, Eli was wearing a long-sleeved sweatshirt. Even in the heat of the day, Eli always claimed he was cold. She didn’t doubt it. He was so thin. The kind of thin that broke her heart and made her want to cook his favorite dish, spaghetti, for him—at every meal.
He also wore jeans and high-top sneakers. Eli never went anywhere without his high-top sneakers. He was determined to become a basketball player in the NBA someday, and though he was of average height for his years, he was the kind of kid who would “think” himself tall.
This was Eli’s third week at camp, which was due to the good graces and hard efforts of Zoey Phillips, the director of Indian Lake Child Services.
Eli and his brother, Chris, who was ten, were new to foster care. Their father had recently been sent to prison for drug dealing. Their mother had simply abandoned them in an upstairs apartment over an antiques store on Main Street. She’d told the boys she was going out for groceries, but three days later, she hadn’t come back. It was Eli who had called the police, hoping they could find his mother.
His brother’s call had angered an already resentful Chris. Chris had an iceberg-sized chip on his shoulder. He’d worshipped his father and copied his arrogance and cocky attitude.
From their first day in camp, Chris had posed one problem after another to Beatrice and her counselors. Beatrice believed the boys needed—craved—attention and caring. Eli was bright and genuinely a good kid. Chris rattled her nerves from breakfast to lights out. She was amazed the two were genetically linked. Bruce had tried to get through to Chris, but Chris had so far only stonewalled him. Beatrice believed Chris’s heart was broken, but she hadn’t the first idea what kind of glue would mend him.
Once the boys left her camp, Beatrice feared she would never see Eli or Chris again once the system sent them to a proper foster home. They’d likely be split up and sent out of the county.
As the flames jumped from tree to tree, Beatrice kept her eyes on Eli and his outstretched arms. She leaped expertly over a burning log, miraculously evading the flames. She kept running.
“Stay still,” she warned as she drew closer to Eli.
The fire had made daylight of the forest. It was hard to imagine that it was night. Flames shot out of forty-foot-tall dead pine trees that should have been felled years ago.
A pine tree about seventy yards away exploded like a cannon. The sound frightened Eli so much that his feet left the ground when he jumped.
“Miss Beatrice! Help me!”
She continued toward him but an enormous branch swooped through the air with a hissing sound and thudded in front of Beatrice.
She slammed to a stop before falling over the branch. The smell of it was pungent. The odors of pine, flame and smoke