There was a different feel to North Carolina. For one thing, it was quieter. Unnaturally quiet, in fact. But that could be because, according to the map, the nearest city was miles away. Or maybe because it was the dead of winter, and here where they had real seasons, things like that made a difference.
By the time she had rinsed off under a trickle of lukewarm water, she felt marginally better. She might even write about it, she thought, idly scratching her face. She hadn’t written anything in years, even though she had a perfectly good degree in journalism.
The Further Adventures of Jasmine Clancy. A Thousand Miles From Heartbreak? In Search of Family Ties?
Her stomach growled. How about in search of breakfast?
She was hungry, which was a good sign. Even heartbroken and suffering from acute disappointment, she wasn’t bothered by a lack of appetite. In fact, she felt surprisingly good.
That is, she felt good until she looked in the mirror.
“For Pete’s sake, what happened to you?” she whispered, touching her red, swollen face, which instantly began to itch like crazy.
Clemmie was alone in the office, thank goodness. The wife of the owner of the four-unit motel, she did the rooms, helped out in the café, and after one look at Jasmine, she told her to go back to her room.
Twenty minutes later she brought her a breakfast tray of scrambled eggs, sausage and hash browns, with a side order of calamine lotion and a handful of tourist brochures.
“We got these things—mostly nobody ever wants ’em, but since you’re not from around here, it might give you something to do. Sort of take your mind off your troubles. If you don’t think about it too much, you forget to scratch.”
“I can’t believe it,” Jasmine wailed. “I haven’t had poison ivy since I was a child.”
“I used to get it real bad, every summer. My mama used to threaten to make me wear boxing gloves to keep me from scratching.”
“But it’s February!”
“Poison ivy don’t die, it just hides out over the winter. Gets you just as bad, though. Now don’t scratch, you hear?”
He’d been there for one full week. The first few days he’d nearly gone nuts without his cell phone, his laptop and all the other accoutrements of civilized living he’d grown used to.
Daniel Lyon Lawless, chronological age thirty-seven, physiological age one hundred and seven, rolled over onto his back after the last push-up and stared at a pair of buzzards circling overhead. Maybe they knew something he didn’t.
“Not a happy thought,” he muttered just to hear the sound of a human voice.
Closing his eyes, he listened to the hollow echo of birds deep inside the boggy forest. Nearby, a frog tuned up. First one, then a dozen. He’d have thought, if he’d thought about frogs at all, they’d be buried in the mud this time of year, but then, what did he know about roughing it in the wilds of the great Dismal Swamp?
Not much. Enough to know that he’d been right to come here, though. In a place like this, away from all distractions, a man could think. If thinking got a little too uncomfortable, he could concentrate on more immediate things, such as keeping the damned bugs from eating him alive. Such as working out until he dropped from exhaustion. Such as wetting a hook in a black-water creek in hope of catching something to relieve a monotonous diet of tinned meat, tinned soup, stale crackers and black coffee.
He had a feeling it wasn’t a healthy diet. On the other hand, he’d shed his knee brace three days ago and his back brace the day before that. His cane was no good in this boggy terrain. No good for walking. He carried it anyway, because he felt naked without a weapon, and foolish carrying one here in the back of beyond, where the most dangerous critter he was apt to encounter was a damned mosquito.
He carried a knife, though. It was useful in whacking through vines and opening cans of Vienna sausage. And he walked. He counted it in hours, not miles. He’d done four hours yesterday, on top of six miles rowed back and forth on the nameless creek that bordered his campsite.
Tomorrow he was going to row in one direction until he was exhausted, then he’d go ashore, give his knee a workout and then row himself back to camp. It was a good system. It was working for him. Except for a few minor problems, he was in better shape now than he’d been before the explosion.
He was a hell of a lot more relaxed. Couple of days ago, he’d actually found himself whistling. Another few weeks and he might even find something to smile about.
He wondered what was going on back in Langley. Madden had promised to find out who’d been turned. Who had leaked names, times and places so that two of the best men in the unit had been taken out in one night. Lyon’s name would be on that list of expendables. Which was one more reason why he hadn’t cared to hang around the hospital like a sitting duck.
A duck on the wing had a far better chance of surviving.
A camcorder. Even a disposable camera. Jasmine would give anything for some way to record what she was seeing. No wonder half of Hollywood had moved to North Carolina, with scenery like this. Moody, spooky, fraught with atmosphere—not to mention the exotic noises and all the different odors. Perfect for a remake of the Creature from the Black Lagoon.
At least there were plenty of black lagoons, if mercifully few creatures.
Away from the motel, there was practically no traffic. None at all once she’d left the narrow two-lane highway. Clemmie had told her about the old logging road, and she’d followed it, determined to stay out of public view until her face improved, but wanting to take something back with her after spending the better part of eight hundred dollars on a wild-goose chase.
She’d had sense enough to shove a notepad into her shoulder bag. Clemmie had provided that, too. Her writerly instincts had been stirring all morning. She was even considering doing a travel piece on spec to help pay her expenses.
She might even offer it to one of the two newspapers where she’d briefly worked as a special features writer before being laid-off, downsized or consolidated, depending on who was offering excuses.
At least it had led to her acting career, which paid at a better rate, only not nearly as regularly.
Fortunately, she was good at rolling with the punches. Going with the flow. Surviving.
The logging road ended at a hill, which turned out to be a mound of rotted sawdust, covered with creeping, crawling vines. Something was blooming somewhere nearby—something with a sweet, spicy scent.
There was enough high ground so that her feet didn’t sink in the mud, so she followed an all but imperceptible trail deeper and deeper into the woods.
Red berries beckoned from the wild tangle of vegetation. Gorgeous, big fat red berries, like the ones she had picked for her grandmother. Uh-uh. Not again.
She scratched her face, careful not to dig too hard because poison ivy was bad enough without scars. Her face, after all, was her fortune. At five foot ten, her height and her long legs helped, but mostly it was her face. She would like to believe it was her acting ability, because then a few scars might not matter
