Page 95 of Strangers She Knows

2. Figure out a way to kill Mara.

3. Until that point, annoy the hell out of Mara.

Really, at the moment, all she had to do was stay out of reach. On an island like this, large and wild, thrashed by the storm, that wasn’t such a big challenge—if she handled a few things now.

Mara had parked the golf cart by the front door, apparently to make it less work for her to drag Kellen up the steps, and still bruising for Kellen.

Kellen leaned into the cab.

The key wasn’t in the ignition.

Of course not. That would be too easy.

Mara had said it. She held all the advantages, and she intended to employ them. Cheating meant winning.

So. Kellen opened the battery compartment and removed the battery. It was compact and heavy, and she used it to smash the spokes of Max’s bicycle.

Mara didn’t require access to easy transportation.

Kellen, battery in tow, sprinted across the lawn and into the tall wild grasses. She was searching for the two bikes, hers and Rae’s, that they’d abandoned yesterday. If she could find them, disable Rae’s and ride hers, Mara could never catch her. Easy peasy. Except for that damned rifle in Mara’s hands. How well did she shoot?

The rain weighed down the grass. The wind thrashed the stalks. Kellen ran and tripped, ran and tripped, and finally settled into a steady, slogging pace.

She didn’t have a hat; her hair was long and wet, and constantly flopping in her face. Her jeans were sopping, weighing her down. Her shoes filled with water. She zigzagged back and forth, searching, seeking, worried and not admitting it to herself. If Mara caught a glimpse of her in the sights of her rifle…

She couldn’t. Surely she couldn’t. The rain kept rolling across the land in cool gray squall lines, obliterating the landscape, and twice, blasts of wind knocked her off her feet. If not for her fear, Kellen would have felt alone in the world. But she knew Mara was out there, on the hunt.

Kellen had almost given up when she stumbled on the bikes, farther away from the house than she had ever imagined. An ill-starred sentiment caught at her throat. Her little girl had loved that bike, had ridden that bike to try to get home to Max and to Kellen.

Kellen choked. Cried a single tear. But—

No! No emotion. This was about survival.

She smashed the spokes, then threw the battery into the grasses and mounted her bike. She shouted into the roaring wind, “Max, I’m still alive. You be alive, too! You and Rae, be alive!”

No reply, but another explosion of wind. She wanted to believe that somehow, they heard her. That somehow, they had been rescued, or they’d made it to land. That even now, Rae was healing.

Kellen tried to ride through the tall, wild grasses. Yet a challenge in good times was impossible in this storm. She was forced to take to the paths. She stayed low on the bike to avoid detection.

But where to go?

She smiled unpleasantly. She knew where she wanted to be, where she might find a weapon to beat Mara at her own game.

She arrived at Paradise Cove, and Mara’s camp, hidden under one of the few rocky overhangs on the island. She combed through the backpack and the tent, the sleeping bag, through containers and papers and all the paraphernalia of a working botanist. She hoped for a weapon. She needed a weapon.

But no. No weapon. No firearms, no knives. Nothing Kellen could use to attack and defeat Mara.

No hope.

She picked up the clipboard. It had been carefully placed in a large plastic bag and sealed to preserve the contents. From what Kellen could see, Mara had been telling the truth; she’d been doing the work an intern should do.

But as to the rest of this stuff—Kellen smashed it. She flung it off the cliff into the roaring ocean. She destroyed the campsite, not from spite, but because she hoped Mara would come here and understand the message; Kellen would destroy Mara and everything she was.

She mounted her bicycle and rode again, toward the Conkles’. Going this way, she fought the wind, and every half mile a gust took the wheels out from under her. The fourth time, she remained on the ground for too long. She’d landed right on those bruised ribs. It took long moments to regain her breath, and that Taser had undermined her strength.

But so what? She had to keep moving. She had to survive.

She needed a weapon.There had to be something in the cottage. Jamie didn’t approve of firearms, and God forbid Dylan had access to one, but surely somewhere the old caretaker had had a rifle hidden in the attic or in a box in the closet.

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