Page 101 of Shielding Instinct

A thumb went into her mouth.

Call-back to self-soothing as a baby?

“You’re out in the woods. Can you tell me how you got here?”

Nothing.

Petra was done pestering the child. These questions obviously weren’t going to give her the answers she wanted. The child needed a hospital. The authorities needed to track down her parents.

Could the parents have left her behind purposefully if they were leaving the country?

Wow, that was a dark thought.

Sure, if Petra was making up a story about that, the family could have decided this was the throw-away child. They left her to be found, dead or alive, to further the story that the family had succumbed to some terrible event. No reason to look for their live happy bodies doing the rumba in South America.

That was how they’d treated her, like a black sheep. Kind of the outcast. And looking back, that could be why the child looked at her mom with abhorrence and why she’d dragged off the necklace.

Another crazy idea was that the child pulling off her necklace meant she was going outside of some teachings of “the bigger family’ the mother had talked about. And so, she was dismissed from the fold.

But Petra would quickly admit these scenarios, while possible, were probably outlandish.

She, in fact, had no idea what was going on.

Petra slowly stood and moved toward Hawkeye. “I think she’s in shock. Her brain should have had her drinking that water I set out without thought. Her skin is obviously dehydrated. She needs medical attention. I’d pick her up and take her to the SUV, but I’m worried about the brothers. If we take her, are we leaving them?”

Hawkeye crouched down, posting a knee and sitting on his heel. He pulled out the map. “We’re right about here.” He pointed to the map. “Another hundred yards, and I could come out by the sea here. If I don’t have cell reception, I have my sat phone. Do we move her with us is the question.”

“We’d be moving her farther from the shelter and supplies at the cabin as well as from your SUV if we need to transport.” Petra turned her head from left to right. “The boys might be around here somewhere.”

“Do you feel comfortable staying with her if Cooper is here to guard the situation? I can get orders.”

“I think orders would be very helpful here. So would getting some medical personnel involved. I don’t know what’s going on right now, but her body responses are not normal.”

Hawkeye slid the map into his ruck, “Let’s be clear here, Petra. Nothing about this is normal.”

Chapter Thirty-Four

Hawkeye

There was a lot going on behind the scenes, and Hawkeye sure would be glad to know what the hell it was and when it all started.

Petra’s friend Tamika had to be Tamika Bradly. How many Tamikas were there in the world?

Tamika Bradly was FBI.

Petra Armstrong, FBI, was here making phone calls, flagging something she saw.

Rowan Kennedy was on the way here. FBI.

Rowan was a specialist. He wasn’t jumping on a plane racing to St Croix for anything trivial.

Petra said she wasn’t working.

Did Hawkeye believe her?

Absolutely. Yes.

The girl hugging the tree root. Now, that was a headscratcher.

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