Nina reached up and stroked Kit’s cheek with her knuckles, the cleanest part of her hand.
“Is Teddy’s mom-” Kit said.
“She’ll make it. Needs a good surgeon, though. Think she’s got some rib splinters in that lung,” Nina said, looking up at the sky. “They’ll have a good medic on the Air Force chopper. One of the EMT guys said the emergency room in Bemidji is alerted, should get them there in minutes. Got a couple surgeons reporting in.” She smiled at Kit. Keeping her voice low-key with tremendous effort, she said, “You’re gonna get to see a Blackhawk land in a snowstorm, Little Bit.”
Broker and Nina working so hard at reassuring calm, they were almost moving in slow motion.
More urgently, Nina’s eyes flitted up to Broker’s. He nodded to her. I got her. She’s okay, he signaled with his eyes, tightening his arms on their daughter. “Did you talk at all?” he asked, nodding toward Cassie.
“She told me she wanted to talk to us. But said she better get with a lawyer first,” Nina said. Then she turned. “Look, honey, here it comes.”
They stood on the road in a tight huddle and watched the helicopter descend like a ferocious electric-eyed steel insect. Broker shielded Kit’s face with his free hand from the tempest of rotor-driven snow. Watched them load the casualties. Two guys jumped off the bird, in parkas; one of them was wearing a tie.
“Here come the suits,” Broker said in a dreamy voice, still floating on flowing adrenaline. His voice was lost in the clatter of the chopper lifting off.
Nygard, fiercely protective, steered the two guys away from Broker, Nina, and Kit. He walked them over to the side of the house, where two more state cops and eight deputies from three counties had gathered to gossip about the relative merits of the 1911.45-caliber Colt semiautomatic pistol, longest-serving handgun in the U.S. Army’s inventory.
The new arrivals viewed Gator Bodine’s brains scattered on the snow like red scrambled eggs. Then they observed the pistol Nina had left in the snow, slide locked open, magazine out. Broker didn’t pay them much attention. Wasn’t the first time he’d seen a bunch of men, mouths gaping, staring at his wife.
Gliding, holding Kit so tight he could feel her heart thump, Broker reconstructed it; Gator’s jerked shot had passed a foot over his head as Nina drilled a bullet an inch above Gator’s left eyebrow. Barlow had found Cassie and the burned woman. Nygard had yelled for help. Broker scooped up Kit. Nina ran to assist Barlow. Nygard had dashed into the burning barn, found the keys in the Nissan and backed it out.
Now the yellow tape was being strung. Procedure was setting in. Nygard escorted the two office guys over to the Nissan that was parked a hundred yards away. They huddled for a moment. Apparently having found something, the new guys started walking toward Broker, Kit, and Nina.
Nygard and Barlow blocked their path.
“Mom, Dad…” Kit’s voice suddenly shuddered with a release of tension. As they drew closer, Kit’s voice trembled. “I’m scared…”
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” they said in unison as the alarm in her voice started to burst the tight stitches of control in their own faces.
“I’m worried about Ditech, she’s probably hungry being out in the cold in this strange place,” Kit said, pressing her face into the bundle of black fur in the hollow of her neck.
“She’ll be fine, just don’t squeeze her too hard,” Broker said.
“Got to hold her tight, so she don’t get away.”
As Kit said that, Broker and Nina’s eyes met in the firelight. Tearing up, blinking, he lifted his eyes to the tall column of smoke towering up into the dark sky. That’s when the adrenaline flamed out, leaving a terrible empty space in his chest. Griffin…
Broker raised his free arm, reaching out. “I…” The words faltered. His knees buckled.
“It’s okay. I hear you,” Nina replied softly, slipping under his arm; leaning in, taking some of the weight. A slender trickle of tears cut through the soot and blood on her cheeks.
Barlow jogged over, her hands gloved with smeared white latex, dark face shiny in the firelight. Her teeth flashed a smile that ended in a tense grimace. “They found some old pictures in the Nissan with you in them. The BCA guy thinks they might mean something,” she said to Broker.
Broker just nodded.
Barlow looked around, planted her hands on the heavy leather service belt strapped around her hips, and shook her head briefly. Her eyes came back to them. “You need anything, anything at all, I’m here.”
“Keep them off us a few more minutes, okay?” Broker said, hugging his wife and daughter. “We need a little more time alone together.”