“That was close,” I muttered, but Sophie didn’t reply. Her focus was entirely on the road.
“Did we lose him?” she asked. Since I couldn’t use my side mirror I looked behind me cautiously.
“No, he’s still there. He’s driving some sort of sports car.”
“Damn it,” Sophie said. “I told you to shell out some extra money for a real car,” she complained.
“I never really thought my car’s performance in high-speed car chases was something I needed to consider,” I replied.
“That’s always something you should consider,” Sophie said as the engine whirred. She was doing well over ninety now, and my heart leapt into my throat every time we took a corner. The next shotgun blast burst through the rear window, sending shards of glass everywhere. I instinctively bent down.
“How are we going to get away?” I asked.
“By trickery,” Sophie said. We were approaching the intersection to turn onto state highway 126; it was a left hand turn, with its own turning lane. However, Sophie stayed in the lane we were in. Seeing as there was a giant semi-trailer coming the other way, I figured that was a good thing. She slowed down a little bit, enough to let the crazy exotic pet owner with the gun catch up to us; I wasn’t sure that was a good idea.
“Are you sure about this?” I asked as I dared to peek through the broken rear window of the car. Richard Steele was now only about ten feet behind us, if even that.
“Everyone hang on,” Sophie practically shouted a split second before she wrenched the steering wheel to the left. My body was forced into the side door panel, and I heard the squawks of surprised birds behind me as Sophie cut across two lanes, missing the semi by what I was pretty sure was under a foot. I could have sworn I saw my life flash before my eyes, but it might have simply been the truck’s headlights passing inches from my face.
The truck’s horn blasted behind us as we burst through across the lanes and onto state highway 126. However, instead of continuing west, Sophie quickly cut across to the far lane and headed back east toward Sisters.
“Everyone ok?” she asked.
“My word, that was quite exciting, but I do think I’m all right. How about you, Cherie?” Coolidge said.
“Yes, I am fine, although I may have a small cut from some of the glass. The excitement is very welcome, I cannot remember the last time my heart raced so fast.”
“And I’m as free as a bird,” Hehu said. He was completely stoned.
“The birds are fine and so am I,” I told Sophie. “How do you know he’s not going to come back to find us?”
“I don’t, that’s why we’re still doing just under 100,” she replied, and I noticed her checking the rear-view mirror every couple of seconds. “We’re going to go back to Sisters, where I can lose him more easily, since there are a lot more roads and turnoffs there. Can you open your phone and find me a different route to get home?”
I nodded and checked my phone; by the time we got to Sisters there was still no sign of Richard Steele. We went back along US Highway 20 until we got to Bend, and then got onto US Highway 97 heading south for a while before finally cutting back west until we found the Interstate.
I don’t think I relaxed for even a second until we finally got onto the freeway, my heart still racing at a million miles an hour.
“We’re going to have a lot of explaining to do when we get back to Willow Bay,” Sophie said, glancing at the shattered rear window and the missing side mirror of my car. “Your insurance company is never going to believe this.”
It was probably the adrenaline talking, but I absolutely burst out laughing.
Chapter 13
When we got back to Willow Bay the sun was setting. I put the car in the garage to avoid anyone seeing the damage and asking too many questions, then brought Hehu into the house with me, along with the other two birds.
“Do you mind coming inside with me for a little while?” I asked them. “I just want to make sure you’re safe, plus there are a few other things I wouldn’t mind asking you to see if I can help find the people who brought you here.”
“Of course, we are happy to help,” Cherie replied as she flew around Sophie and me.
“Thank you,” I told them, opening the front door. The first thing I did when I got in was find Bee and her kittens and I put them in my room; I didn’t want there to be any excitement about the birds being in the house. I set Hehu down on the couch carefully; he was still sleeping. I figured I could take him into the vet clinic tomorrow and do what I could for his wing there, where the equipment was better, and the environment more sterile.
Sprinkles came over, wagging his tail, and carefully sniffed Hehu, then lay down at his feet.
“Good boy Sprinkles, this is a very special bird. He saved my life today, as did these other two.”
“I will guard him then,” Sprinkles said, and I knew he wouldn’t move from that spot.
When I walked back toward the kitchen I found that Coolidge and Cherie had perched themselves on the backs of two of the dining room chairs and were curiously watching Charlotte, who was sitting at the dining room table doing some kind of chemistry work.
“How did you run into two cockatoos and a kea?” she asked me without looking up.
“Uh, it’s a long story that involves a collector of exotic animals, me losing track of time and a car chase with a redneck.”
Charlotte raised her eyebrows. “It sounds like the kind of thing I absolutely would have advised against.”
“To be fair, it was only supposed to be a reconnaissance mission. But the birds were so talkative, and knew so much, that I just lost track of time. Also, when I fell, I hurt my wrist. Can you look at it?”
I held out my arm and saw Charlotte inhale sharply. My wrist was now nice and swollen; it looked like someone had shoved a kiwi fruit under my skin. It was bruised as well, and the skin was now a nice deep blue color, with green and yellow spots toward the outer bits.
“You need to get this X-rayed,” Charlotte told me, getting up and going to the kitchen. She came back with an ice pack, which she handed to me. “And for now, you absolutely need to get ice on it, and take a couple Advil to help reduce the swelling.”
“It’s probably just a sprain, though, right?”
“There’s no way to tell for sure without an X-ray. If your wrist was obviously bent to the side I’d say it was a break, but since it looks straight, there’s no way to know for sure if it’s strained or broken.”
“Great,” I sighed. “I’ll go down to the clinic in a few hours, then.” But for now, I had some more important things to do; I had to take care of these birds who had saved my life.
“So I wanted to ask in the barn but never got the opportunity to; how do the three of you know so much about what was happening on the Steele property if you were stuck in the barn all the time?”
“Well, we could always fly up to the hole you came through, though we were too large to fit through it. That way we could get a little bit of a glimpse as to what was going on outside,” Coolidge said, and my heart broke for the life they’d been living, where they could get a glimpse of the outside world but never partake in it.
“And Gemma would come and visit us quite a bit. She seems like a lonely girl, but she was very kind. Even though we couldn’t speak back to her, she would tell us what was happening on the farm, and in her life in general.”
“Ah, ok, that makes sense,” I replied, nodding. “Now, I want to find the people who smuggled Lucy. Do you know anything about them?”
“Well of course we do,” Coolidge said. “We were already there when they brought Lucy into the barn. They came in with The Bad Man, and they explained to him what she needed to eat, that sort of thing.”