“Only where she isn’t. Groups are becoming less informative all the time, which makes me think they’re protecting him now. Either that or everyone is becoming more paranoid of strangers. A lot of them seem to know who I am and what I’m going to ask before I say anything.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because Caesar’s got what they want—a woman. He may even have more than one now. They’ll protect him so they can…”
I can’t finish the thought. Lifting the bottle to my lips, I take a gulp and swallow past the lump forming in my throat. The fact is, I haven’t had anything that even remotely resembles a lead in months. The only thing that makes me think Hannah is still in the area is the lack of cooperation from the few people I have found.
“I’m pretty good at putting puzzles together,” Katrina suddenly says.
I glare at her. The vodka is definitely hitting my head now. Everything is a bit swimmy, but her babbling pisses me off. I don’t want to hear about her fucking hobbies.
“Well, if we come across a jigsaw, you’ll be the first to know.” I rub my temples with my fingers.
“I meant,” she says, “maybe I can help you find her.”
I stare at her, trying to figure out where she’s going with this. I can’t think of any way this young woman could help me unless she already knows something.
“How?” My suspicions are raised, but I haven’t seen any signs that she’s tried to deceive me so far, so what could she be thinking?
“We did some trading with groups in the area,” she says. “Well, my brother did, anyway. I always had to stay out of sight. Seth was afraid if they saw me…well, you know.”
“Yeah, I do. Do you think he talked to someone who might know where I can find Hannah?”
“I don’t know,” she says with a shake of her head, “but my brother kept records. He took notes on every group he came across when he was trading. He’s got names, locations—everything.”
For the first time since I dragg
ed myself back to the parking garage of the hospital to find her gone, I feel hope.
Chapter 3
We wait until morning to leave, but I sleep very little. The thought of finally having a direction—somewhere to at least look for a clue—has my adrenaline pumping. By the time Katrina climbs out of the small bed, I’ve been up for an hour.
Katrina takes me to a ranch house on a flood plain right next to a river. The river itself is barely a trickle now, but the house is well sheltered by the valley and trees and seems to be in good shape.
I follow her up two steps to the front door and then inside. It’s not a big place. It has that seventies energy-conservation vibe—small, compact rooms and windows barely large enough to crawl out of if you needed to. She goes straight to a desk in the main living area and pulls out a thick, spiral-bound notebook.
She’s right—there are a lot of notes in her brother’s journal. I glance through the first few dozen pages, and I’m amazed at the level of detail.
“How did he know to collect all this information?”
“Learned from my dad,” she says with a shrug. “We were a big hunting and fishing family. Dad could track anything and taught us a lot about being quiet and on the lookout. Seth would stalk the camps for days before approaching them. He’d get to know everyone’s names and what they did for the group, if anything. He didn’t meet them in person unless he was sure they’d be open to trade and that they would have something we needed.”
“What did you have to trade?” I ask.
“Recipes.”
“What?” I look at her sharply. I couldn’t have heard that right.
“Recipes,” she says again. “You wouldn’t believe how many of these guys are just eating beans out of a can for every meal. They have no idea how to put foods together without a cookbook, and no one seems to be collecting those, but I do.”
“You traded cookbooks?”
“Not the books themselves,” she says. “I’d write down the recipes that use only things that are pretty easy to find. I found one that was from the Great Depression. All the recipes were geared toward rationing and such. I looked for ones that only included dry goods and ingredients that don’t spoil. I kept the books to help me come up with new things to cook.”
“And people want them?”
“They eat them up.” She laughs at her own joke. “We could get batteries, lanterns, and propane for just a handful of them. The problem is, there are only so many. We had to keep finding new groups to trade with.”