Part 16 (2/2)
”Added to the tab, no worries.”
Jenny looked back at Annja. ”And you stayed?”
”Sure, I wasn't going to desert one of my friends. Especially not one who went through so much trouble to get me to come out here in the first place.”
”Thanks. I mean it. And thanks for making sure my students got taken care of. If anything happened to them-”
”Let's not think about that right now. They're safe. So are you. That's what matters.” Annja glanced at Joey. ”Would it be too much to ask you to make a fire? Some of that tea you made Jenny sounds really good, too. I could certainly use a cup and I'm sure Jenny would like another, as well.”
Joey smiled. ”Consider it done.”
Annja watched him vanish into the woods to find the necessary ingredients. Annja looked back at Jenny. ”All right, now what the h.e.l.l is really going on here?”
”What do you mean?”
”What I mean is, you bring me out here to some camp in the middle of nowhere. I get here and instantly I'm faced with three mean dudes with guns. I have to shepherd your students back to town. Then I have a run-in with a wolf. It's been pouring buckets and you almost die from exposure. I visit some old Native American man who surrept.i.tiously teaches me how to do something called spirit tracking and we manage to find each other.” Annja took a breath. ”You're sure this is all about some set of tracks?”
Jenny took a deep breath. ”I don't know.”
”That's not much of an answer.”
Joey emerged from the brush and started making the fire pit. ”I take it you want this thing kept low profile?”
Annja nodded. ”The lower the better.”
Joey nodded and within a few seconds had a small blaze started. Annja watched him fix several sticks together to make some sort of grill. On top of this, he placed a small container of water to boil. Where he'd managed to get the water, Annja had no idea. She wondered what else Joey had hidden away in the small pack he carried.
She glanced back at Jenny who wasn't looking nearly so happy. ”Tell me about this contact of yours,” Annja said.
”David? He's just a friend I met through an online site for Sasquatch aficionados. We hit it off and started comparing notes. He mentioned he was out here and that he'd come across something he thought I might find interesting.”
”The tracks.”
”Yes.”
”And he showed them to you?”
”Via e-mail. He sent me a digital photo of them.”
Joey sniffed. ”Any fool with Photoshop can alter a picture and make it look like something else.”
Jenny sighed. ”Maybe I was naive.”
”Have you seen this David guy since you've been out here?” Annja asked.
Jenny frowned. ”That's the odd thing. He was supposed to meet up with me in town to discuss the search pattern we were going to run to find the creature.”
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