Colin didn’t so much as pause in talking on the radio. “I’m about eight minutes away now. What’s up?”
“A four-year-old boy climbed a tree and he’s sitting on a branch that’s about to break. I’ve spent the last fifteen minutes trying to get him to jump to me, but he won’t let go. Says I’m too old to catch him.” They could hear the frustration in the man’s voice. “The fire department is on the way with a ladder, but I thought maybe if you were close, you could talk him down. Carl’s here but . . .”
“Five minutes,” Colin said and clicked off the microphone as he reached outside and put a red light on the roof and a siren went off. He glanced at Gemma. “I’m sorry, but I have to go fast.”
She said nothing but her eyes widened. They were already doing sixty on the winding road. There were only a few feet visible in front of them. If a car—
She broke off her thoughts because a pickup with a boat attached was in front of them and Colin was heading straight into the back of it. He swerved to the left—and into the face of an oncoming car. Gemma tried to brace herself for the coming crash.
But then, as though it were like some Biblical drama, the truck beside them slammed on the brakes and jerked to the right, while the car expertly went to the left, its nose heading into the trees. In front of them, the way was clear, and Colin hadn’t even slowed down.
As soon as they were past, Gemma turned to look behind them. Both the truck and the car had stopped, and a tall man from the truck was crossing the road to the car.
Gemma turned back around. They were doing seventy now.
“That was Luke, the author, in the truck,” Colin said. “And it was Ramsey in the car. He’s a lawyer.”
“It was a pleasure meeting them,” Gemma answered, still holding on.
Colin chuckled as he turned a sharp right onto land that had no hint of a roadway. “I didn’t mean to scare you, but I knew they’d get out of the way. They’re both relatives of mine.”
She wanted to ask what he would have done if the road had been full of tourists, but she was too busy holding on to ask him anything. There were holes and little hillocks that made one wheel go down and another go up. Gemma was bouncing on the seat so hard her head scraped the ceiling.
“Shortcut,” Colin yelled over the noise of the siren and what sounded like a metal tool box in the back bouncing up and down. “We’re going across Merlin’s Farm.” He pointed to the right.
Half hidden under the trees was a small octagon-shaped building with a tall, pointed roof, like a witch’s hat. There was a short door, and to the right of it was an open space in the wall, with a gate across it.
It didn’t take a historian to see that the building was very old.
“That’s . . .” Gemma began. “Is that . . . ?”
“Spring house. Water inside,” Colin yelled back as he shifted gears. In the next second he went around a couple of big trees and a county sheriff car came into view. Colin skidded to a halt amid a dense cloud of dust and rocks.
Gemma stayed in the car, coughing, but Colin leaped out before the vehicle came to a full halt. When the car kept rolling, she saw that he’d left it to her to turn off the engine. She slid over the console, braked, and turned the motor off.
When she looked out the windshield, she saw Colin and two law enforcement officers in brown uniforms standing a few feet away from a big tree that had been struck by lightning. Half of the tree had fallen to the ground, creating what looked to be a ramp that led upward. It would be easy for a child to walk up it.
Above, sitting on a heavy branch that was bending toward the earth, was a little boy. He had blond hair and big blue eyes that were wide with fear. His mother was standing below and talking to him in a low voice, trying to keep him from moving and causing the branch to break further.
Gemma got out of the car and walked to stand near Colin, her eyes on the child.
“It’s going to take them another ten minutes to get here,” Tom, the county sheriff, was saying. He was in his late fifties, a tall, handsome man with gray hair. He turned his back to the boy’s mother. “Carl tried getting out to him, but the branch cracked. Think you can catch the kid if he falls?”
“Sure,” Colin said in a low voice so the mother wouldn’t hear. “But that wood isn’t going to hold much longer. I think we should get him down now.” He walked toward the little boy and looked up. “Hey . . .”
“Sean,” his mother said.
“Sean, my name is Colin, and I’m the town sheriff, and as you can see I’m pretty strong. What I want you to do is let go of the tree and let yourself fall. I’ll catch you. It’ll be like playing football. That okay with you?”
“No!” the boy said as he tightened his grip on the branch. It gave a resounding crack.
“He climbs everything,” his mother said, her voice vibrating with barely controlled hysteria. “He gets on the kitchen countertops and into the upper cabinets. One morning I opened a door over the sink and he was sitting inside, smiling at me. He—”
Reaching out, Colin put his hand on her shoulder, and she quit talking. He turned back to the boy. “All right, Sean, I want you to be very still. Okay, buddy?” The child was only about six feet above his head, but he might as well have been ten stories away. And if Colin waited for the branch to break to catch the boy, both of them could be hurt.
“Cheerleading,” Tom said from beside Gemma.
When she turned toward him, he was staring at her. “Colin’s little brother does a cheerleader pyramid with five girls on him. The top one stands on his shoulders.”