Free 3 Loosey Goosey by Rae Davies Page A

his laptop shut and jangled my keys. “Let’s go.”
    After that, Ben didn’t argue. Maybe he was finally seeing the light of listening to his older, wiser sister, or maybe he just wanted a shower, but whatever the case, he picked up Pauline and followed me out to my rig.
    Where Kiska was waiting.
    This was going to take some negotiating.
    I looked at Ben and gestured toward Pauline. “I don’t suppose you have a crate or something for her.”
    The look I got put me in my animal-restraining place.
    I’d left the window cracked so Kiska could get a breeze. He pressed his nose up against the opening and inhaled loudly. He scratched at the door, and he talked. He did everything his little furry brain could come up with to encourage me to open the door and bring on the goose.
    Except, of course, sitting nicely and calmly and pretending she didn’t exist.
    Pauline, for her part, remained calm, aloof even. As I paced around my rig, looking for inspiration, she turned her head away and stared at Mount Helena.
    Then I did the unthinkable. I waved my brother into a hiding spot behind a delivery truck. With him and his goose hidden, I put Kiska on his leash and walked him around to the back.
    “You are sitting back here today,” I announced with what I hoped was confidence. Leaving him leashed, I wrestled him into the back, a space normally reserved for groceries and auction finds, and slammed the hatch shut.
    Then I called to Ben, and, with my brother sitting in the back seat holding onto Kiska’s leash and Pauline riding shotgun next to me, we pulled out of the parking lot.
    It wasn’t horrid. Pauline seemed to approve of her spot, preening and moving in circles before settling down to take in the sights. Kiska... Well, Ben did a good job holding him in place, leaving my malamute with no option aside from vocalness. Which he practiced frequently and at high volume, alternating demands, complaints, and pleas on a nice regular schedule.
    “So, no Lemon?” I asked Ben while Kiska was taking a break from yelling at us to inhale almost as loudly.
    “Nope.”
    “I’ll take you to the Egg.” I wasn’t thrilled with being put back into the same position I’d been when I was 16 and Ben was 13, and I’d had to tote him around to every flag football game and tween party in a three-county area.
    But picking him up at the campground each morning and dropping him back off at night would be manageable. And, most importantly, it would get our mother off my back.
    Feeling responsible and in control, I pressed the accelerator down and picked up speed. The faster I dropped off Ben and his goose, the faster I could get back to my own life such as it was.
    It wasn’t until we were at the turn for the campground that my lovely in-control feeling disappeared.
    Something was wrong.
    The police cars told me that.
    I glanced at Ben in the rearview mirror.
    He seemed unconcerned, relaxed even.
    A holiday weekend was fast approaching. Some other camper could have caused a problem. This didn’t have to be about my brother.
    Except we weren’t in the Helena city limits.
    A vision of Ben, Pauline, Kiska, and me making some kind of Thelma and Louise cross-country run from the law flitted through my mind, but I quickly deserted that option.
    I flipped on my turn signal.
    Clinging to the hope that there’d been a jail break and the escapee had holed up in a nearby tent, I bumped my rig across the one-way bridge that stretched over the creek and around the circle drive.
    With only two days until the start of the holiday weekend, the place was filling up with squatters intent on holding one of the first-come, first-keep camp sites. Over half the spots were occupied by tents. Two others held police cars, and parked in front of the Egg was what I recognized as Stone’s car.
    My stomach writhed. But, I told myself, the crazed escapee story still held possibilities. I glanced around, looking for dogs, helicopters, or some other sign of a massive