Race with Danger (Run for Your Life Book 1) by Pamela Beason Page A

me. Kai’s is in colored pencil and shows me in motion, running, my hair streaming out behind me. In the background are trees filled with colorful birds. The image is amazingly accomplished. Kai has become quite the artist since I left.
    I wonder if my brother Aaron likes art. Today he would be a big brother to Kai. Aaron was just entering the colored felt pen stage when… No. I hastily haul my mind back from the edge of that black abyss.
    Kiki’s drawing shows me standing on a three-tiered podium wearing a huge red-white-and-blue medal. I’m in the center and highest up, just like they position the winners in the Olympics.
    Unlike her brother, Kiki is not gifted with artistic skills. In her drawing, while I am fleshed out and recognizable only because I know her intention, the second and third place winners are mere stick figures. Maybe my adopted little sister just ran out of time, but the drawing gives the impression that I have bested a pair of two-dimensional outlines. I chuckle.
    “What?” Sebastian says.
    I show him Kiki’s drawing. He laughs, too, and then says, “I wish our competition looked that beatable.”
    “ De acuerdo ,” I answer.
    His mouth falls open a little in surprise at my Spanish words of agreement. Then his lips curve into a little half smile as he registers that we both have Spanish-speaking mothers.
    Marisela’s letter is filled with words of encouragement. She writes, You have always been a winner, mija . I rub my finger over that sentence for luck.
    That she could truly think I’ve always been a winner is impossible to believe. When she first saw me, I was as down and out as a girl could get. It was December, and while I had mastered dumpster diving and mopping the occasional floor in a fast food restaurant for a rare hot meal, I was in serious danger of freezing each night. I broke into a little hut that migrant workers lived in during the summers. I thought the whole apple farm was deserted, but it turned out that Marisela was the winter caretaker.
    She not only taught me how to survive, but showed me how to live in the world while staying under the radar. She helped me find work before I was sixteen. She helped me find clothes and shoes and friends and get back into school. I owe everything to her. I carefully place the drawings back into the envelope to save for later.
    I turn over the other envelope before opening it. The return address is unreadable, but the postmark says Nairobi, Kenya. I use my dinner knife to cut through the thick tape that seals the flap. Inside the envelope is a wad of plastic bubble wrap. I pull it out.
    More tape. I saw through that and finally a pendant on a braided cord falls to the table top. I stare at it, my breath catching in my throat.
    The pendant is made from a huge dark seed, carved into the shape of the continent of Africa. Inside its borders are tiny silhouettes of a giraffe and a monkey and a bird. I know that the cord, which looks like fine black wire, is made of hair from an elephant’s tail.
    The last time I saw this pendant, it was in my mother’s jewelry box.
    I turn it over. It’s been three years, but I swear it looks exactly the same.
    I paw through the packaging. There is a folded note: Recognize this? [email protected]
    I lay the necklace on the table in front of me. A chill prickles over my skin from my head to my toes, and I chafe the goosebumps that erupt on my arms.
    Who is [email protected]? Could it be Aaron? If my brother sent the necklace, then he’s alive and he knows I am, too. No, that’s a crazy thought; Aaron would be only twelve today.
    Could Aaron be with friends or relatives in Africa? Could my parents have survived?
    Is P.A. Patterson one of my parents’ killers?
    “What’s that?”
    I glance up, startled out of my speculations.
    Sebastian leans across the table. “You look like you just pulled the ring out of a hand grenade.”
    I realize my mouth is hanging open. I shut it and swallow to bring up