He guessed that she was realizing that a little practice did not make perfect.
“And work isn’t an option,” he said arguing a point that was in his mind, moot. He had a bigger issue to deal with but first he had to steer her from this one. “You’d endanger the residents of the care home.”
She looked at him with tears in her eyes. She unfolded her arms. “Alright,” she said. “I won’t go back to work, not yet.”
“Agreed. Not until I catch this piece of sludge and put them behind bars.” The truth was, he was ready to put her over his shoulder and take her out of here kicking and screaming. But that wouldn’t work. He needed her buy-in and he needed it quickly.
“Just because our security team claims that there have been no early morning calls doesn’t mean that it’s over. In fact—”
“It could mean something worse,” she murmured.
“It already has meant worse,” he said. “You were stalked and I was attacked.”
They had little time. They needed to get packed and get on the road. Even with a drive that was under two hours, barring traffic, they needed to leave as quickly as possible. As it was, they’d be hitting rush-hour traffic in Denver. There was no getting around that. The traffic rush began now and would last well through the supper hour. Still, he wanted to get on the road and put distance between her and the danger that he now knew lurked here. But he couldn’t push her and risk any opposition. He waffled about which approach would be best.
She didn’t say anything. Instead she fell back down onto her sofa as if every bone and muscle in her body had turned to jelly.
“You’ve got to leave, with me, Kiera. To a safe house. You and me.”
“Why? What’s changed?”
“I went to Rawlins, to the federal jail.”
A hand went to her mouth. “You saw him.”
“I did. And he confirmed what we’d already come to believe, that there were two people that night and only one of them is in jail.”
“And I’m the only witness,” she said in a whisper and sank down onto the edge of the couch.
“Exactly,” he said. “I’ll tell you all of it on the road.” He sat down beside her.
“We’re that pushed for time?”
“I want us on the road by three at the outside,” he said. “You’re okay?”
She nodded. And he could see in her eyes and the set of her lips that they were finally on the same page.
“The safe house won’t be set up until tomorrow but the important thing is that we’re out of here, out of Cheyenne.”
“I hate this,” she muttered. “There’s no other way?”
“No other way,” he confirmed in a low voice that only emphasized the situation. He was pleasantly surprised at her reaction, by the lack of pushback from her. After her reaction about her job, he’d only assumed the worst.
“Okay,” she said and stood up. “I’ll get packed.”
“Just like that?” he asked. He couldn’t predict her.
“There’s no choice is there? I mean, the only thing that seems to have stopped are the phone calls.”
She was right there. According to Serene there’d been no calls since the third morning she was home. There’d been a dead-end on traces. In the meantime, he’d obtained a pre-paid phone for Kiera.
“No choice,” he agreed. “And it’s a hotel for us tonight,” he said. “I’ll tell you—”
She held up her hand. “I’m not ready to hear what he said. I...” Her voice shook. “Give me time on that. I need to know. I just don’t... It gives me the chills, like I was there in that closet all over again.”
“I get it. You’ll ask in your own good time.”
“I will,” she said with a smile. “And probably sooner than you think. In the meantime, what else aren’t you telling me?”
“One other thing.” He hesitated to say it, unsure of how she was going to react. There was a split-second hesitation “We’re going to be married for a while.”
“Alright,” she replied.
“Then we’re good to go,” he said, as if the cavalier words could make up for his shock at her easy acceptance of the new situation. They were heading into the unknown. He’d expected reluctance, fear even. And he was relieved that she reacted with none of that.
His phone rang. He looked at it and at Kiera. “I have to take this,” he said.
She nodded as he stood up and went to the front door. He hit Answer as he opened the door and went outside.
It was James.
“You ready to head out?”
“Twenty minutes out,” he replied. He didn’t mention that he had yet to convince Kiera that this was the only way to keep her safe. “I’ll message you when I’m there.”
“Have you rolled out the situation for her?”
“She’s aware we’re going to a safe house.”
“So. You have told her that she’s going to be your wife for a while? Possibly gotten her agreement?” James chuckled as if already anticipating her response.
“The laughs on you,” he said with a smile. “She knows and it’s not an issue.”
Travis disconnected seconds later and went back into the condo. He didn’t look forward to what he only saw as long and anxious hours ahead.
Chapter Seventeen
They’d been on the road for thirty minutes. The prairie rolled out on either side of them, as the distant mountains rose in the background. He glanced over at Kiera. Anytime he had in the past, like now, it seemed that her eyes hadn’t left the road. It was as if they needed to be there, as if she were the one driving. He sensed her tension. He knew leaving her home, her job and her life in Cheyenne wasn’t easy for her. He also knew that the move was the safest option.
The cat meowed for the first time since the trip began. He had to admit that despite his reservations, so far, the animal had been no trouble.
“Lucy,” Kiera said as she turned to slip her fingers through the wire front of the carrier. “Not that long and we’ll be there. Promise.”
She spoke as if the cat understood. He’d heard that this was a trait of many pet owners. Her bond with the animal was like a foreign language to him. He’d never had a pet. Neither his lifestyle nor his personality left him open to the idea.
“You’re quiet,” he said as another mile passed. He glanced over at her, hoping if nothing else to start a conversation on how she was feeling, on how this impacted her. Anything would be preferable to the silence.
“I’m completely stressed by this. Leaving my home, leaving everything I treasure behind.” She shook her head. “It’s impossible to process. It’s all been so much, too much.”
She was silent for a minute.
He didn’t say anything. He couldn’t imagine all she’d been through and all she still needed to do to finally put this behind her. She was right, it was too much, and yet more kept being asked of her. There was no choice. But he admired the fact that with little complaint, she shouldered it all.
Minutes passed. He could feel her eyes on him. He glanced over. The late afternoon sun highlighted her high cheekbones, her natural beauty evident even without a trace of makeup.
“I hate that this is happening,” she said after silence had again become heavy, uncomfortable between them.
“It’s not forever,” he promised. “After the trial, or maybe sooner, you’ll be able to go home. One day, it will be as if none of this ever happened,” he said. He wasn’t sure if that would ever be the case. But she needed something to look forward to. She needed the silver lining, not the dark cloud that she’d so recently escaped.
“One day,” she said in a quiet voice. She turned to watch a herd of elk in the distance, as if the sight would bring that normalcy into her life, as if it might bring it sooner.
So far, it had been an easy drive. But Wyoming was
like that, miles of straight, uncongested roads. With a small population, traffic jams didn’t exist. It was one of the things he loved about the state. Of course, there was more to it than that. He could also add the mountains, the wildlife and the raw, untouched prairie. All those things were reasons that he’d jumped at the chance when a position had come up here. The bonus, of course, had been the fact that this was the state where he had grown up and where the majority of his family still lived.
Minutes and miles passed. The scenery hadn’t changed, only another herd of elk and a lone deer provided any change from the miles of prairie. They traveled in silence for a few miles.
“It will never be the same will it?” she asked as they neared the Colorado border. “My life, I mean.”
He didn’t know what to say. He guessed that what she had said wasn’t really a question.
A minute passed and then two.
“You didn’t believe there were two people who took me, did you? Even after calls and the threat,” she said.
“That’s not exactly true,” he said glancing at her. “After the phone threats I still had doubts. But I was considering what you said and pushing to investigate the possibility. Then, after I was attacked...” He glanced at her. “If I’d known you better, I would have believed sooner. I’m sorry, you were right.”
“Sometimes I think none of it was real, that it was just one horrifying hallucination.”
“Right,” he replied. “And that’s the problem.”
“You need evidence,” she said.
“Exactly. Without it, you have us in a corner. As a marshal, it’s my job not to take everything at face value. I’m obliged to question.” He glanced at her. “There aren’t any lawyers now. He’s refused representation. But I can see that changing. Eventually he’ll come to his senses. The lawyers will be worse—you realize that?”
Worse was an understatement. The defendant’s attorney, should he acquire one, could literally tear her apart.
“I know,” she said softly and yet with an edge in her voice. “Don’t worry. Whatever happens, I’ll survive,” she promised.
He knew that she’d survived a lot in her life. Her mother had died when she was three. She’d never known her father. Her mother had been a single parent. What Kiera knew was that her father had been too young and too uninterested. He’d never offered support and declared he wanted nothing to do with her. Her parents had parted ways shortly after her mother learned she was pregnant. For Kiera it had never been a big deal. Even after losing her mother, she’d never thought to find the man who had fathered her. She had no interest and claimed she never would. Her aunt had raised her after that but had died only a half dozen years ago. As much as Travis cared about his aunts and uncles, he wasn’t sure what it would be like to lose your only family member, the aunt who raised you. He knew that her aunt had no children and he could only think how lonely that would be with no siblings, no raucous family gatherings. It seemed odd to him.
“Like you survived your childhood?”
“No!” There was a note of surprise in her voice. “It wasn’t like that. My childhood wasn’t anything that needed surviving. Not at all. Aunt Nan was wonderful. Besides, I was so young when my mother died that I only have a few memories. Good ones but nothing traumatic. It was Aunt Nan’s passing that killed me. I was eighteen. And after that, it was just me.
“What about you?” she asked.
He smiled, for he realized that in the time he’d spent with her it had been more him grilling her, and, of course, he had the advantage of having a file on her.
“Three brothers, a sister, my mom and dad, grandparents and a herd of cousins, aunts and uncles... Some days the list seems endless.”
“Do you stay in touch with them?”
He smiled. “All the time,” he said. “But it’s more like they stay in touch with me.” He thought how spoiled he really was and how little effort he had to put in to keep in touch. They did, as his mother would call it, all the heavy lifting. But once a year he had his grilling extravaganza for the entire clan. There was no set date due to his job and the unpredictability of his assignments. But it was tradition. And, on the first good weather weekend that he was home, he fired up the grill for the event. It was an event that he planned at least a week in advance.
“You’re lucky,” she replied and there was a wistful tone to her voice. “I’m betting you had fun growing up,” she said. “Lots of baseball games?”
“A sport that I don’t excel at,” he admitted.
“What were you good at?”
“Golf,” he said. “Not the sport to win the girls over, so I migrated to football in high school.”
“Golf,” she repeated. “If it makes you feel any better, Aunt Nan was an older mother and her idea of sports was bowling. I actually can still bowl a fairly good game.”
The conversation stayed for a few minutes on safe ground, exploring the worlds of their childhoods before lapsing again into silence.
Ten minutes passed, then fifteen. The scenery was changing. They were getting close to the state border. She shifted in her seat as if she were ready to get out, stretch her legs and end this road trip.
The mountains were drifting farther back. The road felt less closed in.
“Okay, tell me, what did the creep say when you went to see him? Tell me what you can,” she said. Her voice was soft and yet no less commanding.
“He basically said that he wasn’t acting alone. And he confirmed that he had a partner and that she’s female.”
“What the lowly witness had already told them,” she said with a hint of an edge in her voice. She looked at him. “Was it you who suggested that I be moved?”
“Pretty much. Although...” He didn’t finish. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to finish.
“Although?” she repeated. “That leads me to believe there’s more.”
There’s always more, Travis thought. “It wasn’t an easy decision to be made all around. But once the evidence of a second killer became a real possibility, once a stalker entered the picture, there’s no way that we could do anything else but get you immediately to a safe place.” His eyes were focused solely on the road for it was moving into prime time for deer and antelope to be crossing the highway. The animals were in grazing mode and not adverse to running, without warning, across the highway.
There was silence again for a few minutes as the late-afternoon sun danced across the prairie and the mountains retreated farther into the background. They crossed the Colorado border and the traffic slowly began to pick up. Time passed and soon they were no longer in laid-back, wide-open country. The uninhabited prairie slowly morphed into towns and then cities and eventually the urban and commercial sprawl that spread tentacles along the highway and led to the metropolis of Denver.
“How long?” she asked with a quiver in her voice. “How long before I can go home?”
His eyes were on the road. But the truth was he didn’t want to look at her. He couldn’t stand tears. He didn’t know what to do. It wasn’t as if he could hug her or even just make it better with words. He was driving. He had to stay focused and there was really no time limit he could give her. Until it’s over wasn’t the answer she wanted to hear.
He could feel her eyes on him. He knew that she wouldn’t let go of the question. She’d wait patiently.
“It will be alright. We’ll get you home, hopefully soon.”
“I hope so,” she whispered.
And, in the silence, he vowed that he would keep the promise of getting her home soon.
It was a promise he didn’t know how he was going to keep.
Chapter Eighteen
They’d been on the road since midafternoon and the trip was close to over. It was almost five o’clock—the worst time to be hitting the outskirts of Denver. He looked over at Kiera. She was quiet as if caught in her
own thoughts.
She glanced at him. “You okay?”
“Why do you ask?”
“You’ve been driving the whole way and it’s crazy busy.”
“Denver in rush hour. You’ve never been here?”
“No.” She shook her head. “There wasn’t money for trips, not after Aunt Nan died, and even before. We had to follow a fairly tight budget.”
He imagined what she must make of seeing the urban sprawl that was Denver. The endless box stores as they neared the city, the vehicles that were bumper-to-bumper, the hectic pace of a large city so different from Cheyenne.
He gave her a glance and a quick smile. Not that he didn’t enjoy his visits to Denver, not that it wasn’t a beautiful city but the urban sprawl that led into it was only another reminder of why he loved the wide-open spaces of Wyoming.
“I’m beginning to appreciate Cheyenne,” Kiera said as if she had read his thoughts. “This is too busy for me.”
He kept his eyes on the road. But he couldn’t agree with her more. Denver was an attractive city, but Cheyenne was the perfect size, at least for him.
They’d passed a number of hotel and motel advertisements. He’d already pinpointed a hotel a mile from where they were. It would be a relief to get off the road.
“I found a hotel close to the house we’ll be moving to tomorrow.”
“Alright,” she replied. “I’m assuming you’re checking in.”
“I am,” he said. With her having no ID, he would complete the registration at the hotel. His name was on no one’s radar and using his name, acting as a couple, was part of the plan. Five minutes later he was taking their bags to their room.
“Are you hungry?” he asked. It was close to suppertime and he hadn’t eaten since breakfast. He wasn’t sure about her.
“Starved,” she replied.
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