Every Precious Thing lh-2

by Brett Battles

  Someone had turned on the sedan’s headlights, lighting up as much of the forest as they could. He could see Frisk stumbling toward the car, but wasn’t sure where the others were. What he really wanted to see was the area where he and Dev had been, but several trees blocked his sight line. He moved quietly to his right until the view opened up.

  No body on the ground. Good. Dev had at least made it into the trees.

  Logan checked the car again, searching for the remaining men. One was helping Frisk get inside the vehicle, but the other two were still nowhere to be seen.

  A sound, low and soft.

  An ever-so-subtle crunch.

  A footstep, carefully placed on a pack of dried pine needles.

  Logan waited for another one, but none came.

  His eyes having adjusted as best they could to the darkness, he picked out a path that went in a large arc around the area where the car was parked, and over to the side where Dev would have gone. He needed to find his friend to make sure he was all right.

  Between steps, he stopped to listen. Once he heard a twig snap, but it could have been caused by the wind in the trees. Another time he heard Frisk groan back at the car.

  As he neared the top of the arc, he caught sight of a boulder just ahead. It would provide excellent cover, and perhaps there was even a crevasse or hole where Dev was hiding.

  Logan came around the backside of the rock, farthest from the car. His instinct was to whisper Dev’s name, but he couldn’t chance it so he moved in closer. It wasn’t one boulder, but several piled together on the edge of a small depression. Keeping his newly acquired gun in front of him, he checked the spaces between the rocks but saw no one there.

  He glanced up. The top of the pile was about twelve feet above him. If he could get up there, he’d be able to see where the others were. He scoped out the easiest route, then put a foot on the rock.

  Almost instantly he knew it was a bad idea. Not because the rock was unstable or anything like that, but because of the gun muzzle that was suddenly resting against the base of his skull.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Logan was pretty sure he could twist out of the way and get control of the weapon without getting hit. But when it came to pistols anywhere near his head, pretty sure wasn’t something he wanted to test.

  He raised his hands, his own gun pointing at the sky.

  “Set it on the rock,” the person behind him whispered, the words almost like breaths. “Slowly.”

  As he started to comply, the muzzle came away from his head, and he could hear the person take a quick step backward.

  He placed his pistol on the rock.

  “To your left.”

  Improvising, he started to turn as he moved.

  “No. Keep your eyes on the rocks.”

  Not seeing a choice, he complied. His gun was now a sizable lunge away.

  “Far enough,” the voice whispered. “Now sit.”

  He hesitated, confused. He had expected to be immediately marched back to the sedan.

  “Sit.”

  This time he did so.

  Silence descended. In the distance he thought he could hear another footstep.

  After nearly a minute, he said, “What are we do-”

  “Quiet.”

  From his position, the only thing Logan could see was rock. He tried not to think about anything, focusing all his energy on being ready to react at a moment’s notice. Hopefully, whoever was behind him didn’t know that Dev was out there, too.

  A distant, angry voice broke through the stillness, and was followed moments later by the sedan’s doors slamming shut. The car’s engine grew loud enough to be heard, then it faded into the distance as the vehicle drove away.

  What the hell?

  “Who are you?” the person behind him asked. Not a whisper this time.

  Surprised, he turned without even thinking about it.

  “Don’t!”

  But it was too late. He’d seen her.

  Diana Stockley was crouched next to a tree ten feet behind him. In her hand was a pistol. She looked nervous and scared, not the combination Logan wanted in a person pointing a gun at him.

  “I promise I won’t try anything,” he said, continuing to hold up his empty palms. “Why don’t you put the gun down?”

  “No. Who are you?”

  “I told you at your bar. My name’s Logan. Logan Harper.”

  “That’s a lie. Who are you, really?”

  “That’s not a lie. I’d show you my driver’s license, but the others took my wallet.”

  “Convenient.”

  “If you were watching us, you know they did.”

  She stared at him, tight-lipped, but allowed the barrel of the gun to point a few feet to Logan’s right.

  “Tell them to leave her alone and not to come looking for her again,” she said. “Make sure you tell them she’s not theirs. Not now. Not ever. Understand?”

  “I don’t know who you think I am,” Logan said. “But the last thing I want to do is hurt Sara.”

  The woman stared at him. “Don’t you dare say her name. You don’t have that right.”

  “I’m only here because of Sara’s husband.”

  She looked confused. “Her husband?”

  “Alan,” Logan said. “And her daughter Emily, too.”

  Diana didn’t move for a moment. Then she stood up, her pistol pointed directly at Logan’s head.

  “Who are you?”

  Thirty feet behind her, Logan saw movement between the trees.

  Dev. It had to be.

  Logan made fists with his hands and then opened them, stretching his fingers. He hoped Dev would see it as the hold sign he meant it to be.

  “I told you. I’m Logan Harper. Alan’s lawyer, Callie Johnson, is a friend of mine. She asked me to help Alan find his wife. When I talked with him, I met Emily. I know she likes goldfish crackers and that sponge guy’s cartoon, and I’m sure she misses her mom.”

  “You’re lying. I don’t know how you know that stuff, but you’re just trying to trick me into telling you where she is.”

  So you do know.

  As calmly as he could, he said, “I don’t want to hurt anyone. I just want to talk to Sara. That’s all.”

  “No. You want to turn her over to that woman, so she’ll tell them…” She stopped herself, as if she’d just realized something important.

  “Tell them what?”

  “Shut up!” she said. “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!”

  “Please take your finger off the trigger, okay? I’m sure you don’t want to kill anyone, and I’m not really in the mood to be killed.”

  “You don’t know what I want. You don’t know anything.” She seemed on the verge of hyperventilating when, with obvious reluctance, she removed her finger from the trigger. Taking another step backward, she said, “Stay away from her, and stay away from her family.”

  “What am I supposed to tell Alan?”

  She tried to laugh. “I don’t believe you ever saw Alan.”

  “I sat in the living room of his and Sara’s house in Riverside. I saw the mural Sara painted on the wall of Emily’s bedroom. I’m not lying to you.”

  A look of sheer terror flooded across her face as if Logan had transformed into some kind of monster. Her lips moved like she wanted to say something, but no words came out.

  “I just want to talk to her,” Logan tried to reassure her. “I’m here to-”

  Before he could even form the next word, she ran into the woods.

  “Wait! Diana, please! I’m not here to hurt her or you! Diana!”

  But the only answer he received was the sound of her receding footsteps.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Erica seethed silently as she drove the sedan back to Flagstaff. She would have preferred to be alone, but Markle and Clausen hadn’t done anything to deserve walking back. It was Frisk who’d let Harper get the better of him, and allowed the two men to escape. She would have left
him behind if he hadn’t already been in the car.

  Who the hell was this Harper guy? And why was he screwing things up?

  For nearly two and a half years, this festering wound had nagged at Erica, intruding more and more into her thoughts. If she didn’t fix it, it would come back to destroy her. She had done everything she could, wasting her own money on watchers and the associated equipment costs, spending hours going over bits and pieces of information.

  Finally, finally, they had caught a break. Diana had been located again. Different last name, but definitely her. Erica was sure it would only be a matter of days, not weeks or months or years, before Diana led them to Sara. Everything was going to be right. Everything was going to be fine.

  Then Diana disappeared and this Harper guy showed up with his friends and everything went to shit.

  Dammit!

  She forced herself to take long deep breaths so she could bring herself back under control.

  All was not lost, she realized. Diana was somewhere in the area, she was sure of it.

  With grudging thanks to Harper, she’d received his copy of Diana’s rental file from her former landlord. On the application, Diana had listed one of her previous employers as Harkin Services in El Portal, California. That set off a loud bell in Erica’s head. She checked the records she’d been compiling on her computer over the past thirty months, and found that’s when Diana had also worked for Harkin Services in Flagstaff, Arizona.

  It was an interesting connection, but one Erica might not have done anything about if she hadn’t had one of her freelance researchers hack into the transportation department for both California and Arizona, checking highway cameras for footage of Diana. The hope was her contact might be able to discover which way the woman had gone. The researcher called late that afternoon.

  “Arizona,” he’d said. “Early this morning.”

  That’s when it came together for Erica. Diana would return to somewhere she knew. People always did. Flagstaff would fit that bill nicely.

  Braden, Erica had decided, was a dead end. They needed to move east.

  But then what happened? After driving around town and checking various addresses from Diana’s file, Erica had headed over to her former employer’s office and found Harper and Martin standing in front of the building.

  What the hell? That’s when she decided to get rid of them once and for all. Lovely how that worked out, she thought.

  Her grip tightened on the steering wheel as her anger began rising again. She glanced at Frisk in the mirror. The idiot’s eyelids were barely open, his skin pale.

  “Do not let him throw up in here,” she said.

  “I think he needs a doctor,” Markle said.

  Erica was about to say she didn’t care what he needed, but stopped. She couldn’t afford the headache or the time it would take to deal with the problem if Frisk died in the car. She could just have Markle dump him on the side of the road, but that wasn’t a good option, either. They were too close to town now, and there was always a chance someone would see them.

  “You might want to open up a window,” Clausen suggested.

  Erica touched the button that automatically rolled down the window next to Frisk. As soon as the fresh air hit him, the injured man leaned toward it.

  Erica found the Flagstaff Medical Center parking, and stopped where there were no other cars. She looked back at Frisk.

  “Are you with us?” she said.

  Frisk tried to focus on her. “Huh?”

  “Can you hear me? Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “Yeah. I…understand.”

  She frowned. He might understand, but would he remember? “If you value your life and the life of your family at all, you will do exactly as I say. Understand?”

  He tensed. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “As I understand, your sister just had a baby boy, isn’t that correct?”

  “I’ll do whatever you want,” he pleaded.

  “I wanted you to keep an eye on the woman, but you couldn’t handle that, now could you?”

  “It was a mistake. It won’t happen again.”

  “I know it won’t because you know the consequences if it does.” She made sure he was looking her in the eye. “This is what you will tell them inside. You were in a fight with someone you don’t know. You’re just passing through town, and can’t remember much of anything about the evening. Got it?”

  “Sure. Got it.”

  “Repeat it.”

  With some difficulty, Frisk did. It was the best Erica could hope for.

  “You have any ID on you?”

  He thought for a moment. “Don’t think so. Should be…in my bag.”

  Erica looked at Markle. “Check him.”

  Markle shifted Frisk around, checked his pockets, then shook his head. “Nothing.”

  Good. At least Frisk had been smart enough not to be carrying anything with his name on it.

  “Get in, get out. Don’t answer any questions,” she instructed the other two men.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Clausen said.

  He and Markle helped Frisk into the emergency room. They returned just a few minutes later.

  As they drove away, Erica glanced at Clausen and said, “We’ll find a motel. You two get a few hours’ sleep, then I want you to go back to Braden. You’ll have to find your own ride. When you get there, learn all you can about that guy who got beat up outside Diana’s bar. Both he and Harper were looking for the girl. Find out what their connection is and what they want her for.”

  “No problem,” Clausen said.

  Before locating rooms for the night, Erica had one quick stop to make first. At some point, Harper and Martin would find their way back to Flagstaff. The way she saw it, she had two choices. Leave either Clausen or Markle to stake out Harper’s car and deal with him and his friend permanently when they returned, or see if the two interlopers could prove to be more useful. Since she’d rather not waste the manpower, the second option was more attractive.

  She drove back to Harkin Services and stopped behind the El Camino.

  Without a word, she popped open the trunk and got out.

  In the back was the leather bag that had been waiting for her when she’d picked up the rental car. As was her habit, she had prepared for all contingencies. The bag contained some of that hardware her money had paid for, including the guns and matching sound suppressors she and the others were using. What she was interested in now was a small case with several magnet-backed trackers.

  She took one out, and attached it to the inside of the El Camino’s rear bumper.

  As she drove away, her anger at the botched evening started to subside. They were on the right path again. She could feel it. Tomorrow she would find a new lead on Diana.

  One way or another, this problem would soon be closed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  If Diana and the Paskota woman weren’t working together, then the only way The Hideaway’s former bartender could have been there was because she had followed the doctor’s car. So that meant she’d hidden her own vehicle somewhere in the woods between where Logan and Dev stood and the main road, the opposite direction in which she’d run. At some point, she would have to circle back.

  “Come on,” Logan said.

  He and Dev ran along the path that Dr. Paskota had used to bring them here. They made it almost all the way back to the dirt road before Logan pulled to a stop and knelt down. Even in the darkness, he could see the eight-inch strip of compacted pine needles that led off the path. Predictably, he found a second, identical strip a few feet away.

  Tire tracks.

  Silently, he pointed in the direction they headed. Dev nodded.

  Careful not to make a sound, the two men followed the tracks. About a hundred feet from where they began, they found a Ford sedan with California license plates, and a tag that identified it as a rental car. Though there was no one sitting inside, Logan saw that the keys were in the ignition, the car re
ady to go the moment the owner returned.

  Dev raised a finger to his ear and tapped twice. Logan listened. Footsteps, fifty yards away and heading in their direction.

  The two men immediately pulled back into the trees, hiding behind two pines close to the car. It was a whole minute before Logan saw a shadow moving through the woods on the other side of the sedan. It was Diana, of course. He’d never doubted that. She moved slowly, taking her time with each step, and probably thinking she was doing a good job of masking any noise.

  Upon reaching the car, she abandoned her caution, and raced around to the driver’s door. As her hand shot out and grabbed the handle, Logan silently moved in behind her, his gun in his hand.

  Sensing his presence, she started to whip around, but he yanked the gun out of her hand before she could bring it even halfway up. She staggered backward and slammed against the car door, knocking it closed again. “Get away from me!”

  Logan tossed her gun to Dev. “You drive. Ms. Stockley and I will sit in back.”

  He grabbed her arm and pulled her over to the rear door.

  “Let me go!” She jerked back and forth, trying to break his grip, but succeeded in only getting him to squeeze tighter.

  After Dev opened the door for them, Logan pushed Diana inside and jumped in right behind her. She immediately tried to get out the other door, but Logan was having none of it. He grabbed her again and pulled her back. “Don’t waste your energy. You’re not going anywhere.” To Dev, he said, “Child lock.”

  “On it.”

  Dev jogged around the car, opened the door next to Diana, and engaged the child lock so that the door couldn’t be opened from the inside. That done, he circled back around and got behind the wheel.

  As soon as the car was moving, Logan released Diana. She pushed herself away from him, and tried the door despite the fact she’d seen Dev set the lock. When pulling on the handle did nothing, she yelled out in frustration and grabbed hold of the front passenger seat so she could climb over.

  Logan clapped a hand on her shoulder and yanked her back, forcing her once more into a sitting position.