Just as Stubborn

by Jeanne Arnold

  My breath rushed out, and I gagged on my words. I tried to holler again. It was no use.

  Gabe didn’t look at me when he stopped moving. He set his hands on the roof. I didn’t understand why he stopped fighting. Why didn’t he punch the man? Why didn’t he run?

  “Get in or I’ll make it hurt,” he warned with an odd inflection.

  Gabe still didn’t move. The guy got impatient and wacked the side of his jaw with something hard. Gabe’s head jerked sideways, and I died inside. Only the shell of my body held me together. The pain he experienced—I experienced.

  Slowly, Gabe lifted his head, and then his hands rose above his shoulders. That’s when I saw it. My eyes clouded with fear and a haze of tears. The handgun poked in his back. As he stepped away from the hood, he turned his head and stared at me with pinched lips. When his mouth opened, my entire body shuddered as pain and terror ripped through me like the sting from his blunt hit. The man jerked him into the seat with the gun and slammed the door.

  I came alive and bolted to the door in the dark. Involuntary muscle spasms left me twitching as I pulled the door open and ran into the bright hall. Thankfully, my newly healed leg did what it needed to do.

  “Gaaaabe!” I screamed with the loudest, most forceful voice. My knees nearly gave out.

  Deliah called from the doorway of our room. “Avery, what happened?”

  I shot a look her way as my heart rammed back and forth. “There was a gun! I have to get Caleb.”

  I shot down the hall, about to round the corner into the back lobby, and bumped my shoulder hard. I blinked. I thought I lost time. I lost my sense of direction.

  “Legs, what’s going on? It’s the middle of the night. You have a nightmare?”

  Caleb backed into the wall beside his door as I trembled in front of him. He laughed and swung his arms out, wrapped them around me, and squeezed. I pushed off, but he gripped me hard at my elbows.

  “No, Caleb! It’s Gabe. He hit him. He took him. You have to save him,” I wheezed as I tugged on his hand and dragged him down the hall to the exit. Hotel guests peeked out of their rooms.

  “Who? Who took him?”

  “I don’t know. He had an accent. He was short!” My eyes followed the taillights of Gabe’s rented Mustang as they pulled out of the parking lot. I pushed through the entryway. “No! That’s him! He had a gun on him. Oh god, Caleb. Hurry up!”

  “It’s Leon. He found us again!” Deliah shouted down the hall just as the back door fell shut and we ran into the rain.

  “Hop in,” Caleb barked. He pulled the truck door open. “This place is deep in the boonies. How the heck did he track us?”

  “This can’t be happening. He’s going to kill Gabe,” I sniveled.

  Gabe had to be okay. He had to escape and get away and come back to me unharmed.

  “Are you sure you seen what you think you saw? You sure he had a real gun on him?” Caleb’s hazel eyes thinned with question. He didn’t believe me.

  He started the truck and I shrieked. “Deliah! We can’t leave her.”

  “I’ll go. Stay put,” he said as he shook my leg in a supportive way and then hopped out. Just as he ran under the shelter of the overhang, Deliah slipped out the hotel window and fell onto the cement, her feet bare. I glared as he scooped her up and carried her over his shoulder to the truck. She slapped his back and wiggled in his arms.

  “Put me down! Hey you, put me down.”

  “My name’s not Hey you. Hush up and get in the middle. We gotta split,” he told her.

  Deliah huffed and crossed her arms over her T-shirt. “What about our stuff?”

  “Legs, did he say anything? Gimme a play by play,” Caleb asked while ignoring Deliah.

  “He hit him on the side of this head. He said for Gabe to get in and drive and that he wanted the kid, but Gabe would do, and that he’d pay big. He meant your father. I just know it. You have to call your father, Caleb. Tell him that Leon stole Gabe!”

  “He wanted me? That was dumb,” Deliah sulked. “Mr. Halden wouldn’t pay anything to get me back. I think he’s been paying to keep me away.”

  We should call the police, Caleb. What will we do if we lose him? You can’t fight him.”

  “Got my ways,” he drawled, then reached over and tapped the glove box at Deliah’s knees.

  As soon as the truck started, he gunned the engine and put it in reverse. The cab pitched and jerked. I braced my arms on the dashboard. Caleb slapped the wheel and hit the brakes.

  “Dang it all! What in the blazes?” he shouted.

  “What is it? Why is it doing that?” Deliah asked. “Is your truck broken too? I swear it wasn’t me.”

  Caleb threw the truck in park and jumped out into the rain. I watched in full panic mode as he circled the vehicle, kicked the rims at each stop, and then swore a line of profanities that could have landed him in prison.

  “What about Gabe?” I yelled. “We have to go!”

  “Get out,” he said. “We’ll call the cops. All four tires are slashed.”

  Nine

  I wore a path in the carpet at the front desk where we waited for roadside assistance and the police to show up. Gabe was getting farther away. I couldn’t bear to think about him driving under pressure, wondering if he was going to be shot. I wanted to run into the rain and chase him. Caleb wouldn’t let me call a cab. He sat in a chair and chewed the bottom of a pen while Deliah played on his phone.

  “Do you always carry eight hundred dollars in your wallet?” I asked Caleb. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I was plagued with worry and nervous energy thinking that the only mechanic he could get on the phone and bribe in the middle of the night wouldn’t show up.

  “Yup. Wanna see what else I got in my wallet?”

  Deliah looked up and rolled her eyes before swiftly returning to her game.

  “How long until they get here?” I asked the woman at the desk as I shuffled all of her notepads and pens around. She kept swinging her eyes to Caleb. I wanted to tell her to stop. He was mesmerizing, but he needed to focus on Gabe—not girls. “Did you call the right number even? Did you call 9-1-1 or the local police? Did they answer?”

  “Legs, have a seat. They’re coming. There’s nothing we can do. Lieutenant isn’t answering. Lane isn’t answering. Nobody’s home in the big house on the prairie.”

  “Please be okay, oh please be okay,” I murmured under my breath and looked up. “Where is the tow truck guy? What if he doesn’t bring the right size tires? Aren’t you worried? What about Gabe? Caleb, the man had a gun.”

  “Avery Ross, hush it.”

  Caleb stood and set his hand behind my neck. All I wanted was a hug. But he didn’t have a shirt on. His naked proximity under normal circumstances would have distressed me. I knew if I hugged him, he’d take it as encouragement. He looked like Gabe and that made it even worse.

  “You want the entire hotel freaking out with you? He’ll call us. The dude is just after money. Not your lover boy, okay? Sit with the girl and I’ll be right back.”

  “He can’t call. He has no phone!” I hollered after him. Didn’t he think of that?

  Caleb muttered, “Yeah, maybe this time he’ll learn.”

  By the time Caleb returned with our bags and a shirt, I was reciting my account of Gabe’s abduction to the male officer while the female officer asked Deliah to describe her relationship with Leon. Caleb waited to give his name and information, but before his turn came, he tore off into the parking lot to greet the tow truck driver when he heard the honking.

  “It was a blue Mustang. I don’t know what kind of plates or where he got it. Probably Tennessee plates, but it was a rental,” I offered.

  “Year of the model?” the officer asked with an inflection. “Was it an old or new style? Did it have ponies or cobra emblems?”

  “I don’t know anything about cars. I don’t even know for sure if it was a Mustang. It had a pony on the steering wheel. It had a modern dashboard and seatbe
lts if that helps.”

  “It was a Mustang,” Deliah said knowingly. She pulled her sneakers out of her bag and put them on.

  “He slashed all of my tires,” Caleb told the cops when he returned and took a seat at the table in the hotel lounge. I wanted him to hold my hand, but then again I didn’t. “He knew what he was doing. He followed us. Or he saw the Texas plates and didn’t want to take any chances. He’s after my dad’s money. It happens a lot.”

  “Kidnapping happens a lot?” I blurted into his face and ignored the officer.

  Caleb smiled and huffed. “Not the kidnapping part. Jeez. He ain’t the Lindbergh baby. The lieutenant gets threats of blackmail all the time.”

  That didn’t make me feel better. Nothing could make me feel any better aside from Gabe walking in the front door, tossing his hat in the air, and hugging me until I couldn’t breathe.

  Oh. God. Gabe.

  “You say your father gets threats?” the officer asked. “Anything recent?”

  “Yeah. He’s Joel Halden. He probably deserves all of them,” Caleb answered.

  “Joel Halden, CEO of Halden-Remington in Texas? Headquarters out of Benjamin?” The man’s eyes spread wide. “The HalRem empire?”

  “Yes, sir. The one and the only in Benjamin, Texas,” Caleb said tapping the HalRem cap he had with him for the man’s benefit. “Now how are we gonna get my kid brother back? I can’t get a call to Benjamin. You need to get on this ASAP or my dad will raise hell.”

  “Well most of north Texas is under tornado watch, thousands without power. Lines down, towers down, roads closed. Does your brother know your number?”

  “Yeah, he knows it.”

  “We’ll get a word through to Knox County and send an agent to locate your family. You have my word we’ll reach your father.”

  “They might be in the city. My aunt’s having a baby right now,” I said. “His baby. No one is answering anywhere. Something’s seriously wrong.”

  “Now where are you from, Miss?” asked the female officer. “You don’t sound like you’re from these parts.”

  “She’s foreign,” Caleb teased.

  “New York. I’m from Central New York, not New York, New York,” I explained. “How soon until you find Gabe? Is there anyone looking yet? He’s getting away. We’re wasting so much time. He could be hurt.”

  “She’s visiting us,” Caleb said calmly as his hand slid onto my bouncing leg and squeezed my kneecap. “They’ll find him, don’t worry.” I set my hand on his to remove it, and he slapped his other hand on top.

  “We have an APB out. We’ve got an officer checking out the LeRoulx residence and we’ll have someone speak to Sara Remington,” said the man.

  “Oh no,” Deliah piped up. “Leon’s got friends on the force at home. Really crooked friends. They’ll cover for him. My mom’s scared of him. She won’t tell you anything. She doesn’t care where I am, and she wouldn’t care where Gabe is either.”

  “I doubt that,” the female said. “Every mother cares for her kids no matter how old y’all are. You sit tight here, and we’ll gather all of your family together.”

  Caleb grunted and stood. “Well ma’am, I wouldn’t bank on that one. Let’s focus on dear old dad. Lieutenant Colonel Megabucks is the target.” He took my hand and I stood. “We’re not staying put. We’re heading home.”

  * * *

  Big sky country flashed white, and I could see forever with my sore eyes as Caleb’s truck sped through the rain, all four new tires kicking up the flooded road.

  “They said something about the F.B.I. and agents. Do you think they’re out looking for him? Are they telling us everything? They’re the best, right?” I asked nervously.

  “Yeah, legs. They’re the best. I’m sure they got the dudes up in the middle of the night to look for Gabriel Halden. Wait ’til they find out he’s the lieutenant’s son. My dad’s gonna blow steam all the way to Barrow, Alaska. He hates when this kind of stuff happens and people get to interfere with his family. He’s all about the cover up, but this one won’t fit under the rug. Sit tight and we’ll make some good time. It’ll be daybreak before you know it. We already hit the border. Check the phone again.”

  “The Texas border?”

  “No. The California border,” he said snidely and yawned. “Of course Texas. Drove through Texarkana while you were bitin’ your nails back there.”

  “Can you drive any faster? Do you really think Leon took him to Benjamin? How come the cops didn’t follow us? Are they up ahead already? I can’t believe this happened, Caleb.”

  “You sure are wordy when you get troubled. I keep tellin’ you it’s gonna be okay. It’s about HalRem, not your precious Gabe. I don’t know how she…how the illusive Sara Remington got involved. If she’s working with that slug, my dad’s gonna burst a vein,” he said.

  “I should have screamed. Gabe was right there in bed, and then he was crawling out the window,” I murmured into my hand.

  “Your bed? Do tell,” he said.

  Deliah moaned in her sleep beside me. I don’t know why I didn’t take the window seat when I had the chance.

  “He must have heard something in the parking lot,” Caleb said.

  “It’s really bad out,” I told him. “I hope Gabe is safe and dry.”

  “You hope he’s dry?” he said in a way that made me want to elbow him. “Haldens don’t melt in the rain.”

  The lights ahead worried me. I wasn’t certain what I saw in the flashes of blue and red, until Caleb slammed the brakes and we all shot forward.

  “Way to wake me up,” Deliah said. “Who taught you how to drive?”

  “Little girl,” he said. “I’d bet my life it wasn’t the same person who taught you.”

  A man in an orange poncho swung a flashlight and waved Caleb to the side of the road.

  “We’re heading west. It’s an emergency,” Caleb shouted into the rain as thunder rattled the truck.

  “Jackknifed trailer around that bend,” the man said with a heavy accent as he tightened the hood around his face to avoid the wind. “Rain’s causing hydroplaning, so you gotta turn around.”

  “There ain’t no other way. I have to get through this way,” Caleb told the guy.

  “Sorry. Turn around. Go north or wait it out at the chapel a mile back, son. They’re working as fast as they can. Heck of a gully washer if I ever saw one!”

  “Hey, did you see a Mustang blow through?” Caleb asked.

  The man looked down and shook his head as a bolt of lightning lit the sky. “Actually now that I think about it, yeah maybe,” he said looking up as the rain pelted him. “Like an hour or so ago when I was patrolling for debris.”

  “It was Gabe!” I shrieked and shook his arm. “Caleb, drive through. You have to. He went that way!”

  “Avery, my poor ears,” he said and he rubbed the side of his face with my hand still attached to his arm. “There’s no way I’m getting through that blockade. We’ll wait it out. We have to. Side roads could be flooded.”

  “Folks, I’ll swing by the chapel and holler when the crew clears,” the man offered.

  “Much appreciated,” Caleb said. He spun around and drove to the small building up the road. The windows on the miniature chapel flickered with candlelight. An old pickup was parked in the mud. “Hold it together. It won’t be long and we’ll be taking off for home. He’s heading there.”

  “This is like the most exciting thing I’ve ever done,” Deliah said as she stretched her arms.

  She had no idea how desperate I felt or how much I loved her brother or how wonderful he was or how smart and funny and warm he could be to me. I tried to hold back a sudden rush of tears.

  “It’s better than the time I fell off the barge, and they had to bring the Coast Guard in to save me. It was all over the news. But I swear I never mooned the rescue boat like they said I did.”

  I looked over when Caleb addressed her. “You’re yankin’ my chain.”

  “Wou
ldn’t you like to know,” she said. They were related in every imaginable way. There was no question.

  Caleb jumped into a puddle and grabbed my hand to tug me into the rain. I didn’t want to get out. I wanted to keep driving. Deliah gave me a gentle shove when Caleb commanded I follow him.

  “Oh dear me,” said the woman inside the chapel. We filed in and dripped all over her floor. “They won’t let you pass through.”

  The church reminded me of a western movie set with its tiny steeple and rounded doors. It could have passed as a drive-through wedding chapel in Las Vegas. I spied a For Sale sign taped to the window.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Caleb answered as he appraised the woman’s black hair that dusted the floor behind her. “We have to be in Benjamin.”

  “Well, shake off. You look to be fixing for a mug of strong coffee. I gather you’ve been up all night too. Our home flooded, so we’re taking up refuge,” she told us as she flicked her hair over her shoulder. “Mostly I get elopers through here. The charm, you see, it’s a big draw. Honey, say hello to these folks.”

  Was she a minister? Her husband nodded.

  “A church for sale? Never seen that before,” Caleb said. “Well I declare, now that you mention eloping.”

  I closed my eyes and tried to ignore him.

  “We’re for sale until further notice. We’re praying for a miracle. Y’all are welcome to rest your weary souls.”

  “Thank you, ma’am…I mean pastor,” Caleb said as he removed his wet HalRem hat. “I haven’t been in church since I was knee high to a grasshopper.”

  He tapped my hip with his hat and winked at me. A thunder boom rattled the building. I trembled.

  “Oh dear, are you alright?” the woman asked me when she got a look at my bloodshot eyes. I was certain I looked as if I rubbed them with sandpaper.

  “Avery’s gonna be perfectly fine. We just need to get to Benjamin in a jiffy. We’re trying to get to someone. You got cell service here?”

  I thanked Caleb silently with a nod for not explaining what happened. It wouldn’t help us find Gabe or make the waiting any easier.