by Jeff Carson
She closed her eyes and took a few breaths, then decided to risk a look.
Wolf disappeared into the plane at the top of the stairs.
And out of my life, forever.
She snorted and rolled her eyes. Get a grip, woman.
“The G650 costs sixty-five mil,” Nackley said. “Has a lot more space than this one. You wanna talk about a—”
“Nope,” she said. “Don’t want to talk about it.”
Nackley swiveled in his seat. “Geez. You all right?”
The plane edged forward on the tarmac, rocking the car slightly with the jet exhaust. It moved to the far runway and turned into takeoff position.
“We going to get on the road or what?” she asked.
“Yeah.” Earnshaw blinked, apparently snapping out of his jet-envy hypnosis.
Men.
Earnshaw rolled forward and cranked the wheel.
“Here goes,” Nackley said, leaning to get a better look at the plane taking off.
She stared through the line of airplane hangars and massaged the pain from her hand.
Chapter 34
The jet dipped below the clouds and descended in a bouncing arc toward the runway.
Wolf cinched his seatbelt tight and eyed the flight attendant sitting at the front of the plane.
She stared at him with curled lips, then slid her gaze to her telephone.
A few minutes later the plane touched down and slowed to a halt.
He got up and stretched his arms overhead. The flight attendant stood and walked to the door.
He waited for it to open and moved to the front of the cabin. “Thanks again, Melody.”
“Asshole,” she said under her breath as she headed for the rear of the plane.
He walked to the door and met the two pilots climbing out of their seats.
“Bud,” Wolf said, shaking the pilot’s hand. “Thank you.”
“Yeah. It’s no problem. Passenger preference. It happens every once in a while.”
“Right.” Wolf pulled out his wallet. “Ah. I don’t have much.”
He pulled out two wet fives and handed them over.
The pilot and copilot each took a bill.
“Thanks.”
“Yeah, thanks.”
Wolf stepped down the stairs into a cloud of jet exhaust. The air felt a few degrees warmer than on the plane. He checked his watch—the take-off, turn-around, and landing back at Boeing Field had taken a total of twenty-six minutes.
He jogged across the tarmac toward a glass office butted up against a hangar.
The receptionist had apparently heard the news because when he entered the building she looked at him like he’d just murdered her dog.
“Hi. Can I use your phone, please?”
She stared at him and exhaled. “Yes. Over there in the corner.”
He walked toward a bank of couches. A business phone sat on an end table. “Thank you.”
“I hope you’re calling your fiancée. I talked to her earlier. She was so excited you were going to make it.”
He ignored her and sat down.
“Dial nine,” she said, using a tone reserved for something like eat shit and die.
The phone rang and went straight to voicemail.
He dialed again.
“Hello?”
“Patterson, it’s Wolf.”
“Oh, hey. Where are you calling from? A plane phone? Sorry I screened your first call.”
“I’m … still in Seattle.”
Silence.
“You there?”
“Yeah. I thought you were coming back. I was just at your house. We talked to Lauren.”
“Well, I’m not.”
“Okay … what’s going on?”
“I need you to trace a number.”
“I … don’t have that software anymore.”
“Luke is in trouble. I need it. Can you get it again?”
She exhaled. “What number?”
“You still have it?”
“Of course. What number?”
“I don’t know. You’ll have to go to Lauren and get the number off her phone. I just called her from it about an hour ago.”
She made a few noises. “Is she still home?”
“Yes. Get your laptop and bring it to our house. You get started on that and I’ll call you back as soon as I get a charger for my phone.”
He hung up, took a breath, and dialed again.
Chapter 35
Wolf walked out of a Walmart with a large plastic bag.
A woman with two children eyed the Tapco .22 rifle muzzle sticking out and pulled her children close.
He decided his no-nonsense pace coupled with the contents dangling from his hand might be seen as threatening, so he slowed and sauntered the rest of the way to his rental car.
He climbed inside the Ford crossover sedan and fished inside the bag for the USB cable.
While the phone charged, he packed the high-capacity magazine with the long-rifle .22 cartridges and set it aside on the passenger seat. The weapon was the best he could get in a store that also sold phone accessories, and there was no time to stop at a proper gun shop.
The phone flashed to life and he called Patterson.
“Hello?” She answered on the first ring.
“You have it traced yet?”
“Yes.”
He started the engine and reversed out of the parking spot.
“Where are you?”
“In front of your house.”
The dash clock read 12:06 p.m.—it had been an hour and twenty minutes since he’d spoken to Patterson last. Which meant it had been an hour and forty minutes since he’d left the back of Earnshaw’s car. With every second he’d spent running these necessary errands his pulse had climbed.
“Where is it?” he asked, pleased that car accelerated fast with a tap of his foot.
“Go east on the two.”
“And where’s that?”
“Where are you?”
“The Walmart east of I-5 near Boeing Field.”
He listened to her heavy breathing and her fingers clacking on the keyboard.
“Okay, go west to I-5, then north.”
He drove out of the parking lot at top speed, catching two green lights on the way, and entered the highway on the northbound ramp. “Okay. Now what?”
She paused. “Now you have a long-ass drive ahead of you.”
A wall of brake lights approached. He jutted left across traffic, cutting off manic drivers behind him, but it was no use. The lane came to a grinding halt.
“Got a faster way?” he asked, ignoring a guy to his right giving him the finger.
“Not that I’m seeing. I’ve never been to Seattle, mind you. My map shows bad traffic for the next few miles. Then it opens up. I have the fastest route pulled up now.”
He squirmed in his seat and slapped the wheel.
“She was crying,” Patterson said.
Wolf closed his eyes, letting out a breath that seemed to suck the life from him.
“So was Ella.”
“I don’t need to hear this right now.”
“She was packing up a bunch of suitcases, piling all of their stuff inside.”
He said nothing.
“Sorry. I just … thought you’d want to know.”
“It’s okay,” he said.
“It’s okay?” Patterson blew into the phone.
“I don’t mean … Listen, you don’t know the whole story.”
“What do you mean?”
He considered holding back but if there were anyone he could confide in it was Heather Patterson. “We have an agreement. Ever since last summer.”
She said nothing.
“I told her that if anything were to happen to me again she should pack and leave. Get out of town and explain nothing to no one.”
“So … she’s faking leaving you?”
Wolf switched lanes and gained a half-mile per hour. “Yes. If something happened, a
nd these men were to use Lauren and Ella to get to me, there’s no way I could live with myself.”
They sat in silence for a beat.
“She just … faked it very well.”
“How about you tell me what’s happening with Earnshaw’s phone? Where is it now?”
“They’re about thirty miles west of Everett on the two. Moving steadily east.”
“And there’s no better way? No shortcut to cut them off?”
“No. Listen, why don’t you go to the field office and explain what’s going on.”
Wolf shook his head. “And how long would that take? Meanwhile, Luke is heading east with guys who already tried to kill her once. They’ll try again. Time is of the essence here.”
“I’ll have to take your word for it. I don’t know the whole story.”
“It’s a long one.”
“You have a long drive ahead of you.”
He hit the speaker button and set the phone on his lap. A raindrop hit the windshield, followed by a hundred more.
“Did she say where she was going?”
“No,” Patterson said. “And a lot of people were asking her. Maybe she’s following your plan after all.”
The traffic eased up and Wolf shot into the left lane, getting halfway to the speed limit. “Okay, I’m moving finally.”
But he’d spoken too soon. He came around a bend and hit another backup.
“Shit. Never mind.”
“Maybe it’s time to tell me what’s going on.”
He started with the hospital, and Luke’s revelation about being approached by a witness to Special Agent Hooper’s murder on the beach. He told her about meeting Staten, and Luke’s recollection of how the man had stuffed her in a trunk. How she’d escaped but remembered nothing else. And how he’d been on Earnshaw’s phone when Staten had called, asking about Luke.
“Okay,” Patterson said. “Shit. That’s definitely not good.”
“You could say that.”
Chapter 36
Luke opened her eyes and found her face pressed up against a cool window.
She sat upright and wiped a stream of drool from her chin. The sight of the vacant seat next to her sent a fresh wave of guilt and shame coursing through her body.
She leaned in between the seats and checked the dash clock—they’d been driving for a little over an hour and a half.
“Hey, there she is.” Earnshaw eyed her in the rearview mirror.
She sat back and looked out the window, unsurprised to see rain streaking the glass. “Damn, I was out.”
“After all that action last night, I don’t blame you,” he said.
Nackley made an affirmative noise in the passenger seat.
“What’s going on?” she asked. “How far are we?”
“Another thirty minutes.” Earnshaw’s eyes flicked to her again.
“You heard any news?”
“They found Staten’s vehicle, but no Staten. We have six units and K9s on the way so we’ll get a bead on him.”
She raised her eyebrows. Suppressing a yawn, she turned around and looked out the back window, half-expecting to see a train of fed vehicles behind them. But there were none in sight. She patted her pocket, then remembered she still had no phone.
The trees had grown dense and chock full of mist. Whereas Colorado had a healthy dose of brown to its forests, up here in the Cascades the color green painted every nook and cranny. Some days the Pacific Northwest was like another planet.
She lifted her right hand and winced as she made a fist.
Why had Wolf done that? It had pissed her off so much at the time that she could have sacrificed another knuckle and punched him in the face. The man was normally cognizant of such things, not clumsy …
The thought went unfinished.
She flicked up her eyes and met Earnshaw’s in the rearview.
Her spine tingled as she pondered those farewell moments again.
Damn it. She’d been so caught up in her jealousy that she’d been blind to his pleas.
Her pulse pounded but she kept a cool gaze out the window. Still, she felt those eyes in the rearview studying her.
“Damn rain just will—not—stop,” Nackley said. “But are you seeing this?” He angled his phone toward Earnshaw. “Look. It says sunny on Monday. Is this thing serious? If it’s sunny I’m going into work topless that day. Lukey, you join me?”
Lukey!
Images swirled into life and she shut her eyes.
“What’s going on?” Earnshaw asked.
She opened her lids and looked at him in the rearview.
“You all right?”
She nodded. “Yeah. Why?”
“You looked like you might pass out or something.”
Nackley turned around. “What’s up?”
“Nothing. Shut up and turn around.”
“Damn. You need more sleep.”
Lukey! The voice echoed in her head again.
She remembered clawing herself out of the water, getting up onto the bank and looking out across the milky turquoise river.
Lukey! Get your ass back here!
Her vision blurred as the memory formed.
“Lukey!” Staten’s voice is jovial. “Hey! There she is!”
Her back hurts so bad as she rolls over and stares at the sky. She wonders if she’s bleeding, but she can’t reach her arm around to her back to feel. Her hands are so numb.
Footsteps on river rocks approach and then the upside-down images of Staten and Swain materialize over her.
“Shoot her!” Staten says. “Get it over with.”
Swain looks at Staten. “We’re not going to kill her.”
“We’re not? I beg to differ, my friend.”
There’s a faint yell from somewhere behind them.
“Over here!” Staten calls over his shoulder. “All right. Shoot her, or I’m going to.”
“We’re not going to shoot her.”
“What do you want to do, Scarface? Explain to her that we’re heroes?”
“Yes,” Swain says.
They stand and face one another.
“Maybe she’ll understand.”
Staten pushes Swain aside and kneels down next to her. “Hey.” He slaps her on the cheek. “You awake, Lukey?”
Her back still hurts and she’s shivering from the cold water that soaks her clothing. She spits in his face.
“Bitch!” He stands up and points his gun at her.
Swain tackles Staten into the water. They splash and grunt, then rise. Water cascades off them as they aim at one another.
“Put the gun down!”
“You put the gun down!
“Put it down!”
Luke gets up and dives into the depths of the passing torrent.
“Luke!”
Luke jumped and looked in the rearview again. “What?”
“I asked if you’re okay?” Earnshaw flicked his eyes between her and the road.
“I’m okay. Listen, I gotta pee at the next gas station.”
Earnshaw and Nackley said nothing.
“Did you hear me?”
Earnshaw hit the brakes and pulled over. He twisted in his seat and looked at her.
She pulled on the door handle and found it locked. “You gonna let me take a leak?”
Earnshaw scratched his cheek with a fingernail.
She sat back and let out a sigh. “You’ve never called me that before, Nackley.”
Nackley twisted in his seat. “What?”
“Nobody’s called me Lukey for the past eleven months, except on one occasion: when I was lying breathless on the riverbank after being shot in the back. Staten was the first to get to me when I swam out of the water, but I lay there for a while, listening to him come while I caught my breath. He was calling me that stupid nickname right before I spat in his face and escaped his ass.” She locked eyes with Nackley. “Yours was the other voice. You were the one coming up on us right when I dove back in, weren’t you?�
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Nackley’s expression soured and he looked at Earnshaw.
The muzzle of Earnshaw’s Sig Sauer poked into view, pointed at her center mass. “Get in the back with her.”
Nackley got out, walked around the back of the car, and sat down behind Earnshaw. He settled in, the gun in his left hand resting on his knee.
“Is that what you guys are going to issue me?”
Nackley chuckled humorlessly.
“I really do have to take a piss.”
“Sorry”—Earnshaw pulled back onto the road—“but that’s the least of your problems right now.”
Chapter 37
The windshield wipers were on the highest setting, doing a good job of flinging off the rain hitting the glass at ninety miles per hour.
The car had more juice, but Wolf already felt like he was pushing his luck.
“Sir, your dot is moving quickly. How fast are you going?”
“What’s the distance between us?”
“At least thirty miles.”
“Not fast enough then.”
“I have to go to the bathroom.”
“Good for you.”
“I’m putting the phone down, but just for a minute.”
“Go.”
“Shit, I guess I’ll go behind your barn.”
“You’re still at my house?”
“Yeah. I’m sitting in my car out front, hooked into your Wi-Fi.”
“Oh.”
“I’ll be back.”
He let off the gas as a right-turn caution sign flashed by suggesting thirty-five miles per hour.
As the turn came into view, he jammed the brakes and clenched the wheel with both hands.
All four tires skidded sideways and a moment later he slid into the opposite lane.
Up ahead, the blaring lights of a logging truck came fast.
He cranked the wheel back to the left, knowing if the car kept twisting, a collision was imminent.
“Come on!” he yelled, cranking the wheel further.
The back tires caught, and the rear end lurched to the right. He pointed the wheels away from the truck and bounced up onto a grassy slope.
He was moving too fast. The world tilted in the windshield as the tires thumped through the grass. The car glided sideways but maintained its forward momentum toward a rock outcropping.