Brett Battles - Every Precious Thing

Logan touched his dad’s shoulder. “It won’t be long. I promise.”

“So where is Dev?” Barney asked.

“Doing something for me,” Logan said.

“You found something out?”

“Working on a few things.” Logan paused. “How’s Pep?”

“I’m fine. Thanks for asking,” Pep said from the bed.

Logan walked over. The bruises on Pep’s face had darkened, making him look worse, but the swelling had gone down around his eyes.

“Another couple weeks and you’ll be as good as new,” Logan told him.

“I’m fine now. I just want to get out of here and help you guys.”

“We’re okay at the moment. Just take your time and get better.”

“What will really make me better is a conversation with the guy who put me in here.”

Logan nodded sympathetically. “You didn’t tell me that you went to The Hideaway because the bartender at the Sunshine Room sent you there.”

“Doesn’t surprise me,” Pep said. “I barely remember that you were here at all.”

“The guy told me he sent you to see the bartender.”

“Yeah. Her name’s…um…uh…”

“Diana,” Logan said.

“Right. Diana. I tried to talk to her when I got there, showed her Sara’s picture, but she acted like she’d never seen her then walked off. I started to think maybe the other guy was just giving me a line to get a few extra bucks out of me.”

“You paid him?”

“I slipped him a twenty.”

“How long did you stay at The Hideaway?” Logan asked.

“I don’t know, another thirty minutes or so. She was my best lead by far, but she was always busy so I couldn’t get any time with her. I showed the pictures to some of the customers but wasn’t having any luck, so I decided to get some sleep and come back earlier the next night when the place wouldn’t be so busy.”

“And after you left?”

“When I reached my car, someone called out from between some buildings, gave me the impression he had information about Sara.” Pep’s lips pressed together in a tight line. “It was stupid. I wasn’t thinking danger. I was thinking I’d found something that was going to help.” He frowned. “If I were a little younger, he wouldn’t have gotten me like that.”

“He may have tried something else,” Harp suggested. “Like a knife or a gun.”

“You saying my age saved me, old man?” Pep asked.

“It’s possible.”

Pep cracked a smile. “Maybe. Anyway, as soon as I was far enough away from the street, he whacked me in the head.”

Logan hesitated, then said, “Diana’s gone.”

“What?” Pep and Harp said almost in sync. Barney, though silent, looked just as surprised.

“I did the same thing you did, just in reverse,” Logan explained. “The Hideaway, then the Sunshine Room. So when I talked to Diana, I had no idea about any connection to Sara. Unfortunately, when I finally found out and tracked her to her house, she’d left town.”

“When did you do all this?” Harp asked.

“Last night.”

“Last night? Well, maybe she just wasn’t home.”

“No. She was gone.”

“You’re sure?”

“Trust me, Dad. I’m sure.”

“Of course I trust you.”

Logan’s phone vibrated in his pocket. Dev again.

He stepped away from the bed to answer it. “What’s going on?”

“You’re not going to believe this,” Dev said.

“What?”

“They went to our friend Mark Hackbarth’s office.”

“Really?”

“Stayed inside for about ten minutes. After that they went back by the diner, but didn’t stay. My guess is that when they didn’t see the Cherokee, they had no reason to hang around.”

“Did you lose them?”

A grunted laugh. “No, I didn’t lose them. They’re at a motel near the highway. A place called The Happy Traveler. You want the room number?”

“You can tell me when I get there.”

Diana sat up with a start. Sweat covered her brow and soaked her shirt. The pleasant desert night had been replaced by Braden’s typical one-hundred-degree-plus day, turning Richard’s rental car into a sauna.

But it wasn’t the heat that bothered her at the moment. It was the position of the sun itself. It was higher in the sky than she’d expected. She grabbed her phone and looked at the time.

A quarter after ten?

She’d slept for over six hours.

With a sense of dread, she looked out to where the El Camino had been parked, and saw that it was…still there.

“Thank you, Lord,” she said, relieved.

Maybe the guy-what had he called himself? Logan? — maybe Logan had slept in, too. Even if he hadn’t, she knew he wouldn’t be too far from that car. It was a beauty, more so in the daylight where its paint job sparkled under the desert sun.

Kitty-corner to the motel was a gas station she’d used a few times. It had a restroom around back that you could enter without going through the store. She drove over, pulled her hoodie tight around her face, and made a beeline for the women’s room. After relieving herself and cleaning up as best she could, she returned to the motel, parking this time a few slots away from the El Camino.

When an hour and a half passed with no sign of Logan, she decided he must have gone somewhere without his car. She wasn’t worried, though. He’d be back. But after another forty-five minutes, it turned out she was wrong. At first she barely looked at the tough older guy who’d entered the parking lot, but then he got into Logan’s truck and drove off.

She couldn’t imagine that there were two electric blue El Caminos in town, so she had no choice but to pull out after it.

Following vehicles always looked easy on TV. Cops and PIs and even amateurs seldom ever lost the car they were tracking. In real life it turned out to be another matter-for Diana, anyway. She was a bartender, after all, not a stock car driver. She made it through two traffic lights before the El Camino disappeared.

She drove through the town, but couldn’t find the car.

“Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!” she said as she pounded the steering wheel, adrenaline and dread racing each other through her body.

When she finally calmed down, she did the only thing she could do-return to the motel and hope that the El Camino showed up again.

Logan recruited Barney to drive him to Dev’s location. Harp, not wanting to be left out, came along for the ride. Whatever spat they’d had over Len’s envelope seemed to have been forgotten. On the way, they picked up a burger and a drink for Dev, then parked a few blocks from the El Camino.

“Don’t forget to call us if you need any help,” Harp said as his son got out. “And…the envelope?”

“Next time you see me, I’ll give it to you. I promise,” Logan told him. He looked at Barney. “Park behind our motel. If you guys need to go out again, walk or wait until we get back. Don’t take the Jeep.” He had told them on the way over about being followed, so they all understood the car was marked.

“Be careful,” Barney said.

Logan watched them drive off and then walked through the quiet neighborhood until he reached the street where Dev was parked. Beyond the El Camino he could see the motel the others were apparently using. Other than a family trying to cool off in the pool, the place looked almost deserted. Satisfied no one was casting any attention in his direction, Logan approached his truck and got in the passenger side.

“Here,” he said, handing over the bag and setting the drink caddy on the seat between them. “Anything new?”

Dev shook his head. “They’ve been inside since I called.”