Brett Battles - Every Precious Thing

She shook her head. “No.”

“But-”

“Richard, our family is bigger than the three of us now. Remember that. There’s Emily and Alan, too.”

He grimaced. “Alan’s not-”

“Yes, he is,” Sara said. “He’s my husband. Your brother-in-law.”

She stared at Richard, challenging him to contradict her. As much as he looked like he wanted to, he didn’t.

“So?” Logan asked.

“Yes,” Sara said.

Logan nodded. “Give me a minute.” He got out of the car and stepped over to the El Camino.

Dev rolled down the window. “Well?”

“Follow us out of here,” Logan told him. “Once you’re on the interstate, I want you to push it, go as fast as you dare. If you get pulled over, that’s fine. But if you don’t, you’ll be able to get there fast. We’ll be coming behind you, but will stay at traffic speed. I can’t afford to have us both delayed by cops. Here.” He handed Dev a piece of paper with a number on it. “That’s Barney’s cell. Call him, and tell him and Pep to be ready to leave in the next thirty minutes. Tell them I’ll call when it’s time. I’m going to keep tabs with Ruth. If possible, I want to time things so that Pep and Barney get on the road just ahead of the doctor and her people. She’ll probably be traveling pretty fast and will overtake them at some point. When that happens, they need to try to stay with her.”

“Pep should drive.”

“I agree,” Logan said. “If they’ve forced my father to tell them where Alan is, they’ll be heading straight to Riverside. We’ll know that soon enough. Callie’s getting Alan and Emily out of town as we speak, which means the house will be empty. I’m hoping we can trap the woman there, and get my dad away from her.”

“And then what? Call the police?”

Logan looked back at the Grand Prix. “If I can convince them of that.”

Harp kept his eyes closed, hoping the others would think he was asleep. It wasn’t that he had some elaborate plan for escape. That was something his son might think up, not him. He just didn’t want to talk anymore.

It wasn’t fair. He was a nearly eighty-year-old man, whose son was the only family he had left. Once threats were made about Logan, Harp hadn’t stood a chance, and he’d talked. He hated himself for it, but what else could he do? He couldn’t run. He couldn’t fight. He couldn’t call anyone even if they hadn’t taken his phone away.

Harp could hear other vehicles entering and leaving the truck stop. Most sounded like regular, family-sized cars, but every so often there were low rumbles and vibrations of big rigs pulling in to fill up.

Once he’d tried to signal a passerby, but his interrogator had simply reached over and slapped his hand down. If he tried again, he was pretty sure he’d get more than a slap.

As soon as they had stopped, the driver had made a call, told the person on the other end their location, and hung up. The two men then took turns going into the station to use the facilities. Harp, though, was not offered the same opportunity.

Finally, his mind started to drift. His body, on edge since the moment he’d been taken, felt suddenly drained and useless. If he were lucky, soon he wouldn’t just be pretending to sleep.

A phone rang, loud and jarring.

Harp’s eyes sprang open, his breath catching in his throat, as whatever adrenaline he had left shot through his system.

“Hello?” the driver said into his cell. He listened, nodding, and hung up without saying anything else.

“Well?” the man in back asked. He was the one who’d introduced himself as Leon Clausen at the hospital cafeteria.

“Almost.”

They fell into silence again.

Almost what? Harp wondered.

He didn’t have long to wait for his answer. Only a few minutes went by before a gray sedan with a blonde woman behind the wheel pulled up next to theirs and stopped.

“We’re switching to the other car,” Clausen said to Harp. “Don’t do anything dumb.”

Dumb was getting out of bed that morning. Dumb was offering to get water for Pep by himself. Dumb was telling the men where Alan and Emily lived. Trying to get away from men with guns would be colossally idiotic.

Harp moved over into the gray sedan without a fight. The man who’d been driving took over the same duties in the new vehicle, and soon they were back on the interstate.

Once they had settled into a steady speed, the woman twisted around in the front passenger seat and looked at Harp, studying him.

“I see the resemblance,” she said. “Your son has your eyes, and your…ears, I think.” Her smile sent a chill through Harp. “But I’m glad to hear his stubbornness didn’t come from you.”

Harp said nothing.

“I advise you to continue to be cooperative, Mr. Harper. If I get the feeling that you’re not, you become unnecessary, and I don’t keep anything unnecessary around.”

Dr. Paskota and her men had over a two-hour lead on Logan and the others. They might be able to close the gap some, but it wouldn’t be by much. The question was, would the woman blaze into Riverside and go straight after Alan and Emily? Or would she take a little time to evaluate the situation first?

That really depended on why the woman was after the girl.

“If I’m going to help you, really help you, then you need to tell me exactly what’s going on,” he said.

“No,” Richard said. “All you need to know is that those people are trying to hurt my sister and her family. That’s it. That’s all you need. That’s all you get.”

“Those people also happen to have my father. He’s not a young man. There’s not a lot he can do to protect himself. I need to know what’s going on!”

“I’m sorry about your dad,” Richard shot back. “But I don’t give a shit. If you hadn’t come nosing around in the first place, he wouldn’t be in trouble.”

All Logan had to do was grab the back of Richard’s head and slam it into the steering wheel. That would be that. Of course, they’d all be dead, but at least he’d have a little satisfaction.

His hands remained at his side.

“I’m going to ignore that last part, because I know you’re trying to protect your sister. That’s admirable. I also know that you’re not very smart. There’s nothing you can do about that.”

Richard’s face balled up into a reddening mass of fury. “You son of a-”

“Richard!” Diana yelled. “Just drive!”

“I’m pulling over and we’re kicking him out.”

“No, we’re not,” she said. “Keep going.”

“Go to hell, Diana! Sometimes I’m right. Sometimes we do what I say!”

“Richard,” Sara said, her voice calmer than the others. “Logan’s right. We all know you’re doing your best to help me. I love you more for that than I can ever express. But Logan’s not the problem here.” She pointed out the front window at some imaginary point in the distance. “She is. Logan’s involved in this now whether you want him to be or not. Which means he needs to know the truth. Please. Keep driving.”

A whole minute passed, then two, as if the air in the car needed to calm first before anyone spoke. Then Sara started talking.

“Diana and Richard had it harder than me,” Sara said.

Diana shook her head. “That’s not true.”

“It is. We all had the same mother, but Diana and Richard had a different father than me. Didn’t really matter, though. Their dad, my dad, neither of them stuck around. Mom was…not picky, you know what I mean? There were different men all the time.”