Touch & Go (Tessa Leoni, #2)(34)
“I don’t want her alone with them,” I said, turning the matter back to Ashlyn.
Justin shrugged away my concern. “They’ve put us together in a single cell. Nicer of them than I would’ve thought, actually.”
He was right. Three separate cells would’ve been worse. Each of us trapped in a separate cage, helpless to assist the others. In that scenario, if they’d come for Ashlyn… What would Justin do? What would I do? Stand by powerlessly while they led our daughter away…
“Whatever happens,” I reiterated, my own thoughts starting to run away with me. “I don’t want Ashlyn alone with them. Especially that one with the checkerboard hair… Mick? Did you see his eyes? Something’s not right there.”
“Not going to happen.”
“Really? Because we’re so in control of the situation? In case you haven’t noticed, they’re the predators, and we’re the prey. And what kind of prey ever gets to choose its own fate?”
I wish I hadn’t spoken the words the second I said them. My voice was too high, verging on hysterical. I fisted my hands on my lap, bit into my lower lip as if that would keep the panic at bay.
“Libby.” Justin’s voice was serious. I looked up, found him studying me. He didn’t speak right away. Instead, he regarded me with a fierceness I hadn’t seen in years, but still remembered well.
“I know things are challenging for us right now. I know I’ve hurt you. If I could go back in time…” He paused, squared his shoulders, soldiered on. “I want you to know, Libby, somehow, someway, I’ll keep you and Ashlyn safe. Nothing and no one is going to harm my family. You can trust me on this.”
And I believed him. Because my husband was that kind of guy. The modern caveman, I’d often called him. He would lay down his life for his daughter, just not remember her favorite foods. And he would slay dragons for me, just not, apparently, remain faithful.
Ironically enough, his alpha male tendencies were one of the things that had first attracted him to me.
Justin held out his hand. His palm was large, ridged with callouses. His nails were short, his skin rough. I’d spent so much of my life admiring those hands. It made it easy for me to place my fingers upon his and make my one request.
“Keep our daughter safe, Justin. That’s all I want. Keep Ashlyn safe.”
His fingers closed around mine. He leaned forward. I could see his eyes, somber and resolute, and then, his head angled down, and my head angled up…
Clanging, from the steel door. So loud both of us startled, jerked back, then turned around.
The crazy blue-eyed one stood in front of the window, leering at us. Clearly, he’d been watching for a bit. Clearly, he’d liked what he saw.
I couldn’t help myself; I recoiled, reaching for my daughter, as if holding her arm would somehow keep her safe.
“Get up,” Mick barked from the other side of the door. “Think this is some kind of vacay? Come on. Time to work.”
Chapter 14
WYATT DIDN’T CALL THE FEDS. If they wanted to join the party, they knew where to find him. In the meantime, he and his deputies went to work.
Maps. He liked maps. Sure, you could look this stuff up on a computer in this day and age, but there was something satisfying about unfolding a massive, color-coded scale map of mountainous New Hampshire. The dozens of blue blobs of lakes. The endless squiggly lines of hundreds of winding rural roads.
New Hampshire was a funny state. Long, skinny at the top, with a wider base. Nestled like a puzzle piece into the opposing shape of Vermont, as if the two were long-lost friends. New Hampshire wasn’t a very big state as the crow flies. A dedicated driver could make it from the southernmost border with Massachusetts to the northernmost border with Canada in three and a half, four hours tops. Horizontal routes, however, were another matter entirely, thanks to the White Mountains. They jutted up like jagged teeth and bit their way through the middle of the state, forcing east-west roads to zigzag, stair step and generally give way before their greater might. As the locals liked to say when contemplating drives across the state, “Why, you just can’t get there from here…”
Given those dynamics, Wyatt was betting their suspects had continued due north. Mostly, because that’s what drivers did in New Hampshire. You went up, or you went down, but it was too painful to move side to side.
For kicks, he’d sent one deputy, Gina, to drive due north from the diner. Told her to perform basic recon. Note rural turnouts or deserted campgrounds where a driver might pull over to refresh. Stop in at any isolated gas stations or unpopulated grocery stores where a bunch of kidnappers might feel it was safe enough to grab food, water, refuel. Start asking questions, passing along the description of the missing family and getting the locals watching.
She could also mark major turnoff points, or larger towns where they could involve local PDs, but Wyatt was guessing their suspects would do their best to drive through such areas. An entire family was hard to conceal. Why even risk heavily populated areas for stopping, when the North Country had so many safer havens to offer?
Frankly, he respected the kidnappers. When heading for the wilds of New Hampshire, they had picked wisely.
He bent back over the map, tracing Route 16 up the eastern edge of the state, as the feds swept through the door.
He knew it was them without looking up. For one thing, he spotted one pair of low-slung black heels and one pair of glossy brown men’s dress shoes. Only lawyers wore those kinds of shoes in this neck of the woods, and lawyers rarely visited the sheriff’s office on a Saturday afternoon.