Twenty-eight

Kootenai Canyon, Montana

The challenger started on the first try. Those hours spent changing its oil and spark plugs paid off. On the seat beside him, Avasa wagged her tail, excited to go.

He’d rolled the barn door opened to find Miss Ettie standing on the other side of it with a thermos of coffee in her hand.

“I’ve got to go,” he said shaking his head against what he was sure was about to be a lengthy lecture. “I’ve got to try to help her as much as I can—”

Instead of arguing with him, Miss Ettie laughed. “Well, of course you do,” she said, holding the thermos out. “How long will you be gone?”

He thought about it. Thought about leaving the valley, driving until he’d traded Ponderosas and black bears for palo verdes and rattlesnakes. That’s what he wanted to do. He wanted to go to her. It was what he’d always wanted. From the first moment he saw her. For as long as he could remember.

Protect her. Keep her safe.

To be the kind of man who could do those things for her.

But that’s not what she needed from him. Sabrina had never needed him to protect her. She saved herself. Always had.

What she needed was something he couldn’t give her. But he could make sure she got it.

“I’ll be back before sunrise,” he told her, taking the thermos from Miss Ettie, trading it for a quick kiss dropped onto her soft, wrinkled cheek.

“You better be in that kitchen making me pancakes when I wake up.” She gave him a quick pat on his cheek, catching him before he could fully pull away. “Be careful, Michael,” she said to him, her sharp, dark eyes meeting his, making him wonder just how much she knew about his predicament.

“Before sunrise,” he said again, making her an unspoken promise. “I’ll even make bacon.”

–––––

Two hours later he pulled over, the Challenger’s tires grabbing onto the soft shoulder of the highway. Shifting into park, he killed the lights and then the engine, plunging himself into total darkness and a silence that was so loud it seemed to scream.

Avasa shifted on the seat next to him, whining softly. “Shhh, it’s okay,” he said to her, not even really sure what he was waiting for. The bright, blinding lights of a fleet of black SUVs speeding in to surround him. A platoon of Pips to drop out of the sky. A sudden, violently painful death.

Whatever it was, it never came.

One minute turned into ten and nothing happened. No one came for him. He kept breathing. He had no idea what kind of safety nets Ben had Lark devise to block the signal that would set off his chip, but whatever they were, they seemed to be holding.

He reached up and clicked on the dome light on the roof of the Challenger and the dog sitting beside him woofed softly. “Okay, okay,” he said to her, reaching across the bench seat to open her door. She gave him a swift swipe with her tongue before darting out into the dark. “Stay out of the road,” he called out to her flagging tail, but he needn’t worry. She only went a few yards before she sat in the dirt to keep watch.

The dog took her job seriously.

Unlatching the glovebox, he found what he was looking for. Closing his hand over it he pulled it out. An old analog cell phone. It was his contingency plan. His escape hatch. He had identical phones stashed in the bunker and buried in the woods where the kids liked to play.

He turned it on, waiting for the small green screen to power up before he searched the short list of contacts. Finding the number he was looking for, he hit send.

As he suspected, his call was dumped into voicemail—an automated message that did nothing more than recite the number back to him and beep. “This is Michael O’Shea,” he said into the phone. “We need to talk.” He hung up, clicking off the dome light to wait.

Two minutes later, the phone rang.

“Is she alive?” No greeting. No surprise or disbelief. Just the question. The only thing that mattered to him.

Michael leaned his head against the Challenger’s headrest and closed his eyes, his jaw suddenly tight. “Yes.” He forced the word out, fighting the urge to hang up the phone. To run it over. To drive to San Francisco and commit murder.

He listened to breathing on the other end of phone, the silence waiting for him to elaborate. To explain. He didn’t.

“I don’t think you called me a year later, at two a.m., to tell me that, Michael.”

“She needs your help.”

“My help?” Phillip Song chuckled softly but there was a smug, satisfied edge to the sound that made Michael want to cut his tongue out. “What could I possibly—”

“You know what, asshole,” he said through gritted teeth. “You helped her once before. I need you to do it again.”

“Wade.” It wasn’t a question. Hearing Phillip say the name told Michael all he needed to know about how close Sabrina and Phillip had become. Close enough for her to confide in him. Close enough that when he said Wade’s name out loud, it sounded like a curse.

“Yes.”

“If she’s in need of my help, why wouldn’t she call me herself?” Phillip said, sounding both wary and concerned. “She knows I’d do anything for her.”

“Because of me.” He’d known, as soon as he asked her to call Phillip and ask for help, exactly what she’d do. She’d agree in order to placate him and then stubbornly refuse to do what they both knew was best for her. “Because you’re in love with her—or at least you were.”

More silence. For a second, Michael was sure he’d hung up the phone. Finally, he spoke. “Where is she?” Phillip said quietly, not even trying to deny it. “Tell me where she is and I’ll—”

“I don’t want it to be you,” he said, matching Phillip’s tone perfectly. “Because I know what you’ll do. You’ll play knight in shining armor with your fucking tea and your expensive suits that cover up the tattoos that spell out just what kind of man you really are. You’ll call her sweetheart and you’ll do for her what I can’t.”

“And what is that?” Phillip said, sound equal parts pissed and amused. “What can I do for her that El Cartero can’t?”

“You can be there.” Michael caught his reflection in the rearview mirror and looked away. “Got a pen?” He rattled off the number to the cell phone he’d given Sabrina and listened to Phillip write it down.

“I can protect her. Give her her family back. Her friends,” Phillip said, warning him he was right: he could do more for her than Michael ever could. “With me, she could even be a police officer again if that’s what she wanted.”

“Pretty lofty proclamations for a simple businessman,” he said, but he knew Phillip wasn’t overstating his abilities. With him, Sabrina would be what she could never be with him.

Free.

“I’m not bragging,” Phillip said. “I’m telling you how it will be. What I’ll offer her.”

Michael turned his head to look out the open car door. Avasa sat in the wedge of it, watching him with what looked like pity. “Do what you gotta do, Song,” he said before ending the call. He patted the seat next to him and she jumped onto it.

She was ready to go home.