37

After pulling out of Carroll Street Homes, Preach grabbed a coffee to go and made the drive to Old Fort in under two and a half hours. A towering granite arrowhead, the only distinguishing feature as far as he could tell, marked the intersection of the two principal streets.

He went straightaway to the childhood home of Blue’s father and was told the family had moved away years ago. He was also told a young woman had visited earlier that day, looking for Donnie Blue. The new residents had no idea where the girl had gone. He was glad to have his theory validated, but this was a problem. If Blue left Old Fort, then she could have gone anywhere, depending on her funds. Though if he moved quickly enough, he might be able to find her before she disappeared. He drove back to the center of town, parked his car beside the arrowhead monument, and tried to think it through from her perspective.

If I were a girl of sixteen, on the run with no help, where would I go ? Would I return home? Not under the circumstances.

Would I keep running? Maybe, if I had enough money.

And if this was the end of the line, at least for now? Where would I go? What would I do?

Though Preach had only met Blue once, he sensed both resilience and desperation in her eyes, strength and vulnerability, someone unsatisfied with her lot in life and who knew she had to make a change or risk drowning forever.

He didn’t think she would crumble. That girl he had spoken to briefly was tough. Yet the news about her father’s family might have hit her hard. He imagined that, in her mind, she had nurtured a secret hope that her father would one day return for her, and that he might help her now.

She wouldn’t be ready to leave town. Not yet. She would stay a few days to process this final betrayal, this severing of a lifeline.

But where would she go in Old Fort? Again, it depended on her funds. She might check into a cheap motel, or even find a room for rent. Somewhere she could pay cash. How many hotels were in town? He had not seen a single one. Somehow, he doubted Airbnb was thriving here either.

First, he would check the obvious. Blue was young and poor. She had stolen petty cash from her mother. Unless she had sold the camera, which he doubted, she was probably desperate for money. Before she took a job or thought about whether to resort to stealing again, she would need a place to sleep. The streets were exceedingly dangerous for a young woman. Winter was coming on. It was cold at night. Yet there were options, shelters for the poor.

He imagined Asheville, only half an hour away, had plenty of choices. But a quick Google search told him there was a shelter right here in Old Fort, just a few blocks from where he was standing.

The Promise House. A home for runaway teens and single mothers.

Disappearing in and out of the mist, the mountains seemed to breathe around him, living monuments to an ancient age. The tallest peaks had a crown of early snow. He blew on his hands and got back in his car. There wasn’t much to the town. An abandoned industrial plant sat like a scab near the exit off the interstate. Barely any pedestrians. A few elderly people doddering toward a funeral home. The directions to the shelter led him to an old church with a granite base and a newer second story with plank siding. A pair of teens loitered on the front steps. The cold climate had already stripped the leaves from the chestnut trees in the scraggly front yard, bare limbs clawing at the sky. An abandoned shopping cart rested against the brick sign at the head of the sidewalk.

Inside, he saw a familiar despairing sight. A short hallway that opened up into a common room divided into cubicles. Linoleum floors and the smell of disinfectant. A line of shabbily dressed mothers sitting in folding chairs at the front of the room, keeping an eye on a group of children watching cartoons on TV.

The head-high partitions were a nice touch, he thought. They gave the quarters a little dignity. Preach had visited plenty of shelters over the years, both as a pastor and as a police officer. They all made him sad, but it was the kids that got him the most. Not so much because of the physical circumstances, because kids were resilient. Give them stable love and food, and they didn’t care about much else.

But take away one of those two, and you had problems.

Not that any normal parent didn’t love their child. But life on the edges was rarely normal.

Times were always tough. Fortunes rose and fell. A few of these young mothers, maybe more than a few, would manage to pull out and reenter society. Yet most of them, due to addiction or abusive relationships or a cycle of poverty that had started when they were young, would fail.

And they would drag their kids down with them.

He didn’t have the answers, but his thoughts about mothers and children drew him back to Claire, and Blue. Two people whose lives he had a chance to affect. As his eyes roamed the shelter for someone in charge, a spindly white-haired woman approached and asked if she could help. “Betty-Anne Clark” the nametag read.

According to Betty-Anne, Blue had checked in the night before and left around nine that morning, dressed in the same clothes as the day before.

“Do you remember if she had a camera with her ?” Preach asked.

Betty-Anne tapped a finger against her sapphire ring as she thought. “I can tell you she wasn’t carrying anything when she left this morning.”

That was good, he thought. She had just left for the day and was planning on coming back.

“I’m sorry I can’t help you more,” she said, after Preach displayed his badge and explained the situation. “Our regulations prohibit random property searches.”

He could get a warrant if needed, but that was okay. If the camera was in the shelter, it wasn’t going anywhere. And Blue wasn’t going back inside without him noticing. He knew both of these things as facts, because he planned to plant himself outside the shelter and wait as long as it took for her to return.

On second thought, Preach decided to park on Main Street, a block away from the Promise House. He still had a view of the entrance, and he didn’t want to scare Blue off if she noticed a suspicious sedan parked right out front. She was skittish the first time he met her, even before she went on the run. If she saw him first, she might bolt and disappear.

As daylight faded, he drew stares from the handful of pedestrians who passed by on the sidewalk, unused to strange men camping out in parked cars in their town. A local officer stopped to question him, then brought Preach a cup of coffee and said to holler if he needed help. The coffee was weak and stale, but it worked its dark magic.

Just as he began to wonder if Betty-Anne had seen the wrong girl and Blue was on a bus to Charlotte or Atlanta, he heard a rumble in the background. Nothing too unusual, just a street bike, though on second thought he hadn’t seen too many crotch rockets in Old Fort. He had seen zero, in fact. A pair of bearded old men on Harleys had cruised past him on the way in, and that was about it.

In the rearview, Preach saw a rider bearing down on a young woman walking his way on the sidewalk. He thought he recognized Blue’s gangly form and swagger, as well as Cobra’s lean build. Preach spilled his coffee in his haste to leave the car. By the time he had opened the door and jumped out to shout at her, Blue had turned and noticed Cobra, yelled, and dashed down a side street. The gang member quickly parked the bike and gave chase.

Preach didn’t think either of them had heard his shout. He debated getting into his car and then took off on foot, reasoning they would be veering off the street. By the time he drove down the street and parked, they might already be gone.

Without taking the time to call the local police for help, worried he would lose them, Preach pulled his gun and sprinted after them, startling a hardware store owner who had stepped onto the street to lock his door.

Preach turned left at a flashing red light, down the same street Blue had fled. Neither of them were in sight. With a curse, he kept running, scanning to the sides for a hedge or another place where Cobra might have taken her. Preach dreaded hearing a scream or the crack of a gunshot, and he prayed the gang member wanted her alive.

Why wasn’t she calling out? Was she saving her breath? The street dead-ended at a large building up ahead, set back from the road. Too exposed; he doubted she would have chosen that direction. Where, then? Had she headed to the creek bed on his left, partially hidden from view ? What if he went that way and lost her ?

As he raced through his options, pulling out his phone to call for backup, he passed a paved alley and thought he heard voices. He slowed, breathing hard, but saw nothing except for an unhitched equipment trailer squatting in the weeds, halfway down the alley. Maybe those voices had belonged to the neighbors. After whispering his location to the Old Fort police, Preach pulled his gun and crept forward. He had to balance his desire for surprise versus waiting too long and risking Blue’s life.

Moving in a swift crouch, gun gripped in both hands and aimed at chest height, he drew to within twenty feet of the equipment trailer. Just as he got close enough to hear shuffling, Cobra emerged holding Blue by the arm with one hand, a knife pressed against her throat with the other.

“Police!” Preach shouted. “Step away from the girl!”

“Put the gun down,” Cobra rasped.

“Not gonna happen.”

“Do it!” Cobra said, pressing the knife tighter. Blue arched to relieve the pressure, her eyes wild with fear.

Cobra was shielding his own body with Blue’s, making an impossible target. Preach was a good shot, but not good enough to hit a sliver of Cobra’s head or arm while ensuring the bullet missed Blue. As far as Preach could tell, the gang member wasn’t carrying a gun, though he could have one stuck in the back of his black jeans. “Let the girl go.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

In response, Cobra began dragging her toward the other end of the alley. “If you follow, I’ll kill her.”

“There’s nowhere to go. The local police have the roads out of town sealed.”

Cobra gave a thin smile, and Preach knew that, to a man with a weapon and no compunction about hurting people, there was always an option.

Still, the odds were not in Cobra’s favor. Preach didn’t care if he escaped dead or alive at this point. He just couldn’t let him escape with Blue. That would sign her death warrant.

Yet how to intervene without Cobra slitting her throat?

“It’s the camera, isn’t it ?” Preach said, trying to buy time.

The gang member didn’t react, but the comment caused Blue to wriggle harder in his grasp. Cobra had one of her arms pinned at her side, and she wasn’t strong enough to get loose.

“I know who killed David,” Preach lied. “You don’t need her anymore.”

Still no response. Cobra, his dispassionate eyes locked onto Preach, kept walking backward. Twenty feet to go before he reached the end of the alley and the greater freedom of the street. Preach advanced at a steady pace, gun still raised.

“Let her go, and we can strike a deal,” Preach said. “I promise I’ll talk to the judge—”

“One more step, and I’ll slit her throat.” Though Cobra hadn’t raised his voice, the emotionless tone of his delivery convinced Preach he would do just what he said.

Preach stopped moving. They were ten feet from the end of the alley. Think, Joe.

“If I see you or any other cop on my way out,” Cobra said, “I’ll kill her on the spot.”

“I can’t let you take her,” Preach said.

“You don’t have a choice.”

“There’s always a choice. Do you have friends, family, kids? You’ll never see them again.” In Preach’s experience, there was always at least one person that even the hardest criminal had a soft spot for. A friend, a grandmother, a son or daughter. “There are three roads out of town, Cobra, and they’re all covered. Backup will be here in moments. You’re only at kidnapping right now. Don’t be a murder one.”

They were five feet from the end of the alley. Cobra continued dragging Blue backward, eyes locked onto the detective. Preach had no choice but to follow. Cobra could hole up with his hostage in a house, but he couldn’t get her in a car or on his bike without exposing himself to a shot.

Blue had gone limp in his arms, resigned to her fate. Preach would have to wait it out and pray he could reason with the assassin, or somehow pressure him into giving her up.

As they reached the end of the alley, and Cobra turned the corner with his hostage, Blue gave a sudden violent twist and threw her free hand into the assassin’s face, clawing at his eyes. Before he could react, her fingers found purchase, and the gang member screamed in pain. When his free hand reached for his injured eye, Blue spun out of his grip, though the knife etched a red line into the side of her throat. Before Cobra could grab her again, Preach fired twice into his chest, dropping him.

Preach dashed forward, gun raised, wary of a concealed firearm. As he drew nearer, Cobra lunged at him with the knife, forcing Preach to shoot him again, this time in the shoulder. The knife clanged to the pavement as Cobra slumped on his back.

“Stay!” Preach yelled at Blue, as she fled down the alley holding her neck. When she hit the corner, she turned left and disappeared.

Preach patted down the gang member. No other weapons. Preach kicked the knife away and took in his condition. The two chest wounds, both near the heart, were pouring blood. Cobra’s face had paled and his eyes looked dim and unfocused.

“Did you kill David?” he asked.

No response.

Preach snarled and knelt next to him. “It was you, wasn’t it? Who else was with you?”

“Lo siento,” Cobra whispered, as he stared at the sky.

“You’re sorry? For what?”

The gang member started murmuring in Spanish as the whirr of sirens cut through the air.

“Who else was it?” Preach shouted, over and over, but Cobra wouldn’t say another word. The moment local police appeared at the end of the alley, Preach took off after Blue.