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I quickly learned that Sam’s okay didn’t mean “Okay, you’ll save those kids with me.”
“You are not going near Hyattown again, Alex.”
“This is my fault. I broke whatever secret pact they made ten years ago—”
“You didn’t know about it—”
“I’m going, Sam.”
Real panic filtered through the anger in his voice. “You are not.”
“I’ll meet you at your house, Sam.”
“No, you won’t. I want you to go home. Now. Go home, and stay there. Better yet, get out, and don’t come back until after Halloween.”
“Not happening.”
Sam continued to argue, until I hung up on him. I also shut off my phone, so he couldn’t call back. No matter what he said, I was going to help get those kids back.
“Dad.” I turned to him, my face flushing as I remembered what I’d said to Sam. In the heat of the argument, I completely forgot where I was, and who was with me. “Can you take me home? I need to—”
“No.” His denial left me blinking in shock.
“But I—”
“You are not going to ditch me, Alex. We do this together, or you don’t do it at all.”
I let out a sigh. Now I understood how Sam felt. And I couldn’t hang up on this argument, even if we’d been on the phone. Dad would have simply come after me. “I don’t want you there.”
“You’re not going to get that wish. I go, or you don’t go.”
We stared at each other, but I already knew I’d lost the argument. “Fine.” I sounded angry, and I didn’t care. I wanted him far far away from this, and he wasn’t cooperating. “But we do need to go home first, so I can get the plans.”
“No need.” He leaned over seat, and pulled out a long, rubber banded roll of paper. “I made my own copies.”
I looked at the thick roll, then back at him. “You were never going to let me do this alone, were you?”
“Nope.” Dropping them on the seat between us, he glanced over at me before he pulled back out on the road. “Call your mom, tell her I’m taking you out to dinner.”
“She’ll want to join us.”
“Give her a reason not to.”
As I tapped in our home number manually to give me more time, I hoped inspiration would come to me before she picked up.