Isaac made a good point about local law enforcement. Mitch didn’t know anyone out here and was outside his cousin’s jurisdiction. Isaac also seemed to realize his slip—he’d admitted to having feelings for Amy. Since this wasn’t the time to dig deeper into the subject, Mitch filed the information away for later.
“My phone’s going crazy in my pocket. Zach might have something on the plate,” Mitch said.
“That’s a better person to talk to if you ask me but it’s your call.” Isaac’s reasoning was sound. Mitch would trust his judgment.
“Zach can alert locals,” Mitch agreed, not daring to take his eyes off the sedan gaining on his SUV. “Put Zach on speaker when he answers.”
Isaac did.
“The Camry was stolen,” Zach started right in. “A family is stranded at a gas station about a half hour from where you are now.”
“I figured as much. It would’ve been too easy to ID these jerks otherwise,” Mitch said, cutting the wheel left to avoid a collision with a blue Buick. He cursed under his breath. It was wishful thinking on his part that the driver could be identified and this whole nightmare could be wrapped up in a bow before it got messy. Kimberly had secrets that put his children at risk.
Isaac already had his weapon out, ready to shoot out a tire and slow the Camry down, but there was too much traffic and he couldn’t risk a stray bullet hitting innocent people.
“Where are you now?” Zach asked.
“The last sign I read was Smithtown,” Mitch informed him.
Zach cursed. “That’s Sheriff Bogart’s jurisdiction.”
“Sounds like bad news.” Mitch had to veer right to snake through thickening traffic.
“Tell me everything that’s going on, starting with the vehicle you’re driving,” Zach instructed. “I’ll need to give him a complete picture.”
“You need to know something, cousin,” Mitch warned. “Amy’s involved.”
“What’s my sister doing with you?” Zach had always been protective of family, but especially when it came to his little sister.
“She came with Isaac—”
“Why would she do that? What are you guys doing in Bogart’s jurisdiction, where I can’t help you?” Zach’s voice was steady and that meant one thing: he was working hard to control his emotions.
“I had a visitor last night. I was heading out of town with the twins,” Mitch admitted.
“Devin mentioned you were helping out a friend. What’s that all about?” Zach asked, still with that steady investigator’s tone.
“It’s Kimberly,” Mitch said.
“What about her?” Zach sounded confused.
“She came back last night to warn me.” Mitch paused a moment to let that sink in.
“Kimberly? As in your dead wife Kimberly?” Zach normally had more tact but he was clearly reeling from the admission.
The Camry passenger took a wild shot at them.
Mitch jammed the wheel right and muttered a curse.
“Anyone hit?” Zach finally asked after a few tense seconds.
“No, sir,” Isaac reported.
“I’m fine,” Mitch added. He didn’t like the way the Camry zipped in between cars.
Zach issued a sharp sigh. “What else do I need to know?”
Isaac relayed additional details, leaving out a crucial fact.
“What Isaac didn’t tell you is that he took a bullet,” Mitch added when his security detail was finished.
“I’m sending an ambulance,” Zach immediately fired back.
“Not necessary,” Isaac said, trying to dismiss it.
“How is he really?” Zach asked, like Isaac wasn’t sitting in the passenger’s seat.
Isaac grunted his dissatisfaction.
“Took a hit to the neck. Seems to have stemmed the bleeding for now but I’d feel a helluva lot better if he would agree to have it looked at,” Mitch informed him.
“A piece of a bullet scraped me, mind you,” Isaac interjected. “And it’s not that big of a deal.”
“How’s Tough Guy’s coloring?” Zach asked, concern quieting his voice.
“Have no idea. My eyes have been glued to the road and have to stay there,” Mitch admitted.
“The only real concern we have right now is what’s in front of us,” Isaac said.
“Bring ’em back on Highway 30. I’ll have deputies waiting at the edge of my jurisdiction and an ambulance—no arguments, Isaac,” Zach said.
“We get them back safely and you won’t hear a peep from me,” Isaac said.
“In the meantime,” Zach continued, “I’ll see how much cooperation I can get from local law enforcement. The sheriff there has a reputation for being uncooperative. Get out of his county as fast as you can.”
“Once we turn around we’ve got a good hour and a half to go before we get to Jacobstown,” Mitch admitted.
“Wish you’d clued me in sooner,” Zach stated.
“We’re in the same boat on that one,” Mitch admitted. “This has all been coming at me at a hundred miles an hour. All I know is that Kimb—Lily Grable is her real name, by the way. Lily has a foster father who got himself into some kind of trouble and it was big enough to create a trail leading to her. She said she has no idea what’s going on and I believe her.” Mitch wasn’t sure why he added the last part. It seemed important for Zach to know that Mitch trusted her. At least about that.
“Kimberly’s real name is Lily Grable?” Zach asked.
“She had fake papers for the wedding that were apparently good enough to fool the man who married us. You know anything about her?” Mitch asked.
“It shouldn’t take much to dig around into her background,” Zach stated.
“She may have gotten into some trouble in her early teens. She was bounced around in the system,” Mitch warned.
“Any juvenile records will be sealed. I’m sorry to ask this question...” Zach paused, and Mitch picked up on his cousin’s hesitation.
“Go ahead.” Mitch figured he knew what his cousin would ask.
“Has she kept her record clean as an adult?”
Mitch should know the answer to that. His traitorous heart said he did and that she wasn’t some kind of con artist. But he’d trusted his emotions once already and that had left him with a shattered heart. “I believe so but then I thought I knew her. All I know for sure is that she’s in trouble. She thinks it has something to do with her foster father’s business but...”
“Get her here,” Zach advised. “We can sort out the rest once she’s in protective custody.”
Now it was Mitch’s turn to go silent. He wanted to know the truth but he didn’t want to get her in trouble. Again, his heart said she wouldn’t lie to him unless she felt like she had no way out.
“I’ll do my best,” Mitch promised.
“Until we know what we’re dealing with, be careful,” Zach warned.
“Always,” Mitch confirmed. His children had lost their mother once. He had no intention of allowing that or anything like it to happen again. They’d been too young to understand what was going on and that had been the only grace. Grace? Mitch almost laughed. Nothing in his present situation fell under that category.
With the Camry taking a more aggressive stance, he had no choice but to respond in kind.
The late Saturday-afternoon traffic was thinning as they moved away from another town, but Mitch didn’t like the fact that anyone else was on the road with the aggressive way he was driving. No one deserved to get caught in the middle.
The Camry started racing toward his SUV on an open stretch of highway, moving at the pace of a bullet train. He needed to cut off the Camry before it reached Kimberly, Amy and the kids.
Mitch cut the wheel left and stomped the gas pedal.
“Get Kimberly on the phone,” he instructed Isaac.
THE CAMRY CAME rushing toward the back bumper of the SUV. The plates were visible in the side-view mirror. Kimberly searched for the Jeep but couldn’t see any signs of it.
Amy’s phone buzzed. “Can you see who that is?”
Panicked, she checked the screen. “It’s Isaac.”
“You should answer,” Amy said.
Kimberly put the call on speaker. “Hello.”
“Isaac here. How’re you two doing?”
“Never better,” Amy quipped and her familiarity with him brought Kimberly’s stress levels down a notch. Amy’s white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel belied her calmly spoken words.
“Good to hear.” There was a note of relief in Isaac’s voice.
Kimberly glanced at the side-view mirror again. “I lost the Jeep. Where are you guys?”
“Behind the black Dodge Ram. We’re a few cars back but we got eyes on the Camry. He seems to be making a move toward you guys.” He paused. “I have more bad news. We need you to turn around and we gotta get out of this county.”
“Mitch?” Hearing his voice, his confirmation, would go a long way toward calming her fried nerves.
The moment of hesitation caused her heart to pound against her ribcage.
“He’s right,” Mitch confirmed. “There’s no reason to be scared, Kimberly. I’m on the Camry and I need you headed in the opposite direction, toward Jacobstown. You hear, Amy?”
“Yes, sir,” Amy confirmed.
“Don’t stop or turn around. Get back to Broward County as quick as you can without being stopped. Your brother will have support waiting for you there,” Mitch informed her.
Amy’s grip on the steering wheel relaxed a little bit more with those words. She quirked a tiny smile and the stress cracks on the side of her eye relaxed.
“Wait a minute. You’re coming, aren’t you?” There was no way she was going back to Jacobstown without Mitch.
“As soon as I take care of a little problem,” was all he said.
Isaac’s voice came on the line. “Amy.”
“Yes.” Her voice perked up considerably at the sound of his. “Take the exit now.”
Kimberly felt the jerk of the tires gripping the asphalt as Amy spun the wheel, cutting off a car and barely making the exit. She did, though. She swerved onto the service road and Kimberly watched as the Camry’s brake lights lit up and it slowed onto the shoulder. Gravel spewed out from underneath its tires as the Jeep pulled up behind.
A shot rang out. The sound of a bullet cracking the air sent waves of panic rippling through her.
And then the SUV was fishtailing.
Amy was unfazed. She let out a resounding “Whoop!” And then she added, “Hold tight. It’s about to get interesting in here.”
One of the twins stirred, letting out a small, pitiful-sounding wail. The other almost immediately followed.
“Sorry, babies,” Amy said, handling the wheel like a pro and straightening out the SUV.
Her driving skills were something else.
The babies wound up to a good cry in the back seat, belting out their dissatisfaction with the situation. The same feeling of helplessness that she’d felt when she’d first brought them home assaulted her.
They were older now and she was out of practice in calming them.
“What can I do?” she asked Amy, hating how small her own voice sounded.
“Binkies. Get their Binkies in their mouths. Mitch usually has them clipped to their shirts.” Amy motioned toward the back seat. “Rea’s should be on a Winnie the Pooh clip.”
Kimberly unbuckled, climbed over the seat and positioned herself between the car seats.
“Here it is,” she said after moving the strap around in order to locate the pacifier. “It’s okay, sweet girl.”
Kimberly hoped that her voice was what soothed her daughter enough to calm her, but it was probably just the pacifier. Her son wasn’t as agreeable. It took a little coaxing, but he finally accepted the Binky and settled back to sleep.
“They’re great babies,” Amy said, her voice still edged with the adrenaline shot they’d both received. “Car rides knock them out every time.”
Kimberly should be the one who knew what to do instead of being wrapped in that blanket of helplessness, a feeling she hated. With the babies needing attention, she lost track of the others. “Where are Mitch and Isaac?”
Amy shrugged. “Haven’t seen them since we made the turn east. Camry’s out of sight, too.”
Kimberly had been too caught up in trying to get the babies back to sleep to notice. Being on the road with the twins made even less sense but the thought of being away from them again was an even bigger knife to the chest.
“Mitch and Isaac will be okay and especially if they don’t have to worry about us and the babies,” Amy added as though she could read Kimberly’s thoughts. “Isaac works security for a living. It’s what he does and he’s damn good at his job. My cousin has come up against some seriously bad dudes in his life. Poachers are right up there with the most dangerous scumbags, and my family knows how to handle them.”
Kimberly didn’t answer. Nothing was okay. Nothing would be okay again. She’d trusted her foster father. He was an honest man. Right? A little voice asked why he would’ve given her the phone. Why he would’ve warned her if that was true.
Was he involved in criminal activity? Was he a criminal? It was so hard to believe the man who’d taken her in, accepted her rough edges and had the patience to wait for them to smooth out was capable of doing anything wrong. Randy Bristol was the best kind of person. If he couldn’t be trusted, no one could.
Did the mirror always have two faces? Her heart argued against the idea and her instincts backed it.
But Randy was probably the first person who’d ever been truly kind to her, and her mind constantly tried to convince her that he couldn’t be a criminal.
Would she have known?
Or was she being too stubborn to see the facts right in front of her nose?