John
Wyatt, seated behind John, was telling the woman to shut up. John agreed. She should shut up. But he also agreed with her. Wyatt had been the one to shoot the old man, which was totally unnecessary, and he was fucking crazy.
Not as crazy as John for getting into this mess. But still crazy. John shouldn’t have let Wyatt take one of his guns, and John should have foreseen the possibility that Wyatt, panicking and inexperienced, might pull the trigger when the old man brandished a knife.
But Wyatt had seen the broken door, and Wyatt had been convinced that his wife and his child were there. The old man had stood in his way, blocking him from getting to his family, and Wyatt had raised the damn gun and fired.
It had happened too fast for John to stop him.
And here they were, heading back towards the city until John could figure out where they were going to go next.
And what to do about the situation.
It had been one thing to hold Isabella in the cabin to prevent her from having an abortion. Under Texas law, John might have an argument, although he’d wanted to confirm that with Brenda.
He hadn’t kidnapped the woman; he had rescued an unborn child from a mother intent on murder.
A sympathetic prosecutor might not even charge him.
Shooting the old man took it to a different level. And while John hadn’t pulled the trigger, he’d been present.
Would that make him guilty of felony murder?
Texas didn’t fool around when it came to murder. It didn’t matter if you were the one who pulled the trigger or not.
John had killed people before. But he’d always been careful. No witnesses. No evidence. The woman he’d run down just a few weeks ago—no one else knew about it. He’d left no evidence. Same with the bombs under the cars of abortion doctors. All of it had been thought out in advance, carefully and meticulously planned.
The police and the FBI had questioned him repeatedly, but they always let him go. Because he never gave them anything to use against him.
Now, because he’d stupidly tried to help a high school friend save his baby, he’d risked everything. He’d been involved in a careless and stupid shooting. Wyatt had used his gun.
The gun, he could get rid of.
But he had a bigger problem. There were three witnesses. Wyatt, the woman, and the child.
The safest thing for John and his personal future would be to get rid of all of them. Wyatt, the idiot, deserved a bullet through the brain. The woman did too. She was the reason that he was now in danger.
The little girl was another consideration. She was an innocent. And Jesus had called him to protect the innocent. But she was also a threat, even if it wasn’t her fault. She understood that the old man had been killed, as evidenced by the fact that she wouldn’t stop crying.
She’d been okay in the cabin. She’d watched videos and eaten pancakes. She’d been fine. Not crying. Not upset.
He’d gotten along with the damn kid.
But everything was different now. He had to protect himself.
He knew what he should do. Just drive somewhere remote and put bullets in all of them. A place where the bodies wouldn’t be discovered for months. Maybe years.
But he couldn’t afford to be reckless. Plan it out so that no one suspected him. The way he had every other time he’d killed. Make sure there was no DNA or fingerprints. Give himself an alibi for the time of death.
The little girl continued to wail.
“Quiet her down, Wyatt. I need to concentrate.”
And he needed to think things through.
No, killing them now was not a good idea. Besides, doing so would violate everything he worked for, everything he believed.
There was an innocent baby growing inside of that bitch, and he was its protector.
So at least until the baby was born, he had to keep them all alive and all secure. Not give Isabella any other chance to run off. Then he could take the baby and eliminate the other three.
If it were necessary.
Maybe it wouldn’t be.
After all, Isabella had broken into the old man’s home in the middle of the night. They could tell the police that she had killed the old man. It was her word against theirs, and she had shown her disregard for life by trying to kill her own child.
If she thought that she could go to jail, maybe she’d keep quiet.
He could figure that out later. He had more important things to think about right now: where to take them that would be secure and how to cover himself legally. He had two allies who he could count on to help.
Georgina believed in him, and the cause was as important to her as to him. She suspected what he’d done on other occasions to protect the innocent, and she’d supported him. She’d support him now.
She could help him find a place to stash the trio. Didn’t she own various houses that she rented out?
And he thought of his other ally. Brenda.
Was this the time that he could finally pry her away from her insipid husband? He needed her legal advice. But he also needed Brenda.
He needed her to love him. He thought she did, even if she didn’t know it, but her ambition and her social climbing had torn them apart.
Too bad she hadn’t been home the night before.
The crying in back was getting on his nerves. Wyatt was as hopeless as a father as he was at handling his wife.
And the bitch wasn’t doing anything to help either. She was almost encouraging the crying. As if she knew that it irritated him.
Maybe, separate Isabella and Nina. It would be a way to control the woman because she wouldn’t know her child’s whereabouts. He’d give her this much: even though she was more than willing to murder her own unborn baby, she did seem to care about her little girl.
Separating them out might be a good thing for another reason. Maybe with time, the child would forget what she’d seen. She was only four, after all, and four-year-olds didn’t remember things all that well. They weren’t exactly reliable witnesses under the best of circumstances.
Maybe he wouldn’t have to kill her, even if he decided to kill her parents.
He didn’t really want to kill the kid. After all, he believed in life.
She wailed louder.
He raised his voice. “Shut up!”