Ginger couldn’t believe what had just happened. Fury roared through her as the taillights of her truck disappeared around a bend in the road that led back to Sweet Water Falls.
Her parents were due to arrive in ten minutes. They were expecting to meet her boyfriend and his son. And they’d both just disappeared.
Her torso felt like someone had hollowed her out and filled her with bleach. And where the heck was Nick? He’d left over an hour ago to go get a new battery for his phone. He should’ve been back by now.
She turned in a full circle, trying to figure out what to do. She was supposed to report anything the inmate did that went against his terms of the reentry program. And leaving without telling her where he was going—and all by himself—was definitely against Nate’s terms.
Unrest rolled through her gut. She didn’t want him to get in trouble. She also didn’t want to stand here on this beach, alone and wondering if Nate was making a run for the Southern border the way Hyrum had.
“He’s not Hyrum,” she told herself, not for the first time. She faced the water, wishing it would confirm what she’d just said. Only the whooshing of waves against sand met her ears. Spencer laughed from the towel where he lay, looking at something on his phone. Emma looked over at him, then back at her paperback.
Everything seemed normal and serene, but Ginger didn’t fit in the scene. Not without Nate and Connor. She glanced at the parking lot, but he didn’t return with her truck, and Ginger realized she could report him for stealing the vehicle. She really didn’t want to do that. Why had he left and put her in this position?
He knew he couldn’t go anywhere by himself. “This is why you shouldn’t have let him run over to the mall alone,” she muttered, as her feet took her toward her friends and co-workers enjoying themselves in the sun and surf.
That episode where Nate had gone to the mall to buy her a birthday present was weeks old, and he’d never indicated he was anything but happy at the ranch. He’d told her time and time again that he was grateful for the opportunity to be at Hope Eternal.
So what had changed?
She sighed as she sank into the beach chair next to Emma. She had to call the BOP. If she didn’t and they found out that Nate had gone missing, even for an hour, and she hadn’t reported it, she’d never get another inmate at the ranch.
She’d already contacted the Warden at River Bay and said she’d take someone else if he had them, and James Dickerson had said he’d look through his files. Ginger knew who she wanted, because Nate had talked to her about a friend of his. Ted Burrows.
She frowned, and she wasn’t sure how long she flipped her phone over in her palm before Emma asked, “What’s going on?”
“Nate left,” Ginger said as quietly as she could. “With Connor.”
Emma abandoned her book completely, her eyes widening. “What? When?”
“Just now. A few minutes ago.” Ginger shook her head, the first threat of tears burning behind her eyelids. “I have to call the Bureau.”
Emma stood up so fast, her beach chair flipped onto its back. “He took your truck?”
“Ginger,” Spencer said, pushing himself up on his elbow. “Look at this.” He wore a concerned look on his face and pressed on the side of his phone.
“…breaking news from the Sweet Water Mall.” Spencer turned the phone toward Ginger, and Emma came back to peer at the device too. A female reporter stood in front of the camera, the panorama of the mall behind her. “The police have already shut down the mall to new shoppers, and they’re apparently moving through the building in a grid pattern, searching for this man.”
An image of Nick came up on the screen, and Ginger yelped, immediately pressing her hand over her mouth.
“No way,” Emma said, her voice little more than air.
“Nickolas Talbot,” the reporter continued speaking though Nick’s picture remained on the screen. “The nineteen-year-old was last seen walking with an unidentified man, who reportedly had a handgun. We’ll bring you more as this story develops.”
“No,” Ginger said. She needed more now. Right now. She scrambled for her phone, her heart beating out of control. She couldn’t quite get enough air, and her fingers slipped on the phone.
“I’m calling him,” Spencer said, but Ginger stabbed at her screen anyway.
The line rang on Spencer’s phone, and he’d put it on speaker, so they could all hear. It rang and rang and rang. “This is Nick,” his voicemail said.
Spencer tapped the red phone icon to hang up, and Ginger tried calling Nick too. Ringing. Same voicemail.
“We have to go to the mall,” Ginger said, standing. She didn’t have the mental capacity to fold up her chair or find her sandals, not right now.
“We can’t go to the mall,” Spencer said, jumping to his feet and darting in front of her.
“Why is he even at the mall?” Ginger didn’t care if tears made her weak, because she couldn’t hold them back for another second.
Spencer engulfed her in an embrace, and Ginger wanted Nate to be the one standing in front of her, trying to get her to see reason.
A terrible, awful, horrifying thought crossed her mind.
Nate.
He’d rushed out of here like the devil himself was chasing him. Had he known Nick was in trouble? And if so, how?
He’d been talking on the phone. Perhaps he’d been talking to Nick.
“Come on,” Jack said, and Ginger stepped away from Spencer. She wiped her eyes and kept her head down. She’d known her cowboys for years now, but she still didn’t want to be seen as the weak girl-boss that cried over her cousin.
Ginger told herself it was okay to have feelings, and she bent to pick up the shopping bag she’d brought with all the crackers and chips.
“I’ve got it,” Jack said. “Let’s get back to the ranch and figure things out.”
Ginger nodded and had taken three steps when she realized she didn’t have a ride back to the ranch. “He took my truck.”
“You can ride with me,” Emma said, linking her arm through Ginger’s and keeping her moving.
Numbness spread through her, and Ginger only made it to Emma’s car because her friend had a hold on her arm.
“It’s going to be fine,” Emma said. “We’ll get back to the ranch, and Nate will be there. I just can’t see him taking your truck and fleeing.”
Ginger’s brain felt encased in quicksand, and she was sinking fast. She wanted to tell Emma that neither of them had believed that Hyrum had stolen a truck from the ranch either. They couldn’t see him doing that, not when he’d told Ginger he loved her and hoped to be with her after he got fully released.
At least Nate hadn’t done that.
“I have to call the Bureau,” Ginger said, pure misery streaming through her. “If I don’t….” She didn’t even want to think about what might happen if she didn’t. She could be arrested too, for helping an inmate escape.
She tapped to her favorites and chose number two. The only person higher than the Bureau of Prisons was Emma, and Ginger didn’t recognize her life in that moment.
The line only rang once before someone answered with, “Bureau of Prisons, how may I direct your call?”
“I need to speak to Warden James Dickerson,” Ginger said. “Immediately. My inmate at the Residential Reentry Center number two-four-seven-one-nine has fled.”
“Hold please,” the woman chirped, as if Ginger wanted to order a pepperoni pizza.
The Warden must’ve had a Bat-phone or something, because he came on the line only ten seconds later with, “Ginger? Nate’s gone?” He sounded as stupefied as Ginger felt, and all she could do was nod.
Only when she realized that Warden Dickerson couldn’t see her did she pull in a deep breath and get herself together. “Yes, sir,” she said. “I need to report him as missing. He took my truck and his son.” Her voice clamped around the last word, and she couldn’t continue.
“How long ago?” the Warden asked.
She honestly didn’t know. She could’ve been standing on the beach for an hour before she went to sit beside Emma. But then her parents would’ve arrived.
“Maybe fifteen minutes,” she said. “Probably ten.”
“License plate?”
Ginger rattled it off for him, and the call ended with him saying, “Stay at the ranch. I’m going to text you my personal number. If he comes back, I need you to call me instantly. Understand?”
“Yes, sir,” she said miserably. She was never going to get another inmate from the BOP, and the ranch benefited from that money. She slouched into the passenger window thinking, I never want another inmate from the BOP anyway. Never, never, never.
Hours later, Ginger sat on the couch having given up trying to entertain the Unit Officers that had made the drive from River Bay. The local police had been at the ranch by the time Ginger and Emma had returned from the beach, but no one had seen Nate leave except Ginger.
She’d given them every detail she could remember, and they’d conveyed it all to their counterparts at the mall. Emma had tried to put on the news, but that only upset Ginger even more, and they’d sat in silence until the officers had arrived.
Emma had served coffee and leftover cookies from the night before. Ginger gave the same interview. They tried calling Nate and Nick, and neither one answered. The worry sitting in the bottom of Ginger’s stomach felt like acid, and she couldn’t get rid of it no matter how hard she tried.
A radio beeped, and a voice came from one of the officer’s belts. “Be advised, we have the suspect’s truck turning onto the road. Again, the suspect’s truck with license plate four-seven-seven-alpha-charlie-beta-alpha has just turned onto the ranch road.”
Ginger shot to her feet despite one officer saying, “Ma’am.”
But a rush of adrenaline, combined with anger, had her marching toward the door and yanking it open. The radio beeped again, and the same voice spoke, but Ginger couldn’t hear it through the windstorm in her ears. She went out onto the front porch and right on down the steps as her truck came into view.
Her truck.
With Nate behind the wheel. Oh, boy, he was going to get it, and get it good. Her fingers clenched into fists as she stomped down the sidewalk.
Nate pulled past the gate and kept on coming, and every regret Ginger had ever had in her life streamed through her. If she’d just have waited a few hours, he’d have come back. No one would’ve had to know he’d been gone.
Ginger realized then that he wasn’t alone in the truck. Of course, she’d expect to see Connor. But she saw Nick too.
A sob wrenched itself from her throat, and she started running. Nate couldn’t pull into the garage with all the police and prison vehicles in the driveway, and he simply parked behind one of them.
He got out of the truck with his hands up, calling, “I’m not armed. I came back. I’m not armed.” He only took a few steps away from the truck before he dropped to his knees, his hand still straight up in the air,
Ginger wanted to rage at him, but Nick was getting out on the other side of the truck, and she raced toward him. “Nick.”
“I’m okay,” he said. “I’m fine.” He caught her and held on, but the reunion was short lived as he turned to help Connor out of the vehicle. “Stay by me,” he muttered to the little boy, his attention past Ginger and toward the house.
She turned and watched as no less than six armed men approached Nate with their weapons raised. She stepped in front of Connor and said, “Don’t watch this, bud.” She reached behind her and pressed his face into the back of her leg, because no one should have to see their father figure get pushed to the ground and handcuffed from behind while five other men pointed guns at him.
They hauled Nate to his feet, and when he came up, the first thing he did was look at Ginger. “I’m sorry,” he called. “I had to go, and I’m sorry. Nick will tell you everything.” The officers wrenched him around, and Nate walked the way they wanted him to as they marched him over to a prison van and loaded him into the back of it.
Then the six of them stood there as if they didn’t know what to do next.
Ginger sure didn’t.
Slowly, she turned back to Nick, questions racing through her head. “Well?” was all she could get out.
“You should really have him tell you,” Nick said. “It’s so much better when he explains it.”
“I don’t think I have that option,” Ginger growled.
“Yes, you do,” Nick said, his dark eyes narrowing at her. “If you wanted to talk to him, they’d let you talk to him. All you have to do is ask.” He bent and picked up Connor. “Come on, buddy. Let’s go see if Emma has any cookies left or if those nasty prison guards ate them all.”
Ginger watched him walk away, dumbfounded. Nasty prison guards? No explanation? He’d just flitted off to the mall to do who-knows-what and he was going to walk inside and ask for cookies as if nothing had happened?
She cast a look toward the prison van and the men guarding it. All it would take was one step to get her going in the right direction. The problem was, she didn’t know if that one step should be toward Nate or toward the homestead.
So she didn’t take it.
Couldn’t take it.