Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 62262 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 311(@200wpm)___ 249(@250wpm)___ 208(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62262 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 311(@200wpm)___ 249(@250wpm)___ 208(@300wpm)
I drove to the far side of the parking lot before pulling onto the street, which put the men behind me. It took a lot of willpower not to speed, but I didn’t want to attract attention. Along the way, I rambled on about everything I was doing. Andy didn’t say anything, but I knew he was still there because I could hear his quick, shallow breathing.
After turning left at the intersection, I flipped a U-turn, pulled up to the curb, and told him, “I’m here.”
“Almost there.”
A few moments later, he darted out from the tree line carrying the go-bag and the phone. All he was wearing were his glasses and sneakers, and there was a towel wrapped around his hips.
I leaned over and opened the passenger door, and he dove into the car and into my arms. I could feel him trembling as we hugged each other tightly. “It’s okay,” I told him. “I’ve got you.”
He seemed reluctant to let go of me. When he finally sat back, he asked, “Are you sure it was them?”
“Positive. I recognized one of the men who tried to abduct us, and it was the same van. There was a sedan, too. I didn’t see how many people there were in all.”
“I thought you couldn’t remember what any of our attackers looked like.”
“I couldn’t, until I saw one of them again. Now it’s back to being a blur. That superpower to make us forget seems to only work in hindsight.”
While we were talking, he closed the door and tossed the bag into the backseat, and I shrugged out of my zippered hoodie and handed it to him.
He thanked me for the jacket, and as I put the car in gear and started driving, he asked, “How the hell did they find us?”
“I guess whoever hired our pursuers has someone with exceptional tracking superpowers on their payroll.”
“Hiring someone like that would probably cost a fortune, which adds to my suspicion that Edward Rosselin is behind this.”
“Exactly what I was thinking. The good news is, even the best trackers can only locate someone if they’re within a certain distance from them. That means we should be okay if we find someplace remote to hide out.”
Andy put on the hoodie and zipped it up as he said, “I’d just gotten out of the shower when you called. What am I going to do for clothes?”
“I’ll buy you some.”
“Okay. And where are we going?”
“There are only two choices from here, north or south on the interstate. Heading back toward San Francisco seems like a mistake, so I’m doing the only thing I can.”
“They’ll probably guess we’re headed north.”
“Right, but hopefully we can stay ahead of them until we find someplace to turn off.”
It was a solid twenty minutes before that opportunity presented itself. I spent the entire time watching my rearview mirror. Even when we merged onto a smaller highway heading east, I couldn’t relax.
Andy was fidgeting with the hoodie’s drawstring. We’d both stopped talking at some point. He was watching everything I was doing though, so when I merged onto a highway going north, then onto another one going west, he asked, “Why are you heading back to the interstate?”
“I’m not. I just thought of someplace we can go. This is a roundabout way of getting there, but maybe that’s a good thing, because it might make us hard to track.”
“Where are we going?”
“A friend’s cabin. It’s outside Lassen National Forest, near Shingletown.”
“That sounds like a made-up place.”
“It’s not.”
“Are you going to call your friend and ask if we can use their cabin?”
“No. I’ll tell him after we leave, and I’ll obviously reimburse him for anything we use while we’re there.”
“Why not ask permission?”
“I don’t know how much our pursuers are going to dig into our lives. What if they question my friend? He can’t let my location slip if he doesn’t know where I am.”
“That makes sense,” he said, “but I’m still not sure about breaking and entering.”
“That’s not what we’re doing. I know where the key is hidden.”
“Is this guy a close friend?”
“Technically, he’s an ex-boyfriend.”
“So, you’re taking me to some sort of love nest, where you and this guy got busy?”
“No! We were there with his family over Christmas a few years back, and they stuck us in a room that had bunk beds.”
With my peripheral vision, I could see Andy studying me. “It must have been serious, if you spent Christmas together.”
“It was, for a while. Then we broke up.”
“How long ago did it end?”
“It’s been about three and a half years.”
“And how long did you date?”
“About a year.”
“Who ended it?”
“It was a mutual decision.”
Andy shook his head. “Someone had to actually end it.”
“Fine. He did. He got tired of my shit, and he dumped my ass.”
“What shit did he get tired of, exactly?”