Run (12 page)

“That’s
quite a dog you have out there.”

“Max
, yeah he’s my baby.” I paused to take a bite. “Plus, he has definitely helped me out through all this. He warned me when you guys came to the motel.”

“I would think he would deter anyone from going after you.”

“That is my hope, my plan.” I laughed; feeling surprisingly lighthearted considering the reason Jack and I were sitting together at this table.

For our entire dinner we mostly stayed away from the reason we were here. We talked about anything other
than the case. My fur kids, favorite movies, favorite vacation spots. When we walked out of the diner, I knew we were hiding together now. We were working together. We were in this together. In the parking lot the lighthearted mood we had during dinner vanished.

“There is a better chance of my car being tracked than yours. I think we should just leave my car here.”

“Okay.” Honestly, what else was there to say?

Jack pulled a duffle from his car and locked the door behind him.

“Part of being an FBI agent means always being ready to travel. It helps in this circumstance.” He had a slightly sheepish look on his face as he explained why he had a bag ready to go. I responded with a nod. Before getting into the car, I opened the back door and introduced him to Max. I didn’t want Max to feel threatened and attack him. With a hand on Jack’s arm I reached out to Max and called him forward.

“Friend, Max
, friend.”

Max
thoroughly sniffed Jack’s hand before giving a tentative tail wag. With all of the occupants of the car now friends (well Kitty doesn’t like anyone, but she is also the least likely to attack), we headed off to look for someplace to call home for the night. Having Jack by my side made it much easier and quicker. He was able to identify traffic cameras more easily than I was and so kept us moving faster.

In a short 45 minutes (compared to the hours it had been taking) we found a place to stay that looked good. Jack headed in to get rooms while I pulled my ca
r toward the back and took Max and Kitty for their nightly walk.

When Jack came back he only had one key in his hand. I gave him a look.

“Don’t worry, there are two beds.”

We unloaded my notebook, whiteboard, and reports from the car and headed in. Once inside
, I went through my familiar routine of setting out food and water for the fur kids, putting Kitty’s litter box together, and checking all of the doors and windows.

____

Once settled, we finally started talking about what had brought us together in the first place. For two hours I talked nonstop. I started with what I had shown him all those days ago. My first file. I took him through my suspect list, my criteria. I showed him what I had done to eliminate suspects. I told him how I thinned the list to the four suspects we had today. I told him about looking at the cases for something different. About Leslie and Georgia. I told him about looking into the case. I took him through each and every thought I had, through each search. I even told him about my dream. I told him about looking through each case, being convinced that there was a woman involved. I told him I was suspicious that the woman was Georgia. I took him through my conversations with Leslie’s mom and friend. I took him through my process step by step. When I was talked out, there was dead silence. Jack didn’t say anything; he just looked at my notes, he looked at my pictures, my whiteboard, and my lists. As more minutes of silence stretched out, the knots in my stomach grew tighter. Any second I expected him to burst out laughing, to accuse me of being foolish and delusional, to dismiss my fear, my theory.

When Jack finally broke the silence he did none of the above. He did something I never expected. He complimented me.

“This is quite simply some of the best investigative work I have ever seen.”
Excuse me … what?

He went on
… “Are you sure you are not an agent?” He asked the question with a little smile and a laugh in his voice.

Suddenly
, I was embarrassed. I gave one of those nervous, awkward chuckles and changed the subject.

“I don’t really know what to do with all of the
information; I mean, it doesn’t get me any closer to figuring out who he is.”

“No, but when we find him, and we will, this gives us evidence. It puts the pieces together. When we find this bastard he is going to go away for a very long time.”

____

When I crawled into bed that night I felt better than I had in days. I wa
s hopeful and I felt safe. Max laid on the floor between my bed and Jack’s. Kitty curled up behind me. Poor baby, she was alternately clingy and distant. I don’t remember dreaming that night. I don’t remember anything.

What I do remember is waking up to a hand over my
mouth; Jack crouched next to my bed, a gun in his hand.

Chapter 17
: April 8, 4:43am – 4:57am

My initial
response was to scream and fight. My body tensed to swing when the serious look in Jack’s eyes got through my fight or flight response. With his hand still over my mouth, he leaned close to me and in a voice that barely carried to my ears …

“There is someone here, someone outside.”

He leaned back; when we made eye contact and he saw me nod my understanding, he removed his hand. I started to scramble up, but he put his hand on my shoulder and whispered “quietly.”

We communicated with hand gestures. I
t took a few seconds, but he got through to me that he wanted me to gather up what I could, quickly and quietly.

Jack crept over to the
door; gun in hand, while I scrambled to get ready or as ready as possible anyway. I pulled on my sneakers, no time for socks. I grabbed my shoulder bag and pushed my files into the bag. I ran into the bathroom and pushed all of the items on the counter into the bag. With the bag hanging across my shoulder, I called Max over to me with a hand signal.

Max
was tense and crouched next to the edge of the bed. He slunk over toward me keeping low to the ground and giving off almost continuous growls. He was, as always, obedient and came immediately to my side. I clipped his leash on his collar and ordered him to heel.

Jack whispered from the doorway
, “Okay, let’s get out of here.”

The crash of glass breaking froze me. The bed closest to the door, Jack’s bed
, was on fire. Time slowed, frozen, each second like a snapshot.

Snap. Jack yelling to me.

Snap. Max barking and growling.

Snap. Flames eating up the bed faster than seemed possible.

Reality returned with a jolt, and it wasn’t Jack’s yelling or Max’s barking that caught my attention. It was Kitty, howling.

Kitty
. Where was she? I needed to find her. A look around the room didn’t reveal her. The night before, I had fallen asleep with her curled up behind me. At home whenever Kitty was scared she would hide under the bed.

I threw myself down next to the bed on my stomach. Sure enough she was under there – curled back in the corner.

“Come on, Kitty, come on, baby.”

She was just out of my reach. I could hear Jack yelling
in the background and feel Max pulling at the leash I had wrapped around my right hand.

“Please
, Kitty, come here. I don’t want to leave you behind.”

I could feel myself panicking (or panicking more t
han I already was). Finally, Kitty inched towards me. I stretched that extra inch and I was able to just grab a hold of her leg, just enough that I could pull her towards me. I was probably hurting her, but at least I had her.

When I pulled her out
, the room was full of smoke and hot with fire. With Kitty against my side like a football, Max pulling me forward, and my bag banging against my hip, I crawled, stumbled, and walked toward Jack and the door.

Stepping out
of the door was like stepping into another world. From fire and smoke to early morning sunlight. From crackling and burning and rushing to an eerie quiet that would have been peaceful if not for the inferno we had just fled. Jack was banging on the doors of the rooms next to ours. Gun in hand and one eye peeled for our attacker.

“Get in the car
!”

I looked at him without comprehension. My world had tunneled down to sunlight and fresh air and his instructions didn’t seem to jive with my new reality.

“Charlotte, get into the car now.” Whether it was his yelling or the beep as the doors of the Rav4 unlocked, I don’t know, but reality intruded upon my daze.

The car
… we needed to get out of here. I ran over to the car, Kitty still clutched under my arm and Max still glued to my side. I took a matter of seconds to get them deposited in the back and shut the door. When I turned around Jack was gone.

I froze.

“Jack, Jack.” I could hear the panic in my voice.

I rounded the front of my car and nothing
, no Jack. As I turned to look back toward the room we had just escaped, I was grabbed from behind. Before I could scream, a hand and a rag clamped over my mouth. A sweet smell filled my nose as the world turned black. The last thing I knew I was laying on the ground with a pair of boots in front of me … boots that most certainly did not belong to Jack.

Chapter 18
: April 8, 5:57am – 10:35am

The floor unde
r my cheek was cold and hard … and moving. My head was pounding. I was nauseous. It was dark and it took me a few seconds to realize it was because my eyes were closed. Light stabbed into my eyes and caused my head to give another warning throb when I managed to crack open my eyes. It took a few minutes and some watering eyes, but I finally adjusted to the light and began to register where I was.

I was l
ying in the back of a van or truck, on my side. My arms were tied behind me with each wrist tied to the opposite elbow. My knees were tied together. I could see the back of the driver’s head. A quick inventory of my body and multiple aches and pains made themselves known. My head, my arms, my side, my knees. It felt like every part of me was on fire.

The car turned a corner and I rolled into something behind me. The something was warm and breathing.

_______

“Jack
… Jack,” I whispered.

There was no answer from behind me. Turning over was not easy. I don’t know how long I struggled. It felt like forever, but in reality it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes. With my arms and knees tied the way that
they were, I needed to scoot myself forward then roll onto my back. That was the easy part. With my arms tied behind me and my knees tied the work of rolling onto my other side belonged entirely to my abs. What can I say, my abs are weak. At that particular moment they were also aching and, when I looked down, caked with blood. By the time I made it to my other side facing Jack I was shaking and sweating and the nausea had returned with a vengeance.

My first look at Jack made me forget all my own aches and pains
.

Jack was unconscious and bound even more tightly
than I was. Blood was caked in his hair and had run down his face. I knew head wounds bled a lot, but the blood pooled under his head made my stomach clench.

“Jack
,” I whispered again.

He
groaned and scrunched his face, but his eyes never opened.

Ok
ay, for right now I was on my own. I took stock of our situation. Jack and I were bound and lying in the back of a van. A man who I could only assume was the killer was driving us somewhere. I knew I had been awake for about fifteen minutes, but had no idea how long I had been out. I couldn’t see much with the angle I had, but I could see tree tops and sunshine. Based on how much light I was seeing and the unbroken line of trees, I was guessing it was at least midmorning and we were west of where we had been. That meant we had been driving for a few hours and were deep in farm country. It wasn’t the best train of thought, but my mind immediately went to every horror movie I had ever seen. A farmhouse in the country … we were dead.

A groan from next to me grabbed my attention. Jack was moving slightly and his face scrunched up like a child waking. The next second he went still and silent. I watched him, but he just
lay there, still, breathing softly with his eyes darting back and forth behind the lids. He was too still.

“Jack
.” This time my whispered calling of his name had a reaction. Jack’s eyes opened a slit and then fully.

We stared at each other. Fears, hopes, plans, ideas passed between us. A lifetime of everything
in the hopes of that second. In that moment I was more connected to Jack than I had ever been to anyone else. I opened my mouth to speak but Jack gave a small shake of his head. Moving only his eyes Jack looked around our prison. When he looked back at me he mouthed, “How long?”

I guessed he was asking how long we had been in the car. I mouthed back “not sure at least a few hours.”