Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 85569 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85569 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
“The one with the mountain range view?”
I nodded.
"Ooh, niiiiiceee," she approved.
“Yeah, it was nice. Very nice.”
Chapter 39
Cole
Anya’s nightmares hadn’t stopped, despite the fact I’d allowed her to sleep in my bed till now. If anything, it even seemed to be getting worse. Last night, I soothed her with warm milk and waited by her bedside until she fell asleep, but in the end, it had still happened.
Even though we had been living quite normally, both of us could never let our guard down when we were out of the house. Perhaps the stress of it was adding to Anya’s nightmares.
It made me sad because I had no idea how to fix it. I couldn’t fight Paganini on my own terms yet. I was not ready for that and I wanted to take him by surprise. For the time being, I had no choice but to continue our life in this way. I also felt certain she was concealing something from me, which made me feel helpless. Maybe it was some sort of ‘girl thing’ and she couldn’t talk to me about it. If only she could have maintained some sort of relationship with her mother.
The good news, though, was Montana was coming over, and Anya had come to like her. Who knew? Maybe she could talk to Montana.
I had decided on a simple meal of steak, baked potatoes, and caprese salad for us. For dessert, Anya wanted to bake cupcakes for Montana so I lifted her up on a stool and let her get on with making the batter.
The phone rang and seeing it was from Leila, I headed into the living room. There, I could still keep my eyes on Anya and lower my voice enough to not be heard.
"Hello, Leila.”
"Hi, I have a few updates for you."
"Go ahead," I repeated, hoping that this wasn’t the call I was dreading, either informing me we had to run again, or that we had to start preparing to do so.
"You remember the cars and the two guys that Tom spotted outside the filling station?"
"Yeah," I replied. "What about them?"
"Well, Tom’s had a tail put on them, and they seem to just be moving with purpose. By their movement, I would guess that there are other teams we don’t know about that are fanning out across the country. They stop at certain towns, towns with good elementary schools, and they ask questions. They are impressively relentless, fast, and effective. As soon as they’re finished with one town they move on to the next. They don’t stop."
I glanced at Anya. She was breaking eggs into her batter. "What questions are they asking?”
"What I would ask; if anyone has appeared in town, a single dad and his daughter?"
"Ah," I nodded.
"Somehow they seem to think you wouldn’t go too far.”
“Airport surveillance,” I said shortly. “They knew I didn’t fly.”
"Right," she replied.
"Anyway, at the speed they’re going, they’re not far away from you. They could be as near as weeks away from you."
I had done one thing right. I didn’t go for what an ordinary person would consider a good school. I had chosen something that was perfect for me and Anya, but that would not be the case for most people. Those investigators were not weeks away from Bison Ridge. I’d give them one year at the very least, and that was more time than I needed to put my plan into action.
"Thanks for the heads-up. Continue to keep your eyes on them. Any news yet about Arianna?"
"Paganini took her to a charity auction two nights ago. She looked okay, but she’s lost some weight and … er … she looked high. High, like ‘out of it’ high."
"I see," I said thoughtfully.
“Sorry to give you the bad news.”
"It is what it is," I told her. "Keep me updated."
"Sure," she agreed, and the call came to an end.
I sat for a little while, scowling and trying to process the information about Arianna. This was something I did not account for. High on what? What was he giving her? What was his plan? Why was he turning her into a junkie? To subdue her. To pimp her out. To hurt me?
Then Anya called me over. Her cupcakes were ready for the oven.
"Nice," I complimented.
She nodded solemnly. "Do you think Miss Moore will like them?"
"She will love them," I said and put the tray into the hot oven.
Chapter 40
Montana
As I drew even nearer to Duck Pond house, I felt equal amounts of excitement and nervousness. The talk with the girls in the bathroom had seemed light at first, but after several days of pondering about what I truly wanted, I realized that they were right. I didn’t want a relationship based purely on sex. I wanted more, far more, but I didn’t know if that was what he wanted too. The painful truth was: he didn’t even bother to call me, and if we had not met again totally by accident, we would never have seen each other again … and he was okay with that.