Total pages in book: 38
Estimated words: 36987 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 185(@200wpm)___ 148(@250wpm)___ 123(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 36987 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 185(@200wpm)___ 148(@250wpm)___ 123(@300wpm)
Everyone was so comfortable in the Suburban. It made sense. There was much more room. Kurt was fine driving it; he was used to navigating a big SUV since he normally traveled with his dogs. Our dogs. I never knew how to feel about them because if we broke up, they would stay with him. But they were very attached to me, as I was to them. And why was I thinking about worst-case scenarios?
“Hey,” he said softly as we drove out of long-term parking—somehow the ticket on the dash was already paid, and I suspected that if we’d sat there contemplating our fate for the next twelve hours, it would still have been paid. “What are you thinking about?”
“Something stupid,” I grumbled.
“Well, we’ll talk about it later, and I’ll fix whatever it is.”
“Oh yeah? You think you can do that? Just fix whatever’s broken?”
“I know I can,” he promised. “Now lean back and go to sleep.”
Bubs, having been released from the prison that was his carrier, took that opportunity to travel up to the front to take his usual place on my lap. And that was good because something about the cat purring, Kurt maneuvering easily through the streets, and the others talking, made falling asleep really easy.
FIVE
When we stopped for gas and everyone got out to go to the bathroom, including the dogs—Bubs slept through it all—Kurt explained it was a four-hour drive to Coos Bay. I passed him the map to the house Jing had included in the pouch she’d given me. Like me, he could read a paper map, and it was an ability I told him he should put on his résumé. So many people used Google Maps or had apps that talked to them, and just like driving a stick, navigating from a piece of paper was a disappearing skill. When Kurt said he knew where he was going, I didn’t second-guess him and was able to fall asleep as soon as we were back on the road.
When I woke up an hour later, Brad was apologizing for lying to his wife about the state of her business, and Thomasin was telling him that she couldn’t discuss it with him now as she had to do some thinking.
I was sure she wanted to be on her phone, getting in touch with people, explaining what happened, but she couldn’t. Her phone had been left behind, and I wasn’t about to let her use the burner so she could accidentally alert someone to our location. I hadn’t let anyone bring their phones. Only mine and Kurt’s were allowed, as we were on no one’s radar. Vladek had no idea about us when he put the contract out on the dark web. But as I had no idea who in Thomasin’s or Brad’s circles was above wanting to collect a piece of a five-hundred-thousand-dollar payday, I was taking no chances of letting either make any calls.
But then, as the hours wore on, I got to thinking that it was a burner, after all, so it couldn’t be tracked, and I didn’t want Thomasin’s brain to explode with worry over her business, or more importantly, her assistant.
“Okay,” I said, passing the phone over my shoulder to Kurt’s sister. “Call your assistant and ease her mind, and while you’re at it, give her the story that there was a threat to you and your children and you have to help the police for the foreseeable future.”
“Really?” She sounded both hopeful and excited.
In that moment, I understood her. She wasn’t working so hard for herself; she was doing it to take care of her kids. And yes, she enjoyed it and took pride in her popularity and influence, but at the core of it all, she was securing a college education for her kids and a nest egg in case anything happened to her. I was sure after this event; she was terrified of losing all she’d built.
Once she was done, I allowed Brad to contact his parents and brother and explain that there was an emergency and he would not be seeing them for Christmas but hopefully for New Year’s. He would call again and update them.
I used the satellite phone to call the police detectives in Portland and give them the latest so they wouldn’t think we’d just skipped town. They wanted to help, and they assured me they could protect me and the others, but Tunney understood my decision to leave.
“I can get you at this number?” he asked.
“Yeah. Day or night.”
“Okay.”
“And I’ll let you know if there are any new developments, and you do the same.”
“Absolutely,” he agreed and hung up.
Once the boys went to sleep, Thomasin and Brad got down to talking, and while that was good, there was so much resentment and anger on both sides.