Page 150 of Hush

“Are you proposing a jail break?”

“I am. Any thoughts on where we should we go?”

“My parents had a place in the mountains. Far enough to be far away, close enough to get there in a few hours’ drive. We used to go there when I was a kid. They turned it into a winter rental for backcountry skiers and hikers. I kept that going after they passed. I haven’t been there in years.”

“Will anyone be there now?”

“No. It was never rented in summer. That was their time to go. The town postman would act as a caretaker when they were gone. He still watches over the place. The keys are in the post office, in their mailbox.”

“Sounds like a plan. We need to leave around four in the morning to get past Villegas and the rest of the guys.”

“You sure this is all right?”

“I’m in charge ofyou. Villegas is in charge of thetrial. Villegas has no real say over your protection, he just likes to pretend that securing the courthouse and the Hyatt means he can order you and me around. Doesn’t work like that. I’m above him.”

“All right. Jailbreak it is then.”

Mike laughed and kissed him, and then said he had to get everything ready. Tom told him where he kept the keys to his parents’ mailbox and asked him to grab jeans, t-shirts, and a few long-sleeve flannel button-downs. “Sexy,” Mike purred, kissing him one last time before he ducked out of the hotel room.

He tried, but failed, to fall asleep early, and only passed out after one in the morning. Mike had texted that he was going to bed early to be ready to drive out of town before dawn.

At three thirty, his phone, tucked under his pillow, rang. “Hey sleepy. Time to get ready.”

Mike had a pillow in his car that he’d swiped from his hotel room for Tom to go back to sleep with. Tom grunted directions for the first half of the drive, guiding him west on Interstate 66 to the West Virginia border. He—like Etta Mae in the back seat—was asleep before they made it to the outer loop around DC.

Hours later, he woke with the morning sun shining on his face and Mike holding one of his hands. Hills rolled by on either side of the car, with thickening trees rising from both sides of the winding blacktop.

“Morning beautiful.” Mike squeezed his hand and then passed him a cup of coffee. “I picked this up for you when we got gas. They didn’t have fancy sugar syrups, but I did my best turning it into a diabetic nightmare.”

He chuckled and took a sip, and then another longer swallow. “Perfect. Thank you.”

“I need more directions soon. Good timing for waking up.”

He turned Mike onto US-48 West, and then West Virginia Route 28 South. Oceans of forest rose into the mountains on either side of the winding road, waves and waves of pine and spruce, dotted with oak and patches of rolling meadow where trees had died years ago, and the sunshine let in had drawn forth bursts of wildflowers, riots of color that speckled the endless greenery. Tom rolled the window down, and the fresh breath of the forest rose on a cool wind, wild as it whipped through his dark hair. A hawk glided on a thermal far in the distance, the only sign of life.

Mike shifted, glancing sidelong at Tom. “I, uh. Didn’t think we’d be going down West Virginia’s spine. Intothisarea.”

“Problem?”

Mike gripped the steering wheel. “I used to work here,” he said. “On the task force.”

“Here? The Whitmore search washere? I thought it was farther south. In the Carolinas.”

“We had some leads that took us north. I helped run this end of the hunt. What town are we going to?”

“Lonely Pine Gulch.”

Laughing, Mike shook his head. “Jesus. I had contacts there. Leads.”

“Oh my God. Should we… turn around?”

“No. It’s okay. They were friendly.” He shrugged. “As friendly as associates of sovereign rights groups can be to a federal marshal, the embodiment of everything they hate.”

Tom squeezed Mike’s hand. “I guess both our pasts are coming back this weekend.”

Mike squeezed back. He kissed Tom’s fingers. “I like my future more than my past.”

“Me too.” Tom smiled, really smiled, as he gazed at Mike, lit by the sun falling through the pine branches, wisps of gold and emerald light dancing over his skin. “Me too.”