Page 4

Chapter

Four

ALPHABET

I t was almost one in the morning and I hadn’t heard from the guys for more than two hours. Going radio silent wasn’t unusual. They were all more than capable of looking after themselves, but there was an itch in between my shoulder blades that seemed to increase with every minute that passed.

Gracie waking up helped allay at least one of my worries. Though, I kept one eye on her too. Her speech hadn’t been slurred earlier, but it had been slow . I couldn’t imagine her head felt great.

Another reason I remained intensely aware of the passage of time. I wanted Voodoo to give me some direction on what meds she could have. We had a whole damn kit in the back, though I was leery of giving her anything without consultation.

A glance at my watch told me I was still heading in a rough northwest direction. We’d crossed into Mexico via New Mexico, our route out would take us via California. There were a couple of spots we had friends that could grease the wheels.

If we had to go overland, we’d do that too. I’d rather avoid having to take her on foot though. She didn’t need to push it. Her breathing didn’t sound labored and she wasn’t complaining about any chest pain. If she’d complained of either, I’d have asked to check her ribs.

“The stations here are shit,” she muttered after her umpteenth attempt to find one we could even tune in. So far the closest we’d come was a news station. We’d listened for all of about five minutes before the signal dropped again.

“It’s the reception,” I said by way of apology. “There’s no bluetooth in here or I’d offer to play something from my phone.” As it was, if we tried to just listen to my phone it wouldn’t be loud enough over the rattle of the ancient van.

The vehicle was great for traveling incognito but it definitely lacked any amenities. Not something we normally worried about. Gracie deserved better. Another glance at my watch told me that only five minutes had passed since my prior check.

Impatience crept through me. I debated trying to call them but that would break with protocol. Then again, our protocols didn’t take Gracie into account. Putting a pin in that, I made a mental note to update our protocols. We needed better ones.

“Are you okay?” The soft question punctured the bubble of worry around me. Goblin had left the bench in the back to come up to sit on the open space between us. His soft wuff was a reminder he was there.

“I will be,” I told Gracie rather than lie to her. “As much as I want to tell you that there is nothing to worry about, it wouldn’t be fair to mislead you.”

“Well, I kind of figured we had things to worry about. I mean…” She lifted a hand to motion to herself with a kind of wry smile. “I know that I look like I have all of this handled, but not sure I’m doing that great either.”

“Head still hurt?”

“I’ll live,” she said in a kind of droll voice that I didn’t care for. “I’d say I’ve had worse, but pretty sure that wouldn’t be true either. As epically shit weeks go, this has to be in the top five, probably top three. Maybe top two.”

“You have something that tops this?” Did I really want to know? To be fair, I could think of a few incidents in my own life that seemed worse than her past week or two, but that was comparing apples and oranges. I’d signed up for my shit.

She definitely hadn’t .

“The week my mom died,” she said and all the air went out the teasing jokes I’d been trying to think of to alleviate the mood. “We knew it was coming, didn’t make it any less hard.”

Turning her head to look out the window again, she sighed.

“I’m sorry,” I said, because what else could I offer? “It’s just you and your sister, right?” I’d been putting together a lot of info on her, but I hadn’t finished the deep dive. There was an older brother—deceased—as well as the deceased mother. Nothing on the father. Just absent.

The majority of the background came from her sister and herself. On the surface, Gracie lived a very public life. Yet, comparing what was available publicly about her with what I’d put together interacting with her… There was just so much more to her than the public face she let the rest of the world see.

The woman in the van with me was not the woman portrayed in the gossip columns and articles. If anything, she seemed so much more real and down to earth.

“Yes,” Grace answered with the longest, most profound sigh. “Hopefully, anyway.”

I frowned. “Gracie…”

“Don’t promise me we will find her. Don’t ask me to keep trusting you when you can’t even promise to let me go. You need your illusions and lies. I need mine.” The flatness in her words chilled me. We had asked her exactly that. I had, not even all that long ago.

“I want to find her for you,” I offered.

“Okay,” she said. “I’d like to find her period, so I guess that will have to be enough for now.”

Aggravation exploded through me. I opened and closed my mouth several times. A huff of a sigh dragged my attention downward briefly. Goblin had his head on her thigh and she was stroking him. I got the need for self-soothing and hated myself even more for being another factor in the reason she needed it.

Jerking my attention back to the empty road ahead, I scowled. The lack of highway lights, speed limit signs—signs of any kind really—and places to stop said more about our remoteness than anything else.

Where the fuck were the guys? We needed to get back to base, and I needed to find her sister and prove to Gracie that we could keep our goddamn promises.

White knuckling the steering wheel while I tried to focus on sniper breathing to wrestle my temper back under control helped. Not much, but some. Then like a gift, my phone rang.

Finally.

I snatched it up, and answered with one stroke of my thumb over the screen. “Alphabet.”

“We’ve hit a few complications.” Bones’ steady voice didn’t do much for my nerves.

“Not enough of them,” Lunchbox snapped. “Or we wouldn’t have problems.”

“How many and how far?” I scanned the area automatically. I saw no other headlights and I hadn’t for more than an hour. If I had to intercept them, we might be too far to do much good.

“We’re twenty minutes out,” Bones answered as though Lunchbox hadn’t issued a single comment. “Maybe thirty if the tracker is off.”

I doubted it. Part of why I hadn’t checked their location earlier, Grace was more important in that moment and I didn’t want to know if they were in trouble. Not until I was in a position to do something about it.

Twenty to thirty minutes, that gave me time to find a good spot. “How many? And do you have a plan?”

“Well, the plan was to lose them a few hours ago.”

The conversational tone peppered with Lunchbox’s derisive snort actually made me smile. The fact that Voodoo wasn’t saying anything didn’t bode well. Then again, he tended to avoid our arguments with Bones, preferring to deal with him directly.

“They are apparently not taking no for an answer, however. That leaves us with the options of digging in and eliminating or pulling them into the trap.”

I was the trap.

“Understood. Numbers?” Since he’d skipped that part.

“Ten or twelve,” Lunchbox said before Bones could. “Pretty sure we hit a couple of them, but they are spread out over three vehicles?—”

The report of a gunshot echoed in the background.

“Nine or eleven,” Voodoo tossed in. “Also a motorcycle, but he keeps dropping back. Sneaky little shit.”

“Got it. Line them up,” I said. “I’ll send a message when I’m in position.” I hung up and stared ahead then glanced to the area around us. It was just all dark emptiness around us.

“What’s wrong?” Grace asked.

There was zero point in lying to her.

“We are going to have problematic company and I need to find a place to deal with it.” Sooner rather than later.

“More tossing bombs on them kind of problematic company?” The direct question almost made me smile.

“Close, but not letting them get that close.” I glanced down at my phone then ahead again. The silence dragged taut between us.

“Can I help?” The unexpected offer left me in a quandary. She could, but she shouldn’t have to. “I mean I don’t really know anything about mixing up chemicals or anything…”

The laugh that escaped was more disbelief than humor. “We don’t have the stuff for that on board.”

“Oh,” she said, with a long exhale of relief. “Good. I suck at throwing things.”

I snorted. Not how I remembered it, particularly since she’d nailed Bones but good. Still, a conversation for another time. “Are you good to look at a phone while we’re moving?”

“Yes,” she said.

I unlocked the screen and tabbed open the map. “We’re the red dot, they will be the blue dot. You should also be able to see the landscape, tell me if there are any good hills or rises—something with a vantage point.” Then I handed over my phone.

Her silence wasn’t promising, but I let her scan the screen. Goblin had settled back on the floor. Good boy had relaxed so maybe she had too. There was tension knotting in my gut and bleeding into my veins.

“It’s pretty flat.” The frown she had to be wearing reflected in her voice. “How high do you need?”

“Not that high, just a place to get the van out of sight and where I can…” Goddammit.

“Where you can target them?” Her fearless attitude humbled me. This was not a thing she needed to be dealing with.

“If I tell you, I make you an accessory.” That seemed a reasonable point.

“If I find the location for the ambush, I’m already an accessory.” Apparently, she had the skills for absolutely sinking my battleship.

“Then yes, where I can target them. We need to clean up any pursuers so we can get back to base.” At this point, I didn’t care if the damn job was done or not. We could refund the fucking money. Nothing was worth putting Gracie at this kind of risk.

“Right. I see something that looks like it might be a little hillier, the ground is bumpy. Maybe.” Wasn’t much but we didn’t need much.

“How far?”

“Um…”

“Press your finger to the area and drop a flag on it, then hit the arrow.”

“Oh, that’s easier. It says a little over thirty minutes at ninety kilometers an hour.”

“That would make it forty-five kilometers. Actual distance?” The van was gonna rattle like fuck when I pushed it, but we could push it.

“Says it’s closer to thirty-seven kilometers, at least to the center of the flag, if I move the flag to the edge…” She went quiet for a long moment. “Oh, that’s much better, that’s less than thirty kilometers.”

Right. “Hit the arrow again, and then go, then tab over to the phone log and call back the last number that called me.”

The GPS offered me instructions, including telling me we would be on our current road for a lot longer than we needed to be before we turned north.

Grace didn’t argue or ask more questions, but she held up the phone which rang once on speaker. Bones answered after the ring.

“You have something?”

“Dropping you a pin. Meet me there. Don’t take any detours.”

I wanted to get Gracie back to base. Finished, I motioned to Gracie to end the call and she hung up.

“That felt good.” The savage satisfaction in her voice made me laugh.

“Hanging up on Bones?”

“Yes.” She didn’t even pretend she didn’t enjoy it. “He’s a dick.”

I could argue the point, but I didn’t. Right now, I preferred the boost to her mood. Selfishly, I’d like it to last a little longer.

“Do me another favor?” I said. “Climb in the back and call Goblin up onto the seat and thread his harness on so he’s buckled in.”

“Okay.” She handed me my phone back before she unbuckled, then climbed back there. Goblin, the good boy, did as he was told and she got him buckled in, then he laid down. “You want me back here buckled in or up there?”

Not smiling was a challenge. “Up here is fine, but definitely buckled in.” She didn’t make me wait, returning to her seat and then pulling the seatbelt across her chest. I wasn’t sure if these buses came with these kinds of harnesses or if someone had upgraded them.

I also didn’t care.

“Hold tight,” I said. “This ride is about to get bumpy.”

Then I did a hard turn off the highway and onto the hard packed earth. The arid land might crumble in places, but it was as sturdy as any dirt road. It also shaved time off the drive. A lot of time.

The sound of the van rattling climbed and if I didn’t trust our contact, I’d worry about it falling apart with the way it vibrated. As it was, Grace let out a sharp laugh—whether it was in disbelief or shock, who knew, but I did like hearing it.

She said something, but I missed it. “What?”

“I said,” she shouted. “You’re crazy.”

I grinned. “Yes, Gracie-girl, I am.”

Then I pushed the accelerator to the floor.