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Forty-one

GREYSON OPENED HIS EYES and stared at the yellow-painted concrete block.

“Morning, sleepyhead,” Riley said. “Come see what I found.” She gestured him toward her bunk, the laptop balanced across her legs.

He stood and stretched. He wasn’t sure which was less comfortable, the retreat’s bathtub or the truck stop’s floor. He hopped up on the bed. She sat with the lone pillow stuffed between her and the unforgiving wall.

He stifled a yawn and glanced at his watch. 5:55 a.m. How long had she been up? He glanced over at her, remembering their kiss. She’d kissed him , and a knockout kiss it was. He hadn’t thought any kiss could beat their first, but it had—the intensity of emotion heightening it.

He raked a hand through his hair. He’d told her how he felt—well, far more than he’d ever planned to. What had he been thinking? He’d been thinking that the woman he loved was kissing him. But he had to stop. Had to explain. Once she understood, she’d pull back, and while it would be agony, it was the right thing for her to do.

“Hello?” Riley waved a hand in front of his face, pulling him from his thoughts. “Where’d you go on me?”

“Sorry.” He shook himself out of it. “What did you find?”

“I ran some property searches around the retreat center. I got to thinking the owner might want to live close to his enterprise.”

“Smart. And by the smile on your way-too-perky face for this early in the morning, I’m guessing you found something?”

“Yes.” She handed him the computer.

It was warm against his jeans—the bunk room a tad on the chilly side.

She pointed at the screen. “A man named Ralph Masters bought five acres of land only a half hour from the retreat the same day the retreat land was purchased by Lansing Global.”

“You have an address for Masters?”

She smiled up at him. “Sure do. I’m going to call Joel now.”

Fifteen minutes later, she hung up.

“Well?”

“Joel’s calling Sheriff Gaines to check it out.”

“Good. I’m anxious to see what comes of it.”

“I’ll keep digging on Masters in the meantime.”

Grey nodded. “So what was the great part?”

“Huh?”

“You said ‘great news’ to Joel.”

“Oh, right. The Navajo Nation police in Kayenta shared with Joel that a black ’90s Honda Accord was stolen from a restaurant parking lot there. It’s one of those twenty-four-hour diners, and the short-order cook who worked the night shift came out at five this morning to head home and his car was gone. There’s a BOLO out on it.”

“If they stole it sometime between when the cook went on shift at nine p.m. and came out at five a.m. that means they can’t be more than eight hours away at maximum. The real question is, where are they headed? So far their wild directions make no sense.”

“Not necessarily true.” She sat with her legs crisscrossed.

“No?” He furrowed his brows.

“May I?” She reached for the laptop, and he passed it over.

He grabbed his pillow from the floor and squished it behind him as Riley had done with hers.

She pulled up a map of the Four Corners states. “They abandoned Kelly’s car in Las Cruces, I’m guessing so we’d assume they were headed for the border, but then they came somewhere up in this region. Given the camping gear Jared’s neighbor saw him loading in his vehicle and the outdoor survival books in Kelly’s apartment, along with her penchant for snowy adventures in particular, I’m guessing they were in one of these mountain ranges.” She pointed to several possibilities.

“Then why Kayenta?”

“I don’t know. Maybe they had a tie there or were comfortable there. Or maybe it’s a point along the route to where they’re headed.”

“Which is?”

Her shoulders deflated. “I don’t know. We need another blip on the map.”

“I’ll grab Phillip’s car when it’s ready, but until that blip comes, what’s the plan in the meantime?”

“We work.”

“Here?”

“They sell food in the truck stop, and we have plenty of privacy.”

“True. It’s off-grid enough that I doubt Kevin and Steve will come looking for us here.”

“Speaking of Steve, I wonder why it was just Kevin at the hotel?”

“I don’t know. They could have split up to cover more ground.”

“Or they moved Steve onto Kelly and Jared with Brent.”

“Either way, I doubt he’s out of the picture.”

****

Jared dropped Kelly at the bus depot after dark. “Grab us two tickets while I stash the car back at that restaurant parking lot.”

“Roger that,” she said, heading toward the small ticket office at the Kayenta bus depot. Walking by the row of lockers stacked four high with similar keys, she hoped Riley had kept the key safe. It was their only bargaining chip should something go wrong, and their only physical proof tying Lance to Kathryn Buford.

With her hair dyed black and cut short and a baseball hat on, she purchased two tickets to Flagstaff, which would only be a misdirection stopover. They’d find a car there and head up to Vegas to see their vow fulfilled. Clutching her backpack full of cash, she approached the service window.

Keeping her face down, she slid a few bills across the counter. “Two tickets for Flagstaff, please.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The clerk checked the clock. “It leaves in fifteen minutes. Far bus around back.”

“Thank you.” She slid the tickets into her pocket, anxiously awaiting Jared.