We plunged into the darkened woods, following a trail I could barely make out. The driver had obviously been up it enough times to have it memorized. It switched back, bounced around boulders, and every few yards, he yelled “Duck!” as we swung under a low hanging branch.
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We didn’t stop until we’d arrived at the deer camp. My driver climbed down and took off his helmet to reveal the boy from that afternoon, who’d shown Jensen and I the way here.
I collapsed into a heap. My ears were ringing. I was cold, I was wet and two minutes later, Leeanne had her arms around my neck. We had survived.
“Get Boots,” she said.
No rest for the wicked. I stood up and looked around. The girl I’d asked to bring her back was standing a few feet away. She took me to where Boots, under armed guard, was resting safely on a cot in one of the cabins. I picked her up and half carried, half dragged her unconscious, out to the Sunbird.
Leeanne was waiting. Sarah was already in the back seat.
“I’m driving,” Leeanne said.
I helped Sarah pull the unconscious Boots into the seat beside her and we took off down the mountain road. I didn’t remember ever feeling car sick, but whipping through trees, on bumpy, narrow roads, in the dark was enough to make me dizzy.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Kansas City,” Leeanne said.
“Then what?” I asked.
“Boots is taking me to my son,” she said.
I didn’t ask any more questions. I just focused on being grateful to be alive after what we’d been through.
I woke up in a truck stop parking lot somewhere in Wichita. Other than me, the Sunbird was empty. I climbed out and headed inside to pee.
“You’re going to tell me what I need to know!” Leeanne said.
The voice was coming from behind a cinder block wall that surrounded the truck stop’s huge dumpsters. I ran toward it. As I came around the corner, Leeanne turned to face me. The gun in her hand shifted from Boots to me. It was the same gun I’d dropped back at The Farm.
“Where’d you get that?” I asked.
“Same place you dropped it,” Leeanne said.
I saw a familiar flash of anger in her eyes. Only, this time she had a gun. I didn’t think being left to bleed out behind a dumpster was a great way to end my life. So, I decided to tread carefully.
There was a metal cylinder attached to the gun. Careful, I thought. Don’t say anything that might piss her off. It was a silencer, I was pretty sure, the same silencer I’d seen Boots remove earlier. I’d only seen them on TV.
“I meant the silencer,” I said.
“In her pocket,” Sarah answered.
She pointed at Boots, who seemed like she was still half conscious.
“Dalton, look, I don’t know any more than I already told her,” Boots said.
Leeanne pointed the gun back at Boots. “Shut up,” she hissed.
It reminded me of a joke. The past the present and the future all walk into a bar. It was tense.
“Okay, Leeanne, if you kill her, that will be one more body to answer for. And, she can’t tell you anything with a bullet in her head,” I said.
“She knows where my son is,” Leeanne said.
“What makes you think that?” I asked.
“She took him to Kansas City and dropped him with the family,” Leeanne said.
“You delivered the baby to Kansas City?” I asked.
Boots sighed. “Yeah, I already said that. Met them at the Science Museum or something, at the old central train station downtown,” she said.
Boots rubbed her jaws, right behind her ears, where I’d applied pressure.
“Look, I’d like to help, but that was four years ago,” she said.
“Did you have a number?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she said.
“Give me your phone,” I said.
She slipped her phone out. “New phone, won’t help,” she said.
I smirked. Even with six months of memory I was a step ahead.
“Google,” I said. “You have a Gmail, just like everybody else. They sync your contacts. What’s the name?”
“Uh, Edmunds,” she said. “I think it was Edmunds.”
I typed it in, a phone number came up.
“That it?” I asked.
“Yeah, yeah that’s it,” she said.
“Can we go back to the car now? It’s freezing out here,” I said. “I need to pee, then let’s hit the road, okay?”
“Call the number,” Leeanne said.
I looked at my watch. It was 3 am. I showed her the time.
“Call now, asking about the kid, you put them on alert. Not what we want,” I said.
Leeanne shrugged. She slipped the gun into her waistband, under her jacket. The three women started back to the car and I headed to the men’s room.