her idea might just work. And more importantly, it might get them back on the road again.
Mattingly sucks snot back from his nostrils, clears his throat with a few coughs, and says, “If I don’t call her, that’s as good as warning her.”
“Not really. Just means you ran into trouble somewhere on the road. But if I run the risk of letting you tip her off, then she knows she’s in trouble, not just you, and she might kill those women and run.”
“She’s not going to fucking run,” he says with trembling defiance.
And why not? she thinks. Is it because this place, this ranch, is her actual home?
She keeps this to herself.
“What’s she going to do, load her guns and prepare for battle? Well, I’m just fine with that. I mean, look at me, Cyrus. Do I seem like the type of woman who needs a gun to solve problems?”
I won’t be for another hour or two, at least, she thinks, hoping Mattingly can’t detect this nagging worry in her expression. But he’s wide-eyed and gasping, as if every few minutes he needs to remind himself of the fact that she really does exist and can really do impossible things.
She could waste all night trying to get Mother’s name and address out of this psycho, but they’re not just racing against whatever Mother’s clock is.
They’re racing against the response team Cole’s business partners have probably insisted Cole send after them, most likely with orders to put an immediate stop to her defiance. And since Cole’s playing both sides of the field, no doubt he had no choice but to send one. She’d love to know who the teams answer to, but up until now, that question seemed above her pay grade. In the past, before he involved new business partners, Cole’s commanded all the small armies of fence-hopping, shadow-crawling mercenaries she’s worked with. If that’s still the case, then it doesn’t seem foolish to hope he hasn’t ordered them to stop her in her tracks. Just to make sure she doesn’t vanish into thin air once the operation is through.
In essence, she’s trying to avoid two potential nightmares.
One, allowing Mattingly to give his beloved Mother a warning that would allow her to slip off into the vast Texas night with two innocent women in trucks just like this. And two, sharing Mother’s name and location with Cole’s business partners, who’ve made it clear they’re far more invested in stopping Charlotte from reaching her destination than saving the women being held captive there. If Bailey, and possibly Cole, had really managed to keep Amarillo a secret from the partners, she and Luke would lose their only real advantage over the response team if they gave away that information now.
She’s got a compromise that will allow her and Luke to get back on the road and figure out Mother’s location when the time’s right.
“Tell you what,” she says. “You can call your momma when we get to Amarillo.”
“Liar,” he says, but there’s childlike hope in his desperate tone.
“I guess we’ll have to see when we get there.”
She bangs lightly on the cargo area door so Luke can push it open for her.
This time she doesn’t jump from the truck. She sinks to a seated position, drops one leg to the dirt and then the other. There are no searchlights filling the night sky. If Cole’s been pressured into sending an airborne battalion in pursuit, it’s not on their tail yet. They left the SUV, along with the vials of her blood, in the field where Mattingly first pulled off the highway. It broke Luke’s heart to say goodbye to his favorite car, but between all of its top-secret technology, as well as the paradrenaline-filled vials resting on the front seat, they figured the response team would either stop to collect it first or divert some of its members for the effort. In either scenario, maybe it would buy them a little more time. The skies are empty save for stars and wisps of high-altitude clouds. And she figures the cars whizzing by on the highway are bound for ordinary homes where ordinary people live, most of whom go to bed each night believing monsters like her captive don’t exist outside fiction.
Her eyes focus on the stopwatch dangling around Luke’s neck, counting down what remains of her trigger window. He probably forgot he’s wearing it outside of his shirt, a sign that he’s been nervously checking it every few minutes.
“How’d it go?” she