Galen's Gemma - Dale Mayer Page 0,5

same time, she glared at her sister. “If you’d wanted to help,” she said, “you should have done it a while ago.”

“I thought she’d be okay.”

“Well, you were wrong,” she snapped.

“Fine,” he said. “Where are you taking her?”

“To a cabin.”

“If it’s Joe’s cabin, you know they’ll follow you there.”

“Which is why we’re going there,” she said, “and then we’ll bounce in a few hours, past that point.”

“I want to know your itinerary.”

Just then another voice came over the phone. “My name is Galen. Don’t try to do this on your own.”

“Just who the hell are you?” she snapped.

“Somebody Zack called in as backup, to help track Rebecca down.”

She stopped at that. “Well, if he knew she was in danger, why the hell didn’t he scoop her up and take her away in the first place? And obviously she doesn’t need to be tracked down. All he had to do was call her.”

“I already told you all you need to know.” His tone was smooth. “Where are you?”

“Somewhere else. For all I know,” she said, “you’re part of the group who killed Joe.”

“Well, I’m not,” Galen said, “but I can see the possibility of you worrying about that. Although, if you know Zack, you know that’s not possible.”

“Says you,” she said. She kept driving and thought about what to do.

“We’ll meet you at the cabin,” he said and hung up.

She tossed the phone down and stared at her sister in disgust.

Chapter 2

Gemma pulled into the cabin’s driveway in the wee morning hours, checking the dashboard to see it was coming up on four o’clock. Her sister and niece were sound asleep. Gemma drove down the long gravel road up to and around the cabin to the rear of it. Parking, she let out a slow sigh.

Rebecca woke up. “Where are we?”

“At the cabin.”

“I don’t even know why you bother,” Rebecca said. “I want to go in and sleep, but you won’t let me do that before we leave again.”

“You’ll sleep for a few hours,” she said, “but that’s all.” With that, she got out and walked up to the cabin, leaving the other two in the car. Unlocking the front door, she stepped in. This was Joe’s cabin, and, depending on what she found, they may spend a few hours here. Or not.

She moved inside and throughout, finding it clean and empty. She’d stayed here a couple times herself. One larger bedroom was on the ground floor with a big double bed. She figured Rebecca and Becky could both go in there. Gemma would take the small bedroom at the back, so she could stay near her sister and her niece. No need to access the master bedroom suite on the second floor.

She walked back to the car, gently dragged the blankets with the bundle containing Becky into her arms, then carried her into the cabin and put her on one side of the double bed. Rebecca came stumbling past her and crashed down beside her daughter. Tucking up against the little girl, she said, “I sure hope you think it’s worth all this.”

“Me too.” She grabbed another blanket from the closet, tossed it over both of them and then headed out to the car. She grabbed a few personal things, like her laptop and her phone, and the burner phone Rebecca had left on the floor. Of all the things that pissed off her baby sister the most, losing her real phone was it. Gemma shook her head at her sister’s lack of proper priorities. Heading back into the kitchen, she brought along the one bag of food she had. She put it on the counter, and, knowing she needed sleep more than anything, walked into the back bedroom and laid down on the small single cot near her sister and niece, closing her eyes. Almost immediately the burner phone buzzed. She looked at it to see a text from Zack, asking if they made it.

She responded, writing, Yeah. Crashing for a few hours.

We’ll be there by the time you wake up.

She closed her eyes and whispered, “I hope not.” But, on the inside, she wished she had some help with this. She had always been a very analytical person, and nothing about this whole scenario made any sense. The fact that her brother-in-law was dead was just one of those things that had to be dealt with. Her sister would need support and someone to stand at her side. Gemma didn’t know what the hell was going on with