Run to Me (29 page)

‘You sick son of a bitch. Who put you
up to this?’

The ferocity of the words brought Chase up short. ‘I . . . I’m sorry, I don’t understand.’

‘You don’t, eh? Well, let me explain it to you. Jesse’s dead. My son is dead. He died two years ago when Shyler threw him off a bridge.’

Chase felt the floor drop away beneath him. He moved his lips but nothing came out.

Movement encroached on the edge of his vision – a shadow creeping across the desktop. Someone behind him. He spun to see.

Shyler. Coming at him. The stock of the rifle aimed at his face.

He dived from the chair. The stock swooped down – once, twice – smashing the phone into dozens of pieces.

The
barrel swung towards him. ‘You called the police.’

‘What? No!’

‘Don’t lie to me. I heard you talking to them!’

Hands raised, he pushed to his feet. ‘Shyler, you’re wrong. I was –’

‘Be quiet!’

The rifle thrust closer, trembling in her hands. He held his breath. If what her ex had just told him was true, she was far more unstable than he’d ever imagined.

‘We’re leaving,’ she announced with
sudden conviction.

‘What?’

‘You heard me.’ With the rifle she motioned him towards the door. ‘Let’s go. Back in the other room.’

He wavered, searching for a way to dissuade her. Why would her ex-husband lie about Jesse? Why would she? And if Jesse was dead, who was the boy she was protecting?

Whatever the reason, if she truly believed he was her son . . . ‘Shyler, you can’t leave. Jesse’s
too sick. He needs constant medical care.’

She pointed the rifle at the centre of his chest. ‘I know. That’s why you’re coming with us.’

‘Over there. Sit down.’ Shyler gestured to the chair by the bed. Holding the rifle on Chase the whole time she picked up her knapsack and threw it across to him. ‘Put the food in that.’

Chase took the fruit and donuts off the breakfast tray and dropped them
in.

On the bed beside him the blankets stirred and a small head appeared. Seeing them both Zack sat up. ‘What’s going on?’

‘It’s all right, honey, nothing to worry about. We’re just getting out of here. As soon as we put a few things together.’

‘Why? What happened?’

Shyler checked the clock on the bedside table. Nine forty-five. She knew of no sheriff in the Deadwater area. Which meant the
police would be coming from Presque Isle. That gave them maybe an hour and a half, two hours at most to get far enough away that they couldn’t be followed.

‘What happened?’ Zack repeated.

‘Our helpful doctor called the police.’

‘Shyler, I didn’t –’

‘I told you to be quiet.’ She waved the barrel at the bottle of pills. ‘The medicine too. Put it in the bag.’

Slowly he lowered his hands and
stood up. ‘No.’

Clutching the rifle she took a step closer. But the battle within her only made the gun shake uncontrollably. Why was this so hard? After what he had done it should be easy!

‘Shyler, listen to me. Don’t do this. Whatever –’

‘Your father’s downstairs.’ The words came out before she even knew why she’d spoken them.

Chase on the other hand seemed to know at once. He grew very
still, clenching his jaw in lieu of a response.

‘You know that situation you didn’t want to create? The one where I take your father hostage?’
Back down, Chase. Please back down
.

‘All right, I’ll do whatever you want. Just leave my dad out of this.’

‘Put the medicine in the bag and slide it across to me.’

He did as instructed.

‘Now wrap Jesse in the blanket and pick him up. You’re going to
carry him out to your car.’

Chase laid the boy on the Land Rover’s back seat and tucked the blanket in around him.

The boy. He couldn’t think of him as Jesse any more despite the kid’s willingness to accept the identity. Which in itself raised another good question – why was he posing as Shyler’s son?

Chase closed the car door and straightened beside it. ‘Where are we going?’

‘West,’ Shyler said, throwing her
knapsack in the back.

‘Into Canada?’

‘I suppose you want to go east, the direction they’re coming from.’

‘Shyler, nobody’s coming. I keep trying to tell you –’

‘Get in the car.’

He climbed behind the wheel. When she’d gotten in beside him he turned to face her. ‘We’re not going to make it whichever way we go. Not on a quarter of a tank of gas.’

‘That’s all you have?’

‘Plus, I should warn
you the car’s been playing up lately. It might not start.’ He turned the ignition and it fired instantly.

‘Nice try, Hadley. Pull out and turn left – we’ll fill up at the store.’

As he drove the distance, Chase tried to think. He had only minutes in which to decide. What could he do to stop their leaving that wouldn’t endanger himself or the boy? How could he convince this woman to trust him?

Through the rear-view mirror he noted the boy watching fearfully out his window. If he wasn’t Shyler’s son then who the hell was he? Who were his real parents? Where were they now? He certainly didn’t seem afraid of Shyler and showed no signs of wanting to escape.

‘Pull up at the pump,’ Shyler said as they neared the store.

When he’d shut off the engine she nodded at the rifle she held concealed
beneath the dashboard. ‘I’ll be watching through the window so don’t try anything. You’ll only be putting others at risk.’

Chase looked out at the two cars parked along the side lane. ‘They’re pretty busy. This could take a minute. You know old Bill’s alone in there.’

‘Just stay where I can see you and don’t talk to anyone.’

Chase got out and moved to the pump. There was no point in arguing.
She was right – the faster he did this, the safer for everyone.

As the tank slowly filled he stared through the car window at her profile. Could it be true? Could she really have killed her own son? Had it been negligence? An accident? If she’d murdered the boy surely she’d have been imprisoned by now, unless –

An unseen hand latched onto his throat. Was that why she lived in such isolation,
refusing to give her name or address? Bartering for her needs, anxious and watchful, suspicious and wary . . .

You’re not calling the police
– her very words to him as she’d held him at gunpoint in his treatment room yesterday.

He groaned with the pain that lanced through his chest. Could it be the dead men back at her cabin weren’t killers but police having finally tracked her down?

He bowed
his head and covered his eyes. ‘Oh, Shyler.’

‘Pull around back. I’ve got an idea.’ Vanessa pointed down the lane that led to the rear of the general store.

Tragg made the turn and swung into the parking lot. ‘Let’s hear it.’

Talking quickly she filled him in.

After a night spent huddled in a freezing car she’d greeted the new day with little hope of resolving their dilemma. But less than fifteen minutes ago, she’d been roused
from her bleary-eyed despair by the sight of their target leaving the doctor’s house. And when she’d spotted the woman – the first time she’d actually laid eyes on the bitch – forcing Hadley to his car at gunpoint the solution to their problem had suddenly come to her.

Slight and fair-haired, their wild-card heroine hardly seemed capable of having bettered Farrell in a fire fight. The bitch must
have qualities far beyond those she made plain to the world. And it was clear she’d taken it upon herself to be Zack’s protector, to the point of risking her life to save him. But that very devotion would be her undoing. Her reasons for helping him didn’t matter. That they made her seem desperate and irrational did.

Tragg listened closely as she spelled out her plan, then leaned back and flashed
a tight-lipped smile. ‘I’ll wait here.’

She reached for her door and he grabbed her arm. ‘Just so we’re clear. This isn’t about catching this kid any more. This is about Farrell. We finish these two here and now.’

Vanessa nodded and climbed from the car.

Standing second in line at the counter, Chase felt someone ease up behind him.

‘Doctor Hadley? Remember me?’

His stomach dropped when he
saw who it was. The woman who’d consulted him with a bogus sprained ankle. The last thing he wanted was to get hung up talking to her right now. ‘Ms Roswell. How’s the ankle?’

‘Please face forward, Doctor, and listen carefully.’

Chase turned around, stunned once again. Was there no end to the shocks he’d be hit with this day?

‘I’m sorry I had to deceive you the first time we met but it was
necessary. I’m a child social worker. I’ve been in the area for the last ten days trying to locate a runaway boy.’

Chase felt something slip beneath his arm and looked down to see her photo ID.

‘Our department now has reason to believe the child we’re after was kidnapped by the woman sitting in your car.’

‘Kidnapped?’

‘Please, Doctor, don’t turn around. She’s watching and I don’t want her
to know we’re talking.’

Chase shot a glance out the store’s front window. Sure enough Shyler was looking their way. He angled his head so she couldn’t see his face and whispered over his shoulder. ‘Are you sure she
kidnapped him? I’ve been with them since yesterday and the boy appears to want to be with her.’

‘As a runaway he very well might. After all, she’s been helping him hide from us. Unfortunately
he’s a little too young to understand she could be a danger to him.’

‘A danger? It didn’t seem to me she’s a danger to him. If anything –’

‘Doctor, we don’t have time to discuss this. Obviously we don’t have all the facts, but we know enough to be certain it’s imperative we get the boy away from her.’

Chase exhaled. If this woman had come to him an hour sooner he never would have believed her.
But on top of what Shyler’s ex had told him, and who the dead men at her cabin might be . . .

‘What do you want me to do?’ he said.

‘When you finish here, go back to your car and drive in whatever direction she tells you. When you come to a deserted stretch of road, pretend to have car trouble and pull off to the side. I’ll stop and offer to lend you a hand.’

‘She has a rifle.’

‘We’re prepared
to handle the situation.’

‘We?’

‘There’s a police officer in my car.’

His heart sank. ‘You’ll make sure neither of them gets hurt?’

‘It’s our top priority. And you can assure it by playing your part.’

God help him. ‘I’ll do my best.’

Zack peered out each car window in turn – at the store, the road both ahead and behind, the woods across the street – wondering who would find them first, Tragg and Vanessa or the police.

They were sitting here, just sitting here, in plain view of everyone. He felt like Howard, his bug-eyed goldfish, the one the Masons had flushed down the toilet.

In the front seat, Shyler sat with
her gaze fixed on the store’s front window. She seemed more worried now than she had at the house, shoulders tense, hands gripping the twenty-two.

Zack’s stomach tightened. He’d told her so many stupid things – that he didn’t need her help, that he wanted to be alone, that he could manage just fine on his own. He only hoped she hadn’t believed him.

He didn’t know why he’d said those things.
Maybe because he was afraid she was going to do them anyway. Better to be the one who walked away than the one who got left. That’s what he’d figured anyway.

‘Did Chase really call the cops?’ he asked.

‘Yes, Jesse, he did.’ Her words sounded muffled against the glass.

‘How do you know?’

‘I went in his study and caught him doing it.’

‘He was talking to them?’

‘Yes.’

‘What was he saying?’

‘Jesse, please, I have to keep watch. I didn’t hear his exact words anyway.’

There was an edge to her voice he’d not heard before, a suggestion that her control was slipping. He knew he shouldn’t, but he just couldn’t stop himself – he had to keep talking. ‘Then how do you know?’

‘How do I know what?’

‘That it was the cops.’

‘I heard him say both our names. Who else could he have been speaking
to?’

Zack couldn’t think of anyone else either. ‘So what are we going to do?’

‘We get as far away from here and as fast as we can.’

‘Well, why are we waiting then? Why don’t we just steal his car?’

‘Because he has the keys.’

Zack slumped back. Beneath the blanket his limbs were shaking, and this time it wasn’t because of any fever. Maybe she just didn’t want to leave the doctor no matter
what he did. Maybe she liked the guy better than him.

‘You must be pretty mad at him, huh?’

She seemed to think about that for a moment. ‘I suppose it depends on why he did it.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He might have thought he was helping us.’

‘But you didn’t want him to call them.’

‘No.’

He studied her profile, suddenly realising how odd that was. He knew why
he
didn’t want the police to
get involved but why didn’t she? Most grown-ups in their situation wouldn’t have hesitated to call for help.

‘What do you think they’ll do if they catch us?’

‘The police?’ She laughed. ‘Arrest me.’

‘You? What for?’

‘They’ll go to the cabin, find the dead men and figure I killed them. And they’d be right.’

‘But
they
came after
us
!’

‘Oh, we’ll tell them that, but it won’t make any difference.
They’ll ask a lot of questions, write down all sorts of information, then walk away and leave us to fend for ourselves.’

Zack didn’t speak. She sounded both frightened and angry now, and what she’d said seemed a bit mixed up.

‘We’ll describe what happened over and over till we can’t bear it any more. We’ll tell them what they looked like – their scars, their eyes, the clothes they were wearing
– and still they’ll do nothing. They’ll say they can’t find them. And even if they did they couldn’t arrest them. Not enough evidence. No other witnesses.’