Run to Me (8 page)

‘It’s me.’ Nolan stepped away from the hospital room door and moved to the opposite side of the hall. He could still see Tragg but had eliminated the chance of the man’s waking up and overhearing his conversation.

‘Where are you?’ Vanessa’s voice issued from his mobile phone.

‘A hospital in Conway. We had a slight accident.’

‘What! How bad?’

‘Bad enough. I’m fine and the van’s okay
but Tragg’s laid up. At least for a day or two. Concussion or something.’

‘What about the boys?’

‘That’s why I’m calling. They . . . got away.’

A heartbeat of silence. ‘I don’t believe it. How could –’

Nolan quickly gave her the details.

‘How’s Tragg taking it?’ she asked when he’d finished.

Nolan glanced back into the room and felt his throat tighten. Even bruised and unconscious the man
had a look that could turn his blood cold. ‘He doesn’t know yet. Hasn’t woken up since the kids took off.’

Vanessa blew out a breath through her teeth. ‘Wouldn’t want to be in your shoes right now.’

‘It’ll be okay. I got the licence plate number and company name off the truck they got on.’

‘So?’

‘It’s been less than an hour. If your uncle’s people can find out where it’s headed there’s a good
chance I can catch up to it.’

This time she laughed. ‘You’re kidding, right?’

Nolan clamped down to keep from swearing. ‘Will you just call Lazaro and see what you can find out? And do it fast. I’d like to get them back before Tragg wakes up.’

She sighed. ‘All right, give me the details.’

The truck’s gentle rocking soothed Zack’s initial adrenaline shakes. That, plus the knowledge he’d outsmarted
Nolan, boosted his mood from what it had been that morning.

But he could tell the others were far from happy. They huddled together in the small space near the door as cold air and dust swirled around them.

‘You’re bleeding,’ Reece said, pointing to his leg.

Zack looked down, saw that one leg of his jeans was torn and rolled it up. There on his calf, half concealed by a layer of dirt, was a
dark red blotch. He spat on the cuff of his sweatshirt sleeve and used it to wipe away some of the grime.

The cut was only an inch or so long but it was almost as deep. If he pushed the skin a certain way the edges gaped like the mouth of a fish. He stared in wonder at how little it hurt and that he hadn’t even felt it when it happened.

‘Must’ve cut myself climbing out of that ditch. Or into
the truck.’ He rolled the pants leg down and dismissed it.

‘My stomach hurts.’

Zack sighed. Corey always had to be the centre of attention. Any time someone else got hurt, somehow he always felt sick
as well. ‘You’re just hungry, that’s all.’ As Zack was himself, he suddenly realised.

He inspected the boxes stacked around them. They were all sealed with tight plastic bands, impossible to break.
If he only had a knife or something sharp . . .

On the floor beside him he spotted a two-inch metal staple. He snatched it up, jabbed it into the nearest carton and ripped a small hole in its side.

Toilet paper.

He tried the next box. Laundry detergent. And the ones after that. Dish liquid, toothpaste, motor oil.

He dropped the staple and sat back down. ‘I’ll find us something to eat when
we get there.’

‘When we get where?’ Reece said softly. ‘Where are we going?’

‘How the hell should I know?’

‘How long will it be?’

‘If I don’t know where we’re going how can I –’

‘Who’ll take care of us?’

Corey’s frightened little-boy voice just made things worse. Why were they always asking him questions he couldn’t answer? ‘Who took care of us up till now? You think Frank and Julie ever
gave a crap about us?’

Corey bowed his head. A minute later there were tears on his face.

Zack paused to get a grip on himself. One thing he had always sworn – he would never let the Bad Boy out around them. That part of him that felt like a whole other person, the side he sometimes couldn’t control, the one that mouthed off to men like Tragg no matter the risk. Sometimes that part of him scared
even him.

‘What’s wrong now?’ he said at last.

‘I left Ali on the van.’

Crying. Over a skanky stuffed animal. Corey was just too dumb to realise his dad had only given it to him because he felt guilty for walking out on him. But just at that moment Zack didn’t have the heart to explain.

He pushed off the box, dropped to the floor and slung his arm around Corey’s shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll
find another one.’

Reece scooted closer to the boy’s other side. ‘I know how you feel – I lost all my baseball cards, too.’ He held up a single dogeared specimen. ‘All I got left is this dumb Eric Gagne.’

The man clipped the chain to his collar and dragged him down the darkened corridor. At the end, a garage with only one vehicle – the idling truck.

He fought and kicked but the man was stronger,
lifting him towards the open compartment, pushing him in, slamming the door.

The air inside burned his lungs like fire. Absolute blackness swallowed his pleas. But a terror far deeper evoked his screams –
this is what happens to unwanted boys . . .

Zack jerked awake, somehow managing to stifle his cry. He sat up, blinking around in confusion.

He was in a truck all right, but not the one of
his recurring nightmare. This one was bigger and loaded with boxes, and Corey and Reece were in it with him.

Yes, he remembered now – the men, the accident, their lucky escape. But something had changed.

They were no longer moving.

He scrambled to his feet and rushed to the door, his sudden movements waking the others. Before they could speak he held up his hand, then bent to listen. No engine
noises. No sound of voices. They’d definitely stopped. But where and for how long?

One thing for sure, they couldn’t just go marching out in the open. Three young boys, alone, climbing off the back of a truck . . . If anyone saw them they’d turn them over to the police. And grown-ups never believed what kids said, they only listened to other grown-ups. Which meant the cops would just hand them
back to Nolan and Tragg.

Zack shuddered, recalling the gun, the yawning black hole just inches from his face.

Something touched his hand and he jumped. Reece and Corey had come up behind him, their expressions anxious. He placed a finger to his lips then pressed his ear to the door again. Nothing.

Slowly he raised his hand to the lever. The light seeping through the seams of the hold didn’t
seem as strong as it had been earlier. He sensed it was dusk, perhaps even later. With any luck the shadows would cloak them. He pushed on the handle and eased it down.

With the door open only a finger’s width, Zack peered out. Some kind of depot. Lots of trucks, some with huge logs chained to their beds. No one in sight. He pushed the door wider and the scent of pine flooded the hold. Reece
and Corey squeezed up beside him.

The twilight was deepened by surrounding trees – forest so thick and dense with shadow he couldn’t see more than a few yards into it. A strange kind of forest. Bare straight trunks in staggered rows, their greenery forming an impenetrable canopy high above.

Perhaps it wasn’t so late after all, Zack thought, climbing down from the truck. The forest just blocked
out most of the sun, its damp, cold, pine-scented breath raising goosebumps along his flesh. He reached up and helped the other boys down.

‘Where are we?’ Reece said, clutching his arm.

‘Don’t start that again,’ Zack hissed. ‘Just shut up and follow me.’

The trucks were parked in two long rows that stretched either side of a gravel track. Zack led them towards the road at the end, using each
vehicle in turn for cover.

He needn’t have bothered. There was no one around. Even the little office building they came to stood dark and deserted. In the end they ran the final stretch.

Once on the road, Zack breathed a sigh of relief. If anyone came by and saw them now they’d just think they were some local kids out for a walk.

But with one problem solved, the next arose. It was getting dark.
They’d soon be unable to see where they were going, and there wasn’t a house or shop in sight. Just an endless corridor of massive trees.

They’d been walking about fifteen minutes when pinpoints of light appeared up ahead. A car approaching. Zack heard the gurgle of water nearby – a stream flowing beneath the road.

‘This way!’ The two boys followed him down the embankment.

When the car finally
passed, its headlights lit up the culvert enough to show three large concrete pipes passing beneath the road’s surface. Water flowed through only two of them.

The third, blocked at one end by a tangle of branches, would be their shelter for the night.

Nolan pulled the rental car into the depot and began slowly driving up and down the rows of parked trucks. He rounded a corner and let out a curse. Too late – the boys were already here.

He rolled to a stop with his headlights fixed on the truck’s rear door. If he hadn’t had to wait over an hour for Vanessa to get back to him with its destination he might’ve made it here in time. Shaking
his head, he climbed from the car.

On the bright side, he could be sure of one thing – once the truck had left the gas station there were few other places it could have stopped before getting here. Maine boasted only a handful of roads in its northern quarter and most were privately owned by logging companies. Odds were the boys had come this far. Hell, if he was really lucky the little shits
were still on the truck.

But as he walked towards it he saw the back door was slightly ajar. Hopes dashed, he yanked it open and peered inside. Nothing but boxes, packed so closely there was no way the boys could be hiding among them.

Cursing again, he pulled his ringing mobile from his pocket. And froze at the sound of the voice that spoke to him.

‘Tragg? Hey, buddy, how are you feeling?’

‘Well, let’s see. I wake up in a hospital with the mother of all headaches after some fuckwit drives me into a ditch. Then some battle-axe nurse tells me I’m all alone here, that the fuckwit and my passengers have split. How would you guess I’m feeling,
buddy
?’

Nolan launched into a hasty explanation. He revamped the accident and the boys’ escape, playing up how hard he had tried to stop them
getting on the truck.

When he’d finished, the silence from the other end was even more ominous than Tragg’s first words.

‘I haven’t just been sitting around,’ he added quickly. ‘I tracked where they were headed and I’m in the town now. I actually found the truck they were on and the engine’s still warm so –’

‘Screw the truck. What about them?’

Nolan tried to swallow but his mouth had gone
dry. ‘They’re not here. But, hey, the good news is they can’t have gone far in the dark and there’s no one anywhere around to help them.’

‘Find them.’

‘Sure. Don’t worry, I’m on it.’

‘Don’t worry? I’m not sure you get the importance of this. Not only are those kids the only ones who saw where Giles hid his stash but the oldest also knows things that could hurt Lazaro. Things he
wouldn’t
know
if you and the bitch had kept your mouths shut.’

Nolan felt it wise not to argue.

‘I’ll be laid up here a couple more days; you’ve got that long to get them back. Otherwise the first thing I’ll do when I get out is head up there to give you a hand. That plain enough for you,
buddyboy?
’

‘Yeah, got it.’

‘Call me tomorrow.’

Nolan closed the phone and slumped against the back of the truck. He
could always run for it – this one-horse hamlet couldn’t be more than a hundred miles from the Canadian border. But it would never work. If the boys got away and eventually talked, Tragg would stop at nothing to find him.

He hung his head. It didn’t seem right . . . Damn it, it wasn’t right that he should cop the rap for this alone. He opened his phone again and punched in a number.

When Vanessa
answered he gave her the bad news.

‘Well, they can’t have gotten far on foot,’ she said.

‘Unless they hitched a ride with someone.’

‘Oh, come on. Lazaro’s man told me the place was remote. Population less than a thousand.’

Nolan stared up at the towering trees. ‘Remote’s not the word. It’s a frigging wilderness. Not a house in sight and I didn’t pass another car in the last eighty miles.’

‘Then there’s not many places they could be hiding.’

Nolan laughed. ‘Only a thousand square acres of forest, that’s all. I could use some help with this.’

‘Forget it. I’m busy.’

‘I’m sure it can wait.’

‘Maybe I don’t want to wait. Hell, it isn’t my fault you lost them.’

‘But it’s your fault they know about Lazaro.’ Her silence told him he’d gotten her attention. ‘That’s what Tragg thinks.
I mean if you hadn’t said the name at the house it wouldn’t be so urgent we find them, would it?’

‘Shit.’

He smiled.

‘All right, I’ll be there first thing in the morning.’

Firelight winked in the pot-bellied stove that warmed the workshop. A lone gypsy moth, a rare sight this late in the season, fluttered around the hurricane lamp that hung from the rafters, casting shadows, crazed and ghostly, across the walls.

Shyler took a sip of brandy, set the glass on the workbench beside her and resumed sanding the roof of the martin house. She didn’t normally
drink while she worked but, still recovering from her trip into town, felt the need for something to settle her.

Brushing a strand of hair from her face, she caught the scent from her bandaged hand. Gauze, antiseptic and the barest hint of something else. Soap? Aftershave? Something . . .
him
. Suddenly the doctor’s face was before her.

If anything had made her ordeal less distressing it had
been Doctor Hadley. There was something about him, something more than looks and a competent manner. Soft-spoken, gentle, yet radiating an aura of quiet strength, he’d made her feel calmer and more relaxed – and a few other things she preferred not to dwell on – than any man she’d met in a long time.