Every Precious Thing (16 page)

With growing dread, she doused her lights, and turned down the street where her former employer’s offices were located. And there, parked right in front, was the electric blue El Camino.

She pulled to the curb and reached for her phone. She had turned it off after talking to Sara, because she didn’t have any answers, and had no idea what to say. It was a panic move, but now she needed to talk to Sara, tell her she was coming to pick her up tonight. She brought up Sara’s number, but before she could hit S
END
, she saw that there were other people on the sidewalk beside Logan and his tough friend.

Four, in fact. Two behind the friend, and two in front of Logan.

Even from a block and a half away, she could see the guns.

What the hell was this?

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-S
IX

“D
ON’T MOVE,” THE
shorter of the two gunmen said.

He was the one who’d been running after Logan in Braden. The guy standing with him was his buddy who’d tried to cut Logan off at Center Street. Over at the El Camino, Logan could see the other two—the woman and her friend—holding their weapons on Dev.

The speaker stepped behind Logan and searched him, removing Logan’s wallet, keys, and phone. Dev was getting the same treatment.

With a shove in the back toward the truck, the man said, “Let’s go.”

Three feet separated Logan from the gunman in front of him, and three and a half from the one behind. Not the best position, but there were at least four different ways he could take both of them out.

Doable, if he were alone.

While Dev was more than capable of handling the other two,
his
positioning was not as favorable. The two training their weapons on him could put a bullet in the back of his head before Logan could vanquish his two.

Escape would have to wait for a better opportunity to present itself.

When Logan and his two new buddies reached the others, the man who had searched him handed the wallet and other items to the woman—Dr. Paskota, presumably. She opened the wallet and examined the license, then compared Logan to the picture.

Once she was done, she said, “This way.” She started to turn.

“Whatever you want to talk about, we can do it right here,” Logan said, not moving.

“I’m sure we could, but we won’t. Let’s go.”

The three gunmen had backed off far enough that even with a coordinated effort, Logan and Dev would have been condemning themselves to death if they tried anything. Reluctantly, Logan gave Dev a nod, and they followed the woman to the familiar gray sedan.

Six people in a car designed for no more than five meant a tight squeeze in the backseat. This could have been another opportunity, but the others weren’t fools. The two who got in on either side of Logan and Dev gave their weapons to the guy in the front passenger seat—Frisk—preventing the chance one of their guns could be wrestled away. Frisk swiveled around and leaned against the dash to get a clear view of everyone in back. He made sure Logan and Dev saw the gun in his hand.

“Where are we going?” Logan asked as they drove down the street.

No one answered. He asked again a few minutes later, but received the same response.

Soon Flagstaff was behind them, and they were on a quiet, two-lane road, the forest lining each side. This part of Arizona was decidedly not desert.

For the first several miles, Logan caught glimpses of homes amongst the trees, but it wasn’t long before they dwindled in number and all but disappeared as the road transitioned from asphalt to dirt.

Logan didn’t like the situation at all. If it were just talk the woman wanted, they would have found a quiet spot in town. This was more an end-of-the-line kind of thing. He shared a quick look with Dev, conveying without words that they would make their move at the first chance. Dev blinked once, indicating he understood.

They hadn’t gone far on the dirt road when the woman slowed and carefully scanned ahead. She took the first turn that came up. This new path wasn’t so much a road as the memory of one. They weaved between the trees, going no more than a quarter mile before they stopped.

Leaving the parking lights on and the motor running, Dr. Paskota ordered everyone out.

“Put them over there,” she said, pointing at a spot about fifteen feet in front of the car.

Frisk motioned for Logan and Dev to move.

The tree cover was dense, letting little of the moonlight to filter down. With the exception of the light from the car, everything was in near total darkness.

“When I make my move, head into the woods,” Logan whispered as he and Dev walked in front of their escort.

For a second he wasn’t sure he’d said it loudly enough for Dev to hear, but if he raised his voice, the guy behind them would have noticed.

“Uh-huh,” Dev grunted.

“Right there,” Frisk said.

Logan and Dev stopped.

“Now turn around.”

As they followed instructions, Logan made out the silhouette of the woman leaning against the vehicle. The other two were standing to either side of him.

Frisk took a step back toward the vehicle, but Dr. Paskota said, “No. Move to the side, but stay over there in case they try anything stupid.”

The escort didn’t seem to be too happy about this, but he didn’t protest as he moved several feet to Logan’s left.

“So, Mr. Harper, you want to tell me what you were doing in my motel room?”

“I was curious.”

“About what?”

“Whether it was your room, Dr. Paskota, or Mr. Frisk’s here.” Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Frisk flinch at the mention of his name.

“I guess we’ve established that you’re resourceful,” she said.

Logan shrugged, but remained quiet.

“You haven’t answered my question,” she said.

Logan smiled. “If you hadn’t been following us, I wouldn’t have been in your room. But since you had, I wondered why. See, I’m looking for someone, and you keeping an eye on us made me think you didn’t want us to do that. The obvious reason is that you know where she is and are trying to hide her.
That’s
why I was in your room.”

“You mean Diana Stockley.”

Logan shrugged. She knew why. She was working with Diana, after all, but if she wanted to take her time and play games, that was fine with him.

“Or was what you told that real estate agent a lie?” She smiled. “I have a feeling Diana Stockley doesn’t owe you any money.”

Logan kept quiet.

“I thought not. The picture, then. The one of the other woman you were showing around. That’s why, right?”

“You should know,” he said. “You beat up my friend because he was showing it around, too.”

Off to Logan’s side, Frisk had started looking at his boss every few seconds, as if he were waiting for a visual order to pull the trigger.

“Now why would we have done that?” she asked.

“Look, I know you’re helping Diana and Sara, and you think that my friends and I are some kind of danger to them, but we’re not here to harm them in any way.”

She stared at him, the look on her face curious. After a moment, she said, “Then why
are
you here?”

Something was not right, he realized. He’d made a mistake somewhere, figured something wrong.
Can it be…?

Beside him, Frisk was taking even longer looks at his boss, a smirk growing on his face.

“Well, Mr. Harper? Why?” she asked.

He considered his response. “Sara’s a friend, that’s all. We were just trying to find her.”

Her look of curiosity was now one of pity. “I don’t know if that’s the truth or not, but I will tell you that you’ve been working under a misconception. I’m not
helping
Diana and Sara. I’m looking for them, just like you. The only difference is, I’m going to find them. You and your friend are a complication that has no value to me.”

Logan was right, but he had no time to process the bigger picture of what that might mean. He checked Frisk again. While the man was pointing his gun at Logan, he was once more looking at Dr. Paskota.

“Are you saying you had nothing to do with the man in the hospital?” Logan asked.

“Mr. Harper, I think we’re—”

Logan grunted, “Now,” and dove to his left, slamming into Frisk’s legs and knocking the gunman to the ground. He grabbed the man’s hand that was holding the gun, wrapped his free arm around the man’s waist, then rolled with him side over side quickly into the trees.

Behind him, several shots rang out.

“Let go of me, you son of a bitch!” Frisk yelled.

Logan punched him in the jaw and slammed the gun hard into the ground, catching the man’s fingers between the grip and the dirt.

Out of reflex, Frisk’s hand opened.

Logan immediately twisted the weapon free and whipped it into the side of the asshole’s head. Frisk fell against the ground, stunned.

Staying low, Logan scrambled deeper into the darkness of the woods. When he was a good fifty yards away, he stopped and looked back.

Someone had turned on the sedan’s headlights, lighting up as much of the forest as they could. He could see Frisk stumbling toward the car, but wasn’t sure where the others were. What he really wanted to see was the area where he and Dev had been, but several trees blocked his sight line. He moved quietly to his right until the view opened up.

No body on the ground.
Good
. Dev had at least made it into the trees.

Logan checked the car again, searching for the remaining men. One was helping Frisk get inside the vehicle, but the other two were still nowhere to be seen.

A sound, low and soft.

An ever-so-subtle crunch.

A footstep, carefully placed on a pack of dried pine needles.

Logan waited for another one, but none came.

His eyes having adjusted as best they could to the darkness, he picked out a path that went in a large arc around the area where the car was parked, and over to the side where Dev would have gone. He needed to find his friend to make sure he was all right.

Between steps, he stopped to listen. Once he heard a twig snap, but it could have been caused by the wind in the trees. Another time he heard Frisk groan back at the car.

As he neared the top of the arc, he caught sight of a boulder just ahead. It would provide excellent cover, and perhaps there was even a crevasse or hole where Dev was hiding.

Logan came around the backside of the rock, farthest from the car. His instinct was to whisper Dev’s name, but he couldn’t chance it so he moved in closer. It wasn’t one boulder, but several piled together on the edge of a small depression. Keeping his newly acquired gun in front of him, he checked the spaces between the rocks but saw no one there.

He glanced up. The top of the pile was about twelve feet above him. If he could get up there, he’d be able to see where the others were. He scoped out the easiest route, then put a foot on the rock.

Almost instantly he knew it was a bad idea. Not because the rock was unstable or anything like that, but because of the gun muzzle that was suddenly resting against the base of his skull.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-S
EVEN

L
OGAN WAS PRETTY
sure he could twist out of the way and get control of the weapon without getting hit. But when it came to pistols anywhere near his head,
pretty sure
wasn’t something he wanted to test.

He raised his hands, his own gun pointing at the sky.

“Set it on the rock,” the person behind him whispered, the words almost like breaths. “Slowly.”

As he started to comply, the muzzle came away from his head, and he could hear the person take a quick step backward.

He placed his pistol on the rock.

“To your left.”

Improvising, he started to turn as he moved.

“No. Keep your eyes on the rocks.”

Not seeing a choice, he complied. His gun was now a sizable lunge away.

“Far enough,” the voice whispered. “Now sit.”

He hesitated, confused. He had expected to be immediately marched back to the sedan.

“Sit.”

This time he did so.

Silence descended. In the distance he thought he could hear another footstep.

After nearly a minute, he said, “What are we do—”

“Quiet.”

From his position, the only thing Logan could see was rock. He tried not to think about anything, focusing all his energy on being ready to react at a moment’s notice. Hopefully, whoever was behind him didn’t know that Dev was out there, too.

A distant, angry voice broke through the stillness, and was followed moments later by the sedan’s doors slamming shut. The car’s engine grew loud enough to be heard, then it faded into the distance as the vehicle drove away.

What the hell?

“Who are you?” the person behind him asked. Not a whisper this time.

Surprised, he turned without even thinking about it.

“Don’t!”

But it was too late. He’d seen her.

Diana Stockley was crouched next to a tree ten feet behind him. In her hand was a pistol. She looked nervous and scared, not the combination Logan wanted in a person pointing a gun at him.

“I promise I won’t try anything,” he said, continuing to hold up his empty palms. “Why don’t you put the gun down?”

“No. Who are you?”

“I told you at your bar. My name’s Logan. Logan Harper.”

“That’s a lie. Who are you, really?”

“That’s not a lie. I’d show you my driver’s license, but the others took my wallet.”

“Convenient.”

“If you were watching us, you know they did.”

She stared at him, tight-lipped, but allowed the barrel of the gun to point a few feet to Logan’s right.

“Tell them to leave her alone and not to come looking for her again,” she said. “Make sure you tell them she’s
not
theirs. Not now. Not ever. Understand?”