“You need some shut-eye. Sleep is crucial. Did you know that humans are the only mammals that willingly delay sleep? Doesn’t say much for our species, does it?”
“Give me my phone, Gideon.”
His smile was sly, the curve of his lips reminding her of the unexpected warmth she’d felt when she kissed him in the parking lot. “What are you going to do about it if I don’t?”
A great question. He was strong and skilled. What could she do? She considered and then shot out a hand and tickled his ribs. He squawked, and she clapped a hand over his mouth, still tickling.
“Phone,” she demanded.
Rolled into a ball, he continued to writhe.
“I’m not stopping until you give me my phone.”
Defeated, he went still. She removed her palm from his mouth, and he slung the bag around to her.
He glared. “That was playing dirty.”
She couldn’t hold back a smile. “I know your kryptonite, Landry. Don’t you forget it.” He’d always been so ticklish he couldn’t even have sunscreen applied to his back without collapsing in gales of laughter.
Triumphant, she tiptoed to the door with her phone.
“Don’t do it, Zee,” he murmured. There was a tenderness threading through the words that made her slow, almost stop at the threshold.
Again her soul rang with a deep-down yearning to turn away from the plan she’d set in motion. But she knew what she had to do, and Gideon wasn’t going to be a part of it. She kept going and shut the door softly behind her.
She plugged in her phone next to the living room sofa,and while it charged she pulled up maps of the area, the latest weather report, and the safety alerts about the dam. The airstrip was indeed six miles to the north. That was where she prayed she’d find Lorraine’s boyfriend, Cal, who could tell her what she needed to know. And if he wasn’t there? If he’d left, she’d find out where he’d gone and follow. All she needed was his phone number, an email, an address—any lead that would take her to the next one.
Normally she’d post an episode on her podcast, updating her followers about her investigations, but that was out of the question. Even if she could, it would be dangerous, maybe deadly, to reveal what had happened at the river, the help they’d received from Kevin. She wouldn’t put anyone else at risk—not yet—but when she exposed Bullseye, she’d make sure the world saw what he’d done. God would help her make it happen.
The stream of internet news was dismal. The storm was expected to dump several inches of rain in the next four days on ground already dangerously saturated. Engineers were completing another last-minute assessment of the Cotton Flower Dam, but the authorities had begun evacuations of the town closest to it. Oakleaf was under a voluntary evacuation notice, but it would be mandatory soon.
Just hold together for a couple more days, old Cotton Flower.
She found no mention of the accident on the bridge. Not an accident, she corrected. Bullseye’s men, sent to kill her and Lorraine. Again she recalled the freezing water creeping up to fill her lungs, her desperation sharp as a blade. And if Gideon hadn’t unlocked her restraints ...
She imagined the self-assigned mission he’d put into place to keep watch on Bullseye’s men at the bridge. And he hadn’t shrunk away from the mess that unfolded. Witnessing the attack from some position he’d chosen, diving from the bridge into the water, swimming to the drowning women and the cop.
He’d obviously been worried enough to start surveillance in the first place. Worried, because he was fond of her to some small degree? Purely for old time’s sake? Guilt over Aaron? His odd comment poked at her.
“I couldn’t take responsibility again ...”
What did it mean? She wanted to hold his words up to the lamplight and turn them around until she saw the truth hidden inside the syllables.
Didn’t matter. Things to do. People to find.
Her backpack was in the property room at the evacuated police station, but Kevin had rummaged in a hall closet and produced a cheap nylon bag with a wrench emblazoned on the front. Oakleaf Auto Repair.
“When you’re a mechanic with credit card debt and two kids, you collect all the free loot you can,”he’d said.
The bag had black rope threaded through the grommets so it could be carried as a backpack. Flimsy, but it would do. Into the pack went her phone. A few granola bars from the snack bowl Kevin had offered and a bottle of water. Slim pickins. The name of her father’s favorite performer. Her throat clogged. Since Aaron’s death, Dad’s smile was different, vague, as if his mouth knew what to do but his heart couldn’t remember why. She’d caught her mother’s worried gaze on occasion when her father stared too long out the window, the watering canforgotten in his grasp. Mom’s look seemed to say,“Don’t you leave me too.”
Undoubtedly her mother would worry herself into an early grave if she knew what her daughter was up to.
“We have to move on, together,”she’d say through her tears.
But Mackenzie simply couldn’t because Aaron was dead and Mackenzie wasn’t, and the man responsible was going to be stopped before his drugs destroyed anyone else. Simple as that. She snuck outside to the porch, and with the drumming rain in the background, recorded a podcast and saved it.
Back inside, she quietly prepared for the day ahead. She was tightening the cords on the pack when Kevin padded on socked feet into the kitchen.
