Bubba had the shoebox with the Defender opened up and was looking at it. “He really is a diabolical genius, isn’t he?”
“I’m afraid to ask, but how long were we out?” Cam asked, adjusting the setting on his Defender.
“Only a couple of minutes.”
“How long have we been here in total?” he asked as he fiddled with the dial on his Defender.
“Eleven minutes,” Bubba said, checking his digital wristwatch.
Cam finished making the adjustments on his Defender, and headed for Daphne Charlene’s bedroom door.
“Now what?” Wyatt asked when they were all back in Diesel’s vehicle, headed to the Big Bang Truck Stop.
“We have just over five hours before the meeting. We should spend our time discussing our plans for later tonight.”
“Plans?” Cam asked.
“Given the wily nature of our escaped celebrity prisoner and his recently discovered abilities, we need more than one plan in place. We not only need a primary plan, we need several backup plans, too.”
Nova greeted them at the basement door as they all walked inside.
“Don’t tell me you have more bad news,” Diesel said.
She rolled her eyes. “I’m sorry, bad news is the only thing we’re selling these days.”
“What is it?”
“The head of the United Galactic Gulag has left three messages already. It seems there are some nervous leaders on Alpha-Prime who have tasked him with providing an update ensuring that the gulag ship docked here—with the most infamous criminal ever caught hibernating on board—will leave on time tomorrow morning without incident. Additionally, he’d love to have some sort of proof, like a picture or, better yet, a short video of Indigo Smith sound asleep in his cryo-pod.”
Chapter Thirteen
Valene opened her eyes and sat up in a strange bed. She searched the elegantly appointed room for a clue as to where she was and why she was here. Everything in the room was of high quality and looked expensive. But nothing was familiar. Perhaps her brain had not caught up to the party just yet. Maybe she needed a coffee or another glass of sweet tea.
She remembered Aunt Dixie cutting her off after ordering the third large Mason jar full of her favorite beverage at the Cosmos Café, insisting she’d be up all night going to the bathroom. Valene chuckled to herself for two seconds until the urge to pee made her stand up and search for a bathroom. She saw three doors on three different walls of the generously sized room. The first choice and closest was the bathroom she gratefully sought.
Back in the bedroom a few minutes later, she checked the second door and found an empty walk-in closet the size of a small bedroom.Nice.The third door on the other side of the room turned out to be locked.
She rattled the handle and pounded on the surface of the door, shouting for someone to let her out.
No such luck.
She wandered around the luxurious room, noting sunlight spilling through the three narrow windows high up on one wall. They looked like the kind of windows sometimes put in basements, but this room didn’t feel like it was in a basement. It was lovely.
Fatigue sent her back to sit on the foot of the bed where she’d started. Maybe she’d take a nap while she waited to figure out what to do next. It seemed like she should do something, but the need for more sleep blocked almost everything else out.
Valene gave in to the seeming need for more rest, scooting back to put her head on the pillow. Her eyes closed, but the nagging wish to remember where she was kept her from falling into slumber.
Why was she here? Where had she been before the Cosmos Café? At the truck stop? Yes. She’d been upstairs about to talk to Daphne Charlene.Oh!That woman.
But Diesel showed up unexpectedly and sent her to Cam’s office. Wyatt had been there, but Cam entered soon after and shot him with a Defender. He’d crumpled at her feet.
Her troubling memories seeped in one by one, each seemingly more disturbing than the last. The insinuation that Wyatt and Daphne Charlene had been intimate in Wyatt’s kitchen while Valene was asleep in his bedroom thumped the loudest in her mind. The further implication that Wyatt had tattled to the odious woman about aliens living in plain sight at the truck stop made Valene’s thoughts come to a full stop. He wouldn’t do that.
Valene knew Wyatt. She’d followed him for nearly two years before making accidental contact. Not every day, though. She wasn’t a psycho, but she’d kept tabs on him and his life. He was a good guy liked by most everyone. He put a monthly rundown of what was going on in Skeeter Bite on the official Skeeter Bite Sheriff’s Office website and also covered what was to come in the next month. Each and every month she looked forward to the rundowns. She found his monthly “Activities in Skeeter Bite” entries charming. She also found Wyatt very charming.
For all intents and purposes, Wyatt Campbell was a stand-up sheriff, an honorable man, a crack shot with a rifle and he was the sweetest boyfriend she’d ever had. True, he was theonlyboyfriend she’d ever had, but why look elsewhere once you’ve found perfection?
