Surely Sam had seen them come out the back.Surely she’d alerted emergency services.Gone into the cabin and let Jill out of being tied up.At least he could be proud of the fact Jill hadn’t been hurt.
Yeah, he did okay when push came to shove.
But now they were in the midst of another push and shove, and he had to figure out how to end this.Get Glenda safe.
Gethimsafe, because he wasn’t after dying today.Not when he’d come so far.Not when so much still seemed to elude him.Who else was getting away with terrible things because he didn’t remember?
Cal was losing track of how much time elapsed.Hiking up, up, up.His hands tied in front of him—and not exactly loose.Glenda hadn’t given him much leeway.
He watched her.She’d grabbed a sturdy-looking stick on the way out of her back yard.She leaned on it as they hiked.
Because Everly had said she knew where they were going.
She was looking healthier, sturdier than she had last year when he’d first come home, but he still didn’t think she was going to survive whatever it was that Everly had in mind.
He didn’t bother to look behind him at Everly.The gun would be pointed at him.If he could get Everly close enough, maybe he could use his body to knock the gun out of his grasp, but it was a risk.Especially with his hands tied.
He tried to think of ways to de-escalate, but whatever had come over him in the cabin seemed to desert him now.The impulse to be a pain in the ass was too great.
“So, what’s the plan, Mr.Everly?Hike us to death?”
“Always thought you weresosmart.”Mr.Everly made a bitter sort of noise that some might have considered a laugh.
“You never realized just how pathetic you were,” Everly continued.“It was always so easy to lead you by the nose.Just a few compliments, tell you what you wanted to hear, and you’ve always gone along.”
Cal didn’t know what he was even referring to, but it certainly put all that support and mentorship from high school in a completely different and infantilizing light.
“I really don’t know how you ended up having a successful enough career,” Everly continued.“Anyone who knows you well enough knows just what buttons to push to get exactly what they want.You make it so obvious.”
It hurt when it shouldn’t.He was a grown man.Hewassmart, damn it.He’d gotten this far.Still, the idea that Mr.Everly had just been… jerking him around with compliments when he’d been a fucked-up teen grated.
“So you like screwing with kids.Got it.”
He didn’t look back at Everly, but he heard an irritated sort of grunt.If there were points to be scored, he’d count it as one.
A few steps ahead of him, Glenda stumbled over a loose rock.Cal lunged forward to grab her before she fell.
“Don’t go hurting yourselves now.We’re almost there,” Everly said, almost cheerfully.“Although, come to think of it, an injury might work.”He made a kind of humming noise like he was thinking it over.
Cal looked down at Everly.They were a little above on higher ground.He could just leap on the guy and see what happened.
As if she could read his thoughts, Glenda’s hold on him tightened.
“They’ll be so busy looking for you, they won’t find me.But if I leave one of you behind, incapacitated… no one will ever find me.”
“Why do you need to run, Everly?What did you do?Kill Charles or something?”
Everly smirked.“Like I said.Not nearly as smart as you think you are.Is he, Glenda?”
Cal glanced over at the woman.Her expression was completely blank.She neither agreed nor disagreed, but Everly clearly wasn’t happy with that response to his question.
He took a step forward.“I don’t know why you had to go and ruin things, Glenda.Everything was good.Fine.Then you had to starttalking.I was going to let that go.I was.But then you got private investigators involved.Detectives andCalshowing up at my door.You told me he didn’t remember.”
“He doesn’t,” Glenda muttered irritably.Her cheeks were red.Her breath was huffing in and out like she wasn’t handling the exertion very well.But that was the first thing he’d said that really seemed to piss her off.“I didn’t tell anyone anything.You’re the one breaking our deal.”
Deal?Glenda and Mr.Everly had some kind ofdeal?
“Andyou.”Mr.Everly looked at him with a sneer.“If you’d taken that first threat to heart and gone back to Texas, everything could have died down.”
