She opened her heart to God, begging for the wisdom to do the right thing.
Unfortunately, there was no response from the Almighty Father.
Micah couldn’t believea state trooper had come into the rest stop when he and Bryn were there.He was glad their embrace had helped hide their features, yet he knew the close encounter had worked against him.Bryn had been badly shaken by the near miss.
And he was at a loss as to why she was loath to go along with him on this.
Micah’s phone rang, startling him.A sense of relief hit when Di’s name flashed on the screen.Bryn abruptly reached over to press the end call button.
“What are you doing?”Micah stared at her in confusion.“I need to talk to her about our plan.”
“That’s your plan, not mine.”She sighed.“I think we need to check out the data center before we take the irrevocable step of buying fake identities.”He recognized the stubborn tilt to her chin.“I know we’d hoped to get information from my coworkers, but we also planned to check out the data center, right?”
He battled back a wave of frustration.It was hard not to take her reluctance to go along with his plan personally.“We did mention that, yeah, but things have changed.”
“Please, Micah.Let’s just check the place out before we do anything drastic.”He found it difficult to ignore her imploring gaze.
“And if we don’t find anything useful?”He searched her gaze.“Then what?”
She was quiet for a long, tense moment.“I’m not sure.”She looked away.“I need some time to think about it.”
“Okay.”He realized that continuing to argue wasn’t going to help.The next exit was two miles away.He took it so that he could turn around to head back to Madison.
Or more specifically to Wild Prairie where the partially constructed new data center was located.The city was a few miles west of Madison.It went against his instincts to return to the city where every cop was on high alert for Bryn, but maybe once she realized the data center wasn’t going to help them get to the truth, she’d be more amendable to the idea of leaving.
The phone rang again, and this time, he quickly answered.“Hey, Di, thanks for getting back to me.”
“Are you sure about the IDs and passports?”she asked.“You need to know they’re going to cost a pretty penny.”
“Put a hold on that for now,” he said, earning a sigh of relief from Bryn.“I still think we’re going to need them, and I’m happy to pay the going price, but we have something we need to check on first.”
Di was silent for a moment.“Okay, that’s fine.But the new documents are going to take time.It’s not like they can be turned around in a couple of hours.”
He should have anticipated that.“I understand.Hold tight until we get back in touch with you.”
“Understood.And, Mick, I hope you find another way out of the jam you’re in.”With that, Di ended the call.
A gnawing uncertainty grated on his nerves.Was he doing the right thing in sweeping Bryn away from all of this?It was certainly a better option than allowing her to go to jail for Richard’s crimes.
His nerves tightened with every mile that drew them closer to Madison.Maybe he should have tried to alter their license plate?He wouldn’t put it past Gwen to have called the police to report Bryn’s visit.The only good news is that they’d parked far enough away that Gwen had no way of knowing what vehicle they were driving.
He’d rented the SUV under his own name, rather than Grayson’s Guardians.It was too late to go back and change that now.
“Do you know where the data center is located?”Bryn’s question broke the prolonged silence.“I don’t have the address memorized off the top of my head.”
“I’ll find it.”He tapped the map application on the console computer screen.Bringing up the search bar, he gestured to her.“Type the name in, would you?”
“Sure.”She did so, and a moment later, the screen zoomed in on the location of the data center.He was somewhat surprised it showed up as it was new construction, and that often took a while to make its way onto the various maps.“Wow, it looks like it’s out in the middle of nowhere.”
“Best place for a data center, right?”He tried to smile, but his face felt tight with fear and worry.He tried to tell himself that going to the data center on a Sunday was better than trying this during the week.Supposedly, the construction had been halted, but there was no guarantee the place would be deserted.
“Thank you for doing this,” Bryn said.
He nodded.“I want to do whatever is best for you.”
“I appreciate that.”She frowned a little, then glanced back out her window.“I feel like we at least need to try to find evidence against Richard.”
Evidence wasn’t likely to be sitting out in plain sight in the middle of a half-built data center, but he didn’t voice his dire thoughts.He’d promised to help her, so that’s exactly what he’d do.
