“I’ll get it running right now.” His fingers flew over his keyboard.
“Then both of you should turn in,” Micha said.
“Gonna be hard after that surprise.” Ava blinked. “Not that it likely matters, right? If she had nothing to do with her family, they sure wouldn’t be involved in this.”
“Not likely.”
“Okay, search running and queued up on the server back at my cabin.” Colin closed his laptop. “It’ll run while we sleep, and hopefully we’ll wake up to some helpful information.”
“I’m tired enough to sleep, that’s for sure, but still not sure I can,” Ava said. “Mind if I use the bed by the fire again?”
Mind? Yeah.Every sense in Micha’s body was attuned to her movements, and her sleeping in the same room where he could watch her didn’t help. But he also liked knowing she was nearby, and he had eyes on her to be sure she was okay.
“Be my guest.” He smiled.
“I won’t have a problem dropping off.” Colin stretched “I know you plan to keep watch all night, but wake me if you change your mind, and I’ll take a shift.”
Ava looked up at Micha. “You won’t sleep because we can’t track Layne, right?”
“Right,” Micha said. “But don’t worry. It’s very unlikely he knows where we are.”
She nodded, but her eyes were dark with worry as she slid fully dressed, boots and all, into the sleeping bag. Micha stoked the fire and went to sit at the table facing the door, his sidearm resting on his knee.
Hours passed. Slowly ticking with the old battery-powered wall clock in the shape of a big mouth bass with the hands in its belly area. The only other sound was the rain beating against the roof and an occasional hoot of an owl to keep Micha awake.
Well, that and maybe also watching Ava as she slept. Despite her concern about dropping off, she did, after tossing and turning for an hour or so. He enjoyed seeing her relaxed. Peaceful and not afraid. Would they still be together when this was all over, and he could see her at peace all the time?
He wanted that. A lot. More than he’d known.
He yawned and slapped his cheeks to stay awake. He would make coffee if it wouldn’t wake Ava and Colin. But only a few hours until daylight when he could brew it extra strong in the old percolator they used in the fireplace. He could also relax a notch because they could visually see if a threat lurked outside their door. Right now the night was pitch black, and anything he might be able to see was obscured by rain.
A gunshot rang out from outside the cabin, splitting the quiet. Then a second one.
Colin came to his knees from the mattress, reaching for his sidearm.
Micha dove for the lantern, switching it off and plunging the room into darkness. “Stay down, Ava!”
Terrified eyes peered up at him in the firelight. “That’s gunfire, right?”
“Right.”
Two more loud reports.
Boom. Boom.
One after the other.
“Doesn’t sound like he’s firing at us, but it’s coming from a short distance away.” Colin stayed low and eased up on the living area window.
“Stay down and follow me, Ava,” Micha commanded as he crawled behind the refrigerator, his sidearm in hand, to the safest place in the room. Sure, the log walls would keep bullets out, leaving the windows and door as the most penetrable surfaces, but slugs could get through the chinking between logs, too.
She scrambled behind him and tried to sit up.
He rested his free hand on her shoulder. “Stay down. Less of a target that way.”
Colin reached the small window by the door. Pulled back the curtain.
“One man,” Colin shouted. “Handgun. Passing our vehicles now, on his way toward us. I can’t make him out in this rain.”
