At the turn off that led to Houghton Barratt’s estate.
It was entirely possible they had already been found. And they knew enough to know Madison had connections with the Barratts. Of course they did, she’d stayed with Melody Barratt after the choir hall shooting. Gunnar and Powell had stayed there.
People knew that. And they had to have anticipated…
“What are we going to do?”
“Just keep driving. We’ll find a place to stop for the night and regroup. We’ll get ahold ofourpeople when we can.” Because he strongly suspected this wasn’t just an attack on him—or her—it was a way to lure as many Major Crimes out as possible. Now that they had so many off wounded—now would be a really damned good time to take out the rest of them.
Major Crimes was beinghunted.
“Just keep driving. I…I…can do that. I am trusting you not to be lying to me right now, Dominic Vincent. Just don’t…bleed to death all over my car.”
“Just drive. We’ll just stay hidden as long as we have to.”
“We can call Jake or Murdoch or?—”
“And possibly bring them right into an ambush, too. Hell, we might have just been the damned bait.”
“They’ll find your truck eventually.”
“Just drive. I’ll text them when we get out of here.”
63
Just keepdriving,Mad Mads. Just keep driving.
Wasn’t there a cartoon Disney fish thatjust kept swimming,or something like that?
Her seats would never be the same. Madison was sure there would be a Dom-shaped bloodstain on the passenger seat forever. The thought made her want to vomit. She looked at him again as she drove the long, narrow highway that led out of Finley Creek.
Madison just kept driving. Until they were well into Oklahoma.
She didn’t know where else to go—back to Hughes Heights was completely out of the question. She didn’t trust the guards there one bit. And they might have been followed. She reached out and touched him. He didn’t feel like he was feverish yet. But she knew how gunshot wounds worked. And he was sleeping next to her. Here they were fleeing for their lives and he was asleep.
There was meaning in that, and not the good kind.
No. She knew he was hurt worse than he was saying.
Madison just kept driving. For…two hours. She’d taken a few side routes every time she’d seen a TSP car between the Oklahoma border and Finley Creek. They were just supposed to kill time until they could get back to where they would besafe.
She suspected he was going to tuck her up somewhere out of the way and then go hunt the bad guys again. It was how he operated. Caveman go hunt, after all.
He made a sound in his sleep that had her slowing a little to look at him.
Then…he was just snoring. For some reason that sound almost reassured her. He had been up for a few days, with just panther-naps in between. He was too wild to be considered catnapping. He was far more primitive.
Now, here they were. Driving a long and lonely highway, with the bad guys probably behind them…somewhere.
Finally, the GPS told her to take the final turn. The driveway she’d been told about was almost a quarter of a mile long. Or maybe it was a road, she wasn’t sure, and it was dark out and kind of creepy. But she thought they would be safe there for the night. Maybe.
People weren’t safe anywhere. She knew that very well now.
But unless someone had put a tracker on her car or something—or were tracking their phones—no one would think she would comehere.And that was better than a hotel, right?
The house was right there. It wasn’t a super big house at all. Just…normal for the year it had most likely been built.
But maybe in the daylight it would have been more welcoming.
