I was about to ask her who Darby’s father was when I spotted the worry in Preacher’s eyes. The answer was painfully obvious.
My father looked up at the clock on the wall in the kitchen. “We’ve got forty minutes. Do we stay and fight or keep running?”
“We leave here, where do we go?” Cammie said.
I thought of Stella in the other room. She’d wither away and die if I didn’t find a way to help her soon. She’d die in that bed while the rest of us died out here, perched in windows and doors in some desperate last stand. Worse, if what my father said was true, they’d kill him, Hobson, Cammie, and Dalton, then drag Stella, me, and Cammie’s daughter away somewhere, lock us up like they did with David. Staying here, all the guns, that did nothing but buy us a little time.
“We’ll get slaughtered if we stay here,” I said softly. “I need to use your phone,” I said. “I’ve got an idea.”
“No calls,” Preacher said.
My father nodded at the extension hanging on the wall in the kitchen. “Go ahead.”
Preacher grumbled but did nothing to stop me as I crossed the room, picked up the line, and dialed.
When I hung up five minutes later, my father glanced back at the clock, then forced his beaten body to stand. “They’re coming from the pass and the ferry. I’ve got another way off this island, but you all need to trust me.”
Cammie and Preacher started to gather the weapons on the counter.
My father said, “Cabinet above the refrigerator. There’s a leather duffle bag up there—grab it—we take the documents, nothing else. They’re our only real leverage.”
“We need the guns,” Preacher insisted.
My father shook his head. “Too much weight.”
14
“Pull your shit together, Fogel,” she muttered, surprised by the sound of her own voice. She wiped the tears from her eyes with the palms for hands, then wiped the snot from her nose on the sleeve of her jacket.
Fogel stood up straight.
She sucked in a deep breath through her nose and let it out through her mouth.
Her eyes landed on the display of Trudeau’s MacBook, open on his desk.
White text superimposed at the top left corner stated the current date and time, seconds ticking off. The bottom right simply said, CHARTER OBSERVATION TEAM 309 – SUBJECT “D” – LEVEL 2 SUB 3.
The image was blank.
Trudeau stared forward, the butt of the pen sticking out of his ear with surprisingly little blood. Several drops found their way to the white jacket of his suit.
Fogel turned back to the Mac, pulling it closer.
Trudeau had several programs open—spreadsheets, a web browser, e-mail. She brought up his e-mails first and scrolled through his inbox. 6,324 unread messages.
Fogel was a stickler for a clean inbox, virtual or otherwise, and so many messages, so much clutter, made her twitchy. Brier never deleted his messages after reading them. His inbox had always been like this.
Not really like this.
Trudeau’s messages were all bold, unread. As if he didn’t check his e-mail.
Fogel scrolled back through the messages, scanning the subjects.
Lower your mortgage.
Movie and showtimes.
Advertisements for local car dealerships.
