Chapter 21
“You understand what to do?” Logan asked Bree.
She nodded. Her face was pale and her cheeks were wet with tears, but Logan knew she’d do what he’d told her. He had no idea if his plan would work or not, but he had to take a chance.
“Mister?” he asked, but the music was too loud for the man to hear him.
Clearing his throat, Logan tried again. “Mark?”
The man heard him that time. He leaned forward and turned the music down. “What?”
“I gotta pee,” Logan said.
“Hold it,” the man said.
Logan shook his head. “I can’t,” he whined. “I drank a lot before I left school and I really gotta go. I’m gonna pee all over the seat if you don’t stop.”
The man swore under his breath. Logan couldn’t hear all his words, but the ones he did hear, he knew were some of the really bad words he wasn’t supposed to say.
But it seemed as if his plan was working. The man pulled off the interstate and headed down a country road.
Shoot. Logan had hoped he would pull into a gas station, but it didn’t look like there were any around. All he saw here were a few farmhouses and lots of scrub brush, with some trees in the distance.
“Go to the trees,” Logan whispered to Bria.
She nodded, and Logan squeezed her hand.
He held on as the man pulled off onto the side of the road.
There were some spindly trees on the side they were parked on, but off in the distance, to their left, there were much larger and thicker trees.
Logan gestured to the left with his head, and Bria nodded.
“Well, come on. You had to go so bad a second ago, what’cha waiting for?” the man asked gruffly.
Logan opened the door on his side and left it partly open as he walked around the car to the small trees. The man followed him with a weird smile on his face. This was working better than Logan had hoped, but he still didn’t like that the man was following him so closely.
“I’ll be right back,” he said.
The man shook his head. “I’m not lettin’ you out of my sight, boy-o. You go right here while I watch.”
Logan shivered. He didn’t like the way the man was looking at him. And he definitely didn’t want to pee in front of him.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Bria cross the street and take off running as fast as she could across the field on the other side of the road.
Unfortunately, the man who called himself Mark saw her too.
“Shit!” he swore, taking a few steps toward the car, as if he was going to run after her.
Logan got ready to run in the other direction, but then the man stopped himself and stalked back to where he was standing.
He grabbed Logan’s arm and started dragging him toward the car.
Logan struggled, but he was no match for the man.
A car drove by, and Mark froze, staring at the vehicle.
Then he swore again and stalked around to the driver’s side. He slammed the back door Bria had exited and threw Logan into the front. “Climb over, and don’t even think about doing anything to piss me off.”
Scared at the man’s tone, Logan did as he was told. He climbed over the center console and huddled in the front passenger seat. He was scared to death, happy Bria had gotten away, but now he was left alone with this crazy man.
Mark slammed his door and hit the door locks. Then he pulled back onto the road and did a U-turn. He pressed on the gas and the car shot forward. All the while, the man mumbled under his breath about pain-in-the-ass kids.
As they drove back toward the interstate, Logan did his best to memorize the area they were in.
He desperately looked for landmarks and street signs.
He’d told Bria to run and hide, and not to come out until the Easter Bunny came for her, their secret words so she’d know she was safe.
He refused to think about what would happen to her if he wasn’t able to come back.
“You’re going to pay for that,” the man said, before reaching for the knob on the stereo once more.
He turned the heavy metal music up even louder than it had been before.
Logan brought his hands up and covered his ears, trying to mute the sound a little.
Tears fell from his eyes as he stared out the window.
He was scared to death and afraid he’d never see his sister again. Or Oz. Or Riley.
Oz sat in the front seat of Lefty’s truck and frantically scanned each driveway they passed.
Grover had overheard the officers discussing the last known address for Miles Bowen, as well as what kind of car he drove.
The police had put out an Amber Alert for Bria and Logan, but Oz wasn’t willing to sit around and wait for a stranger to call in a tip. He had to be out looking.
He’d heard from Gillian not too long ago that Riley was going to be all right. She was sore, and scared to death, and the doctors in the emergency room had said the fact that she was alive was a miracle.
Oz wanted to be with her, but Riley had told Gillian to tell him under no circumstances should he come to the hospital. She was all right. He needed to find their kids. So that’s what he was doing.
Although, he and his team had a hell of a lot less information than when they went out on missions. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack, and Oz was absolutely terrified.
“A tip’s been called in,” Lucky said from the back seat.
He’d been on the phone nonstop, calling anyone and everyone for information.
He’d received a call a moment ago, but Oz hadn’t even noticed.
Every time he hung up, the phone immediately rang once more.
Oz had never been so glad for all the connections on the police force the team had made over the years.
Whoever was passing information to Lucky probably wasn’t supposed to be sharing, but he was relieved someone was helping them.
“Someone saw the Amber Alert notice on the billboards on the interstate and called in. Said they saw a gray Kia on the side of the road about ten miles north of Killeen. A man was pulling a boy toward the car.”
“What road?”
“I don’t know.”
“What about Bree?”
“Nothing was said about a girl,” Lucky answered.
“Fuck!” Oz swore.
“It’s something,” Doc soothed from the back seat. “It’s more than we had before.”
Lefty stepped on the gas and headed out of the neighborhood they’d been searching and turned his truck toward the interstate.
Oz held his breath, feeling helpless.
“The cops have spotted a gray Kia Rio on the interstate,” Lucky informed them. He’d opened a scanner app on his phone and was tapped into the frequency used by the cops searching for Miles.
“What direction?” Lefty asked.
“North.”
Oz saw the speedometer climb up to eighty-five.
Then ninety. Lefty wasn’t fucking around, and Oz couldn’t have been more thankful.
He wished Trigger hadn’t sold his Porsche.
He would’ve liked to have its speed right now.
Lefty wasn’t driving like a grandma, but the Porsche would’ve let them go even faster.
And right now, he needed to get to his kids as quickly as possible.
The landscape flew past, and Oz didn’t think he even breathed as they raced north, hopefully toward Logan and Bria.
“Miles isn’t stopping. He’s trying to outrun them. They put out spike strips a mile down the road… Fuck! He went around them and almost wrecked in the median, but gained control again. His Kia is no match for the cop cars. They’re right on his ass.”
Oz decided it was worse knowing what was going on, but not being able to do a damn thing to help.
“How far ahead of us are they?” Lefty asked.
Lucky looked for a mile marker. “Less than five miles.”
Oz couldn’t talk. His mouth was dry as cotton.
He was usually extremely levelheaded in emergencies, but he was completely useless right now.
All he could do was hold on and pray his kids wouldn’t be hurt when this chase came to an end.
And it would come to an end. They all knew that. It was just a matter of how.
Peacefully or in a fiery crash.
“Okay, they’re backing off a bit, giving him some room, they’re gonna try the stop sticks again another mile or so north of where they are.”
Lucky sounded excited, but Oz couldn’t find one damn thing to be excited about. Yeah, the stop sticks could pierce Miles’s tires, but that would just make the car more unstable at high speeds.
“They’re in place…he’s approaching…boom! Got him! All four tires! He’s on rims now, and the tires are smoking bad…he’s slowing down…”
Lucky went silent.
Lefty continued to tear up the interstate, trying desperately to catch up to the chase.
“What? What’s happening?” Doc asked.
Lucky held up a finger, telling Doc to wait.
Oz turned around to stare at his friend, trying to read his face. Had the car crashed? Were the kids okay? Was Miles in custody, or had he tried to use Logan or Bree as a hostage? But Lucky’s face was completely blank, not giving away anything.
Oz wanted to grab his friend by the collar and force him to talk, or grab the phone out of his hand and demand to know what the fuck was happening.
Then Lefty began to slow down.
Oz turned and saw what seemed like a company’s worth of police cars and lights ahead. Smoke turned the air hazy around the Kia, and he struggled to see what was going on. Cars were stopped in front of them, but Lefty simply pulled into the median and continued forward.
Oz felt as if his teeth were going to rattle out of his head, but he didn’t tell his friend to slow down. Instead, he mumbled, “Hurry.”
They stopped just behind where the police cars had blocked off the interstate, and Oz didn’t hesitate to leap out of the truck.
He began to run toward the still-smoking Kia, now facing the wrong way in the middle of the road.
It was surrounded by at least six cop cars, and all the police officers had their weapons drawn and were pointed toward the driver’s seat.
Movement from the left of the car caught his attention—an officer was running away from the Kia carrying a small body.