Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Jax motioned with one hand in a throwing motion across the street, probably ordering the woman to get to her house as quickly as possible.
The woman spun around, almost tangling herself in the dog leash, and hurried across the street.
She started to fast walk much too early, drawing attention to herself.
With the SUVs barreling down on her and them, there wasn’t much time.
Kenna tapped her foot, jogging her knee up and down while she watched her husband sprint around the front of the car and duck his head, climbing inside.
The door behind Kenna slammed, and Zeyla patted the shoulder of his seat. “Hit it.”
He slammed his foot down on the gas, and they set off. The car quickly gained traction.
Kenna looked in the side mirror to her right and saw the pursuing vehicles. “I’m guessing they’re going to follow us and not head into the house.”
“So far.”
“With three vehicles, one could stay at the house. That means our fan is in danger.”
Jax gripped the wheel with both hands. “You want me to hang back and she see if she’s okay?”
“I don’t know how we’re going to make sure all three cars follow us.” The wrong kind of person in those vehicles might stick around the neighborhood, track down the woman now hurrying into her house, and torture her until she told them everything. After which, her body would be disposed of.
Kenna said, “Keep driving. I’ll call 911 and report this to the police.”
When the dispatcher answered, she fumbled over what to say but, hopefully, got her point across.
Just because they were famous didn’t mean she could name-drop herself and get whatever she wanted.
The police in Pueblo might be aware that her team was here, but she would rather as few people as possible realized it.
Maizie said, “I think she got into her house.”
They were too far away to see now, and Jax swung the car around the corner. Kenna checked the mirror and watched the first SUV follow them. Seconds later, a second and third swung around the bend in the road. But that didn’t mean no one had jumped out back there to cause trouble.
Maizie continued, “You think the software company was watching everything we were doing in the house and sent them to retrieve what Shawn stole?”
Zeyla answered first. “I would be. If you know a traitor stole from you, you’re going to set up surveillance just in case someone else finds it.”
Kenna glanced back at Maizie, one hand gripping the bar on the inside of her door. “We have it. So now all we need to do is get away from them.”
The problem was that these people knew this town much better than her team. They were from here. Lived here. Worked here. Whoever was driving might even live around here.
Jax said, “Once we get on the freeway, we can get some space between us and them.”
She didn’t look at Maizie. Kenna didn’t want the young woman to see on her face that she wasn’t sure Jax’s plan would work. Three SUVs tailing them? It would be far too difficult to lose them, especially without having an elaborate plan set up.
“Any other ideas?” She glanced at Jax. “We could call Preston back at the house, but I don’t think his helicopter is nearby.”
“You want to stop long enough to climb into a helicopter?” He glanced at her for a second, then focused back on the road. Traffic was starting to build up, so he swung the car around the corner onto a side street leading away from the center of town. Keeping them in a more residential area.
Kenna tapped the dash screen and recalled the address for the ranch Preston had rented a month ago when the case started, purely so he could provide them with a place to stay.
The guy was an ex-con who had been accused of the murder of his wife and served his sentence.
He’d found Jesus through a prison ministry.
Also a billionaire, he was a guy with the resources to help them—and a dog in this fight, for sure—but Kenna didn’t like putting anyone else in danger unnecessarily.
Still, he’d insisted, and given how close she was to the birth of the baby, there wasn’t much point in arguing. Especially not when she got this car out of the deal.
“Maizie, is there any way to tell this thing we need a route that gets us to the ranch while also losing this tail?”
Maizie leaned forward and pointed. “Tap evasion.”
“Nice.” Kenna hit the button and watched it calculate the route they should take. “Zeyla, call ahead and tell Preston we might be coming in with some company.”
She didn’t want to let all the bad guys in this part of Colorado know where they were staying, but the security at Preston’s ranch was top-notch. And it was where she wanted to be right now rather than out here, exposed in the car.
Even with all its safeguards and security measures, she still felt vulnerable in a vehicle on the street traveling at high speed.
Jax turned the next corner sharply and hit the brakes. Two kids on bikes at a crosswalk wobbled and almost fell but made it across to the other side. He hit the gas and set off.
The first SUV rounded the corner behind them, and the front passenger’s window eased down.
“Zeyla, do you see a gun out the window?” In Kenna’s condition, she couldn’t twist around far enough to look, and the angle at her side mirror was terrible.
“We might need to duck our heads in a second,” Zeyla said. “Unless you guys want me to lean out the window and shoot him before he shoots us first.”
Maizie shimmied down in her seat. Kenna couldn’t get that low without sitting on the floor, and even that would be incredibly difficult if she didn’t ease the chair all the way back.
Kenna said, “Isn’t the police station up ahead?”
“The sheriff, yeah.” Jax nodded, taking them around another corner.
All of them leaned to the side, swaying with the movement of the vehicle. A second later, a gunshot exploded from the car behind them. She heard it hit the back quarter panel of the car. A dull thud that meant the bullet embedded itself in the armor plating.
“If we make a lot of noise,” Jax said, “maybe they’ll come out and chase these guys down for us.”
Maizie said, “Assuming they’re not in on it.” She looked scared, because who wouldn’t be right now? But she also seemed to be keeping a lid on the abject terror that probably wanted to rise up in her and send her into a spiral.
Kenna wasn’t doing as good of a job keeping a lid on the fear.
She wanted to reach for Jax but dared not distract him while he was driving.
So instead, she kept her grip on the door handle and closed her eyes for a second.
Long enough to pray silently that God would protect them through this and keep the baby safe.
That justice would be found for Shawn Terrance, and that the company that had destroyed his life—and the lives of many others—wouldn’t be allowed to continue terrorizing people.
“Hang on.” Jax hit the gas, and they sped up.
Kenna spotted a semitruck approaching the intersection in front of them from the left and guessed what her husband was about to do. But she didn’t like the idea of it even one bit. She prayed again for their safety and hung on while Jax performed his maneuver.
He managed to get them past the front end of the semi, then he hit the brakes and pulled up the emergency brake, using the wheel to make a sharp turn to the left and get them on the far side of the semi as fast as possible.
As the vehicle turned hard in that direction, the abrupt change shoved Kenna into the door.
The driver of the semi laid on the horn, but Jax put the emergency brake down and hit the gas.
From the back seat, Zeyla said, “Take another turn or two, and we can lose them.”
Jax scanned the road in front of them, and she saw when he did the slow-down signal for the school zone. He took a right turn behind the row of stores on Main Street, taking them into a sort of alley.
“What about the dumpster?” Kenna suggested.
“Too big.”
She assumed that meant the car was too big to be disguised by the huge trash can on the side of the building. They reached the gap between a chicken restaurant and a clothing store. A street led between the two into the neighborhood where the school was located.
Jax turned the corner again, just not as fast as before. Kenna took the opportunity to watch for the SUVs and saw one pass the end of the alley, while another pulled in. She wasn’t sure if they saw her Mercedes disappear around the corner.
“I think we still have one behind us.” She shifted in the seat, and the car speakers instructed them to continue straight for two hundred yards.
Jax complied, probably for lack of another idea of where to go in this open parking lot. The second the SUV behind them turned the corner, they would be able to see this vehicle. Their pursuers would alert the others, and in minutes, all three SUVs would be back behind them.
The voice from the speakers said, “Proceed into the car wash.”
Jax bumped the curb into the car wash entry and sped around the corner.
Within seconds, they were in the darkened interior of the car wash, staring at a very surprised employee.
The pimply faced teen wearing a company ball cap and a polo shirt stared at them, then promptly waved at the selections beside him.
Jax shook his head, whipped the wheel to the right, and bumped them out of the lane. He drove down the aisle through the car wash while the cleaner mops remained stationary. The side of the car brushed against one, and metal scraped metal.
Kenna winced. It didn’t sound good, but this vehicle could withstand a whole lot more.
At the end, Jax eased them to a stop, where hot air pelted the car.
“How do we know when the coast is clear?” Maizie asked from the back seat.
Zeyla unclipped her seat belt. “I’ll go check. And I’ll tell that kid back there not to call the police on us.”
She shoved open her door and climbed out, jogging back toward the employee.
Jax peered at the rearview mirror. “You okay back there, Maze?”
“Family outings with you guys are so fun.”
Kenna looked at her, and they shared a smile. For a long time in her life, she probably would have forced a confrontation with those men purely to find out who they were and what they wanted. But those days hadn’t lasted long, and in this season of her life, she had far too much to lose.
After years of solitary existence, she had invited these people and others into her life in a way that she would not be the same without them. As someone who knew exactly what it felt like to be destroyed by grief, she wanted to shy away from caring about them. But that wasn’t what family meant.
Not anymore.