Chapter 37 Catfish
CATFISH
Margie has the radio set to play classic yacht rock songs. Michael McDonald. Kenny Loggins. Steely Dan. They all blend seamlessly into one another as she packs up my order.
The conversation is rowdy as the coffee pots hiss and the grills sizzle.
I wave over to Wraith, who sits in his usual booth with Fen and Raven. Fen’s mouth is covered with ketchup as he eats a fistful of fries. The kid is growing like a weed.
“You need cutlery for this?” Margie shouts.
“Nah, we’re good, Margie, thanks. Taking it back home to eat it.”
A plate clatters, followed by the scraping of chairs.
“You see that—?”
“Holy…that truck just…”
“Spun like a top!”
The voices all come at once, and my head snaps. Those in seats by the window are craning their necks, cheeks pushed up against the glass, to see what is happening outside.
I don’t remember moving toward the door. Margie calls my name.
The view from the window tells me everything I need to know. My truck is no longer there.
Everything in me goes empty, for a second, then slams full of adrenaline and panic.
“Wraith,” I shout out over the top of everybody. But I’m out the door before I’m certain he’s responded. Sleet and snow hit my face like shards of broken glass.
I look left, then right, and in the road are tracks in the snow that show a truck was out of control for a hot minute. And at the very end of Main Street, I see taillights disappear.
“Holy shit,” Wraith says as we start to run. “Wren in there?”
“Where’s your truck?” I yell.
“Up by the hardware store, let’s go.”
I tug out my phone and dial. “Atom,” I say without waiting for a greeting. “Chase took Wren. Are you at the bar?” I hold my breath that he’s at the apartment above it.
“I am. Where are you?”
“We’ll be swinging by in less than a minute in Wraith’s truck. Be outside, or we’ll just ride straight past.”
Breathless, I hang up without waiting for an answer. I need to think.
“Good idea calling Atom. Safety in numbers,” Wraith says.
“We gotta fucking get Wren. You saw what Chase wanted to do to them.”
“Don’t go there.” The truck’s headlights flash as Wraith unlocks the doors. “It’s a dangerous thing to make up endings before they happen.”
We dive into the truck and Wraith guns the engine so hard, the back of the truck fishtails when we turn the corner.
“Are you sure it’s Chase? Did you see him?” Wraith asks. “Is Wren maybe trying to escape or some shit? Did you argue?”
“No. Nothing at all like that. We were just picking up dinner. We were great. Chase is the only reason.”
I notice Wraith is just in a shirt and his cut. He didn’t bother to grab his jacket. Just ran when I needed him. It’s a reminder the others will too.
“I’ll call for more backup,” I say, more to myself. The need to do something burns. Because just sitting in the truck isn’t enough.
The heat is on high, the fan blowing. I feel like my skull is about to implode because everything I’m afraid of is happening.
“Grudge,” I say when he answers. “Chase…he got…fuck…he got Wren. They drove off east down Main Street.”
“I’ll call the lookout on the edge of town to see if he spots them. Do you know what vehicle they’re in?”
“My truck.”
“Share your live location in the chat. You alone?”
I see Atom run from the apartment entrance at the side of the bar. He’s wearing a denim shirt, but in his arms are a random assortment of weapons and a bundle of clothing.
“No, I’m with Wraith and Atom in Wraith’s truck.”
“Stick together. I’ll gather the others. We’ll get Wren back, River. It’s what we do.”
As I hang up and share my location as Grudge asked, I realize I can’t remember the last time he called me by my first name.
Wraith skids to a halt by Atom, who jumps into the rear of the truck while the wheels are still sliding. “I brought shit. Didn’t know what we needed. What the fuck happened?”
I fill him in. The last-minute decision to grab food. Leaving Wren in the truck. The truck screaming out of town.
“Fuck,” Atom mutters. He slides his arms into his thick jacket and pulls his coat over the top. “I brought some handguns and a shotgun.”
“We might need ‘em,” I say.
Bile rises in my stomach. I’m gonna puke if I don’t do something. “Fuck,” I mutter.
“I grew up on these roads,” Wraith says. “There’s no way some fucknut from out of town can go faster around these bends in snow than I can.”
“It’s gonna be an impossible trail to follow,” I say, immediately overwhelmed.
“Keep your head,” Atom says. “We’ll find Wren. It’s a non-negotiable.”
His phone rings, and then he answers. “Grudge.”
I can’t hear what our president says. Atom just murmurs acknowledgement and then hangs up with one word: “Thanks.”
I force my chest to do something akin to breathing while I scan the road for signs of them. Panic is a poor tool, so I focus on the ground, trying to keep tire tracks in my sight.
“What did he say?”
“Jackal and Shade were at the garage, disposing of Mika’s hardware. They’re two minutes behind us.”
When I was younger, there was a restless part of me that hated living in a one-road town. Today, I’m grateful that it makes getting to Wren easier. It’s still another two miles until the next town, where we might lose the trail.
“He can’t have Wren, Atom,” I say.
Atom reaches between the seats and squeezes my shoulder. “You gotta remove the what-ifs from your mind, brother. We need a clear head.”
I nod, but everything in me is hurting, like my bones are tuning forks struck too hard. “I need information,” I say. “I’m calling Vex.”
Wraith puts his hand out to stop me. “If you tell Vex, he’ll tell King. King’ll be pissed.”
“I’d piss off Satan if I thought it would get Wren back quicker. And if he stops paying us to look out for Wren, I’ll go without. I’ll cash in shit. I’ll sell every fucking thing I own. But I’m doing this.”
“Shit, sorry,” Wraith says. “You’re right. Do it. If anyone can find a digital breadcrumb, it will be him and Calista.”
The phone rings four times. “Catfish, what’s up?’
“Chase took Wren. They’re in my truck. I’d just popped into the diner to pick up food. Eastbound out of town. We’re behind them, losing the trail. I need every trick you’ve got.”
“One sec…Calista, honey, grab your laptop. We need to help Wren. Chase got them.”
“Did Wren have their phone?” Calista asks.
“Yes, but they use one of those Faraday bags to carry it in. So maybe it won’t work,” I say.
“I’m gonna try anyway,” Calista says. “On the off chance Wren got it out to look at something while they were waiting for you to come out again.”
The positive action feels good.
“You can track it if it wasn’t in the bag?”
“Maybe,” Vex answers. “Even a locked phone will handshake with towers. If the battery’s alive, we can probably triangulate.”
“Probably?”
“Atmospheric interference, elevation, whatever can all mess with signal scatter. But if they’re moving, we’ll get a pattern.”
We approach the first turn we’ve met.
“Stop,” Atom says. “Let me check whether they turned by looking for tracks.”
“Good idea,” Wraith says, pulling to a stop.
“What else can you do?” I ask Vex as I watch Atom hustle around the front of the truck, crouch closer to the road, then bounce back to his feet. “What about my truck GPS?”
“Straight,” Atom says when he climbs back in. He calls someone on his phone and relays that detail to whoever he’s speaking to.
“I’ll do it. No promises,” Vex says. “But we’ll throw every goddamn thing we can think of at it.”
“And Catfish,” Calista says, “you need to hang up. Wren’s smart, and they’ll probably try to get a message to you. When Wren told me they thought they were falling in love with you, I told them to fall hard. So, you better catch them when you find them.”
“I will. Call Atom if you find anything.”
The call ends, and the truck is swallowed by the sound of tires crunching over compacted snow. The headlights sweep ahead, and every bend feels like another chance to miss them.
It feels like it takes forever for Atom to get out of the truck to make decisions on left or right. By the fourth time we do it, headlights pull up behind us with a flash. Atom looks out of the rear window and gives them a salute. “It’s Jackal and Shade.”
Long, painful minutes drag by. My phone sits in my sweating palm. I look at it as if Wren’s face is gonna appear on it any second.
“C’mon,” Atom mutters. “Send us something, Vex.”
When we reach the edge of town, my heart sinks. From here, the road goes in five different directions, so Wraith pulls over to the side. “Which way do you want to go? We can send Jackal and Shade off down one of the other routes.”
“Where could he take Wren? Maybe a private airfield. Couldn’t be the airport. Too public and Wren wouldn’t play nice.”
Then, my phone screen lights.
One vibration.
Half a second.
Then, a notification I missed a call.
But before I can react, it happens again.
“I think Wren’s trying to call.” I fumble the keys, trying to find their number to call back.
Atom’s phone rings, and we look at it hopefully. “It’s Vex.”
But it’s Calista’s voice that shouts, “Do not answer or dial that phone.”
I drop my phone as if it’s burning me. “Why?”
My phone pings again. “I need to fucking call Wren.”
Atom switches to speaker phone.
“Don’t,” Calista says. “Wren obviously can’t talk. I’m guessing they found a discrete way to call and hang up to give us multiple pings on the tower. If you call, Chase might realize they have their phone.”
I’m not sure what a heart attack feels like, but when I imagine Wren at the other end of this signal, likely terrified, knowing full well what this man wants to do to them, I feel like my whole chest is about to detonate.
“Find them,” I plead.
“Got it,” Vex says. “Wren’s phone bounced off a tower near an old industrial strip.”
He gives us the approximate location, and Wraith pulls back out onto the road so fast, his tires spin.
“How many warehouses are there?” Atom asks.
“Eight,” Vex breathes. “You’ll have to clear them quietly, or he’ll know you’re coming.”