Chapter Thirty-Five
Avery and Ryan took one of Baldwin’s ATVs across his property to the land bridge that Baldwin had built over Whisper Creek, at the point where it met his property line—or now Verdacorp’s property line, Avery thought.
It was practically all her mom and Jake talked about the last ten days—Verdacorp buying up land or Jake deciding not to go to college.
It had been tense around the house, and Avery wished they wouldn’t argue.
Ryan stopped the ATV as the headlights revealed a swollen creek that reached the underside of the land bridge, at the very top of the large pipe culvert that Baldwin had put in to direct the creek into the man-made lake.
“I’ve never seen it so high,” Ryan said. “Is the bridge going to hold?”
In the dry season, the lake always had some water because of irrigation overflow and Baldwin’s own system, but during spring it helped with both irrigation and flood control. It was wider than she’d ever seen it before.
They had already had to drive around flooded fields and the lake to reach this point, and Avery wasn’t going to be thwarted now.
“Yes,” she said, though she didn’t know. “It’s reinforced with the culvert, horses and ATVs have gone over it hundreds of times.” It was wide enough for a small tractor. Though the ATV was idling, she could hear the roar of the fast-moving water.
“Ryan,” she said, “go. Now.” She was nervous, but she had to get home. She had to make sure her family was okay.
He pressed the throttle and they moved forward slowly. Water splashed up from the creek that looked and sounded more like a river. But they made it across, and Avery breathed easier.
They drove along the higher western bank of the creek, which was a well-packed path.
Avery spared a glance across the creek—the eastern fields were flooded, and she knew her mother’s beloved vineyard she’d planted with Dad wouldn’t survive.
She hoped the western plot made it, because she didn’t like to see her mother sad.
They came toward the barn from the east, and Avery was surprised the barn lights were out and no one had started the generator.
“Hey, Avery, that’s my truck,” Ryan said as he released the throttle and they stopped on the far side of the barn, where they wouldn’t be seen from the house.
The lights were on in the house, and when Ryan spoke, she realized the vehicle parked next to the porch steps was, in fact, his truck.
Avery lurched forward, but Ryan pulled her back. “Be smart,” he said.
“That woman took your truck and now she’s here! Why?”
“Shh,” he said. “The front door is opening.”
Ryan turned off the ATV and they ducked into the barn and squatted in one of the stalls, the one that housed Sir Lancelot, her mom’s favorite horse. A minute later, the main barn door opened and Avery heard Rena say, “Hurry.”
“I am.”
Lyla. Her sister was with Rena.
A flashlight shined around the barn, and Avery instinctively shrank as small as she could.
Lyla and Rena went into the small office.
Lyla said something, but Avery couldn’t make it out.
Then Rena said, “As soon as possible, we’ll leave.
We don’t want to hurt anyone. This whole thing just got out of control. ”
“You can always change your path,” Lyla said. “You don’t have to do what you’ve always done.”
“You’re a kid. You live here. You have parents who love you. You have no idea what the real world is like.”
Avery strained to hear what Lyla said, but the jangle of keys drowned her out and then they were gone.
Still, Avery waited a minute before speaking.
“They opened the medicine cabinet, I’m almost positive. Rena’s brother was seriously hurt, he was shot when they robbed Greg Baldwin. That’s why they’re here! How did they know my mom was a nurse?”
“Maybe they didn’t. Maybe they just got lucky.”
“But they came here specifically, we’re not even off a main road. How did they find us? They must have learned from someone that my mom is a nurse.”
“A lot of people know your mom is a nurse. I don’t think it’s all that strange.”
Avery thought, shrugged. It didn’t matter how they knew, what mattered was that these people were here and could hurt her family.
“We have to do something,” Avery said and jumped up.
He pulled her back down. “Stop and think for a second. They have guns. We don’t. My dad can’t get up here. No one can. We don’t even have a working radio with us.”
“But— What if— That’s my family, Ryan! I can’t sit here and wait for something bad to happen to them.”
He was thinking, and so was she. “What if,” Avery said, forcing herself to be as calm and rational as possible under the circumstances, “we walk around to the mudroom door. We stay low so they can’t see us out the window.
I don’t think they can hear us over the rain if we’re careful.
We can sneak in or at least look through a window and see what’s going on. ”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he said, then admitted, “but I don’t have a better one.”
They determined that the best way to get onto the porch without being seen was to go around the house’s north side.
The living room and dining room faced the driveway—the kitchen faced south, which was next to the mudroom, which had the door they usually used to avoid tracking dirt through the living areas.
The kitchen, dining, and living room were all lit up.
But the west side of the house was her grandma’s room and the den, where they watched television and used the computer.
It was most likely no one was in those rooms, so no one would be able to see them approach if they went around the north and down the west side of the house to the mudroom door.
She hoped.
Though the rain had lightened to a steady drizzle, the wind was fierce, driving the small raindrops into her face as they stayed low and close to the barn and garage.
They would have to run across the driveway, but it was so dark now Avery didn’t think anyone would notice unless they were standing on the porch looking directly at them.
As they ran, Avery thought she heard something. She hesitated, looked down the driveway and saw fog lights reflecting off the rain, surprisingly close. Ryan pushed her down into the mud and they both landed with a grunt.
Was this one of the bad guys? Maybe Brock, the man who had scared the Mendozas, meeting his wife here? To do something bad to her family? Or …
“Ryan? Avery?”
“Uncle Travis?” she said.
Her uncle climbed out of the passenger seat. “I heard you were kidnapped by the people who robbed Baldwin.”
She hugged him tightly. “Yeah,” she said into his chest. She realized then that the truck was Jake’s, and she walked over to the passenger door and leaned in, looked around. “Jake? You have Bobby, right?” She didn’t see him in the back. Panic flared. “Ohmigod, he’s still out there, he’s—”
“At my house,” Travis said. “Safe and sound.”
“Really?” she asked. “You’re sure?”
“Or course I’m sure,” Travis said with a smile. “You okay?”
She nodded, as she forced her heart to slow down. “I just— I was so, so worried about him.”
“Long story,” Jake said. “I wasn’t certain we’d get through the flooded road, so thought he’d be safer there with the dogs.”
Avery breathed easier, then said, “The woman who kidnapped me is inside with Mom. I don’t know who else. We were going to look in through the windows.”
“We need a plan,” Jake said. “Climb in and tell me what you know.”
Ellen stared at Brock and Rena who were still standing in the entry between the dining room and the living room.
“Where is my daughter?” she asked again. “You promised to tell me where you left her.”
They looked at each other, then Brock said, “There was an accident.”
Ellen shook her head, not believing what she was hearing. “Where. Is. She.” When they didn’t respond, she pounded her fist against the wall. “I just saved your brother’s life, tell me where my daughter is!”
“At the end of Hopper Road, right where it turns to the one-lane county road that goes to Privett,” Rena said.
Her eyes burned, her gut churned, but she asked as calmly as possible, “Is she alive?”
“I believe so,” Rena said quietly.
“Go get her,” Brock said. “I’m not going to stop you. I’m sorry about all of this, really I am.”
Ellen wanted to scream. Her daughter was out in the storm after an accident and these people had just left her.
Brock continued. “You get Sam to the hospital tomorrow, okay? And we’ll go. We’ll leave. And you can get your daughter.”
“You won’t make it out tonight,” Ellen said.
“We live in the middle of tens of thousands of acres of farmland. There are no paved roads. Drainage ditches are flooded. Rock Creek is flooded, so you can’t go that way, and you’ll be lucky to get out to the south, Mule Run that cuts across the valley is also flooded. ”
“We’ll take our chances,” Brock said.
“Take me to Avery,” Ellen said.
“And leave you there?”
“You know exactly where she is, I don’t. Please. Hopper Road is miles long. There are at least six intersections. It’s dark. What if I miss her? What if she’s wandering the roads? Please!”
“We have to,” Rena said to Brock. “She saved Sam. We have to do this.”
He looked pained. Ellen didn’t give them the opportunity to change their minds.
Ellen ran to the mudroom to get her jacket, and Rena walked over to Sam. He was still unconscious, but his chest rose slowly up and down, up and down.
Ellen said to Lyla, “If he wakes up, inject him with this.” She put a premeasured syringe on the hutch. “It’s a smaller dose of ketamine and will help with the pain and keep him calm.”
Rena kissed her brother on the forehead. “I love you, Sammy. I’m so sorry this happened.” She looked up at Ellen, her eyes red and overflowing with tears. “He just did what we wanted. He wasn’t part of this, not like Brock and me. Please ask the police to go easy on him.”
“If Greg Baldwin survives,” Ellen said.
“He wasn’t part of it. He was the driver.”
“He would still be considered an accessory.”
Rena turned to Brock, panic in her sad eyes.
“I don’t know that he would survive the drive home,” he said to her.
Rena turned to Ellen, imploring her for leniency.
Ellen said, “I’ll tell the police exactly what you said. But it’s not up to me what they decide to do.”
“Okay,” she whispered. The woman was exhausted, dark circles under her eyes, and Ellen didn’t think she’d slept in the last two days.
She had a small tug of sympathy, but it was very small.
This woman had left her daughter in the middle of a storm.
Ellen hardened her heart as she grabbed the extra flashlight and a pocketknife from the kitchen drawer, hoping they didn’t see her take the knife.
She grabbed the radio off the charger, put it in her pocket.
“You love your kids,” Rena said quietly.
“I do. We need to leave to get my daughter. Right now.”
They started for the door. Ellen hugged her grandmother. “I’m going to bring Avery home,” she said.
Penny nodded, but she was shaking. Ellen hated that these people had scared an old woman.
“Look out for Margery, okay? Call Dr. Patel, I have his personal number in my phone book.”
“I wish Sam and I had a family like yours,” Rena said wistfully. “Our daddy thought I was his wife and Sam was his punching bag.”
It was clear now what this woman had gone through as a child.
Ellen didn’t like her, she would turn her in as soon as she had the chance, but maybe she understood a little better how she reached this place in her life, how she could put her own brother in danger, how she could abandon Avery to the environment.
Ellen reached out and lightly touched her forearm. “Your decisions now are your choices.”
Brock said, “I left my truck at your neighbor’s house because I thought it might have been identified by the police. I’ll take you there, then you can follow me to where the accident happened.”
Rena said, “It was my fault. I got scared when I thought someone recognized your daughter, and I created the accident.”
“Ryan— You have his truck,” Ellen said as she stepped out on the porch, and gestured to the older model Ford F-150. “Where’s Ryan?”
“I left him at the accident. With your daughter.”
Ellen frowned. They wouldn’t have stayed in the middle of nowhere in the storm. They would have walked to a neighbor no matter how far. Found a way to contact her.
Unless they couldn’t.
Brock opened the passenger door for Ellen, but she hesitated, trying to think what Avery and Ryan would have done after the accident.
If Avery’s injuries weren’t severe, they would go someplace safe, to a house, to a barn.
They’d find shelter if they could. Where depended on which intersection where the accident occured.
“What’s wrong?” Rena said.
Before Ellen could answer, a man stepped out from behind Ryan’s truck. It was Travis, and he had a shotgun.
“Get away from her,” Travis said.
Brock pulled out his gun and Ellen said, “Stop! Please! No more violence.”
“Mom!”
Ellen whirled around and saw Avery, Jake, and Ryan running from the backside of the porch.
“Avery!” Relief flooded through her at the sight of her daughter.
Brock looked from the kids to Ellen. He grabbed Ellen and whispered in her ear, “I’m not going to hurt you, but I don’t want your friend to get an itchy finger.”
“Travis, stand down,” Ellen told her brother-in-law.
“I’m not letting them take you, Ellen.”
“They’re not. They’re leaving. Right?” she said to the man.
His fingers squeezed her biceps hard enough to bruise.
“Rena, get in,” he ordered.
She climbed into the passenger seat and shut the door. Brock pulled Ellen over to the driver’s side. “Open the door,” he said.
She did.
Travis held the shotgun on the vehicle as Brock climbed in. Brock then whispered in Ellen’s ear: “If you want to take down Mitchell Robinson, I kept a copy of everything. It’s in my truck at the Coulters’ house.” Then he pushed Ellen away from the truck and slammed the door shut.
As the ignition turned, Ellen ran up the porch stairs and hugged Jake and Avery. “They said you were in an accident. I didn’t know.” She was crying.
She heard a shotgun blast and jumped.
“Travis! No!”
The truck fishtailed as buckshot hit the rear gate. Travis racked the shotgun again and took aim.
“Stop!” she screamed. “No more violence. Not here.”
“You want them to get away?” Travis asked, shock on his face.
“The police are looking for them. I know their names, and Rena’s brother is here. I removed buckshot from his abdomen, but he’s in poor shape. I don’t know that he’s even going to survive, but because I helped him, they gave me information. I know who hired them. I just don’t know why.”
Travis lowered the shotgun. The taillights disappeared from view. “Who?”
“Mitchell Robinson.”