28. Dana
The car hits a dip in the dirt road, and I jostle in the back seat.
My stomach rumbles, drawing the sheriff’s eyes off the road and onto mine through his rearview mirror. I haven’t felt particularly chatty since we drove away, and he isn’t pushing me to talk.
I turn my attention to Kaley in the front seat. She’s also been quiet, and her head bobbles with the motion of the car.
“Hey. How’s your leg?” When she doesn’t answer, I try again. “Kaley?”
The sheriff looks over, then back to the road.
“She’s dozed off. It’s probably best to let her sleep.”
The radio crackles.
“This is Pete for Wayne. Come in.”
He sighs from the front seat. “I told him not to message unless it’s an emergency.”
“What if something’s wrong?”
He waits a breath longer, then answers, “This is Wayne Talbott. Go.”
“Wayne, I have the guys from Cypher with me. They’re sayin’ they think there’s one more hitman lookin’ for Dana.”
I shift to look out the back window at the headlights trailing behind us. Somehow, I don’t feel right. I don’t think I’ll feel better until I’m back with Jessa, Michael, and the rest of his team.
“That’s unfortunate,” the sheriff mutters to himself before clicking the button on his radio. “Thanks for the heads-up. See you at Dale’s. Out.”
He maintains his speed, occasionally glancing at his rearview mirror, then back to the road ahead.
A chill rakes along my spine when he turns onto the road that leads to the lavender farm, but he doesn’t drive up the path to the main house. Instead, he takes a trail to the left and circles around the outside of the lavender fields.
“Where are you going?”
“I thought I saw something a while back. I’m pulling off to check it out.” Wayne speaks so low that I have to lean forward in my seat to hear him.
I slide from one side of the back seat to the other, glancing out windows and squinting against the dusk that blankets the area around us.
Wayne drives until the road ends in the middle of a field and we’re surrounded by rows of lavender. He turns off the engine then opens his door, leaning against the car until the other officer comes to a full stop behind us.
Their voices are muffled, but I can hear the sheriff explain that he thought he saw a set of headlights behind them as he pulled into a curve in the road, then they were gone.
I press myself closer to the glass to listen better.
Wayne points at the entrance to the farm, and the officer turns to look in the same direction.
Then the sheriff takes a step back, pulls out his gun, and shoots the officer in the back.
I think I scream.
Fear grips me, and I sit frozen, locked in my cage in the back of Wayne’s car. As the officer hits the dirt, tears burst from my eyes.
Jessa taught me a lot during our time together. The big lesson I learned was how to keep functioning under duress. She taught me how to separate what I was feeling from what I had to do. So I go to work on my next step, because I don’t want to die out here.
Wayne casually walks over to the other car and opens the driver’s side door. A moment later, the lights turn off, casting the area and the dead officer into the shadows.
I push my fingers through the metal cage and pull myself as close to the front seat as I can get.
“Kaley?” When she doesn’t move, I raise my voice. “Kaley. Wake up.”
I rattle the cage, and she doesn’t move a muscle.
The driver door opens, and I slide myself against the back passenger side, knocking the back of my head against the window as the sheriff sits down and stares straight ahead.
My eyes sting from the tears and how wide they are as I gawk at him.
The thoughts in my head go into overdrive as I mentally list the things I want to say. At the same time, I’m hoping if I stay quiet, he’ll forget I’m here.
Finally, he takes a deep breath and shakes his head.
“I was out. I wasn’t going to take the job, but the money was too good to pass up. You fell right into my lap all of the way out here. Someone else was going to cash in anyway.” He turns his head until he’s looking right at me. “I liked you, Dana. You were a good person.”
A sob escapes me when he says were. Then I suck in a sharp breath when I remember the sheriff injecting the painkiller into Kaley’s arm.
“What did you do to her?”
He checks the pulse in her neck. “I don’t kill kids. I gave her a powerful sedative. That was meant for you. So you wouldn’t feel anything when I?—”
He looks away, and I sneak a glance out the window, hoping for headlights approaching in the distance, but there is nothing. Even the house was dark when we drove by. Everyone must be at Dale’s, waiting for us to return.
This all makes sense now. No one in town would report gunshots to the sheriff. He showed up at my shop to kill me, but Michael was there.
Michael saved me—again.
“I’ll make it quick. You won’t feel anything.” He opens his glove compartment and pulls out his phone. “I just need proof.”
“You don’t have to do this. Just let me go.”
I would say I sense sorrow in the way he sighs, but if he were truly stricken by what he’s about to do, he could simply not do it.
“I can’t do that. I took the full job, which would have set me up for a better retirement. Now it’s just the basic hit, and it’s only a matter of time before the men you’re with discover my identity. I need the payout, however small, to relocate myself and start over.”
Without another word, he opens his door, and panic surges up inside of me.
There isn’t anything I can do to stop this.
Words bumble out of my mouth as quickly as my tears pour down my face. By the time he has the back door open, my soft pleas have turned into outright sobbing and screaming.
I kick at him with all of my strength, and he bats my feet away until he gets a solid hold on my ankle. Then he pulls, sliding me off the seat and onto my ass in the dirt.
The air rushes out of my lungs as I land, and I flip over onto my hands and knees in an attempt to crawl away.
I don’t get far before he grips a handful of my hair at the back of my head and lifts me to my feet.
He pulls me to him, tipping my head back until I smell his bad breath.
“I said I would make this easy for you. Don’t make it harder than it has to be.”
He tugs hard, forcing my body to turn away, and nudges me to start walking forward.
We make it two steps when a gunshot startles me, and I scream as Wayne pushes into me and we both fall to the ground.
My face is shoved into lavender. The scent often associated with relaxation fills my nose, and I’m anything but calm. Wayne grunts, lifting himself off me before getting to his knees and scanning the area, looking for the shooter.
The sharp blast of his gun sends a jolt of energy through my limbs. When I lift my head, I realize Wayne has taken his hand off me to fire at the downed deputy who just took a shot at him.
The officer is wounded and unable to fully get up, but he’s trying to stop Wayne, who’s hunkered down a few feet away from me with his back to me.
There are around ten rows of lavender between me and a copse of trees. If I can make it to them, I may be able to stay hidden long enough for someone to realize I’m missing.
I drag my body through the dirt to put more distance between me and the sheriff, then still when his strong fingers grip my ankle to make sure I’m still with him. When I don’t move, he glances back and takes another shot.
I remain frozen, counting my deep breaths and waiting for my chance.
It comes when a shot gets a little too close to Wayne, and he releases me to adjust his position.
I’m not lying down to die.
When the sheriff takes his next shot, I shove myself off the ground. I stumble and trip as I run toward the trees.
“DANA!” the sheriff yells. It’s a deep, angry warning, but I don’t look back as shots behind me increase.
My lungs burn as I clear the last row of lavender, and this time I do look back to see how much time I have to disappear into the forest.
The sheriff is standing over the officer with his gun pointed at him. There’s a bright flash, a loud pop, and then silence as he turns from the cop he just killed and rushes toward me.
As quickly as I enter the cover of the trees, I exit the other side about twenty feet later to rows upon rows of cannabis plants.
I have never been so happy to see a grow op in my life. The plants sit close together and tower over me like giants.
I sprint into the thick of them, hoping they go on for miles.
I run until a tight cramp forms in the side of my stomach, then I stop to catch my breath and listen.
The plants create a dense cover, but they also hide him from me. They have to be at least eight feet tall, so he can’t possibly see over them. Still, I slow my movements to limit the damage I’m doing as I continue in a straight line away from the cars.
I fight every urge forcing me back to Kaley unconscious in Wayne’s car. If I keep moving away from her, she’ll remain safe.
Everyone has to know by now that we haven’t made it to Dale’s.
I want to see Michael again, but he has no idea where I am.
My breath leaves me in a swirl of fog. The shaking in my limbs isn’t only from fear. It’s gotten cold out here, and I only have a thin sweater to protect me from the chill.
A branch breaks too close for my comfort, and I dash farther into the heavy cover to get away. The leaves whip across my face, and my foot catches on an exposed rock.
I go down hard on my right side, and something solid drives into my thigh muscle.
I brush my fingers over the area that hurts and freeze when I find the burner phone in the pocket of my cargo pants, the one Logan slipped to me before everything got crazy and I forgot about it.
The pot plants rustle in the distance, and I remain still.
He’s been quiet up until this point.
He can’t find me, and he’s trying to spook me into running again.
I keep the phone where it is and flip over onto my hands and knees. Then I slowly stand and take five steady steps through the brush.
He shakes the plants again, this time a little farther away from me, and I grin to myself in the darkness.
I run when I can be quiet and slow down when I get to obstacles, of which there are a lot. After another five minutes of moving, I hunker close to the ground, open the pocket of my pants, and slip the phone out.
It takes everything in me to trap my elated scream in my throat when it powers on, but the bars flash, then disappear.
The stars are bright out here, and I can see some of them through the thick of the plants. There’s one in particular. It shines a little less than the ones around it. I close my eyes, saying a silent prayer that the choice I’m about to make isn’t the wrong one.
I’m tired of running and hiding. I’m tired of being known as a cop-killer’s kid, and I’m tired of being alone.
I need to get back to the lavender fields. It’s the only way to get this phone to work.
I stand and brush the dirt off my knees, take a deep breath, then turn enough so my path is angled toward the cars without retracing my steps exactly.
My heart refuses to cease its hammering in my chest. Wayne has been quiet since trying to scare me into making another mistake, and I can’t stop the voices that keep telling me it’s because he knows where I am.
I count my paces. Every thirty steps, I stop, cup the phone in my hands to limit the light, and look at the bars. Then I repeat.
I lose track of how many times I do that. At some point I slip into autopilot and almost miss the three bars that finally appear.
The cannabis is too thick to see anyone coming, but I glance around anyway before I retrieve the contacts.
There’s only one.
I turn the volume down to its lowest setting, then dial the number.
It rings once.
“This is Link.”
I open my mouth, then close it again. Any sound could be my last.
Instead, I exhale a sigh, and there’s a long pause on the other line before he speaks again.
“Switching to tactical protocol. If you’re Cypher, enter your code now.”
I enter 9-1-1, hoping he can tell which numbers I’m pressing.
There’s rapid typing on the other end of the line, then he swears under his breath.
“Dana. If this is you, enter Kim’s year of birth.”
I made Kim one day, one month, and one year older than me so I would never forget.
As soon as I press the last number, he starts speaking quickly.
“We’re all looking for you. I’ve activated the tracker in your phone, and I’m sending coordinates to Michael. Give me a minute to contact them.” A chill slithers up my spine as I wait, and I take a few more steps until the unease passes. “I see you on my screen. Start moving if you can.” I take ten careful steps before he speaks again. “Great. Keep going that way, and stay hidden. The guys are on their way to you. I’m going to be quiet on your line, but I’ll come back when they are close. Be careful.”
I hold the phone close to my head and listen for any signs of Wayne as I slowly make my way back to where we started.