Chapter 33
NOAH
I snatch the remote from Rue’s trembling hand and kill the power to the TV, tossing the remote down on the couch.
The screen goes black, swallowing the image of the weather map and the news anchor's voice. However, the silence that follows is almost worse. It leaves too much room for the panic I can see rising in Rue’s chest to take hold.
Shit. Just breathe.
“Hey,” I say, my voice sharp enough to snap her out of her spiral. I step directly in front of her, blocking her view of the dead screen. “Look at me.”
She blinks, her green eyes wide and frantic as they meet mine. “They know you’re alive, Noah. They know you have a dog. My mom could say that’s her dog… They’re going to set up a perimeter.”
“And they're setting it up around the gas station that we were at,” I counter, keeping my tone steady, projecting a calm I absolutely do not feel. “We aren’t at the travel plaza. We’re in the wind. But…” My voice trails off. “We do need to figure out exactly where the wind blew us.”
“Hopefully, a long way,” she squeaks. “It did feel like a long ride.”
I turn away from her, scanning the dingy living room before heading back toward the kitchen. “Check the windows. Make sure the blinds are completely shut. Don’t touch the curtains so they move, just check the angles that face the road for right now.”
Rue nods numbly, her survival instincts kicking in as she moves to obey.
I step into the kitchen, my eyes sweeping over the clutter on the counters. I need an address. I need a timeline. Something. I sift through a stack of mail next to a crusty coffee pot, grabbing a utility bill.
William Vance. Hereford, Texas.
I rack my brain, trying to pull up a mental map of the Texas Panhandle. Hereford. I can’t fucking place it. But I do know one thing is certain.
We went backward.
“Holy shit,” I mutter, my heart dropping.
Rue appears in the doorway, Bullet trailing closely at her heels. “What is it? Where are we?”
“Hereford,” I tell her, tossing the envelope onto the counter. “Texas. Bill took us southeast from that gas station.”
Rue pales, her hand gripping the doorframe. “East? We were supposed to be going west. How far east?”
“Not sure.” I run a hand roughly over my jaw, feeling the heavy grit of stubble. “We essentially went backward. Right back into Texas. Maybe two hours? Maybe three?”
“Shit. Two hours?” Rue groans out, the panic bubbling up again. “Noah, if the marshals expand their search radius, two hours is nothing. We have to leave. We have to get out of here right now.” Her voice trembles, but I shake my head at her.
“And go where, Rue?” I demand, gesturing toward the back door we just came through.
“We have no car. We are sitting in the middle of thousands of acres of flat, tilled dirt. There are no trees to hide in. If we walk out there in the broad daylight, a highway patrol helicopter or a drone will spot us in twenty minutes. We can’t steal another vehicle the way I did last time. That was a bad move.”
“Well, we can’t just stay here!” she argues, her voice cracking. “It’s his house! He’s going to come back, or his farmhands are going to show up for work or something!”
“I don’t think he has farmhands,” I say, turning my attention to a corkboard hanging on the wall next to the refrigerator. “Look.”
Pinned to the board is a glossy calendar, heavily marked with a red pen.
Beside it hangs a flyer for a non-profit youth organization: Panhandle Boys Explorer Retreat.
I trace my finger over the calendar blocks.
Today’s date is circled heavily. Written in bold, red ink across the entire next week is "Scout Camp at Palo Duro. "
“He’s retired,” I read aloud, piecing the puzzle together.
I tap the flyer, and then gesture to a photo of Bill at some sort of company party.
“He volunteers for a boys’ camp, probably.
He told the cop in the parking lot he was taking the scouts up to Palo Duro Canyon.
Rue... he’s gone for the week.” I point to the arrows marked on the calendar.
She steps into the kitchen, her arms wrapped tightly around her midsection as she stares at the calendar. “A week? Wow.”
“Yeah, look around,” I gesture to the kitchen. “If you look through the mess… The trash is empty. The sink is clear of dishes. The dog is gone, the RV is gone. He closed up the house before he left.”
“So we just... what? We live in a stranger’s house while the entire country looks for you?” The hysteria bleeds back into her tone. “Noah, we’re like two hours from the stolen car! If they bring dogs—”
“The dogs will track us to the pavement of the truck stop and lose the scent,” I interrupt, stepping closer to her. “Nobody saw us get into the underbelly of that RV. The cops practically gave Bill a police escort out of the parking lot. We both heard that. They’ll never track us here.”
Rue still argues with me. “It’s too risky to stay. We should walk tonight.”
Irritation burns through my body. “Walk where?” I challenge her, dropping my voice. “I have a bullet hole in my arm that feels like it’s infected, and Bullet can barely walk a mile without needing to be carried. We will die out there, Rue. If the law doesn’t get us, the exposure will.”
She stares up at me, her green eyes brimming with exhausted, terrified tears.
“We stay,” I reiterate, my tone leaving no room for debate. “We bunker down. We keep the lights off at night, we scope this area out, and then we make a plan.”
She sighs, running her fingers through her hair. “For a week?”
“For as long as we need to, but no longer than a week. The house has running water. It has food in the pantry. It’s the safest place we could possibly be right now because no one on earth expects us to be here.
This is just… Bill’s house.” I reach out, my good hand gently gripping her forearm. “We’re going to be okay.”
“We need to probably sleep,” she chokes out, her gaze dropping to the linoleum floor.
“Go ahead. Take a shower, too,” I instruct softly, giving her shoulder a reassuring squeeze before letting go. “I’m going to take inventory of the food and see if he left a first-aid kit in the bathrooms. I also need to deal with my arm.”
She nods numbly, turning and shuffling down the hallway, Bullet trotting faithfully behind her.
I watch her go, the heavy weight of our reality settling on my chest like an anvil. I told her we would be fine, but the truth is, staying here is a massive gamble. I don’t know for sure that Bill doesn’t have a wife or kids coming home.
But as my left arm throbs with a sickening, rhythmic pulse, and my head swims, I know it’s a gamble we have to take. If we don’t stop and heal, neither of us is making it to Maricopa.
I turn back to the kitchen cabinets, pulling open the pantry doors to see what Bill left us to survive on, while letting out a deep breath.
We are officially playing house in the middle of a manhunt.
This is going to be… fun.