Fight or Flight (6 page)

“They weren’t.” She was certain of it. “Wait.” They all stopped abruptly. She listened, trying to calm her breathing. They could hear the men crashing through the underbrush, clearly headed in their direction. “Let’s go that way,” she said, pointing left. “Get out of their path. We’ve got to be quiet, too.”

“Yeah, right,” Van and Tom both said. They headed the way she’d pointed, and moved a little more slowly with a little less noise. The dried leaves underfoot made it impossible, but if they were lucky, the men behind them made enough noise to cover theirs.

After they’d gone a few hundred yards, she aimed them back toward the far side of the woods. The strip bordering the highway wouldn’t be very wide, and sure enough, they soon emerged onto a big empty cornfield, shorn for the season.

“Dammit. We could have hidden in there,” Kelsey muttered. Now there was no cover. Also, no farmhouse or barn or any other kind of building that might have a telephone.

Tom squinted as he scanned the darkness. “Let’s just follow the tree line.” He pointed to the left. “We can move faster, and duck into the woods if we need cover.”

Kelsey agreed, having no better idea. They started running again, hugging the edge of the woods. Van took the lead, with Tom behind Kelsey. She knew they were bracketing her on purpose, to protect her. She hated to put them through this, but was so grateful, too. She would never have a chance if they weren’t with her.

“You okay?” she asked Van, who was running at an easy lope now.

“Sure. This is nothin’ compared to an hour of field hockey.”

Kelsey knew Tom ran miles every day, too, for football. She, herself, conditioned every day. She briefly wished soccer was the only reason she was in shape. But all those years of paranoia hadn’t been unwarranted. There were people after her. She wished she knew why.

Add it to the list
. Where was her mother? How badly was she hurt? Who was after them, and what made her so important that they hadn’t given up after eighteen years? The urge to call Tyler’s phone again grew so strong her step faltered. Tom bumped into her and caught her shoulders before she fell.

“You okay?”

“Fine.”

He held her for a second. Van stopped a short way ahead and leaned on her stick, panting. Kelsey looked around, wishing for better light. She couldn’t see if there was any place to hide.

The noise behind them had receded. She couldn’t tell where their pursuers were.

“Maybe they’ve given up,” Van offered.

“No. They won’t give up.” She may not know much about what was happening to her, but she did know that.

***

“Stop!”

Tyler slammed on the brakes and skidded onto the shoulder. Regan shoved her door open and ran across the road to the center median, stymied by the cement wall and her shoulder. Tyler caught up to her after a few seconds.

“What the hell?”

“Look.”

He followed her eager gaze to the cars across the road. One, an old Chevy, was sitting with its doors open and a rear tire flat. The one behind it was a plain dark sedan, but Regan could see there were lights in the dash. They weren’t on. And no one was around.

“Help me over.” She swung a leg up as Tyler grabbed her waist and hefted her on top of the wall. She sat, aimed, and slid off the other side, landing on her feet and running to the cars.

Both doors on the Chevy’s driver’s side were open and the keys were still in the ignition. She slid into the front seat and looked around, but it was empty.

“This might not be theirs,” Tyler cautioned, leaning into the back seat to look under the rugs. “It’s empty back here.”

Regan opened the glove compartment and grabbed the only thing in it, a white envelope with a blank face. She fumbled it open. The registration inside was to Donald Leigh.

“It’s theirs. The car belongs to Van or one of her relatives. Where are they?” She struggled back out of the car and looked around. There were scuff marks in the gravel. She looked up as a car passed them. They could have been taken in a third vehicle, but it didn’t seem likely unless the one behind theirs was disabled.

“I think they went into the woods,” she told Tyler, praying it wasn’t a mother’s foolish hope driving her thoughts, “but please see if that car is working.” She motioned with her chin. “If not, they might have been taken in another one.”

While Tyler went to the sedan, Regan stepped to the edge of the shoulder, looking into the woods. A trail through the tall grass could have been made by people, and a couple of branches at different spots along the edge of the trees were bent.

“It seems fine,” Tyler called to her. He joined her on the roadside. “It’s not a cop car.”

“Great.” She took a deep breath.
She’s okay. She’s got to be.
“We have to follow them. It looks like they might have taken off and been chased. God, I hope they weren’t caught.”

“Don’t think about that.” He helped her down the short slope to the grassy ditch and let go as soon as they were on level ground.

She started trotting, but pain flared through the cut on her hip and her jarred shoulder. The flip-flops weren’t helping, either. “I’ll never catch up like this.”

“Let me scout ahead,” Tyler offered. “You follow best you can. I’ll pick out their trail so we don’t have to backtrack or anything.”

“You can track?” It was one of the few things she hadn’t learned how to do. She’d never thought she’d be doing the chasing.

“Sure. Military training.” He smiled and headed off. She followed as quickly as she could, listening to his progress.

The phone in her hand beeped. The battery was dying. Why hadn’t she asked if he had a charger? They could have been charging it as they drove. She looked at it, torn, and finally shut it off. It might be necessary later.

“This way.” Tyler’s soft call barely carried to her. He did know what he was doing. The bad guys would have to be very close to have heard him. She angled left and caught up to him a moment later.

“Whoever was following them is good,” he said. “They veered off their initial path, and it wasn’t obvious, but the two guys following them saw it. They have training.”

“Same kind of training you have?” she couldn’t help asking.

He hesitated. “Maybe.”

Just great. He could be leading her into a trap. Not that it mattered, if Kelsey was there. She’d do anything to get to her daughter right now. “Let’s keep going.”

Tyler took off again. Regan sucked in a deep breath and picked up her pace. Every step took her closer to Kelsey. She had no choice but to push through the pain.

Despite all her training, all her preparation, she’d never had to do this. It was much harder than she’d thought it would be. But dammit, the wherewithal to do it was inside her. She just had to dredge it up.

***

There was nothing. They’d struggled along the tree line for what felt like forever, but all they found was more trees. They probably hadn’t gone as far as it felt like, but exhaustion swept over Kelsey. This wasn’t working. She stopped and put her hands on her knees. “We can’t just keep running,” she panted.

Van collapsed on the ground beside her. “What else we gonna do?” Kelsey knew Van was tired or she would have said a hell of a lot more.

“Circle back,” said Tom. They looked up at him. He was leaning against a tree, watching behind them. “Cut back through the woods to the highway, follow the verge back to their car. Maybe we can take it.”

“That’s brilliant,” Kelsey said. “But what if they kept their keys?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know what else we can do. Some of these farms out here are huge, and there are a lot of miles between exits. We could run until we die of exposure.”

He was exaggerating, but she knew he was right. “If there are no keys we can try to flag someone down. But we have to be careful.”

Van struggled to her feet. Her efforts were showing, with her hair flattened and dripping with sweat, and her shirt torn in two places by branches.

“I’m sorry, you guys. I never meant to drag you into something like this.” Despair threatened to engulf Kelsey. “If anything happens to you…”

“Shut up.” Tom closed his hand over the back of her neck. “Let’s go.” He pointed into the woods. “There’s a deer trail. Run full out, and stay together.”

“Okay. You okay?” she asked Van, who nodded and clutched her stick.

They ran, the trail blissfully smooth, though narrow. The strip of woods was thicker here, but Kelsey could see a flicker of passing headlights. They were almost through when Kelsey heard a shout. She cursed as they all staggered to a halt, not sure where the shout came from, which way they should go.

“They saw us,” Van gasped.

“Just run.” Kelsey pushed them ahead of her on the path and sprinted behind them. Hopefully, their pursuers would just follow, not figure out their plan and angle back through the woods, cutting them off.

Please, God, let them be stupid.

Kelsey, Tom and Van made it to the road but stopped inside the trees. They couldn’t see or hear anyone else, but by now their gasping for air sounded like a bull pen. Kelsey’s lungs burned in her chest…or maybe that burning was fear.

Tom pulled himself up the short bank to the shoulder. He peered around, then turned to look down on the girls. “I don’t see anything up here.” He held a hand to pull Van, then Kelsey, up to the roadside.

“Where are the cars?” Kelsey looked for herself when she reached the street. She could barely make out the vehicles down the road. There were no human shapes between them and the car. She started trotting along the gravel shoulder, much slower than she’d started, worn out from running.

“Kelsey!”

The shout made her jump. She didn’t consciously recognize the voice, but turned almost automatically. She could make out three figures, two wearing dark clothing, one farther back in a light-colored shirt. Judging by distance, the man in the light shirt was the one who had called her name. The other two were probably the “cops” chasing them.

One of the two in the middle turned back, toward the other man, but the other one continued running toward her and her friends.

“You know that guy?” Van pulled at her arm.

“I think…” But she didn’t have time to think. The fake cop started to hit the man with his billy club, and the other one came closer to them, pulling something from his hip. A gun?

“Go, go, go!” Tom yelled, pushing both Van and Kelsey ahead of him. Adrenaline gave them new speed, and soon they’d passed their disabled car. Van scrambled into the fake cop car, Tom and Kelsey diving for the back seat. Van cursed when she came up empty at the ignition, and started flipping visors and console compartments. Metal jangled, she whooped, and the car started with a roar. She peeled out before Tom closed the door.

Kelsey stared through the side window, trying to see what was happening as they passed. The “cop” who’d been after them was braced as if he had a weapon.

“Duck!” she yelled.

The car swerved as Van obeyed, her foot still to the floor. Something pinged off the roof. They all lifted their heads a little, Kelsey and Tom peering through the rear window.

“I think we’re clear,” Tom said.

Van sighed and sat up straight. “Good, ’cause I can barely see over the wheel already, never mind when I’m dodging bullets.” She glanced over her shoulder and let the car slow a little. The others couldn’t follow in the damaged Chevy. “You know that other guy?” she asked again.

“I’m not sure.” Kelsey paused to buckle her seatbelt with shaking hands. Tom put his arm around her and squeezed reassuringly as she leaned against his shoulder. “I think it might have been Tyler. Our neighbor. It was his cell phone number my mom gave me.” She looked around. “This doesn’t look like a cop car.” There was no grate between the front and back, and the back doors had handles.

Tom bent to open the backpack he had set at his feet. “We’d better charge your phone.”

“Yeah.” While Tom pulled the charger free of the mess inside her backpack, Kelsey reached into her pocket. Her empty pocket.

“Shit.” The back of her throat stung. She blinked furiously, trying not to let the tears make it to her eyes. It was stupid to cry now, after they’d gotten away. Even stupider to cry in front of Tom.

“What’s the matter?” He leaned forward to look at her, and she swiped at her cheeks.

“My phone’s gone. I must have dropped it when we were running.”

“It’s okay, I’ve got mine,” Van said, holding it up. “It’s mostly charged.”

“Call now. Maybe she’ll answer,” Tom added soothingly.

“I can’t. I don’t know the number. I programmed it in the first time and forgot it.”

Her friends didn’t say anything. They didn’t need to. The silence pressed down on Kelsey until she felt immobilized. She didn’t have time to give in to it, though. They neared an exit, well lit. Other cars were merging onto the road.

“On or off?” Van asked.

Kelsey wavered, glancing at Tom.

“Traffic is still really light,” he said. “Hard to get lost up here.”

They’re counting on you
. “Okay, off. Get away from the highway. We’ll call the police at home and find out what’s going on.” She didn’t know what came next. She wanted her mother, needed to know she was all right, but was afraid to go home. They’d be waiting.

She leaned back, exhausted, letting Tom keep lookout behind them.

One step at a time.

***

Regan broke out of the trees onto a cornfield, struggling to see in the meager glow of light reflecting off the clouds. Tyler was dozens of yards away, along the tree line. At least, she thought it was him. He moved like Tyler. But as she started in his direction, she saw two more shadows duck into the woods ahead of him. God, was it Kelsey? Was she running from Tyler? Ignoring the shoulder ache and blazing knife wounds, she kicked off the flip-flops and started running as fast as she could. Which was about as fast as a turbo-charged snail.

Shit. She’d never catch up. She couldn’t tell where they’d re-entered the woods, but they had to be heading for the road. She ducked between trees, held her right arm out in front of her to block branches, and prayed not to trip over anything.

She came out of the woods again, this time in a deep ditch. There was no way she’d get up to the road here. She listened. No more shouts. No running footsteps. She had no idea where anyone else was, or who’d been chasing whom.

Panic threatened to overwhelm her until she battled it back with clenched fists and sheer determination. Then she began slogging through muddy water in the bottom of the ditch, looking for a place where the slope was gentle enough for her to climb out. Scant minutes had passed when she heard a shout that might have been Tyler. A moment later a car roared by. She froze, listening. There was a sound like a gunshot, then more shouts. Then silence.

Cursing, she grabbed a root with her right hand and tried to pull herself up the few feet to the verge. Her shoulder screamed, and she felt the cut on her hip split open. Her right foot slipped in the wet dirt, but her left foot held, and she managed to roll onto the grass. A couple of cars flashed by. One braked briefly, then kept going. Regan wondered what they thought they saw.

She started to rise, then caught her breath and flattened herself into the grass. Two men stood arguing by the Chevy. The other car was gone. She was too far away, her view blocked by the center barrier, to see if Tyler’s truck was still there.

The men started walking toward her. There was no way they wouldn’t see her lying there. There was no time to consider. She inched slowly sideways, watching the men, who walked with their heads down. One appeared to be on a cell phone, though he wasn’t yet close enough for her to hear him.

Moving slowly made her heart nearly burst with pent-up adrenaline, but fast movement would definitely be seen. She reached the ditch when they were about fifty feet away and slid feet first into it, bending her knees to keep her head out of sight. She pressed tight to the dirt wall and tried to breathe silently. Her pulse pounded at every pulse point, the throb in her ears almost loud enough to drown out everything else.

Footsteps came nearer, crunching on gravel, and she could hear voices.

“Yes, sir, I understand. I never thought they’d—” A moment of silence. “I wasn’t driving, sir. I didn’t leave the keys in the car.”

“Bastard,” another voice muttered. “I should shoot you right now.”

The men passed Regan with a few more “yes, sirs” from the guy on the phone and unintelligible grumbling from his partner. She stayed where she was for several minutes, giving them time to get further down the road. Then she walked along the ditch until it rose to near ground level, about ten feet in front of the abandoned Chevy. She walked to the car, wincing with each step as stones cut into her feet.

Tyler’s truck wasn’t across the road anymore. He’d likely driven to the next exit to turn around. She hoped he hadn’t passed her already. But wouldn’t he have stopped to look for her?

Not if he thought getting rid of her was a better option. Or if he didn’t need her anymore, now that he knew what Kelsey was driving.

She stared at the black screen on his phone, debating whether to turn it on or not. She could call the police and get picked up, maybe update the APB on her daughter. She hadn’t gotten a good enough look at the other car, though. Idiot. She looked to her right, the direction Kelsey had to be going in when they took the bad guys’ car. Then she looked to her left, the direction Tyler would be coming from. Assuming he was okay and hadn’t left her.

Headlights appeared out of a dip in the road, approaching fast. She thought about hiding in the car, just in case, but was too wiped out to move. She watched warily as the vehicle slowed and pulled over. By the time it stopped, she recognized Tyler’s truck and managed to limp to the passenger door.

“Thank God you’re all right,” she and Tyler said at the same time. Regan froze with her hand on the door handle, surprised at the sentiment not from him, but from herself. If he was working against her but wanted her to think otherwise, he’d pretend to care she was okay. But her unguarded reaction to seeing him, a leaf in his hair and a bruise on his cheek but otherwise looking strong and capable, made no sense. She didn’t trust him.

Did she?

“Get in.”

She yanked the door open and climbed into the cab, which was awkward with her left arm disabled. She slammed the door and reached for the sling clip, but Tyler stopped her. His hand was warm and rough, and pissed her off because his touch calmed her. As if she were a high-strung horse.

“Don’t undo it. You’ll make it worse.”

She left the sling alone. “Tell me what happened.”

Tyler put his hand back on the wheel. “I think Kelsey and her friends got away. There were two people chasing them. Cops.” He glanced at her.

“Or not.”

“Right. I figure Kelsey wouldn’t be on the run if she believed they were real. I shouted a warning and the guys split up, one trying to take me on, the other chasing the kids. The kids made it to the other car and took off.”

“How long ago?” She’d heard the car go by, but had lost all sense of real time.

Tyler didn’t look happy. “About fifteen minutes ago. We won’t catch them. Look out.”

Regan saw them at the same time he spoke. The fake cops, trudging along the side of the road. She slid down and back until the doorjamb hid her face but she could still see them. One had the gall to turn and stick out his thumb.

“You want to stop and confront them?” Tyler asked.

“No. Keep going.” Tyler might be able to overpower both of them, but not if they were armed, and she was in no shape to help.

A green exit sign flashed past. Two miles. Regan tried to think. Would Kelsey go home, or pull off here? They were driving a stolen car. The road was pretty deserted this late at night—nearly early morning now. She lifted the phone to call her and find out where she was, remembered it was nearly dead, and looked down to see the charger dangling from the lighter socket.

“Thank goodness,” she breathed. She plugged the phone in and thumbed it on. It took forever to boot up. The one-mile sign flashed by. “Come on, come on.” The main screen flashed on. She hit the buttons to find and dial Kelsey’s number and lifted the phone to her ear.

“Hello?”

The voice was deep, too deep to be a college student’s. But Regan was so shocked to hear it, she didn’t think of that right away. “Is this Tom?”

The hesitation was too long. “Who’s this?”

Regan’s brain caught up with her mouth. “Who’s this?”

“Regan?”

Dammit
. She didn’t answer.

“This is Tom. We’re okay.”

“Is Van with you?”

“Yes. She’s fine. Where are you?”

“If this is Tom, tell me what Kelsey did to you the day you met.”

Another long hesitation, without the “uhs” or “ums” or confused stammering that might result from such an unexpected question.

“She spilled her drink on me.”

“Wrong answer, asshole.” She punched the off button viciously, wishing she could slam the phone down.

“What’s going on?”

“He has her phone.” The exit sign came up, and she made a quick decision. “Get off here.”

“Who has her phone? Her boyfriend?” He signaled and zoomed down the off ramp.

“Not hardly. Tried to make me believe it, though. He can’t have Kelsey with him—you said you saw the kids getting into the car and driving away by themselves. She must have lost her phone. ”

Tyler braked at the light at the end of the ramp. “Someone else might have caught up with them.”

“Don’t pull any punches, do you, Sloane?” She craned her neck, looking around. There were half a dozen gas stations and fast food restaurants, places where there would be people and phones and a spot to rest. But they were too visible. She’d taught Kelsey better than that.

“Where next?”

The light turned green, and Regan didn’t know how to answer him. She was so tired, so sore, she couldn’t think. Everything in her screamed to find her daughter, but going in circles without any clue to guide her would only drain her minimal resources.

“There.” She pointed to the red roof of a motel just off the highway.

“Good,” Tyler murmured, maneuvering into the right lane. He didn’t say anything more, and Regan was glad. It shamed her to stop the search, even temporarily. They were so close.

Except maybe they weren’t. Maybe Kelsey hadn’t gotten off the highway at all. If she hadn’t, their paths were diverging once again.

Regan waited in the car for Tyler at the motel, her mind racing. She’d told him to give a false name and use cash, even though whoever was after her and Kelsey shouldn’t know she was with Tyler. If Tyler was working with her pursuers, they already knew where he was. Right now, Regan didn’t care. She didn’t know where her daughter was, so she was no help to the enemy. At worst, they’d finish the job they’d come to do at her house.

Her door opened and Tyler offered a hand to help her out of the truck.

“Our room is right here, next to the office.”