Every Precious Thing

“Tell them what?”

“Shut up!” she said. “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!”

“Please take your finger off the trigger, okay? I’m sure you don’t want to kill anyone, and I’m not really in the mood to be killed.”

“You don’t know what I want. You don’t know anything.” She seemed on the verge of hyperventilating when, with obvious reluctance, she removed her finger from the trigger. Taking another step backward, she said, “Stay away from her, and stay away from her family.”

“What am I supposed to tell Alan?”

She tried to laugh. “I don’t believe you ever saw Alan.”

“I sat in the living room of his and Sara’s house in Riverside. I saw the mural Sara painted on the wall of Emily’s bedroom. I’m not lying to you.”

A look of sheer terror flooded across her face as if Logan had transformed into some kind of monster. Her lips moved like she wanted to say something, but no words came out.

“I just want to talk to her,” Logan tried to reassure her. “I’m here to-”

Before he could even form the next word, she ran into the woods.

“Wait! Diana, please! I’m not here to hurt her or you! Diana!”

But the only answer he received was the sound of her receding footsteps.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Erica seethed silently as she drove the sedan back to Flagstaff. She would have preferred to be alone, but Markle and Clausen hadn’t done anything to deserve walking back. It was Frisk who’d let Harper get the better of him, and allowed the two men to escape. She would have left him behind if he hadn’t already been in the car.

Who the hell was this Harper guy? And why was he screwing things up?

For nearly two and a half years, this festering wound had nagged at Erica, intruding more and more into her thoughts. If she didn’t fix it, it would come back to destroy her. She had done everything she could, wasting her own money on watchers and the associated equipment costs, spending hours going over bits and pieces of information.

Finally, finally, they had caught a break. Diana had been located again. Different last name, but definitely her. Erica was sure it would only be a matter of days, not weeks or months or years, before Diana led them to Sara. Everything was going to be right. Everything was going to be fine.

Then Diana disappeared and this Harper guy showed up with his friends and everything went to shit.

Dammit!

She forced herself to take long deep breaths so she could bring herself back under control.

All was not lost, she realized. Diana was somewhere in the area, she was sure of it.

With grudging thanks to Harper, she’d received his copy of Diana’s rental file from her former landlord. On the application, Diana had listed one of her previous employers as Harkin Services in El Portal, California. That set off a loud bell in Erica’s head. She checked the records she’d been compiling on her computer over the past thirty months, and found that’s when Diana had also worked for Harkin Services in Flagstaff, Arizona.

It was an interesting connection, but one Erica might not have done anything about if she hadn’t had one of her freelance researchers hack into the transportation department for both California and Arizona, checking highway cameras for footage of Diana. The hope was her contact might be able to discover which way the woman had gone. The researcher called late that afternoon.

“Arizona,” he’d said. “Early this morning.”

That’s when it came together for Erica. Diana would return to somewhere she knew. People always did. Flagstaff would fit that bill nicely.

Braden, Erica had decided, was a dead end. They needed to move east.

But then what happened? After driving around town and checking various addresses from Diana’s file, Erica had headed over to her former employer’s office and found Harper and Martin standing in front of the building.

What the hell? That’s when she decided to get rid of them once and for all. Lovely how that worked out, she thought.

Her grip tightened on the steering wheel as her anger began rising again. She glanced at Frisk in the mirror. The idiot’s eyelids were barely open, his skin pale.

“Do not let him throw up in here,” she said.

“I think he needs a doctor,” Markle said.

Erica was about to say she didn’t care what he needed, but stopped. She couldn’t afford the headache or the time it would take to deal with the problem if Frisk died in the car. She could just have Markle dump him on the side of the road, but that wasn’t a good option, either. They were too close to town now, and there was always a chance someone would see them.

“You might want to open up a window,” Clausen suggested.

Erica touched the button that automatically rolled down the window next to Frisk. As soon as the fresh air hit him, the injured man leaned toward it.

Erica found the Flagstaff Medical Center parking, and stopped where there were no other cars. She looked back at Frisk.

“Are you with us?” she said.

Frisk tried to focus on her. “Huh?”

“Can you hear me? Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Yeah. I…understand.”

She frowned. He might understand, but would he remember? “If you value your life and the life of your family at all, you will do exactly as I say. Understand?”

He tensed. “Yes, ma’am.”

“As I understand, your sister just had a baby boy, isn’t that correct?”

“I’ll do whatever you want,” he pleaded.

“I wanted you to keep an eye on the woman, but you couldn’t handle that, now could you?”

“It was a mistake. It won’t happen again.”

“I know it won’t because you know the consequences if it does.” She made sure he was looking her in the eye. “This is what you will tell them inside. You were in a fight with someone you don’t know. You’re just passing through town, and can’t remember much of anything about the evening. Got it?”

“Sure. Got it.”

“Repeat it.”

With some difficulty, Frisk did. It was the best Erica could hope for.

“You have any ID on you?”

He thought for a moment. “Don’t think so. Should be…in my bag.”

Erica looked at Markle. “Check him.”

Markle shifted Frisk around, checked his pockets, then shook his head. “Nothing.”

Good. At least Frisk had been smart enough not to be carrying anything with his name on it.

“Get in, get out. Don’t answer any questions,” she instructed the other two men.

“Yes, ma’am,” Clausen said.

He and Markle helped Frisk into the emergency room. They returned just a few minutes later.

As they drove away, Erica glanced at Clausen and said, “We’ll find a motel. You two get a few hours’ sleep, then I want you to go back to Braden. You’ll have to find your own ride. When you get there, learn all you can about that guy who got beat up outside Diana’s bar. Both he and Harper were looking for the girl. Find out what their connection is and what they want her for.”

“No problem,” Clausen said.