“You’ve been avoiding me, old man.” Goldie’s voice rang out from the far side of the greenhouse.
“I have not,” he called back.
She could see him from across the buckets, and stormed over.
“A lady knows when she’s being ignored.” Her words came out in shout, and she put a hand to her mouth in surprise.
“I’m sorry you feel that way. With Angel being taken, I’m not sure being… romantic… with his mom in front of him would help things. As it is, I’ve grown fond of the girl myself. This is how I’m dealing with it, but I’m not deliberately avoiding you. I’m just trying to be… what is the word… respectful?”
“Well, I wish you’d be respectful and get your bony ass back to the way it used to be. Here I thought you were blaming me for Angelica being taken and—”
Luis hurried over to her as Goldie burst into tears. Her knees wobbled, and he eased her down gently, sitting her on his lap. She cried and cried. When she looked up, she was surprised to see tears running down his cheeks too.
Curt came up with the plan, while Anna and Rob worked on breaking in the new gun and getting everything sighted in. The hospital had been in contact with Andrea, feeling out where she was in her recovery. She was still technically employed by the hospital, even though she had sued the city and police department. Staffing levels were at an all-time low. Over-work, stress, health issues and the pandemic all had been impacting their employee numbers. Some people just quit showing up, her contact at the hospital claimed, and nobody could find them.
Andrea had an idea why they had quit showing up and where they had gone. The resettlement camp was her guess. They probably had a great need of staffing as well if they were stacking people on top of each other. Curt’s plan would capitalize on the hospital's want and need for her to get back to work as soon as possible. They knew they would get stopped in the five hours it took to drive across Arkansas, but they weren’t planning on going the whole way. Kelso was straight south of the hospital and their house.
They would spirit Rob out of the area where they were actively looking for him, swing through Little Rock, and get as close as they could to Kelso. Then they would make their appearance at the hospital, and check in at the house and be seen in that area for a few days. It would give them an opportunity to really work on their house and yard and Curt could go over paperwork at his main office. With the stock market down and the economy all but crashed, nothing was selling. He was going to just close it down.
“Hey babe,” Andrea called from the other room, “I have a fax coming in.”
In their cabin, they had set up a small desk area. Although they didn’t have a hard landline in the building, they did have internet and a fax service. Curt walked to the computer and jiggled the mouse as the printer fired up.
“I think it’s coming in right now,” he called back.
“Good. It’s a travel letter for us.”
Curt grunted. “The news isn’t saying anything about travel letters. Even Alex Jones isn’t—”
“Hospital staff, first responders, UPS, Fed Ex… all of them get travel letters during an emergency in case they’re stopped. It’s not a new thing. I just wanted something recent, and I wanted it to come from work, so our alibi is even more solid.”
“How long do you think the trip will take us?” Curt asked as she walked into the small living room, toweling off her hair.
“You were planning on a few days to a week.”
“No, I meant the actual drive. I’m seeing gas shortages all over the place, and I want to avoid the bigger cities. I saw you were looking at that last night as I was falling asleep,” Curt said.
“I’ve got basic routes down. As long as there aren’t any protests stopping traffic and we can drive normal speeds, we can get Rob near Kelso in five or six hours.”
Curt nodded. He saw the fax had been what Andrea had been waiting for. He handed it over, then logged on online. There had been a few YouTubers who had been following the protests and riots. It had become so popular, that they had branched out and included others. He wanted to see if and when any protests would be around them. Right away he saw that Little Rock was an absolute mess. They had planned on avoiding that anyway.
“Don’t forget to check the gasbuddy app,” Andrea told him.
“But we’re not looking for cheap gas, we’re looking for any gas along the route.”
“Silly husband of mine,” she kissed the top of his head. “If a gas station is out of gas, the app will let you know.”
“Oh,” Curt said, feeling a little silly.
In truth, they had been more than a little bit spoiled since moving to the farm more or less full time. The farm had their own fuel tanks that had just been topped off a month ago. They had used a bit of diesel to get the harvest going and would need to fill it before the end, when they replanted things. But they also had treated gasoline. With the pandemic and now growing their own food, they really didn’t need to travel much. Goldie was even experimenting with making her own butter and cheeses from the milk she was trading the gal down the road for.
“You can’t come up with all the ideas, all the time. Now, are you ready to go help Dante and Leah?”
“Yeah, but I think we need to—”
Andrea sat down on his lap and kissed him. “I know you’re worried and scared, hun. I am too. The
