No Ordinary Day , Tate, Harley [ebook offline .TXT] 📗

her phone from her pocket. Sure enough, she had one bar. “Maybe I can reach Gloria. Tell her we’re coming.” She scrolled her contacts and clicked on Gloria’s cell.

It rang. “He—o?”

“Gloria?” Emma could barely hear her friend on the line. “It’s Emma.”

“A—okay?”

“I’m fine. How are you? Are you safe?”

“Ray’s here. We—good. You?”

“I’m coming to you. Are you still at the cabin?” Emma couldn’t understand Gloria’s response. “Are you still at the cabin?”

Three beeps sounded in her ear and the line went dead. She pulled the phone away and frowned. “I could barely understand her.”

“At least we know she’s alive.” John squinted out the driver’s side window. “Must have been a cell tower around here with a backup generator. Surprised it still had any juice.”

Emma glanced at John. If it weren’t for his body heat sitting next to her, she’d have forgotten he was even in the car. Irma was convinced he had a good heart, but Emma couldn’t read him at all. First, he’d saved her in the elevator, then he’d offered to drive her to Zach’s and now to Gloria’s. This trip was more of a boondoggle for him than anything. She should be grateful and take him at face value, but something kept nagging at the back of her mind.

Gloria had a way of reading people; she could always tell if someone had an ulterior motive. It’s how she knew CropForward was up to no good months before Emma’s tests turned up problems. Emma hadn’t listened then, but if they could make it to her cabin, maybe she could suss out John.

If she approved, then Emma had nothing to worry about. But if she didn’t, then Emma would need to thank him and send him on his way. Part of her hoped it didn’t come to that. John might be gruff, and a bit hard-to-read, but he had saved her. She couldn’t discount it.

The truck slowed and Emma glanced up. Ahead, an older sedan blocked both lanes of the road. “What’s going on?”

John eased the truck to a crawl as they neared. “By the looks of it, nothing good.”

Chapter Seventeen

John

Sunshine glinted off the rear window of the late nineties Ford Taurus as John slowed. A man leaned deep into the vehicle, jean-covered butt wriggling in the air as he fought with someone inside. A second man stood outside the car, greasy hair, three-day beard. His hands dug into the shoulders of a boy no older than eight or nine.

Tears streaked down the kid’s face and a purpling bruise swelled his left cheek. From the look of his button-down and clean khakis, he hadn’t been with the man for long.

It was, as he’d told Emma, not good. And, unfortunately, all too familiar. How many scenes just like it had played out in his childhood? A jealous boyfriend of a foster mother. An ex out to score a few dollars to get high.

He angled the truck toward the grass, about to drive around, when the kid standing in the road lashed out at his captor, kicking him in the shin. As one hand dislodged from his shoulder, he tried to run, heels digging in the dirt and weeds. It was no use. The man reared back, grabbing the kid by his hair and wrenching so hard, he screamed.

Tank spun around in the bed of the truck and barked. Emma’s hand flew to her mouth. Holly reached for the door handle.

“Do not get out of this truck.” John kept his voice even and controlled. “You so much as touch that door handle—”

Holly spun on John. “He’s hurt! You saw what that man did and you’re just going to drive on by?”

John let the truck idle. That’s exactly what he should do. Now that they had a map and John could navigate to the general area of Gloria’s cabin without Emma’s help, he should shoot her right there and send Holly and Tank on their scarred-for-life way. But something held him back.

Was it Gil? Emma’s kindness? The determined look in Holly’s eye as she wanted to right the injustice playing out in the street. Damn it. He was going soft.

He shifted the truck into park and reached for his Sig. “I never said I’d keep driving.” He racked the slide. “Stay inside.” He turned to Emma. “Understood?”

She nodded, eyes wide and afraid.

As he opened the door, Tank rushed him, leaning so far out of the truck bed, his breath fanned across John’s cheek. “Stay,” John ordered. The dog whined. “No complaining.” He rounded the front of the vehicle, gun pointed at the ground.

“This ain’t any of your business,” the man with the kid called out.

“Get your hands off him.”

“Whatcha gonna do, make me?” The man flicked his head, and a clump of dirty blond hair cleared his eye.

This wasn’t John’s fight. They could navigate the truck over the grass and weeds and keep going. It’s what he should do if he only cared about the mission. But he didn’t.

Not anymore. Maybe not ever.

John lifted the gun and aimed smack at the man’s forehead. “I can, if that’s what it takes.”

“Hey, Donnie!” He leaned over, barking at the man half-swallowed by the car. “We got company!”

The butt shimmied and a string of curses flew from the car, followed by a veritable twin of the first man. Same greasy blond hair, same sallow complexion. Only Donnie sported a jagged scar running cheek to chin. Behind him, a woman struggled to right herself, brown hair wild and tangled around her face. Thanks to her pale skin, John could make out the black eye from across the road.

“This ain’t none’a yer business, buddy.” Donnie spat and a glob of spit landed on the broken asphalt halfway to John. “How ’bout you and your family take that beater and keep on drivin’.”

“They aren’t my family.” John shifted ten degrees to aim at Donnie. “And you need to leave.”

The first guy eyeballed Donnie and then John. “He’s got a gun, Don. Maybe we should git.”

“For chrissakes,