Agent Daddy

Noelle screamed again, “It’s closer!”

“Noelle, sit down! Make sure your seat belt is tight.”

Colin suddenly grew very quiet. While it was a tremendous relief, it was also a concern. Faith dare not turn to make sure the child was okay. “Check Colin, Noelle. Is he all right?”

“I—I think he’s scared,” Noelle managed.

“Hold his hand, okay?”

“Okay,” Noelle said, and Faith could hear the tears in her voice.

In the next instant, the lights inside grew even brighter, Faith’s car seemed to pause and the abandoned road seemed to hum.

A premonition gripped Faith. He was going to ram her. She knew it. “Noelle, hang on—”

The words had barely left her lips when the impact came. Her car lurched forward, the tires spinning as she hit the verge on the side of the road. Trying to drown out the unsettling sounds of the children shrieking, Faith fought the wheel as the tires drifted over icy weeds until they ran up against a berm, sending the car bouncing back toward the road. The truck had dropped back a few feet, but Faith knew what would happen next, she knew it would advance again.

“Talk to me, Noelle. Are you and Colin still okay?”

“I think so,” Noelle sputtered.

“Keep your head down, sing to Colin, we’re almost home.”

The cat-and-mouse game had started after she turned off the main highway. According to the sign, she had five miles to endure before they reached the ranch. Time was passing in a frenzy. She wasn’t even sure how long ago she’d called Trip, just that she’d tossed her purse back to Noelle and directed the little girl to find the flashlight and her uncle’s card buried in the front pocket.

Considering how afraid Noelle had to be, Faith thought it pretty amazing she could so calmly read the right set of numbers to her, so she could punch them into the phone. Now the tiny beam of the pocket flashlight flickered on and off as Noelle apparently used it to check on Colin.

But even if Trip showed up right now, what could he do…how could he stop this?

Who was back there? It had to be a madman, and the only madman she knew was David Lee. Had he followed her, had he waited while she and the kids went into the store, then tracked her again, hanging back in traffic and biding his time until she turned onto a desolate stretch of highway?

Why would he do something like this? She was almost positive the pursuing vehicle was a truck, as the headlights were higher off the ground than her own. Did David drive a truck? She didn’t know. She’d never actually seen him come and go from his mother’s place. He must park on the street.

The lights were once again coming closer. She instinctively pressed down on the accelerator pedal. She heard Trip’s voice warning her not to speed up, but the thought of being bumped again terrified her. The lights swerved off to the lane beside her and for one glorious moment, she thought her pursuer was giving up, that maybe he was getting ahead of her so he could speed away.

She could see now: it was a truck, a dark truck, though she couldn’t see the driver. It pulled up parallel to her and she eased up on the gas, falling back, willing him to keep on going. It looked like it was working, when suddenly the truck swerved into her car, hitting the front bumper.

She held on to the wheel and yelled at the children to cover their heads, or at least that was her intention, but words were lost in the screams that bounced around the interior of the car. Her vehicle flew off the road and straight up a steep bank until it breasted the top and became airborne. It landed a second later with a crash, spinning until it came to a clattering halt.

TRIP TURNED HIS LIGHTS on high beam. As he raced out of town, he’d called the ranch foreman, George Plum, and the two men had agreed to drive toward one another until they either found Faith and her pursuer or met on the road.

Trip saw the approaching headlights a half-mile away. As it was a straight stretch of highway, he could see there was no one behind him, so he slowed down. George Plum pulled his ranch truck up beside him and the two men rolled down their windows.

“Anything?” Trip said, his breath condensing.

George shook his graying head. The seriousness of the situation was manifested by the fact that George, for once, wasn’t puffing on a pipe. “You didn’t see nothing, either?”

“No. She described a chase of some kind, but it’s obviously over. Did you run across anyone else between here and the ranch?”

George shook his head. “Not a thing. But if you know the area, there are any number of little roads to use to get back to Highway 67 before you get to the ranch.”

“Yeah. Okay, I’ll head to the ranch, keeping an eye out in case he ran her off the road. You go toward the Tyrone Gardens exit. We’ll meet back at the Triple T.”

“You got it,” George said, and rolling up his window, he drove off.

Trip flipped his headlights back to high beam and started searching the side of the road up ahead as he drove slowly along the highway. He found a spot with what looked like fresh tire marks on the grassy edge and got out to check it with a flashlight. Nothing there, so he got back in the truck, fighting a sinking feeling that wouldn’t go away.

The tracks were new. How new he couldn’t tell, but new enough it was possible they were made by Faith’s car, and they brought home the reality of her situation. The icy night, the slick road, the frightened children, the panic.

What was going on? Could this be the work of Neil Roberts? The timing seemed too tight to finger Roberts. The man was brighter than your average serial killer, but he wasn’t psychic. So how could he have connected Faith to Trip, unless he’d been trailing Trip, seen Trip depart the school alone, then stayed around to see Faith leave with the children. How had he put it all together?

It seemed a long shot. But, oh, God, if that man got his hands on the kids or Faith…

He found another spot in the frozen mud, with deep tracks that looked pretty fresh. His gut told him this was it. He took a moment to unlock the shotgun from the back window and load it. He labored up an incline, slipping and sliding with each step. The ground was torn, mud oozing like dark blood from a fresh wound. Upon reaching the top, he shined his flashlight in an arc and found himself staring at a gray sedan about thirty yards away. The passenger side of the car was pressed up against three or four pines and a pile of rocks.

He slid down the incline and ran across the ground to the car, reaching it before he’d so much as taken a breath, his heartbeat thundering in his head. If Noelle had been on the passenger side in the backseat she’d be crushed against the trees.

The sharp sound of a baby crying reached his ears as he yanked on the front door. Locked. He yelled and banged, his usual calm in a crisis fleeing in the face of the fact that these children were his responsibility—

He shined the light in the window. Faith Bishop, Noelle and Colin all looked back at him, eyes wide, mouths open, their combined screams penetrating the glass. And then a tiny beam of light hit him on the face. The front door lock popped open and they tumbled out all at once, as though glued together. With tears running down each of their faces, they all looked as though they’d faced a firing squad and the guns had misfired.

He gathered them into his arms, crushing Colin against his chest, his gun arm wrapped around Faith’s back, Noelle pressed against his legs.

“Are you okay? Are you all okay?” he asked, straining to shine the flashlight, looking for cuts and bruises.

“We’re just so glad to see you,” Faith gasped. “I didn’t know if I should chance taking them out of the car. My tank was almost empty and I didn’t smell gasoline, but—”

“You did fine,” he interrupted. “You’re all okay, it’s a miracle.”

“I think my cell phone hit Colin in the forehead and Noelle says her arm hurts.”

He leaned down and shone the light in Noelle’s eyes. She blinked and turned away. As he stood back up and reached for Colin, the little girl flung herself at Faith who lifted her from the ground and hugged her. The beam from the tiny flashlight still clutched in Noelle’s hand pointed heavenward as their breath misted around their heads.

Colin’s bump looked superficial in the wavering light of the flashlight, and there was nothing weak about his grip on Trip’s jacket. The baby nuzzled Trip’s neck, his nose like a little ice cube against Trip’s warmer skin.

“Retrieve what you need from your car,” he told Faith as she set Noelle on the ground. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Before he comes back,” Faith said, her voice trembling.

“He’s not coming back, not tonight.”

“But—”

“Trust me,” Trip said, jaw tightening.

No, a coward like this man would not return to finish the job, especially not when he saw Trip’s truck. Whoever did this had to know he’d run his victim’s car off the road. If he’d been intent on murder, he would have come after it, not driven away.

And that didn’t sound like Neil Roberts.