One Last Song (A Thomas Family Novel Book 3)

by Kristi Cramer

  Chapter Seven

  Jax blew out a silent breath as Kylie turned to help the girls in the back. He knew he wouldn’t be able to hide the bullet wound for long, but he didn’t want Kylie to put him above the others.

  He took his hand away and looked at the red crease in his side, both horrified and fascinated by the blood seeping out and the meat he could see through the mess. It didn’t seem to be bleeding too badly, and he could have laughed. He couldn’t count how many movies he’d watched where the hero scoffs and says, “It’s just a graze.” Well, he now knew a graze hurt more than the time his horse got stung by a bee and bucked him off into a patch of prickly pears, but he also knew he had to man up.

  Every muscle in his body protested as he forced himself to his feet, standing where the passenger window had been, and staggered against the back of the seat. He was able to see the chaos of the main cabin, and saw Kylie bent over Danica, her blonde hair falling forward as she applied an antiseptic swab to several cuts on the shaking girl. He looked up as Vera crawled out from the back of the RV. She gasped when she saw him, but that was the only indication she gave that he must look awful.

  Wordlessly, she began tossing out shoes and various articles of clothing before turning around and heading back down the passage.

  Grunting, he hauled himself over the seat and took a second to get his balance before making his way back to the pile of clothes.

  If I can just get my jeans on, I’ll feel so much better, he thought. He was sure the last thing on the girls’ minds was the way he filled out his shorts, but he felt a hundred times more exposed and vulnerable like this.

  Danica squeaked in alarm, and when he looked up, he caught a glimpse of his face in the remnants of a mirror. It was enough to make him gasp in shock, too. He looked like Stephen King’s Carrie, but there was little time to fuss about it. Rooting through the pile of clothes, he found his jeans and, leaning against the inverted floor, slipped them on.

  Much better. He found one of his boots, but couldn’t find the other.

  When Vera got back, she dropped a plastic jug down, then followed it. “I found some water, but no food that isn’t in cans. Shouldn’t we go? I mean, is this thing going to blow up?”

  “Good question,” Jax said. Now that she mentioned it, he thought he could smell diesel. “We’d better play it safe.”

  He looked around for an exit, realizing the RV lay door side down. They would have to go out through the windshield. He made one last frantic search for his other boot, saw it and his shirt, and grabbed them. Kylie tossed Danica’s clothes to her and they both dressed, Kylie pulling on her boots while Danica tied her tennis shoes. They all moved forward, and Jax climbed over the seat first.

  “Stay here while I kick the glass away,” he said. The safety glass had shattered, but the laminate had held the windshield in place. The smell of diesel was stronger, and adrenaline fueled his body as he kicked his way through the glass, then used his shirt-wrapped fist to knock out a good-sized hole. He turned and held his hand out to help Danica and Vera out. Kylie was next, then he followed, wincing as he pulled on his t-shirt.

  “Follow the ditch,” Kylie said. “We’ve got to stay out of sight.”

  Crouched down, they ran, Jax bringing up the rear. He tried to get his bearings, and decided they were running away from the highway, roughly north by northwest. Behind them, the RV’s engine ticked ominously in the heat, but it didn’t blow up. He couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or not. If it had, their position would be given away, but maybe their kidnappers would assume they’d died in the fire.

  Before long, he had to stop. The pain in his side had grown to a nagging stitch he could no longer ignore. Hands on his thighs, he panted for breath, listening to the girls getting farther away. Sagging to his knees, he fought the nausea and darkness swimming at the edge of his vision.

  ⋘⋆⋙

  When Kylie looked over her shoulder, she saw Jax wasn’t behind her anymore.

  “Wait!” she called to the other girls, who pulled themselves to a stop. “Jax,” she said by way of an explanation, and turned to retrace her steps. She found him not too far back, slumped against the side of the ditch, a stain spreading across the front of his shirt.

  “Jax! Why didn’t you tell me you were hurt?” When he didn’t answer, she realized he’d passed out. A goose egg had started forming on his forehead, too.

  As she knelt beside him, she saw his eyelids flicker. She pulled up his shirt and saw a shallow gash that looked too big to be from a shard of glass. How had she not seen this before? She opened the first aid kit and motioned Vera to bring the water jug.

  “It’s just a graze. Thank God,” she said. She thought she heard a snort of laughter from Jax, and hoped he wasn’t delirious. It was too soon to be delirious, wasn’t it?

  Vera poured a splash of water into his mouth, then handed the jug to Kylie.

  Blessing her mother for drilling her until she knew basic first aid and accident response inside and out, she splashed water on the wound. It would probably need stitching eventually, but it wasn’t bleeding too badly. She didn’t try to clean it properly. They didn’t have the time to stop the bleeding a cleaning would surely trigger. Patting it dry, she applied the biggest gauze patch the kit held and taped it down.

  Danica and Vera nervously looked back the way they’d come. Danica was crying again, and Vera comforted her. Kylie pushed aside her own meltdown. There wasn’t time. She promised herself she’d have a good freak-out once they were all safe.

  “I think I hear a car,” Vera said.

  Kylie looked back. Was that dust in the air back at the RV? Would their kidnappers be able to tell where they’d left the road?

  “Jax? Jax, honey, we’ve got to move.”

  Kylie tugged on his arm and Jax groaned, but opened his eyes and held out a hand to her.

  “Help me up,” he mumbled.

  “Do we even know where we’re going?” Vera asked.

  “Away is good enough for the moment,” Kylie said as she pulled Jax’s arm around her shoulders to support him.

  That worked to silence any more questions, and they resumed their walk up the wash, although considerably slower than before.

  “There’s something you need to know,” Jax gasped out after a minute.

  “Shh....” Kylie concentrated on the ground, not looking at him.

  “They killed that cop. I heard them talking. They.... I think they targeted you on purpose. They called you Buford.”

  “What?” Kylie glanced at him. “How would they know my dad’s name?”

  “That’s what I mean. They didn’t call you Thomas. That means they know more about you than just what they could have overheard at the fair.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Me, either. But I think there’s more to this than some random snatch.”

  ⋘⋆⋙

  As the patrol car flew along the highway, Maria grasped the handle above the passenger door, hanging on for dear life, and tried not to betray how terrified she felt. The car threatened to catch air on the uneven surface of the road while the scenery flashed by in a blur.

  A glance at the speedometer told her their speed was in the triple digits. If she’d been a praying woman, she’d have been burning up God’s ears with silent pleas for her safety. However, given the things she had done in her life, she knew she was already bound for hell. A small shake of her head dispelled that idea. There was no such thing as heaven or hell. Life was what you made of it, and she’d made her whole life into a party.

  Up until today, her more distasteful duties were just that—distasteful. A means to a hedonistic end. She hadn’t thought twice about the things she did to keep her “candy jar” full of pills, spliffs, and liquor, her bed warm with an endless stream of virile lovers. She only went out on acquisition road trips six times a year. She spent the rest of the time trolling nightclubs and recruiting talent—both willing and otherwise. She was also high o
n the list for training new talent, a job she loved.

  She had never even considered her lifestyle wouldn’t last forever, or that a single “special order” could go so awry and put everything in jeopardy.

  Without warning, Alan slowed the vehicle.

  “What is it?” she asked, looking around. “Do you see them?”

  “No, and that’s the problem. We just covered more ground than they possibly could have, even with their head start. Even at its fastest, that old tub is no match for this thing. We should have overtaken them by now, which means they left the road somewhere.”

  She had the wisdom not to comment that, at the speed they’d been traveling, they would have missed the Death Star sitting on the side of the road.

  “So what do we do now?” she asked.

  “We’re coming up on a small town. We’ll go through, ditch and burn the car, then hoof it back and steal something.”

  “Won’t a stolen vehicle alert the authorities?”

  Alan didn’t answer.

  The “town” wasn’t more than a wide spot in the road, an intersection of two highways. An old ruin of a building, a sign on it indicating it had once been a school, sat on the barest rise of ground. A bit farther on, Alan pointed out an old trailer house with a cluster of vehicles around it. It looked a little like it might be a junkyard.

  “Seriously?”

  Just a half-mile down the road, a guardrail announced the presence of a culvert over a ditch, or perhaps it was a river in the rainy months. Alan slowly drove onto the shoulder, taking the patrol car down into the ditch, mowing down a wire fence and several shrubs. He put the car in park and shut it off, then they both climbed out into the heat.

  “Wait here,” he said.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To get a vehicle. If we burn the car now, we may as well announce our presence. I’m going back to that junkyard and I’ll bring another vehicle down. Then we’ll set the fire and backtrack until we find that RV.”

  She watched him limp his way up the hillside and back to the road, pulling shrubs upright as he went.

  This was turning out to be the worst day ever.

  Once he was out of sight, she looked around, trying to decide if she wanted to wait in the car, letting it idle with the A/C on, or whether she should just hunker down and wait in the shade of a bush. While the thought of the A/C was nice, she worried she wouldn’t be able to hear if someone pulled up to investigate a cop car in the ditch. Sighing, she found a tall juniper bush with a decent-sized shadow. After scanning carefully for bugs, scorpions, and whatever else scampered around in this godawful landscape, she sat down on a large stone to wait.

  She’d thought El Paso was crawling with too many strange bugs, especially compared to Boston, but the New Mexican desert surpassed even the worst dive hotel in terms of creepy critters.

  Once she settled down, the little noises of the desert asserted themselves. Cicadas, or locusts, or whatever the chirping insects were, struck up a chorus, and scuffling could be heard in the branches around her. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of dark things fluttering, and eventually spotted several small birds hopping from limb to limb. Traffic passed on the highway above her, but most of it was going north and wouldn’t be able to see down into the ditch.

  She checked her watch and sighed. It hadn’t even been ten minutes. It was going to be a long wait.

  Just as that thought crossed her mind, she heard the crunch of gravel, the sound of a door closing moments after. It was too soon, wasn’t it? Alan surely couldn’t have limped up to that building, hotwired a car, and driven back, could he?

  “Hello?” a stranger’s voice called out, confirming her suspicions. “Anyone down there?”

  Maria froze. If it hadn’t been a cop car down in the ditch with her, she knew she could have played the dozing driver who had drifted off the road. However, as soon as the Good Samaritan saw the light rack and sigil emblazoned on the car, he would know something was off.

  Maybe she could meet him up the slope, keep him from getting a good look at the car...? Before she was fully aware of her actions, she stood and waved, drawing the stranger’s attention to her and away from the car.

  “Here! Hello! Oh, thank goodness you stopped.” Aiming to keep attention on herself, she stumbled a bit as she climbed the shallow slope.

  Just as she crested the hill, the man—a young cowboy by the look of him—reached out to grab her by the arm, helping her the last little bit. Before he could say anything, she saw Alan slipping up behind the man’s pickup, pistol raised and aimed in her direction. The hissing pop of a suppressed gunshot sounded through the morning air.

  With a shriek, Maria flinched away from the stranger as a heavy mist of blood settled on her face, hands, and arms. He jerked and let go of her, crashing down the slope she’d just climbed.

  “Are you out of your mind?” she screamed, but Alan ignored her, limping past and down the slope to where the stranger writhed, clawing his way through the bushes. He didn’t stand a chance. Alan put his gun to the back of the man’s head and pulled the trigger.

  “Make yourself useful,” he said as he passed her on the way back up the slope. “Search him, take any ID, then roll him into the culvert over there and cover him with some shrubbery.”

  “But—”

  Alan turned, silencing her. “By the time they ID him and get the details on his ride, we’ll be long gone. I swear, woman. I’m already in a killing mood. You don’t do what I say, I’ll lay you out next to him.”

  Maria jumped to do as she was instructed. She’d been told the man who rode with her on these outings was an expert on solving problems, but this was the first time in four years she’d ever seen him at work.

  He was terrifying.

  Chapter Eight

  Jax’s whole being felt...blurry. He knew he was running, but he no longer knew why. He had a feeling it was because of something important. His whole world had reduced to tan and grayish-green blobs in his vision, the sound of running feet and heavy breathing, and heat—the merciless sun beat down on him.

  He staggered and flailed. His left arm was around a body, so he reached his right arm toward it, trying to find something to steady himself. His hand found something soft, and he explored it.

  “Jax! Not funny.”

  Kylie.

  “I don’t...,” he began, then felt bile rising in his throat. He turned away and retched, hoping none of the blurs in his vision were people. He was lowered to his knees and he pitched forward, heaving.

  Another voice, low and urgent, then Kylie again. “He’s got a concussion. We need to stop.”

  The other voice again, then Kylie—angry. “Go on if you want. He needs to stop or risk permanent damage.”

  Footsteps moved away from him, then Kylie’s voice, farther away. “He only saved you from life as a sex slave.”

  More retching drowned out the sounds of the argument. He heaved until he was spent, then flopped onto his back and stared up at the cloudless sky until a familiar shadow came between him and the blue expanse.

  “Kylie,” he croaked.

  “Don’t you fall asleep on me now. You’ve got to stay awake and help me get you to shelter.”

  Water splashed on his face and gentle hands wiped him, fingers snagging against something—dried blood?—that tugged at his skin, then gave way to the caress. He sighed, trying to close his eyes, but the hands gently slapped him, bringing him awake again.

  “No sleeping. Stay with me, Jax. Don’t leave me now.”

  Kylie. She sounded so sad. He rocked in her embrace, felt her forehead pressed against his.

  “I’m okay,” he tried to say, but the words only came out in a whisper.

  That other voice called again, raised in a kind of exultation, but Jax still couldn’t understand. Kylie tugged him to his feet.

  “Come on,” she said. “It’s not far now, then you can rest. Okay?”

  When he felt himself being
lifted, he tried to help, tried to gather his feet beneath him. Eyes closed against the way the landscape spun, he managed to take a few steps.

  An indeterminate amount of time later, he heard a crashing sound, then shadows enveloped him and he was lowered to the blessed ground. Shadows meant it was marginally cooler than in the sun, which was his last thought before he lost all sense of time and place.

  ⋘⋆⋙

  An insistent knock brought everyone’s attention to the café’s door. Janie looked out the windows to see Mandy Belamy peering inside, anxious and distraught. Her husband, Wayne, tried the door handles with a shake. Blue opened the door for them and they hurried inside, making a beeline for Janie.

  “We came as soon as we could.” In his agitation, Wayne pushed right up into her personal space, close enough to put his hands on her shoulders. Janie flinched, and had to force herself not to step back. “What the devil is going on?”

  “Easy, Mr. Belamy,” Mitzi said, drawing their attention to her. Her uniform and presence had distinct—albeit polar opposite—effects on their demeanor. Mandy breathed a sigh of relief, while Wayne looked disappointed.

  “What’s the boy done now?” he asked.

  “Wayne,” Mandy countered. “He’s a good boy. I’m sure there’s an explanation for this.”

  Janie was glad Mitzi stepped in to explain what was happening. She had gone to school a couple years behind Wayne, and Mandy was a high school barrel racing champion who graduated a few years ahead of him. Janie had followed Mandy’s career and had looked up to her. She didn’t want to be the instrument that delivered the same feeling of heartbreaking helplessness that preyed on her, didn’t think she could hold it together to watch the realization dawning in their eyes.

  She leaned against Tim, once again glad of his presence.

  Before too long, the Belamys were brought up to date, and tense silence again returned to the café. Janie couldn’t look at them, couldn’t bear to see her pain reflected in their eyes.

  They all jumped when Mitzi’s phone rang, but it turned out to be the sheriff’s office checking in to make sure they didn’t need anything.