by Chad Zunker
“That’s good.” Dyson took a moment, then said, “I can’t risk letting the kid go. He needs to be permanently shut up, or he’ll always be a threat. I’ll get Richie on the road ASAP. Do whatever you can to delay.”
“Fine. But finish this already.”
At that, Farley stepped away from the vehicle and went back inside the hospital. Dyson rolled up his window and then jumped on his phone. Because the tracking device was outside the car, Jess couldn’t hear whatever conversation he had next. But she already knew. Dyson was sending Richie Maylor to the border.
Jess immediately called David.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“Not far. A few miles outside of Austin. Why?”
“Drive fast, David. Parker is in real trouble.”
“I know . . . What do you—”
“No, I mean serious trouble. It’s Agent Farley, David! He’s the one feeding them inside info. Dyson just met with him outside Dell Seton!”
David cursed. “Farley?”
“Yes. Listen to this conversation I just recorded.”
On her tracking app, Jess replayed the conversation between Farley and Dyson so David could hear it over the phone.
“How did you get that, Jess?”
“I attached a tracking device to Dyson’s car. They just had this conversation right outside of the hospital.”
“Damn it, Jess. I led those guys straight to him.”
“Is Parker still in the same spot?”
“Yes, according to my app. But he still won’t answer the phone or reply to any of my texts. And my damn phone is about to die on me!”
“What do you want me to do?”
David sighed. “Call the police in Laredo. Tell them we have reason to believe a boy is in danger. Give them the location of the travel center. See if we can get lucky. Then you’ve got to somehow get to Zegers and tell him everything.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Race them to Laredo. Try to—”
There was sudden silence on the phone.
“David?” Jess said.
She held her phone away from her ear. David was gone.
Which meant his phone was dead.
FORTY-FOUR
David tossed his dead phone onto the passenger seat. For a moment, he considered trying to pull off somewhere to find a gas station that might sell a portable car charger. But he knew he’d lose valuable time on the highway doing that. Right now, he had a brief lead on Richie Maylor. If he stopped, he’d likely lose that lead. He couldn’t risk that. Besides, Parker was not responding to any of his calls or texts. The smartest thing he could do was keep driving, so he pressed his foot down harder on the gas.
The old Chevy truck was only capable of a certain high-end speed. He couldn’t chance blowing out the engine, no matter how fast he wanted to go right now. At some point, he would also have to pull off and get gas. He only had half a tank. That was frustrating. His mind went to Agent Farley. He couldn’t believe it. Zegers had seemed to trust him more than any other agent. The recorded conversation made it sound like Dyson had failed in using Zegers’s son as leverage. He hoped that meant the boy was okay.
David squeezed the steering wheel in tight fists and weaved around a slow-moving SUV. David didn’t know what to expect when Jess called the police in Laredo. Would they even take her seriously? He figured they would at least send a car over to check it out. But how was one lone cop going to find and secure Parker when the FBI couldn’t? Still, they had to do something. He couldn’t chance that Dyson might know someone else in Laredo whom he would try to send over to get to Parker.
David zipped around three more cars. His truck was really moving now. He couldn’t believe he was racing down the highway to the border in the middle of the night in one last desperate attempt to save Parker Barnes. How had it come to this? But he had to get to the boy first. Before, he’d wanted the boy to stay put. Now David wasn’t so sure.
Pressing his foot down even farther, David began to feel the old truck vibrate in a way he’d never experienced.
But he didn’t slow down. He kept speeding up.
FORTY-FIVE
Zegers rolled onto his left side, his back beginning to ache something fierce. He’d been trying to sleep on a huge beanbag chair in the corner of his son’s bedroom. Lisa was curled up in the bed with Josh. Both of them were sound asleep. Upon bringing Josh home earlier, neither Lisa nor Josh wanted him to leave. Truth be told, neither did Zegers. The whole thing with Josh had really scared all of them. In this brief moment, they were a family again. And Zegers wanted to hold on to that feeling for as long as possible. He knew it was fleeting. He and his ex would be fighting again in no time. But not right now. So he stayed.
Zegers squinted over at the digital clock Josh had sitting on the nightstand next to his bed: 5:13. Stretching his back out a little, Zegers tried to get more comfortable in the beanbag chair and go back to sleep. But his back was not allowing it. Instead, he let his mind again run through the events from earlier. The man with the crew cut and the fresh bullet hole in his knee had been arrested. For the moment, he wasn’t talking. And unfortunately, the other guy didn’t seem to know much. Josh had told Zegers that the crew cut guy approached him right after football practice, claimed he was an FBI agent who worked for his dad, and that Zegers had instructed him to come pick him up. Josh went along with it because his dad had done something like this before when he’d been tied up during an investigation. Josh said he didn’t realize something was off until they got to the strange house. He sent a quick text to his mom. But then the crew cut guy grabbed his phone, dragged him inside, bound him with duct tape, and stuck him in that dark bedroom. Zegers planned to interrogate the crew cut guy first thing that morning.
Realizing he was now wide-awake, Zegers found his phone in the pocket of his jacket on the carpet next to him. He powered it back up, expecting a barrage of angry voice mails and text messages from Mark Anderson. His eyes suddenly widened as messages began loading on his phone—including one that had arrived just ten minutes ago from Jess Raven. What the hell?
CALL ME ASAP!!!
Zegers quickly scrolled down and saw a half dozen other text messages over the past couple of hours from Jess, all in the same vein of urgency. Why? Getting up from the floor, Zegers moved out of the bedroom and into the hallway. He quietly shut the door behind him and then dialed Jess’s phone. She answered immediately.
“Harry, thank God! Where are you?”
“At my ex’s house. What’s going on?”
“David found Parker Barnes. The boy is in Laredo. David is driving there right now because Parker is in serious trouble.”
“What? Laredo? How do you—”
“Harry, listen to me,” Jess interrupted him. “Farley betrayed us.”
“Farley? No way. I don’t believe—”
“I’m sending something to you right now. I recorded a private encounter between Farley and a man named Dilly Dyson, whom we believe is the mastermind behind this whole thing. Listen to it and call me right back. We’ve got to get someone to Laredo before it’s too late.”
Jess hung up. Zegers checked his messages and opened the text that she’d just sent to him. Farley? She must be mistaken. David had mentioned the name Dilly Dyson earlier. The text was an audio file. He pressed “Play” and then listened to a conversation between a voice he clearly recognized as belonging to Farley along with another man. The hair on the back of his neck stood straight up as the shock of betrayal set in on him. His own trusted right-hand man had sold him out. The shock quickly moved to anger and then urgency. Zegers knew he had to move fast.
Stepping back into the bedroom, Zegers gave his son a quick peck on the head and then left. On the way to the front door, he called Jess back.
“Meet me at my office ASAP!”
FORTY-SIX
David pulled into the massive parking lot directly in front of the Pilot Travel Center in Laredo and came to a sudden st
op as dust circled around his vehicle. He did a quick scan. Probably two dozen regular gas pumps to his left for standard vehicles. A dozen more gas pumps to his right for 18-wheelers. A long line of the big trucks sat idly behind those pumps. Truckers were coming and going. To the right of the main truck stop building was a row of huge warehouses.
David checked the time. He’d made it as fast as he could. But had he beat Richie Maylor? There was no way to be sure. David had only made one quick stop to pump just enough gas into his tank to ensure that he could get here. No second could be spared. Still, it took him six hectic minutes to do that.
Taking a deep breath, he got out. It was still dark. The sun wouldn’t be hitting the horizon for at least another hour. It was much warmer down by the border than back in Austin. Or maybe it was just his nerves pushing sweat down his back. Because his phone was dead, David had no idea if Parker was still on the property. He’d held out a glimmer of hope that the Laredo police might have actually found Parker and taken the boy back to the police station.
David moved toward the front doors of the main building, his eyes bouncing everywhere. Could Richie Maylor have possibly beaten him to the border? He didn’t see a truck that looked like Maylor’s parked anywhere. Pushing through the doors, David took in the truck stop. It looked like a lot of truckers were getting ready to head out on their long drives for the day. But there was no immediate sign of Parker anywhere out in the open. Not that he expected to find the boy sitting in a restaurant booth, enjoying waffles.
David walked over to a clerk behind one of the front counters. He read the name tag attached to her blue dress. “Hi, Gladys. How are you?”
“Just fine, hon. What can I do for you?”
“I’m an attorney working a case. Strange question, but have you seen a small boy around here? Twelve years old, shaved head, probably wearing a hoodie sweatshirt and blue jeans?”
“No, I haven’t. But you’re the second to ask me that on my shift.”
David hoped the first wasn’t Maylor. “Who else came asking?”
“Officer Mickens came by earlier, wondering the same thing.”
David exhaled. “He didn’t find the boy?”
“No, he did some looking around and then left. What’s the deal with this missing boy?”
“We just need to get him home, that’s all.”
“Well, like I told Gabe, I’ll be keeping my eye out.”
“Thanks.”
David was disappointed but not surprised to hear the news about the police officer not finding Parker. He walked over to his left and began casually searching the restaurant patrons. If a police officer had been here and didn’t find Parker, could that mean the boy was already on the move? Had he simply left the phone behind—moved on without it? That was quite possible. David didn’t see anyone of interest in the restaurant, so he went back over to the rows of food and goods. He walked up and down each aisle, then finally headed back into the restrooms. A dozen or so truckers were lined up at the urinals. David counted about twenty private stalls. He began slowly passing by each one, trying to check out shoes underneath without looking like some kind of creep. He reached the end, sighed.
There was still no sign of Parker anywhere.
FORTY-SEVEN
Richie nearly took out a truck driver who was walking back to his rig as he skidded his truck to a stop in the parking lot out front of the truck stop. The trucker gave him a dirty look, and Richie gave him the bird. He then turned to Manny, who was sitting next to him. They had driven as fast as possible to the border city.
“This is the place, right?” he asked Manny.
“Yeah, it’s what Dilly gave you.”
He glanced at Manny. “You ready?”
“Hell yeah. We didn’t drive way the hell down here for nothing.”
Richie grabbed his gun off the seat next to him, made sure the suppressor was securely attached, and then shoved it into the front of his jeans. Manny was also armed. His buddy had assured him he had his back—which meant he was also prepared to shoot the kid, if necessary.
Richie knew it was now or never. If he didn’t get the kid this time around, he wasn’t going back to Austin. He knew what fate awaited him there. Instead, he would jump in his truck, cross the border, and start a new life.
But Richie planned to finish the job.
“Let’s go,” he said.
FORTY-EIGHT
Parker was startled awake by a bright light. His eyes popped wide-open. For a brief moment, he was disoriented. Where was he? The bottom of a bunk bed? Then he remembered he was in the bunkroom at the truck stop. Why was the light on? He rolled over, tried to look toward the door.
“Oh, sorry, pal,” said a gruff voice from the door. “Didn’t realize someone was already using this room.”
The guy at the door flipped off the light and shut the door fully behind him. Parker rubbed his eyes. He figured it must’ve been a truck driver looking to lie down and rest for a bit. How long had he been asleep? He felt around him on the bed until his hand came to rest on the phone Mr. Adams had given him earlier. He pressed a button, again felt blinded by the bright light of the phone’s screen. The time said 5:28. But that’s not where his eyes remained. He immediately spotted notifications of several missed calls and four different text messages from David Adams.
He quickly scanned them.
Please call me, Parker!
I can still make this right. Call me!
You’re not safe, Parker! You have to call me back!
Please, Parker! I know it’s hard to trust me right now, but I can and will help you. I just need you to call me.
He put the phone down on the bed. Although he felt so badly about it, Parker had no intention of calling Mr. Adams back. The plan was in place, and he felt committed to following through on it. Pushing out of the bed, Parker moved toward the door. It was time to find a ride into Mexico.
He stepped into the hallway and then followed it back into the main store. It was definitely busier now than when he’d gotten there a couple of hours ago. Although he was really hungry, Parker didn’t have any money on him. This time he wasn’t going to steal to satisfy that need. Not when he was this close to getting his freedom. That would be way too risky. He thought about asking a random trucker to buy him something, but again, he didn’t want to draw any unwanted attention to himself. He would just have to starve himself until he was in Mexico and figure it out from there.
Hands in pockets, Parker followed two truck drivers out a side door and trailed them as they headed back to where all the 18-wheelers were parked. One of the drivers peeled off to a black 18-wheeler and paused to check his phone before climbing aboard.
“Hey, mister, you headed into Mexico today?” Parker asked.
The guy turned, examined him. “Nope. Just returned. Why?”
Parker shrugged. “Just curious. Here with my dad, who’s inside, and he said I could go check out all the cool trucks.”
The guy nodded. “You want to see inside?”
“No, thanks.”
Parker moved onto the next truck. He would make his way down the entire line to find out who all was going across the border. Then he’d carefully examine those trucks for potential stowaway locations. Hopefully, he’d be in Mexico before the sun even came up today.
Parker was circling around the back of a gray 18-wheeler in the middle, giving it a good look since the driver said he was about to head into Mexico, when he bumped right into the chest of a man. At first he figured it was just one of the drivers, so he was about to apologize. Then his eyes went up to the man’s face, and his whole body locked up with fear.
It was him. The killer. Mr. Adams called him Richie something—and the guy stood right in front of him with his beady eyes peering down into Parker’s soul.
“Hey, kid. Your damn luck has finally run out.”
Parker turned to run, but the guy immediately grabbed his T-shirt in his left fist and held him.
“Don�
�t make this difficult, you little punk,” the guy said.
That’s when Parker noticed the gun in the man’s right hand. Parker knew he had to do something quick, or he’d shoot him right there. Parker spun back toward the man, raised a knee, and thrust it upward. It caught the guy square between the legs, just as he’d intended. He hunched over in agony, barely able to breathe, but he still wouldn’t let go of Parker’s shirt. So Parker twisted himself sideways until the shirt pulled right off his body.
Bare-chested now, he ran for it. He heard the now-familiar sound of the gun firing behind him and tensed, expecting to be hit with a bullet, but it ricocheted off the side of the 18-wheeler right in front of him. Parker hit the pavement, rolled to his left underneath the trailer, hoping he was out of the guy’s line of sight.
Popping up on the other side, he sprinted to his left, back toward the travel center, when he stopped in his tracks. Directly ahead of him appeared another man who looked familiar. This guy’s eyes were also locked directly on him. And that’s when Parker remembered him from the parking garage. He’d been with the goateed man.
Spinning, Parker took off running in the opposite direction. He crossed behind another 18-wheeler, then spotted the row of warehouses just across the parking lot.
He paused for only a moment before making a run for them.
FORTY-NINE
Feeling defeated, David stepped outside the front doors of the truck stop. Parker could be long gone by now. The kid could have been there for only a moment, left the phone, and then taken off again. Maybe the boy was already in Mexico. Jess was right—Parker was incredibly resourceful. Maybe the kid could actually make a new life there. Maybe the boy could survive.
David knew he was trying to talk himself into something to help himself feel better, but it wasn’t really working. He was about to walk back over to his truck, find his phone, and take it back inside the truck stop to charge it when something off to his left caught his eye. He glanced over toward the row of 18-wheelers all parked side by side. And that’s when he saw the shadowy figure of someone running. David knew that figure well. He had seen the same running motion only a few hours earlier as he’d watched Parker race away from the downtown shooting.
