LITMIR.BIZ

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      “When will we reach the next town?”

      “Not for a couple hours.”

      There wasn’t even a tree for cover. Just sagebrush. But Emma could hear the rattle of the inner bag as Max reached into the box for one cookie after another. “I’ll make do,” she said. “Please stop.”

      

      PRESTON CHECKED under the hood, where he’d stashed his gun. Fortunately, the bungee cord he’d borrowed from Maude had done the trick. The weapon hadn’t moved.

      Relieved, he leaned against the front bumper and lit a cigarette while waiting for Emma and her boy to take care of business on the opposite side. Barely two years ago, when he’d still been a husband and father and a successful stockbroker in San Francisco, he’d also been a triathlete. He’d conscientiously avoided anything that might impair his physical performance. He’d eaten healthy foods, lifted weights, cross-trained. He’d certainly never dreamed he’d ever find himself standing at the side of a desolate highway in Nevada, leaning against a rattletrap van—the only vehicle he owned—hiding a gun and sucking on a cancer stick.

      Life was full of surprises.

      With a careless shrug, he embraced the nicotine, halfway hoping it would kill him, then let the smoke escape through his lips in a long exhalation. “You done?” he called. Gordon’s lead on Vince Wendell’s whereabouts was the best one they’d found since the doctor had left Nevada. Preston was anxious to get back on the road. He shouldn’t have picked up any passengers, particularly a mother and child. But that burn on Emma’s hand still bothered him—what kind of cruel bastard purposely burned a woman? And he had to admit that giving them a lift wasn’t that big a deal. They’d reach Salt Lake in one day. He could handle one day.

      “Um…not yet,” Emma answered.

      Preston could hear Max talking about a rock he’d found. Emma tried to convince him to leave it behind. When Max refused, she told him to put it in his pocket. A few seconds later, she scolded him for getting into the dirt.

      Preston hated to see her mollycoddle the boy. He wanted to tell her that a little dirt never hurt anyone. He would’ve told her that if Max was his son. But his son was dead. And Preston refused to get involved in Emma and Max’s lives. He was just biding his time until they reached Salt Lake.

      “Domin—Max, cooperate,” he heard her say.

      “You almost forgot,” he laughed.

      “Calm down. You know we have to do this.” Her voice dropped to a whisper after that. Preston couldn’t decipher what she was saying until she finally called out that they were finished.

      “Did you have Max go, too?” he asked. The last thing he wanted was to have to stop again.

      “Yes.”

      “Good. Hop in.” He put his cigarette out in the dirt and turned—then froze when he found Max standing at the back bumper, watching him.

      “You smoke?” the boy said.

      Where was Emma? She was supposed to be watching this kid, keeping Max as far away from him as possible.

      His heart started to pound at the frank curiosity in the boy’s eyes. Glancing through the windows, Preston saw Emma cleaning her hands with something on the other side of the van.

      “My mom hates it when people smoke,” Max volunteered. “She says it’s stinky. And sometimes it eats a hole in your throat.”

      “She’s right.” Preston pulled open the driver’s-side door, then hesitated. The highway wasn’t busy, but he couldn’t get in and slam the door as he longed to, in case Max happened to step into the road while no one was watching.

      “My dad smokes, too,” Max said.

      Although he didn’t really want to talk to Max, this piqued Preston’s curiosity. Was Max’s father the same man who’d burned Emma? “Where is your dad?”

      “Mexico.”

      “How long has he been there?”

      Max shrugged. “I don’t know.”

      “Max?” Emma called.

      The boy darted back around the van. “What?”

      “I told you to stay right here.”

      “He smokes,” Max said loudly.

      Emma lowered her voice. “That’s none of our business.”

      “I told him you hate it.”

      “Thanks a lot.”

      Preston couldn’t prevent the rueful smile that curved his lips at the sarcasm in her voice. Children didn’t understand polite subtleties. They were honest, fresh, innocent….

      Dallas had been the same way.

      Memories of his son invited the pain he’d been working so hard to suppress. Preston had let him down. Terribly. He’d let Christy down, too. But especially Dallas.

      Emma came around the van, holding Max’s hand. “Would you like me to drive for a while? Maybe you could nap.”

      Reluctantly, Preston raised his head. She looked fragile and worried, like Christy had two years ago. He wondered what other horrors, besides the burn, had created the haunted expression in her eyes. At the same time, he didn’t want to know. He couldn’t get involved, couldn’t care. There wasn’t anything left inside him except a ravaging desire to hold his son again, which would never happen, and the determination to punish the man responsible.

      “Just get in the van,” he said, and hoped she would simply do as she was told.

      She didn’t. “Are you okay?”

      He’d broken into a cold sweat when the emotions had overwhelmed him. He struggled to pull himself together, but he couldn’t erase the images emblazoned on his mind: Dallas soaking the sheets with a raging fever. Christy’s whispered prayers and constant pleading. Vince’s odd behavior. And, at the end, six-year-old Dallas lying innocently in his coffin, stiff and cold and gone forever.

      Emma and Max made his loss jagged, new. Every emotional wound he had that was connected to the past two years felt like it had just burst open.

      He reached for the side of the van to steady himself.

      “Is it the cigarettes?” he heard Max whisper to Emma.

      “Why don’t you find another rock, okay, buddy?” she said. “But search on the other side of the van, away from the road.”

      Now that Max had permission to dig in the dirt, he seemed unwilling to leave. “What’s wrong with him?”

      “He’ll be all right. Go ahead.”

      Max finally did as he was told. Except for the occasional car shooting past them on the highway, the silent stillness of the desert settled around them, almost as stifling as the heat.

      “Are you ill?” Emma asked.

      Preston breathed deeply, summoning the strength and willpower to avoid the jaws of the dark depression that sometimes gaped after him. He knew it came from the betrayal and the rage and the guilt. In a sense, he’d been as much of a victim as Dallas. But he wouldn’t remain a victim. “No.”

      “Then what’s wrong?”

      “Nothing.” He thought of the gun, and the promise that sustained him. It’d all be over soon….

      “Give me the keys,” she said. “I’ll drive for a few hours.”

      He looked up to find that she was still staring at him. “No.” He was feeling better, back in control.

      “Why not take a break while I’m here to help?”

      A semi honked as it passed, and the subsequent

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