No Ordinary Day by Tate, Harley (best large ereader .txt) 📕

he owed her a chance to keep breathing. He gave Tank a scratch behind the ear. “Thanks, buddy, for reminding me what matters.”

John bent back toward the ground, taking the opportunity to search Nick and Simpson for anything useful the women might have missed. He retrieved a small multi-tool, a tracker, and most importantly, a key fob for a Jeep. John broke the tracker in two, bending until the circuits inside snapped, before turning to Tank with a grin.

He waggled the key fob in front of the dog’s nose. “I know you’re hurt, so I’ll take it slow, but are you ready to go hunting?” Tank wagged his tail in approval, and they set off together, heading deeper into the forest.

Chapter Eleven

Emma

“He wouldn’t have gotten so angry if you at least entertained the idea instead of shouting him down.” Emma leaned back in the chair, frustration with Raymond growing by the minute.

“Leaving here because the hitman hired to kill you tells us it’s a good idea is not necessarily a good strategy. Has anyone thought of that? Maybe it’s exactly what they want. Maybe he’s leading us straight into a trap.”

“It’s lucky we’re not dead already, hon,” Gloria offered. “You’re just too stubborn to admit it.”

Raymond pressed his lips together, breathing hard through his nose. “We worked for years on this cabin. Now you want to leave everything behind?”

“It’s not necessarily forever.” Emma leaned forward, the spark of an idea growing. “At some point they will have to quit. Either everyone after us will be dead or the contract will be called off. With the power grid collapse, they can’t go on forever.”

“What’s your point?”

She indulged Raymond with a smile. “Your cabin will still be here, waiting.”

Raymond thought it over. “It still doesn’t give us anywhere to go,” he said at last.

“I might have a place,” Holly volunteered.

Emma turned to the girl with one eyebrow raised.

Holly tugged the sleeves of her sweatshirt down over her knuckles. “My mom lives in Mississippi with my stepdad. He’s got a pretty big place. A couple hundred acres, a guest house, the whole nine.”

“And you’re just mentioning this now, because?”

The girl shrunk even further into her sweatshirt and focused on the table. “My mom... my mom and I don’t exactly get along. She won’t be happy to see me.”

“Did you two have a falling out? Something recent?”

Holly shook her head without looking up. “When my mom and dad broke up, she wanted nothing to do with us. I think she thought I’d only get in the way.”

Emma’s heart went out to the poor girl. Not only did she have to deal with a murdered father and a mother who didn’t care, but she offered to wade into that quagmire on their behalf.

Gloria leaned across the table and gave Holly’s arm a squeeze. “I appreciate the offer, but we can’t ask you to do that. It’s not fair.”

Holly lifted her eyes for the first time since speaking up. “I wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t think it through. It’s the best place to go. They live all by themselves in the nicest house on the edge of this tiny town in the middle of Mississippi. Vincent, my stepdad, his family ran a meat processing plant that employed the whole town and the next one over. He’s retired now—whole outfit was bought by some mega-company for some outrageous sum. They have more than enough to share.”

“I don’t know.” Emma shook her head. No matter how much Holly pushed the idea, it didn’t seem right.

Gloria turned to Emma. “Holly’s right. It’s the best chance we’ve got. Besides, we’re not coming empty-handed. We can bring all the food we can fit in the vehicles. We’re prepared to work, too. It won’t be like we showed up to mooch. We can even take turns watching the place, standing guard, whatever it is they need.”

Emma turned back to Holly. “Do you really think they’ll take us in?”

“It’s worth a shot. Once Mom hears about Dad, maybe—” Holly broke off, pressing her fist against her lips.

Emma smiled in sympathy. “You have a point.” She turned to Raymond. “What do you think? Does that satisfy your concerns?”

He ran a hand over his hair. “I still don’t think we should leave.”

Gloria looked up at her husband. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but I don’t think we have a choice.”

“You’re okay with it?” Raymond stared slack-jawed at his wife. “Leaving everything we have to drive to the middle of nowhere Mississippi?”

“I like it better than sitting here and waiting for someone else to show up to kill me.” Gloria leaned back and crossed her arms. “At least Mississippi will give us an opportunity to regroup. They were never after Holly, only Zach. They probably don’t even know where his ex-wife lives. Without the grid, without the Internet, it might take them a lot longer to find us out there.”

Raymond softened and held up a hand before Gloria talked over him. “Okay, I get it. It’s better than staying here. But we need to pack smart. Fit as much as we can in the Explorer.”

“What about my Highlander?”

“Windows busted. Not secure. One hard rain and everything inside is mush.”

Gloria cast a worried glance about her. “We’ll never fit all the food and us in your car.”

“I know.”

Raymond stepped into the kitchen area, surveying the stacks of provisions. “We should concentrate on everything calorically dense. Bars, canned protein, whatever we have that will give us the most calories in the smallest package.” He reached for a case of soup and hoisted it up. “Everything like this,” he shook his head, “we’ll have to leave behind.”

“Where?” Gloria asked.

He cast a glance about him. “A couple of our closets are mostly empty. We can stack everything inside and make it look like we never showed up at all. If someone breaks in, maybe they’ll give up and move on.”

“You really think that’ll work?”

“I don’t have any idea, but we can’t just leave it