Desert Ice Daddy by Marton, Dana (pocket ebook reader .TXT) 📕

The walk to the Navigator seemed twice as long. And gained them little. He took in the shot-up tires, every single one of them, and recalled the pickup that had taken off this way. They wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while.

“Let’s get inside. The air conditioner will still be working.”

“Are we stuck here?” She broke out of her numb state only long enough to ask that. She slid into her seat while he tossed the briefcases in the back.

“The cops know where we are. They’ll come and get us when we don’t show up back at the ranch. They’ll come to investigate the scene of the shootout, anyway. There are cars on their way, I’m sure. The choppers just got here ahead of them.”

He reached for the Thermos first thing after he walked around from the back and got in, and now he emptied the contents to the ground before closing the car door, starting the engine and turning on the air conditioner. Then he took the damn Thermos apart. Was it possible they’d been bugged and tracked?

“Why would Gary talk? I told him what would happen if he…” She bit back the rest, fingering the Thermos’s top, her eyes red-rimmed.

“Could be the cops went around to his place again after I left him yesterday. Maybe they had more questions and he cracked under pressure. Or maybe he didn’t trust me with you and Christopher.”

He took the silver insert out, but found nothing between that and the outer shell, nothing in the cap. He put the cap back on and tossed the whole thing to the floor in the back. The transmitter didn’t really matter at this stage. The damage was done.

“He didn’t trust me,” she said. “He wanted to be here. I should have—” She shook her head.

The half-finished sentence had him clenching his jaw. She should have what? Come with Gary? Because that drunk idiot would have been better than Akeem? Because he was her ex and the boy’s father? Because Akeem had no business being here with her?

And what if she was right? That thought had him clenching his teeth harder. Because he had failed. They didn’t have Christopher.

“Whatever happened, happened. We are going to focus on what we need to do to have the best outcome of what happens next.”

Inshallah, his uncles would have said. Accept Allah’s will in everything; they had told him that countless times during those four years he had spent with his grandfather in the Arabian Desert after his mother’s death. Trust in Allah and keep your camels watered. In other words, don’t worry about things you have no power to change, but be prepared.

“I’ll call Flint.” She pulled the cell phone from her back pocket, pushed some buttons, furrowed her brow. “I can’t make a call.” Frustration crackled in her voice. “I think it’s fixed so that they can call me, but I can’t call anyone.” Then the anger seemed to drain out of her as she went pale the next moment. “Do you think he got hurt?”

There had been some blood in the dirt, which she might or might not have seen. Akeem sure as anything wasn’t going to bring it up.

“No way.” He reached for her hand, but she pulled away almost immediately. The car was filled with the tension between them.

“The cops wouldn’t shoot anywhere near him,” he said to set her at ease. “And the kidnappers were aiming up, at the choppers. No way any of them could have hit him by accident.”

A few moments passed while she stared blankly through the windshield. Then her chest rose with the deep breath she drew. Her eyes hardened as she pulled herself straighter in her seat and turned to him at last. “We are going to get him back.”

“Yes, we are.”

A long moment passed with silent communication, acknowledging what had happened as well as the need to move past it for Christopher’s sake.

“I hate just sitting here,” she said.

Which didn’t turn out to be a long-term problem. The cell phone in her back pocket rang the next second.

“SAY GOODBYE TO YOUR SON,” the voice on the other end was shouting.

“Please don’t do this.” Instantly, adrenaline was racing through her veins, clenching her whole body together. Fear clasped her heart, blood drumming in her ears. “Please.” She swallowed her tears and struggled for control. She needed to remain coherent. “I didn’t talk to the cops, I swear. Please. I don’t know how they found us. I’m still here. I still have the money.” That was what they needed. She had to keep reminding them of that.

“You made a big mistake,” the voice sneered, still hard with anger. “It’s over.”

The world disappeared from around her for a second, her vision fading to black before coming back again. Christopher was her life. She couldn’t lose Christopher.

“Please,” she begged, crying now. “I have the money. You’ll get everything you want.”

A long silence followed on the other end of the line. She held her breath, unsure if the man was still there or if he’d tossed the phone without bothering to click it off.

But then words came that allowed her lungs to fill with air again. “I’ll call you back tomorrow. If you go within a mile of another cop, your little bastard will be dead.”

“Is he hurt? How is he? Let me talk to him,” she pleaded but he did click off this time. The line was dead.

She let her head drop onto the dashboard and struggled with her tears and for control for long minutes before she could collect herself enough to tell Akeem what had happened.

“We better get out of here.” He was opening his door already.

“How?” There was no way they could fix the car.

“On foot. You can bet that sooner or later the cops will show up. And when they do, they’ll have plenty of questions for us. If the kidnappers are monitoring us somehow…” He looked around and scanned the horizon. “It’d be better