Chapter 4: Travel

Reese couldn’t shake the itchy feeling that something was not quite safe. The unresolved issue of the girls being dumped by their mother who was running for her life nagged at him. She was the victim of a stupid junkie boyfriend who stole from his drug suppliers. Was there any danger for the girls? Was there a link, somehow? He felt a premonition but if he was asked why, he couldn’t justify it.

Gran was asleep in his trailer’s back bedroom with the twins, sleeping three to the queen-size master bed. Tina and Bug were in the side bunk behind a curtain. Reese stretched his legs and sipped a cup of coffee while staring out the front window from his seat at the dinette. The RV park was quiet. Soon he’d hitch up his Suburban and they’d pull out, hitting the road and putting Gran’s former life behind.

Could we be followed if someone decided to come after the children? he wondered. It wouldn’t be difficult. Anyone asking after Gran would only have to check with the RV park office and that would lead to her and the girls leaving with him. He’d never considered it before but the combination of a late-model Suburban pulling a 28-foot Airstream trailer was easily spotted. A license plate trace would lead to his Idaho home address.

Maybe I’m worrying for nothing, he scolded himself. But what if I’m wrong?

The next morning Reese walked over to the RV park office.

“Hey, Ralph, I wonder if you could do me a favor? If anybody shows up asking about Gran and then wants information about where she went and who she went with, could you keep that confidential? I don’t think it will happen but then, there’s the fact that her daughter dumped the girls on her because she was on the run. Figure you could keep it quiet?”

“Sure thing, Reese. I can’t think of any good reason for someone to be tracking her down so sure, I can keep it under my hat. But what if her daughter shows up again, asking about the kids?”

“I’ll leave my cell phone number. Use that. But only if it’s her daughter, okay?”

Early the next morning they were loaded up and ready to roll. Gran, and Bug in her child seat, sat beside Reese on the front bench seat. The twins sat on booster seats belted on either side of Tina in the seat behind. A stack of luggage was packed in the back. All their clothes and personal items had been sorted and stowed in the trailer.

He figured an easy two days of driving, six hours a day, to split the 550 miles from central Nevada to his central Idaho lodge. At about the halfway point he’d stop overnight at a small Nevada casino RV park.

Accosted

Late afternoon and six hours of driving brought Reese and company to an edge-of-town strip mall. Nita spotted a super-size franchise hamburger sign, “10 Trillion Served” and pleaded with Gran and Reese, “Can we stop, please? We’re hungry and we love these guys place! Please?”

The Twins and Bug had joined the ruckus, their sing-song chorus pleading “Please, Mr. Reese? Ple-e-e-z?”

Reese glanced at Gran who smirked and lifted her hands in a What can I say? gesture. Reese shrugged and circled around into the parking lot. Reese didn’t spill the secret: they’d just arrived at the northern Nevada border town where they would stop for the evening.

Moments after they’d entered the restaurant a dark SUV carrying two men pulled in and parked. They backed into a slot facing Reese’s rig with a clear view of anyone approaching on foot.

Nita sat with Gran and Reese watching the twins and Bug yelling and thrashing about in the walled-in ball pit, scrambling and dodging balls tossed back and forth with the other kids. Three happy meals and three double-cheese burgers washed down with cold fizzy drinks later, Gran and Nita rounded up the girls and got them into their coats. Reese cleared the debris.

He led the group outside. Nita walked behind to hustle the twins along while keeping a grip on Bug’s hand.

The Suburban sat nose down on two flat tires. Gran and the kids circled around behind Reese when he squatted down to see the sidewalls slashed open.

Bug yelped! The twins began screaming. Reese spun around to see Bug snatched up by a man then a hard shove put Reese back against the fender. The attacker flicked a knife point against his throat, cutting him and drawing a trickle of blood.

“Shut up, everybody!” the man growled, holding his voice down. He pressed Reese hard against the truck and waved his knife at Gran and the girls. “Listen up! Nobody talks, nobody yells, or I’ll cut him open!” he ordered.

No one noticed the change come over Reese: his face set in a hard, unblinking expression, jaws clamped tight, lips closed in a thin line. He stiffened and he seemed to rise in height as his body tensed, then set into a coiled-spring readiness. His eyes hardened and burned, focusing, sweeping slowly around to evaluate his position, his attackers, and the distances between them.

The first man held Bug tight against him with one arm, clamping his other hand over her mouth to stifle her sobs. He moved in close to avoid drawing attention from across the lot.

“You, cabrón, unlock the door. Be quick! Get them inside. Everybody sit still. Piss us off, give us trouble, we snap her neck like a chicken. ¿de acuerdo? And then we might kill another, and another, understand? Or maybe I just slit your throat, porquero, like a pig. You like that maybe? They can watch you bleed out! Then we take them from here to have fun with them? And you see nothing with your dead eyes, eh?”