“Someone named Dorian. He says he’s Preston’s counselor.” She’s breathless, trying to keep up with my pace. “Dorian said Preston is in rehab in Vallejo. Got into a bit of trouble with booze, but he’s getting better now. That’s really good. That means that he’s alive, Nate.”
“Why wouldn’t he be alive?” My brows furrow. She lifts her shoulders. “He was always haunted by a lot of things. Our family, his sexuality, life in general. But this. . .this is a breakthrough. I need to go there, Nate. I need to see my brother.”
Alarm bells. Loud and deafening, fill every space between my ears. She can’t hear them, clouded by the euphoria of finding her only loveable family member. But it seems really f*cking convenient that Preston shows up right along with Godfrey and Sebastian. In a rehab facility in Vallejo, a place we don’t know, a place with miles and miles of dead zones where they can corner us, catch us and end us.
Still, I gotta tread around this subject carefully.
“When were you planning to do that, Baby-Cakes?”
“Tomorrow,” she says. I open the door for her and shove her in, slamming it in her face. “Come on, Nate.” Her head pops out through the open window. Goddamn, does she want them to shoot her between the eyes? “It’d be quick. If we get suspicious, we’ll make a U-turn. What do you say?”
Hell to the no with a side of absolutely no chance.
“Get your head in the car, Cockburn.” I push her forehead into the vehicle. “And slide the f*ck down before I kill you myself.”
With that, I jog to my side of the car. We gotta get this freak show back on the road, before one of Godfrey’s spies slays us.
Jumping into the Beatmobile, knowing full well that we’re being followed, I zigzag into small towns, populated residential areas and busy highways. There’s a RAM that’s about as low profile as a circus clown shadowing our every turn. I bite down on my tongue to stop myself from barking at her. She’s f*cking insane for wanting to go after Preston when we’re being hunted like easy prey in an open field.
“I can see the bastards,” she swallows uneasily, her eyes narrowing into slits. Her gaze clicks with the young black man in the RAM, who drives behind us, through our rearview mirror. There’s a fat white guy next to him, grinning like a crocodile. If I get my hands on him, he’s going to look like he’s been mauled by one.
Pea’s knees are shaking. Probably seconds away from fainting. I’m just glad we’re in a place so populated, they can’t pull out a f*cking rifle like the AB.
“Check for traffic jams,” I motion toward her cell phone with my chin. “I want to get into a standstill from hell where we can lose them.”
Prescott looks for the most congested roads, the ones marked in red on her GPS app, and that’s where our car heads. They can’t do shit with busy traffic surrounding us.
Two hours later, when we’re sure that we’ve lost the intruders, we’re back on the main road, heading north. Both Prescott and I are watching all of our mirrors, making sure we’re spy-free, for long minutes before she opens her mouth again.
“I know what you think,” she starts. “But the number connects straight to a rehab center. I called again and hung up when I got the receptionist. It’s legit, Nate.”
It’s no big deal to dial from a number that doesn’t belong to you. There are a lot of ways to hack through it, and I’m sure Prescott knows that full well. She doesn’t want to think about it right now, and I ain’t going to taunt her with the truth.
“Look,” she exhales. “This is not a part of our plan, and not a part of our arrangement. You don’t have to come with me.”
“I want to.” My words cut the tension in the air. Do I? No. I know it’s a trap. But I also know that if she’s walking into the open arms of Godfrey and Seb, I’m walking in with her. She’s not doing it alone. Correction—she’s not doing it at all. “But you need to do your boy a solid, Cockburn. Give me a day. One day’s all I ask. We’re going for Seb tonight. Let’s get him out of the way then visit your brother. Cool?”
Time.
I’m trying to buy as much of it as I can, but right now, it’s goddamn expensive. After Sebastian, I’ll ask for one more day. Then we’ll kill Godfrey. Then we can go wherever they want us to go, because none of it will matter anymore. They won’t be able to hurt her. Us.
Prescott considers it before nodding once. “Okay, but promise me that we will?”
“Baby-Cakes,” I warn. “You know I only promise things I can deliver. By the time tomorrow rolls around, I’m not sure you’re still going to want to do it.”
Knowing that Godfrey is going to be stalking every single motel near Stockton, we decide to blindside him and check into a Marriott in Santa Clara, some long miles away from Godfrey’s wise guys and snitches. The Marriott has top-notch security, and when we check in, we specifically ask for our room to be located in the middle of a hallway. The receptionist looks at us like we’re complete freaks but doesn’t ask any questions.
Prescott’s one-thousand-dollar piggy bank is running thin, and when I carry her backpack to the room, I tell her it’s time to go downtown and get some more dough. She fidgets with the hem of her tattered red dress, looking down, looking guilty, before her gaze glides back up to meet mine. The deflated smile on her face tells me everything I don’t want to hear. I just saved her ass, telling Godfrey I’ll kill him before he gets his hands on her, and all this time, she’s been keeping something from me.