Chance called a meeting of them all as soon as Hannah returned with the cup of coffee in her hand and her brother in tow. She watched him give Gabe a bit of a side eye but he held in whatever remark he was going to make and took the coffee with nothing but a thank you and a nod to Gabe who looked like he was ready to swallow his own tongue at any moment.
“We need to call the others here,” Chance said, taking a sip of the cup. “We need a plan and we need it fast. By now Ben knows that Gabe isn’t giving you up and he’ll have people out looking for you. That means we have to act quick but it also means there’s good news in Ben finally putting himself out in the open. The longer it takes to find you, the more desperate and reckless he’ll become. I’ve seen him get that way before.”
Hannah nodded and sat down on the edge of the bed. Chance shot a text to Moose and Cindy telling them to meet in the room and offered for Gabe to sit in the chair in the corner. Hannah hoped it was the beginning of some kind of uneasy friendship for the two of them. Chance was trusting Gabe. He was only doing it because Hannah was there and watching and wanted it. But maybe this was the beginning of a bigger trust between the two of them. He respected her judgement for her brother. That was worth something.
“Do you have any information you can share?” Chance asked, turning to Gabe. “Anything you can give us that will help us with this?”
Gabe shrugged. “I don’t think Ben trusted me very much or he just thought I was some kind of tool he could sue because he never told me much of anything. He just gave me orders and I had to follow them because I had no other choice.”
Chance nodded. Hannah was afraid of that. Still, having Gabe was better than not having him. They at least had one extra man on their side and that was better than nothing.
A knock on the door interrupted her thoughts and she got up to let Moose and Cindy into the room. They looked a little more tired than Hannah felt but a whole lot better than Gabe looked. No one was quite operating on all cylinders and that would make planning a bit difficult. But they had to start somewhere.
“We need a plan,” Chance said.
“What we need is all hands on deck,” Moose said. “I say we call Link and Scout and your mother here too. It’s dangerous to go out and meet them. But we’ve still got these rooms for the rest of the day. Let’s use it as a home base while we plan this out.”
“I agree,” Hannah said. “This is probably the safest place we can be to plan anything. Who knows what else Ben had bugged. None of our old haunts are safe.”
“I’ll give them a call,” Chance said, sighing and looking pensively out the window.
***
The cavalry arrived a few hours later and all shuffled into the room. The landlord of the hotel didn’t look to happy when he saw everyone crowd into the one room, but Hannah didn’t care. They had much bigger things to deal with than the snooty looks of some sleazy hotel owner. They all got into the room and shut the blinds, turning on the lamp that flickered a little irritatingly from the corner of the room. They pulled over the coffee table to sit around.
“Alright, so what’s the plan?”
“First, we need to get Hannah out of the line of fire,” Chance said. She opened her mouth to protest but he looked right at her. “She’s pregnant.”
That got her mouth to close real quick. She turned around the room to see several eyes on her. Well, that cat was out of the bag and it ruined any excuses she had to try and persuade him to let her go. It wasn’t even that she was gun-happy or anything like that. She simply wanted to be by his side when the fighting got tough. She wanted to be there in case anything particularly terrible happened to him.
But it would be irresponsible to put the baby in danger just so she could feel like she had some semblance of control in the situation. She needed to do the smart thing and stay out of it, stay safe, give Chance something to return to when all was said and done. So she let her protests die on her lips and nodded. This was a plan she would have to be able to get behind. The lesson of the past few days had been about trust. She needed to trust Chance to take care of himself.
“I can take her,” Kat said, speaking up while everyone else seemed to still be digesting the new information. “I’ll take her to a secure location and keep her safe.”
Kat spoke with conviction. It was her grandchild, after all, that was at stake now. There might be no person more suited for keeping her safe than Kat. Hannah nodded to her and they looked back at the group. Everyone seemed caught somewhere between surprise, shock, and saying congratulations. There would be time for celebrating later, however. Right now they just needed to keep moving forward.
“I want to be a part of this,” Scout said. “He played me. I want a shot at taking him down.”
“What you want is revenge,” Link warned.
“It doesn’t matter, if it helps bring him down—“
“It does matter if you do something stupid that gets you into more danger than you need to be in.”
There was a moment of silence before Scout spoke again. “I want in. I’m an adult. I can make my own decisions.”
Hannah had to be proud of Scout for standing her ground. She shared Link’s fears that Scout just wanted revenge but the girl was certainly making a case for herself and it was hard to say no to. For all the pain Ben had forced her to endure these past few months, she was certainly shaping up to be quite the woman as a result. Hannah smiled at her.
“Very well,” Chance said.
“This actually works out,” Moose cut in. “If Ben is going to trust any one of us it’s going to be Scout.”
“Point being?” Chance asked.
“The police are on our side right? Maybe we can pull some reasons here and draw him out,” Moose said. “Scout, do you still have contact info for Ben?”
“As far as I can tell he hasn’t changed his number. He’s sent me messages once or twice since I last saw him.”
“Okay so we arrange a meeting with him. Hannah goes in wearing a wire. We’ll listen in and when we have enough for a conviction we strike, us and the police. He can’t fight off the entire world, even though he’s going to try,” Moose said.
“I can set it up,” Link said. “I have friends on the force. We can get a deal going.”
This plan had real potential. Though it sounded too clean-cut to go exactly correctly. But that’s how all things were in life. You got a little dirty and things got a little tough and nothing went quite according to plan but you kept going anyway because what else could you do but try?
So that’s what they decided to do. Ben was a snake in the grass but they knew that now and, for once, it seemed like they had the jump on him. They could take him out and all move on with their lives without having to worry about him stalking their footsteps or threatening their child (or future children of any of their friends and family). It was worth the risk for the sake of their future.