The Alpha man looked at the hopeless situation and dropped his gun.
And then people were rushing everywhere. Someone came up to Hauck out of the glare. Through the pain, his almost hallucinatory state of mind, he saw that it was Watkins.
Dirt and soot were all over Hauck’s face and there was blood over his shirt. He gave the farmer a grateful smile, all he could muster.
“That him?” Watkins asked, gazing up at Robertson’s still-bobbing body.
“Best I could do,” Hauck said. He tried to stand, but couldn’t, showing Watkins his bound hands. “Given the circumstances.”
“Don’t worry. Works for me. Here, let me help you up … If these boys took another minute to make up their minds what to do here, I’m not sure what we would have found.”
“Chuck—” A bolt of dread shot through Hauck. He grabbed the farmer’s arm, so spent and past all pain he could barely say the word. Though Watkins could have read it on Hauck’s face, and seen the terror in his eyes.
“Dani.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
Dani had stayed with Geoff at his friend’s house up Elk Creek Road in Snowmass Canyon for two days now. She was officially going stir-crazy.
She’d spoken to Ty a couple of times and assured him she was perfectly safe and well taken care of. Snowmass was twenty minutes away from Carbondale. And even in the valley, where rumors of who was with whom and who had split up traveled like wildfire, only a couple of people at work even knew she and Geoff were together. And no one knew about Geoff’s friend. Anyway, it was Wade whom Ty seemed so worried about. Wade, who had practically raised her, whatever he had done. He might’ve gotten himself in over his head in some mighty hot water, but in a million years, Dani was sure he would never actually come after her. Still, she hadn’t even left the house, even to pick up a new cell phone, or contacted any friends. She basically just sat around with Blu, watching TV, reading whatever was around the place, eating whatever Geoff brought back. Trying to be a good patient and get her strength back. And her wits. And stay out of sight.
Her battle in the water tank was like a nightmare to her now. She’d woken up both nights drenched in sweat, Geoff grabbing her thrashing arms. The first night she relived the chase in town: the terror of realizing that the person seated next to her at the counter was the person who killed Trey. Stabbing him with the dispenser, then fleeing into town, hiding on the truck, the frantic dash toward the police station just out of reach …
Then the two SUVs surrounding her.
Last night she dreamed of being back in the tank. Water levels rushing in on all sides. Crawling her way through that dark, creepy conduit, more like a murky, black, foul water-filled tomb. No exit this time. Realizing that her air was about to expire. She screamed, her hands pawing at something—the closed pipe cap. Or that’s what Geoff told her she was doing when he woke her up. In her dream, she remembered trying to push her way out of the blocked opening, something bumping into her back. It was a body. A dead body that had brushed up against her in the dark. Its arms entangling with her in the dark. She spun around to get it off her and screamed out in terror.
It was Trey.
Even Blu came over to the bed, putting his snout next to her on the mattress, sensing something was wrong. Geoff held her and wrapped her close to him until she fell back to sleep. It had been a long time since she’d felt close enough to someone to let that happen.
In the two times she and Ty had spoken he somehow sounded different to her: kind of resigned, almost like something inevitable was going to happen. That didn’t sound like him. He told her to write out a description of what had happened back at the river, leaving nothing out. He said one day the police would ask for it so to remember the details as best she could.
She just kept asking him what he was doing there and letting him know she was worried about him and that maybe she should come too.
Tonight, she was worried more than ever. She’d tried calling several times on the house line and he hadn’t picked up. It was going on ten P.M. And that wasn’t like him. She’d left a couple of messages, growing in concern. Geoff had gone off to town to pick up a pizza and some eggs for the morning. She was alone there with Blu. She had the TV on. She’d flicked from the Discovery Channel to the Vikings on the History Channel and now was just watching some rerun of How I Met Your Mother just to lighten the mood. It was an eighties chalet-style house, and every time she got up the floorboards creaked, and with everything going on, that made her a little anxious too.
She tried Ty one more time on the house phone, and when he didn’t pick up, for a third time now, she officially began to go crazy. If something happened to him, how would she even know? Who could she even call? He said if she went a day without hearing from him to call this number in Washington, D.C. She went to the kitchen counter and pulled it from the pad.
It belonged to a friend of his. Naomi.
She thought she heard a car outside, the sound of tires crunching on twigs and gravel, and her heart eased with relief that Geoff had finally returned.
But no car light flashed through the windows, the way it did when someone came up the steep drive. She went and looked out. Nothing. Maybe just the wind, rustling through the trees.
It really did suck, being out here in this house all by herself.