back around to where the bodies were. It didn’t look as if they were going anywhere anytime soon.
There were two new vehicles in the marina parking lot, and they had dumped six more men with assault rifles. Keo watched them from the safety of Bago’s for nearly twenty minutes as they searched through the bodies, the vehicles, and then the lone sailboat at the end of the dock. When they were satisfied he wasn’t there, two of them opened fire on the boat with their carbines, the pop-pop-pop filling the air for ten full seconds. When they were finally empty, they reloaded … and poured more rounds into the vessel.
Shit. There goes my ride to Texas.
They didn’t stay behind to watch the boat sink. Instead, they headed back to the parking lot, where one of them drew his sidearm and shot out all four tires on the already bullet-riddled Ridgeline while his friends picked up the bodies and loaded them into the trucks. Two of them climbed into the GMC and the three vehicles drove off.
Except they didn’t all go in the same direction. Instead, they headed off in separate paths, spreading out into the city. That was a search formation if he ever saw one. The closest truck came within 200 meters of Bago’s before turning and disappearing eastward. The only bright spot was that not a single one of them headed south, which was the direction he needed to go.
Yeah. Bright side. Get it where you can, pal.
“They’re gone,” Keo said, lowering his binoculars and putting it away.
“Thank God,” Carrie said behind him.
She and the blonde teenager, Lorelei, sat at a booth eating canned food from the supplies they had salvaged from the two trucks before running off. There were boxes of ammo and more weapons in the back of the vehicles, but Keo kept things efficient—as much supply as they could carry and still run. Everything else was superfluous, including two women he didn’t know until very recently.
He had thought about leaving them behind but couldn’t bring himself to do it. Maybe it was losing Zachary and Shorty last night, or maybe it was the thought of what Gillian would say if she found out he had abandoned two desperate girls just to get to her.
Gillian.
Was she even still alive out there? Did she even make it to Santa Marie Island months ago?
He didn’t know, but that only meant he had to go there and find out. Whatever happened, he had to find out for sure…
Of course, doing that would have been much easier with the supplies he had left behind on the sailboat. The silver rounds they had made, the bullet-making materials, and those stacks of silverware they had collected but never got around to melting down. Losing the boat hurt in more ways than one.
In the boat’s place, he had two women he didn’t know from Adam and a world of trouble. Those uniformed men definitely hadn’t come looking for him. They had gone there looking for a boat, but not him specifically. Besides, the only person who knew he existed at all and wanted him dead was, himself, dead.
Burn in hell, Pollard. You and your son.
“I don’t understand why we didn’t just sail away on your boat,” Carrie said. “I almost had a stroke running here, and we barely made it before those guys showed up.”
“Not enough time,” Keo said.
“How long would it have taken to get a boat ready to sail?”
“More than what we had.”
“Oh.”
He sat down on a stool and finished off the can of peaches he had left open on the bar counter. He ate while trying to ignore Carrie as she watched him intently. She was an attractive girl, mid-twenties, with high cheekbones and a long, slender figure. The other girl, Lorelei, looked all of sixteen and hid behind her long hair. She barely talked, and for a while Keo thought she might have been a mute, but no, she just had very little to say, at least to him. She did whisper into Carrie’s ear every now and then. They acted like sisters, but there was no obvious resemblance.
“Those guys back
There were two new vehicles in the marina parking lot, and they had dumped six more men with assault rifles. Keo watched them from the safety of Bago’s for nearly twenty minutes as they searched through the bodies, the vehicles, and then the lone sailboat at the end of the dock. When they were satisfied he wasn’t there, two of them opened fire on the boat with their carbines, the pop-pop-pop filling the air for ten full seconds. When they were finally empty, they reloaded … and poured more rounds into the vessel.
Shit. There goes my ride to Texas.
They didn’t stay behind to watch the boat sink. Instead, they headed back to the parking lot, where one of them drew his sidearm and shot out all four tires on the already bullet-riddled Ridgeline while his friends picked up the bodies and loaded them into the trucks. Two of them climbed into the GMC and the three vehicles drove off.
Except they didn’t all go in the same direction. Instead, they headed off in separate paths, spreading out into the city. That was a search formation if he ever saw one. The closest truck came within 200 meters of Bago’s before turning and disappearing eastward. The only bright spot was that not a single one of them headed south, which was the direction he needed to go.
Yeah. Bright side. Get it where you can, pal.
“They’re gone,” Keo said, lowering his binoculars and putting it away.
“Thank God,” Carrie said behind him.
She and the blonde teenager, Lorelei, sat at a booth eating canned food from the supplies they had salvaged from the two trucks before running off. There were boxes of ammo and more weapons in the back of the vehicles, but Keo kept things efficient—as much supply as they could carry and still run. Everything else was superfluous, including two women he didn’t know until very recently.
He had thought about leaving them behind but couldn’t bring himself to do it. Maybe it was losing Zachary and Shorty last night, or maybe it was the thought of what Gillian would say if she found out he had abandoned two desperate girls just to get to her.
Gillian.
Was she even still alive out there? Did she even make it to Santa Marie Island months ago?
He didn’t know, but that only meant he had to go there and find out. Whatever happened, he had to find out for sure…
Of course, doing that would have been much easier with the supplies he had left behind on the sailboat. The silver rounds they had made, the bullet-making materials, and those stacks of silverware they had collected but never got around to melting down. Losing the boat hurt in more ways than one.
In the boat’s place, he had two women he didn’t know from Adam and a world of trouble. Those uniformed men definitely hadn’t come looking for him. They had gone there looking for a boat, but not him specifically. Besides, the only person who knew he existed at all and wanted him dead was, himself, dead.
Burn in hell, Pollard. You and your son.
“I don’t understand why we didn’t just sail away on your boat,” Carrie said. “I almost had a stroke running here, and we barely made it before those guys showed up.”
“Not enough time,” Keo said.
“How long would it have taken to get a boat ready to sail?”
“More than what we had.”
“Oh.”
He sat down on a stool and finished off the can of peaches he had left open on the bar counter. He ate while trying to ignore Carrie as she watched him intently. She was an attractive girl, mid-twenties, with high cheekbones and a long, slender figure. The other girl, Lorelei, looked all of sixteen and hid behind her long hair. She barely talked, and for a while Keo thought she might have been a mute, but no, she just had very little to say, at least to him. She did whisper into Carrie’s ear every now and then. They acted like sisters, but there was no obvious resemblance.
“Those guys back
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