The Overseer (18 page)

The van pulling away…

Up the ramp to the empty highway.

Gone.

Hannah opened her eyes and stepped out of the car. She couldn’t see Devin inside—but she didn’t wait. The truck—had it left yet? Was it still here?

She circled around to the back of the building into the darkness—a single light positioned above the station’s back door, flickering from a dying bulb.

The truck. It was still there.

It looked like a moving truck, some corporate logo on the side—for hauling milk, maybe?

She could feel the footprints on the ground, circling from the gas station—still warm in her mind. Hannah paused for a moment, glancing side to side. Maybe there was someone still in the truck.

She silenced her mind and marched forward—resolve thundered in her chest like a physical sensation. The truck thirty feet away—then twenty—then ten. She reached out, touching the handle to see if the back was locked—

The door moved effortlessly against her touch, swinging out a few inches.

Hannah stopped. There was no way to know what was beyond that door.

She took a deep breath and opened the door. The metal squealed quietly as the hinges ground against themselves.

The doors opened.

Hannah stared into the darkness, eyes adjusting. Just plastic crates, stacks and stacks of them rising all the way to the ceiling, only a few feet in.

A dead end?

This wasn’t right. This was where the girls had been kept— she could feel it down to her core. This was where they had been placed and held and moved from. But there wasn’t enough room to carry three girls, was there?

Despite the concerns of her logical mind, Hannah climbed up into the back of the truck. The compartment dimmed as the truck doors swung slowly back into place. Darkness covered everything for a moment, until her eyes had a chance to adjust, working with the minuscule fraction of light that came in from the crack in the door.

She examined the crates, then let her breathing slow.

The latch that they had used—between the crates.

Hannah reached out, putting her hand between the crates. She reached wrong, adjusting. The crates should have shifted, or at least moved some tiny amount. Instead, they stayed stuck in place—a solid wall of crates. Her hand adjusted and found something cool and metallic—a dead bolt, running vertically.

She lifted the metal nub, and the wall of crates—only a few inches deep—swung out to reveal what was behind.

Devin waited for the big man who reeked of cigarette smoke to finish paying for his latest pack and move to the door. Devin stepped up to the counter, set down two bottles of water, and reached for his wallet.

“Just the water?” the attendant—a short middle-aged woman with dark hair and bad teeth—asked in a gravelly voice.

He nodded. “I was supposed to meet someone here,” he said, putting a ten-dollar bill on the counter.

“Oh yeah?” she said absently as she rang up the water and opened the register.

“He had a tattoo on his arm—a green dragon. Does that sound familiar?”

She nodded. “He was just in here. He was with that guy that just bought cigarettes…”

It hit Devin like a brick:

Hannah ripped from a truck—beaten bloody—in mortal danger.

He stepped away from the counter.

Hannah stared at the walls—close and claustrophobic—foam pads spread across the floor with bundles of mildewed blankets.

Here. They had been here.

Whoever owned this truck knew who had taken them—and maybe where they were going. Her heart raced, trying to form a plan from thin air.

The back end of the truck dipped slightly, and there were footfalls. The wall of fake crates pushed the rest of the way shut—and she heard the dead bolt drop into place.

She rushed to the fake wall—pushing hard, but it didn’t budge.

Then she heard the outer doors to the truck slam shut—and latch.

Devin bolted from the front door of the gas station, his expensive shoes moving as quickly as they could carry him, trench coat billowing against the air he pushed through.

Out the door. Around the corner. Behind the station.

The truck—roaring to life, taillights flashing.

He surged toward the vehicle as it started to roll. Devin shouted with the utmost fury he could muster, waving an arm.

A cloud of dust swirled around him as the truck accelerated and its taillights shrank exponentially in fractions of a second. Devin skidded to a stop, then spun—heading back to the station—back to the car.

Moments later he was in the driver’s seat—the gas station attendant staring at him with confusion through the big glass windows. He started the car and threw the vehicle into reverse, working the gas and the clutch in a smooth motion—the car ripped backward in a turn, the front end swinging. The shrieking of tires and the burning of rubber attacked his senses—

And he took off into the night.

“We have a lead,” Drew said from across the line. Sitting in the Overseer’s office, Vince Sobel rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah?”

“It’s John Temple.”

Vince sat up, eyes suddenly open, leaning into his desk that used to be John’s. “What have you got?”

“We have a hit on his bank account.”

“The Overseer stipend account we set up for him?”

“Yes. He made a withdrawal at the airport.”

“How much did he take?” Vince asked, not really worried about the dollar amount as the percentage.

“All of it,” Drew said with certainty. “He drained all the funds from the account.”

Vince winced. “Why didn’t we close that account?”

“That’s what I was doing when I found this.”

“OK,” Vince said, accepting it with a nod. “The airport,” he said, moving to the next subject. “Any idea where he’s going?”

“We can only speculate,” Drew said, somewhat resigned.

“Contact Trista Brightling; maybe she has a lead on his whereabouts.”

“We’ve been trying to get in touch with her by phone and e-mail,” Drew reported. “So far we haven’t been able to contact her.”

Vince thought for a moment, eyes fighting to stay open after such an eventful day. “Keep trying. Any word on Angelo?”

“I’m sorry, but he seems to have simply…vanished.”

Vince turned his chair, looking out the window at the city’s lights in the darkness. “Keep me informed,” he said with authority and ended the call. He stared out into the evening.

So this was what it was like to be Overseer.

John Temple woke suddenly as the voice on the intercom announced that they were going to be landing soon. It was dark out the window, and it was hard to see where they were the few times he had looked out.

Twenty minutes later they were on the ground, and as others were trying to unload overhead luggage, John simply stepped off the plane—no luggage or carry-on to speak of.

He couldn’t remember if he or Trista were supposed to land first. She’d explained it to him several times, but travel to him had always been more about winging it than well-fleshed-out logistics. They hadn’t been able to get flights together and so had flown on different airlines, with different flights at different times. The result was confusion—and a very real chance that Trista was avoiding him entirely.

John stood in front of the arrivals board, staring blankly at the circus of letters and numbers that were supposed to represent flights. Hundreds of planes from all over the country—and the world—all pouring into Las Vegas, the city of sin, in a steady stream.

“My flight was held up,” Trista said as she stepped up next to him.

John looked at her and nodded. “How was your flight?”

“Bumpy. Yours?” she asked, cordial but uninterested.

“I slept.”

“Hmm.” Trista looked ahead. “Let’s go get the rental car.”

Devin screamed down the highway in his car, watching the stream of red taillights approach and disappear behind him— the dotted line between lanes flashing past the car in a flickering parade.

Hannah. His mind narrowed on her, trying to stay focused.

Why had she left the car? She knew better. Couldn’t she see what would happen? Her future leapt into his mind:

Hannah—ripped from the back of the truck.

The truck—she was in the truck—wherever it was that it was going.

A violent punch to her face—nose broken, spilling blood.