Page 124 of Running to You

“Nah. We’re brothers. We don’t keep score.”

“Unless it’s ping pong,” Sam said.

“Or air hockey.” Michael dug his fork into his enchiladas.

Sam understood why he’d done what he’d done. And he was glad to have a better understanding of what’d happened to land Eliza at his house on Friday night. The pieces were coming together, but he didn’t have the whole picture.

Eliza was still keeping something from him. As soon as he got her alone, he’d figure out what it was.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Eliza left Michael and Sam in the bank lobby and followed the employee into the room with the safe deposit boxes. The woman inserted her key into the proper box.

Eliza added the other, which Sam had held onto since they’d gotten it from Jeanette. Eliza really needed to get herself a purse. And a wallet. And a phone.

They turned the keys. The woman pulled the covered box out of its spot and set it on a table in the center of the room. “Just slide it back in when you’re done.”

“Thanks.” Eliza opened the lid. The only thing inside was a manila envelope, thick with papers. As she pulled it out, the memories came back.

It’d been dark.

She’d opened the door of her little house at two a.m., holding her sleeping boy to her chest, to find a man dressed in black from his skullcap to the soles of his boots. The soldier/marine/whatever was barely visible against the night sky, and she wouldn’t have seen the second one if he hadn’t moved. As the first man ushered her out, the second dragged a guard into her house. She must’ve gasped or something because the soldier beside her whispered, “He’s alive. He’ll be fine.”

The exterior door leading to the offices was unlocked already, the night-shift guard usually posted there unconscious, tied and gagged in the lobby. The soldier crossed the small space and unlocked Jed’s office door—he must’ve gotten the keys off the guard—and she stepped inside, trying to figure out how to break into the hidden drawer with a child in her arms.

The second soldier moved into the room and held out his arms. “I got two of ’em. I can do this.”

As if she’d hesitate to trust him. As if she wasn’t putting her son’s life in these men’s hands already.

She handed Levi over and crouched in front of the drawer. It felt like it took forever, but finally, she picked the lock and pulled the papers out, then searched the office for some way to bundle them.

The first soldier snagged a manila envelope off a shelf near the door and handed it to her. He even smiled the tiniest bit, lines crinkling the black paint on his face.

She shoved the papers in, and he hustled her out of there.

Levi, bless his little-boy heart, was sound asleep in the man’s arms. Her boy could sleep through a bombing.

They hurried outside, past the parking area and down the hill past the dorms. They ran between rows of crops to the edge of the property. All the while, she waited for alarms to sound, but none did. The soldiers must’ve dealt with all the guards on duty.

They reached the high chain-link fence on the far side of the field, and the soldier hoisted her up and over a thick blanket. How had she never noticed the barbed wire that topped the fence before? How had that not been a clue that the barrier wasn’t there just to keep bad guys out but to keep the women in?

She was halfway down the other side when another soldier grabbed her waist and lifted her down.

Levi was carried up and handed down to a soldier waiting for him. Her boy woke up, and the man shifted him into her arms. Levi’s eyes were wide but trusting, his curly blond hair matted to his face.

“We’re okay, sweetheart. It’s okay.”

He was old enough not to cry, but he wrapped his arms and legs around her squid-style.

They were shuffled into a Jeep, smushed between the two broad and burly men who’d rescued them. Another climbed in the passenger seat, and the driver took off.

Just like that, they were free.

She’d left everything behind. The few possessions she’d owned could burn, for all she cared. She had her precious son and evidence to prove Jedediah Keller’s guilt, and that was enough.

Now, she blinked in the bright bank lights and slammed the metal lid shut. She’d already closed the account, so she stepped out of the room, thanked the woman standing at the door, and hurried to the exit. She held the papers out to Michael and slipped her hand into Sam’s, and the three of them returned to the rented SUV.

When they were all belted in, she took the cap, which felt so confining with all her hair stuck inside it, off her head. “That was easy.”