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EMMA SAT on the motel bed in Preston’s room, staring at nothing while listening to the water drip in the bathroom. Evidently, he’d been in such a hurry he hadn’t even bothered to turn off the faucet properly.
“Mommy?” Max bent down to see beneath the hair that made a curtain around her face. “What’s wrong?”
Too discouraged to even cry, Emma shook her head. “Nothing, honey. Don’t worry.”
“Are you mad?”
She was numb. “No. I’m glad you’re okay, that’s all.”
He climbed into her lap, something he rarely did now that he was getting so big, and let her hold him. She kissed his forehead and hugged him close, taking solace from the fact that they still had each other. His insulin reaction had been the worst he’d suffered so far. She was grateful Preston had had the presence of mind to figure out what he needed.
But not all aspects of the nightmare she was living had ended. Manuel hadn’t fallen for her decoy. He was still in town, searching high and low, and the scene down at the pool had caused a stir. She wouldn’t be surprised if it made tomorrow’s paper: Man at Hotel Saves Diabetic Boy.
She rubbed Max’s back as she remembered the fiasco that had erupted once the doctor had arrived. As a family practitioner, Dr. Bannister had a few diabetic patients, but they were older, Type II patients who weren’t insulin-dependent. It had taken her nearly an hour to convince him that it wasn’t necessary to take Max to his office for a blood test. An HbA1c would reveal Max’s average glucose levels over the past three months, but Emma didn’t have the time or money for something that wouldn’t, at this point anyway, be of much benefit. They wouldn’t even be around when the results came back from the lab. Max’s unexpected exercise had brought on a severe insulin reaction, but a little orange juice had fixed the problem quickly enough. Heck, now that he’d eaten the lunch the manager had given him, he was already begging Emma to take him swimming again. She was the one who felt she needed to crawl beneath the covers and sleep for a week.
Her son squirmed out of her arms, and she pulled her purse over to count what was left of her money. She’d already spent hundreds, and she’d only been gone three days. At this rate, she’d run out of money long before they reached Iowa or anywhere close to it. But she had to do what she had to do. And that included moving on. Somehow. After the crisis at the pool, she and Max couldn’t stay here. They shouldn’t have hung around this long, but she’d been hoping Preston might reconsider and come back for them.
Why she’d been stupid enough to let herself hope for that, she had no idea. Obviously it wasn’t going to happen.
She’d have to buy the cheapest car she could find. It was her only option.
At least she had Max’s supplies and some clothes. She hadn’t remembered to buy herself any underwear or even a bra. But she couldn’t worry about that. She had to keep looking on the positive side—or she’d be too depressed to do anything at all.
“Let’s go,” she said.
“Where?” Max asked.
Emma hid her hair under Preston’s hat and donned his sunglasses. “We’re getting out of here, one way or another.”
PRESTON SLUNG his arm over the back of the booth. The restaurant in the Hotel Nevada wasn’t busy, but two old cowboys sat against the far wall, beneath an elk head that stared sightlessly down on them, and a few people lingered beyond the restaurant in the open lobby, playing slot machines. The bright lights typical of a casino glittered and flashed, and occasionally the sound of bells, whistles and coins falling rang above the hum of voices and the clatter of dishes in the kitchen across from him. But the midday activity was hardly enough to keep Preston’s mind occupied. That incident at the pool had rattled him too badly. He’d left the Starlight nearly two hours ago, yet he felt sick every time he thought of Max’s pale face.
Which was why he wasn’t going to think about it anymore, he decided.
Pulling a twenty from his wallet, he tossed it into the small plastic tray the waitress had left with his check, then glanced at his watch. Mel, over at the auto repair shop, had told him the van would be ready at four. He had another thirty minutes to wait. Then he’d be on his way with his gun and no one to worry about except himself, sailing down the highway at seventy-five miles per hour.
He smiled. God bless Nevada and its generous speed limits. The added freedom he felt in this lonely state was one of the reasons he liked it. No one tried too hard to legislate the daily details of life. Live and let live seemed to be the motto here. It was Preston’s motto, too. And that was exactly why he felt perfectly justified in leaving Emma and Max behind. He refused to set himself up again; he’d rather play it safe than take the kind of risk that might lead him down the same dark path his life had taken two years ago. The new Preston preferred having nothing to lose.
His cell phone rang. After the trouble he’d had reaching Emma, he was surprised it worked. But who was he to question the gods of cellular service?
Eager to distract himself in any way possible, he grabbed it from the table. Inactivity only invited his conscience to continue pestering him with the same resolve-weakening questions he’d been battling for the past hour. What’s going to happen to Max and Emma now? What if Manuel catches up with them? Could one more day in their company cost me that much?
“Yes!” he snapped.
“What?” a scratchy voice responded, and Preston realized he’d already punched the Talk button.
“I mean, hello.”
“I can see I’ve caught you in a good mood.”
It was Gordon Latham, the private investigator he’d hired to find Vince and probably the only person in the world Preston called a friend these days. Preston could tolerate him because Gordon had no connection to the other stockbrokers from the firm where he’d worked, the guys on the block where he’d lived, the investors he’d wined and dined or the Little League dads with whom he’d coached. Gordon hadn’t been part of his former life. Back then, Preston hadn’t needed a P.I. Like almost everyone he knew, he’d stupidly believed that nothing truly devastating could ever happen to him.
Until it did.
“No worse than usual,” Preston said, and sat up taller. The last time Gordon had called, he’d said that a Dr. Vincent Wendell had opened a medical practice in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. It had taken Preston only a few calls to determine that this Dr. Vincent Wendell was indeed the man he’d known as Vince, the neighbor who’d lived down the street from him two years ago. Vince had finally shown up again after disappearing from Fallon over a year ago.
