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“How did he know we were in Salt Lake? How did he find the room?”
“I thought maybe you could tell me.” He stopped for a light, then turned pointedly to her.
“What?” she said.
“You’re not playing games with me, are you?”
Her horrified expression answered that question. “You think I’m leaving bread crumbs? Wanting him to follow?”
He sighed. “No.” He didn’t believe that. Or he wouldn’t have gone to such lengths to help her. “I just can’t figure out how he’s following our every move.”
Emma shook her head. “It has to be Rosa. There’s no other way.”
“Juanita’s sister?”
“I’ve been calling her. You know that. I’ve never left a message, but I suppose she could’ve gotten my number off caller ID.”
Preston scowled as he opened his window for a little fresh air. “And gave it to him.”
She sighed. “Juanita said I could trust her. Anyway, it was a risk I had to take. Juanita helped me escape, and now she’s gone missing. I couldn’t keep running and not look back! I feel responsible!”
“Sounds like Rosa’s not as interested in your well-being as Juanita was.”
“I know she wouldn’t have done it unless she had to.”
They were traveling past block after block of numerically named streets—200 South, 300 South, 400 South. He couldn’t remember how to get to Interstate 80 from this part of Salt Lake, but he knew they couldn’t be far from an entrance to the freeway. He’d checked MapQuest this morning when he’d opened his trading accounts. Evanston, Wyoming, was only eighty miles away. The route had seemed so clear he hadn’t bothered writing down directions.
“What can you do to help Juanita?” he asked.
Biting her lip, she retrieved a piece of paper from her purse. “More than you think. Juanita gave me this. I found it in the glove box of my car before the police took it away.”
He shot her a meaningful glance. “The same car that was stolen?”
She gave a quick shrug. “Would you have let us ride with you if I’d said the man I used to live with reported me for kidnapping his son?”
“Good point.” He took the paper. It was a list of names and numbers, along with a few addresses. At the bottom he found some writing in Spanish. “What does it say?”
“If he finds you.”
“Don’t tell me this has to do with what you mentioned earlier, about Manuel and his family’s ‘import’ business.”
She lifted her chin. “How’d you guess?”
“It wasn’t hard,” he said. “I just dreamed up the worst-possible scenario, and bam—there you go. Worst-possible scenarios seem to be a given with you.”
He thought she might bristle at the sarcasm in his voice, present him with the argument he was looking for, give him some reason not to like her. The concern he felt for her and Max bothered him. He couldn’t afford to care about them. He didn’t know where he’d be in a few months.
But she gave him no argument. When she spoke, her voice was somber. “You’re right. It’s not fair to drag you into this. Manuel might decide to hurt you. And I couldn’t bear—” Her eyes met his but darted away.
She couldn’t bear…what? Part of him wanted her to finish. The other part insisted he was better off not knowing. He couldn’t let himself soften where Max and Emma were concerned, or at least no more than he already had. He had to stop Vince.
“We should part company,” Emma stated decisively. “Take me and Max to a used-car lot. I’ll buy a car and continue on alone.”
He doubted she’d get much for her earrings. Considering how he was feeling, he thought she’d do better with what she’d volunteered at the pool in Ely. But he certainly didn’t want her to make that offer to anyone else.
“Preston?” she said when he didn’t decelerate. “Are you going to stop?”
“No.”
She watched him for several seconds. “Why not?”
He knew he should, but he couldn’t. Now that they’d come this far, he had to keep her and Max safe. Probably because he’d been too blind to protect Dallas. At least he had a clear enemy this time. He knew Manuel wasn’t his friend. If only he hadn’t trusted Vince…
Eventually, it would’ve happened to someone else’s child, he reminded himself. Vince couldn’t obtain the hero worship he craved any other way, or he wouldn’t have repeated the crime he’d committed in Iowa. Which brought Preston right back to square one. Vince had to be stopped.
“Are you going to answer me?” she asked.
“I said I’d take you to Iowa, and I will.”
A road sign pointing to the freeway came up at the next light, and he turned right. He was fairly confident he could catch Interstate 80 if he headed south on I-15.
He handed the paper back to her. “Does Manuel know you have this?”
She busied herself folding it into a neat square and didn’t reply.
“Emma?”
He heard her sigh. “He does now.”
“How?”
“I called him from a pay phone and told him.”
“That’s where you went this morning?”
She nodded.
“Talk about stirring up a hornet’s nest,” he said.
“I had to do it. This is the only leverage I have.”
“For what?”
“For Juanita. I told him if she isn’t safe at home by tomorrow, I’m sending it to the DEA.”
So Emma wasn’t just running from Manuel. She had something that could potentially ruin him, and she was threatening him with it. More good news. “I’ll bet that went over well.”
“It went over about as well as expected.”
“What did he say?”
Checking behind her to make sure Max was still staring out the window, preoccupied with whatever he was thinking, she lowered her voice. “Do you really want to know?”
“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t.”
“He said that when he gets hold of me, he’ll rip my heart out with his bare hands.”
Preston gripped the steering wheel so hard he thought he might break it. “That son of a bitch won’t touch you.”
“Ooh…you swore, Preston. Mommy, Preston swore again.”
Max was back with them.
“He didn’t mean to say that,” Emma said.
