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“Not if I can help it,” he said sadly.
Seeing his pain hardened my resolve. We were going to take care of this locally. We didn’t need the police or Hil’s father to come in and do what we could without their help.
Turning my attention back to the call, I said,
“Titus, we need to find the guy in the Mercedes. I want whoever you can find to be at my place as soon as they can get there. We need protection parked outside. We need people patrolling. And we need this guy caught and taken care of.”
“I don’t know about this, Cali,” Titus said softening.
“I’ve never asked you for anything. Nothing. And except for this, I never will. You want to prove to me that we’re brothers? Do this for me. I would do it for you.”
It took Titus a moment to respond, but he did.
“Okay. We’ll find this guy. But you realize that someone might get hurt?”
“I’m counting on it, Titus. But it won’t be any of us. Let’s just find him.”
Walking back to the truck, I had a singular focus. In my mind, I went over every person in town the stranger could be staying with and every place his car could be parked when it wasn’t parked outside our place.
Did the current guests have anything to do with this? No, probably not. This had to be someone from New York. A man who knew how to rig a bomb wasn’t someone who could easily blend in as an eco-tourist at a bed-and-breakfast.
Back at the truck, I retrieved Titus’s rope, removed our climbing gear, and then drove us back to my place. I could barely focus on the road ahead of us. I had to search every corner and pull-off on the way.
“Cali, are you listening to me?” I eventually heard Hil say.
“What? Yeah, of course I’m listening. What did you say?” I said with my eyes still scanning everything around us.
“I said that I’m not sure about what you’re doing,” Hil repeated.
“What do you mean? I promise you; we will have every available person looking for this guy. No one’s gonna get to you. You’ll be as safe as you would be if your father was looking after you,” I reassured him.
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” he said without further explanation.
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing,” he said softly before staring out the window.
“Hil, you know I’ll keep you safe, right?” I asked, knowing that I hadn’t yet earned his trust.
“I know,” he said without looking at me.
I continued to stare at him. I didn’t understand what was going on. Maybe I should have pushed him to tell me what he was thinking, but there were more important things happening. If I let my guard down for a moment, I wasn’t sure what would happen. I needed to focus on getting him back home and safe. That was the only thing that mattered right now.
Pulling up to the bed-and-breakfast, I spotted Claude’s truck. As soon as I parked, Claude came outside to greet me.
“Titus called me. He told me what happened. Are you two alright?” he asked with a steely look and a crinkle between his eyes.
Still scanning our surroundings, I exited the truck and shielded Hil with my body as I escorted him inside. Under my arm was the money. The plastic it was wrapped in didn’t hide what it was. After examining us, Claude’s eyes fell to it.
“We’re both fine. But there’s someone out there, and we need to find him,” I explained, capturing Claude’s attention.
“Do we have a plan yet?” he asked.
“We need one person to keep a lookout here. And we need at least one car, maybe two out looking for him.”
“If he’s setting bombs, he’s definitely armed. I’m not much with a gun, but I can make sure there’s no one driving up. I can keep watch out front,” he volunteered.
“Thank you. I appreciate that,” I told him.
