Run to Me (13 page)

Reece finally managed to return his smile.

Zack looked over at the store again. The woman was just walking through the back door. He got to his feet. ‘Okay, you ready?’

Reece swallowed and gave him a nod.

‘Right, let’s go.’

‘There!’

Nolan roused from his
partial doze at the wheel of the rental car. After Tragg’s phone call the night before he hadn’t slept well, but the sound of Vanessa’s excited voice brought him fully awake in an instant.

They were parked some thirty yards up the road from the general store with a view of both its front and rear doors. Raising the binoculars, he spotted two small figures dashing across the parking lot for the
building.

‘It’s them!’ he said. ‘Well, two of them anyway.’

‘Can you tell which ones?’

‘Looks like Ballinger and the middle one.’

‘Perfect. The little guy must be hiding somewhere. If we catch these two, he won’t hold out long on his own.’ Vanessa gave his shoulder a slap. ‘Didn’t I tell you they’d come back here?’

‘Yes. As always you were right.’

Impervious to his sarcasm, she pointed ahead.
‘Pull up along the side of the building. Then you go in the front and I’ll take the back.’

‘Missed you yesterday,’ Bill said, stepping up behind the counter. ‘Found the boxes you left out back but you’d gone by the time I opened up.’

‘Yes, I’m sorry. I had to go.’ Shyler shot another glance around her. The store appeared empty, as she had hoped, but it didn’t do much to ease her anxieties.

‘No problem. I mighta been a few minutes late.’ Bill reached for a slip of paper
and slid it across to her. ‘You had a few more sales this month. That’s yer total – not counting what’s on the tab.’

‘Thank you.’ The figure briefly caught her attention. The amount was more than she’d seen since mid-summer. She’d be able to get everything she needed and pay off a little of what she owed him. ‘I’ll take it in groceries again, if that’s okay?’

‘Fine with me.’

She moved quickly
about the aisles, putting her purchases into a cart. Where once she might have shopped with care – comparing prices, choosing only the best quality produce – speed was now her top priority.

She was halfway through her list of items when she looked
towards the back of the shop and froze. Two young boys stood close together near the freezer units. Where had they come from? She hadn’t heard the
shop door open. Had they been here all along and she just hadn’t seen them?

In a matter of seconds a panic attack was bearing down on her.
Run. Now. Before they see you. Before they come close!

She turned away, trying to slow her breathing as she scanned the list in her trembling hand. She couldn’t go yet. If she left without getting the things she needed she’d only have to come back again tomorrow.

Just don
’
t look at them. Keep your distance and get out of here as fast as you can
.

Grimly she forced herself to walk on, throwing things into the cart as she went.

Zack started up the aisle furthest from the man at the counter. He’d been looking for a potential source of distraction but so far hadn’t spotted anything. Reece was sticking like glue to his side, growing more fearful by the second.
If he didn’t hurry up and decide on something the kid would lose his nerve for sure.

Stopping before a display of garden tools, he tested a cluster of iron rakes. When he jiggled one handle the entire bunch moved, their tines interlocked. This would do.

He leaned down to Reece. ‘Okay, all you have to do is pull on this one and they’ll all fall over. It’ll make a lot of noise but it won’t break
anything so the man won’t get angry.’

Reece didn’t answer.

‘When the guy comes over, keep him busy as long as you can. As soon as you see me leave the store, you leave too.’ When again the boy gave no response, Zack shook his arm. ‘You hear me or what?’

Reece raised his head, face streaked with tears.

Zack muttered all the bad words he knew. ‘Don’t be such a baby. All you gotta do is knock
this down and then stand here. That’s it.’

Cowed by his tone, Reece nodded meekly.

‘Fine then. Let’s do it. Just give me a minute to get in position then watch for my signal.’

Reece clutched his arm. ‘Where are you going?’

‘Over there.’

‘Why?’

‘Because there’s no food in this aisle, dummy. You want to eat compost and cow manure?’ Zack pried his arm from the boy’s desperate grasp. ‘Everything
we want is on that side of the store. That’s the idea. Just let me get over there and wait for my nod.’

Zack walked off without waiting this time. The little creep’s fears were getting contagious – if he didn’t act soon he’d lose his own nerve!

Pretending to inspect the goods on the shelves, he wandered to the head of the third aisle over. Twin walls of treasures stretched before him – salted
nuts, crackers, potato chips, Fritos. He nearly cried at the sight of them all. He stretched up to peer over the shelf at Reece and gave a nod.

The boy didn’t move.

Zack shot a glance back towards the counter. The owner was ringing up a customer’s groceries, almost done. Any minute now the woman would leave and their chance would be gone.

He looked back towards Reece. Do it! he mouthed, with
a fierce expression.

Reece bowed his head and started towards him.

Shyler dumped the last of her groceries on the counter. With only the occasional curious glance, Bill continued to tally her purchases and pack them in boxes. As fast as he filled them she piled them into the cart again.

‘That comes to just under your last total sales. What do you want to do with the difference?’

‘Put it towards
what I owe you, please, Bill.’ She swung the last box onto the cart, returned his goodbye and started away from him.

Fear snapped her heels as she raced up the aisle. The palpitations had already started. She had to get out!

The back door was just past the end of the counter. Almost there. But cutting the corner, she caught a display with the front of her cart. The slatted crate teetered then
fell with a crash. And twenty-five pounds of McIntosh apples cascaded over the wooden floor.

Zack jumped at a rumbling sound from the far side of the shop. The owner was emerging from behind the counter. He walked a short distance, bent and picked something up off the floor. The customer he had just been serving was doing the same, muttering apologies.

At the end of the aisle, Zack saw a small
red object roll by. Then several more. He pulled Reece close and started shoving groceries down the neck of his sweatshirt.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Change of plans. Hold the bottom so nothing drops out.’

Reece clutched his waistband, glancing nervously towards the counter. ‘But I thought you –’

‘Some lady just dropped a bunch of apples. The owner’s busy – now’s our chance.’

With Reece’s shirt
as full as he could pack it, Zack turned to start on his own. The woman had just gone out the back. They had seconds at most.

He’d just laid his hand on a bag of Fritos when movement at the window drew his eye. He looked up to see a face peering in at them. A masculine, smiling, familiar face.

Zack dropped the corn chips and stumbled back, dragging Reece with him.

‘What is it?’ the boy said,
following his gaze. The groceries he was holding crashed to the floor when Nolan stepped through the door in front of them.

They got only ten steps up the aisle when another familiar face appeared, this one near the rear of the store.

Vanessa flashed them her sweetest smile. ‘Hello, boys. Doing some shopping?’

Nolan was coming up the aisle behind them. Zack grabbed a can off a shelf and threw
it. Unprepared, the man copped a hit to the shoulder and swore.

The boys raced on, reaching the end before Vanessa could cut them off. But around the corner, Reece, in his panic, veered up the aisle while Zack went straight. And as the boy flew blindly around its end, Nolan was there.

‘Zack! Zack!’

Zack stopped dead in the next lane over. He snatched a fishing rod off its stand, stepped up
onto the lowest shelf and whipped Nolan about the head. The man dropped Reece and started after him.

‘Here now, what are you people doing?’ The owner stood gaping in disbelief.

Zack doubled back. Vanessa had moved towards the front of the shop – the back door was clear. But Nolan’s footsteps were closing behind him. As he passed the display he’d checked out
earlier, he grabbed at a handle. The
entire bundle of iron-tined rakes crashed into the aisle. A second later, another crash as Nolan sprawled over them. Zack raced on.

‘No! Lemme go! Zack, help!’

The screams drew him up ten feet from his goal. He turned back to see Reece now firmly in Vanessa’s grasp, with Nolan getting to his feet. He looked the other way. Ten paces only to the door and freedom.

With a cry of despair he ran
for the door.

The trembling had moved inward towards her core. It wasn’t just her hands shaking now, but the larger, more powerful muscles of her arms, legs, and back as well. It gave her the sense that unseen hands had taken hold of her and were trying to rattle her very bones.

Shyler opened the car’s back door and dumped the first of her boxes on the seat. The knocking of her heart against her
ribs wasn’t so much painful as frightening. How could it beat so hard and fast without causing damage? Without exploding?

She shoved the first box across the seat and stacked the second and third on top of it. Why had she taken the car this morning? The pick-up was so much faster to load. Just because it had looked like rain and she didn’t have a tarp to cover the bed . . . Who cared about a
few wet groceries?

Turning for another box, her gaze shot once again to the woods. Deprived of its earlier sliver of sunlight, the thicket was now steeped in shadow, shifting and crawling with secret menace – the ghosts amassing to mock her in her fight for control.

Zack burst through the shop’s back door. He flew down the steps, ran three paces and skidded to a halt in the near-empty lot.
Nolan was only seconds behind him. He’d never make it to the cover of the woods without the man spotting him. And even if he did he’d never outrun him in open forest.

A car stood nearby, a woman leaning in through its gaping rear door. When she straightened and turned to the cart beside her, he darted past and dove in the back seat. There was nowhere to hide. Half the seat was crammed with boxes
and the half that wasn’t was too exposed. He looked out just as the woman turned towards him.

Their gazes locked. Her eyes grew wide as she stood unmoving. The box she was holding slipped from her hands and landed, teetering, on the rim of the cart.

Zack swore silently. The crazy lady from yesterday morning. He hadn’t recognised her in the hat, and she’d been driving a pick-up yesterday. He
had no hope of escaping now. Even if she didn’t start screaming, her weird behaviour would draw attention.

From behind her came the sound of the shop’s door slamming. The crunch of gravel. Running footsteps.

Nolan felt precious seconds tick by as he stood turning circles in the parking lot. He kicked at some gravel. The kid hadn’t had that much of a lead on him. How could he have disappeared
so fast?

He stepped towards a woman loading groceries in her car. ‘Did you just see a kid run out here?’ He scanned the woods, hoping to catch a flash of movement. ‘Just in the last couple of seconds. Brown hair, brown eyes, about ten years old?’

At getting no reply, he shot her a look. The bitch was acting like she hadn’t heard him.

He grabbed her arm and spun her around. ‘What are you, deaf?
I said did you see him?’

She gaped at him with a frozen expression. More than startled. Afraid? Confused? Uncomprehending? Maybe the bitch sensed something was wrong. Had she seen where Zack went? Was she trying to protect him?

He was just drawing breath to ask her again when she shifted her gaze to the woods behind him. Nolan smiled. Did she realise she’d just given it away, told him exactly
what he wanted to know?

He let go of her arm and raced for the trees.

Stiff with dread, Shyler turned slowly back to the car. The part of the seat she could see from this angle showed nothing unusual, just the worn grey fabric of her aging sedan. She eased a bit closer, grabbed the top of the door for support and bent down to look inside.

Nothing. Just the boxes she’d loaded.

She squeezed
her eyes tight. Dear God, what was happening to her? A moment ago she was certain she’d seen . . .

She clenched her hands. No, not certain. Of course not certain. She
thought
she’d seen him. A trick of the light. Her raincoat lying there, dropped down off the back of the front seat where she’d draped it, creating – as it would to any sane mind – the impression of a small figure sitting in her
car.

She straightened and moved one last time to the cart. The box she’d dropped lay on its side, its contents spread out over the bottom. She gathered the items, loaded the box, shut the door and climbed in the front.

Behind the wheel she sat taking deep breaths, working to free the residual tightness from her lungs. After a moment she felt a
bit better. Her ordeal was over for another two
months. She was going home. Where no one would find her, no one could bother her, and the ghosts would never dare intrude.

The car rocked slightly as someone got in. Nolan or the woman?

The driver’s door closed, the engine started. Movement – the car pulling out of the lot.

Peering from under the edge of the raincoat, Zack glimpsed an elbow between the front seats. He let out his breath – the woman was driving. She slowed the car over a bump, then turned left. Picking up speed. Not roaring off like she’d
done yesterday, but a normal acceleration.

Zack eased the raincoat away from his face. Trees swept past the opposite window. He pushed himself out of the narrow crevice behind the driver’s seat and cautiously raised his head to see out.