Page 72 of Secondhand Secrets

Though Chip figured his assailant did his best to obscure the weapon, Chip skittered his attention around the expansive space around him. To the people bustling by. Some on phones. Some wrangling small children. Some struggling to drag cumbersome luggage. All too busy with their own lives to notice the risk to his.

As if to confirm the threat, the man holding him leaned in, allowing his low drone to spell out Chip’s only option. “We have a different flight for you to catch.”

Thirty-Five

Ally pinned her attention ahead to the long and dusty road, the loud roar of Sarah’s speeding car adding to the sense of devastating alarm. Sarah had only just hung up from updating Dean that she and Ally were on their way. As usual, Ally remained a few steps behind on everyone’s plans. “So… umm… where next?”

The driver’s side window sat half-open, and a prickly breeze whipped through the car’s cabin. Sarah flicked a lock of hair from her forehead and spoke. “The sheriff has a safehouse for us. Your family will be informed to leave town for the moment. Just in case, you know.”

Silence filled Sarah’s unfinished sentence. But Ally did know.

She knew all about the Syndicate hunting down Emilia and for nothing more than a shot at a big payday. How they’d hounded Dean for no reason other than an unwillingness to let him have a new life away from their sordid dealings. How they’d kidnapped Sarah to get to him. How they now targeted Chip, a flimsy secondhand connection to begin with. Even then, they weren’t below hurting Ally just to eke a little more revenge.

So now, not even her family was safe. Not her parents. Not Laila. Oh God, what about Whitney? She was just a child. But nothing and no one seemed sacred to the Syndicate. Only money and vengeance.

Even as the open road shaded over, and the car drew near the woods surrounding Mirabelle River, her mind stayed on what her family would be doing right now. The panic of their rushed escape. The terror she could barely endure for herself, much less imagine in her parents, in poor Whitney. They, of all people, didn’t deserve this.

Giant oaks, elms, and spruces loomed on either side of the car in blurs of brown and green. Occasionally, an intersection would open, allowing a quick burst of sunlight before the thick forest swallowed them again.

Sarah barely slowed at each crossing, seeming to trust the rarity of another Harlow resident passing through, or that they’d at least do the predictable thing and let the speeding car pass first.

Throat too tight for words, Ally stayed silent, her mind too overwhelmed to hold on to a single clear thought.

“Ally.” Sarah’s hand landed on her shoulder, the woman glancing over with an unconvincing smile. “We’ll get through this.”

Ally wanted to cry at the reassurance. Wanted to cling to those words until she actually believed them. After all, Sarah had come for her. She’d overcome their differences and offered comfort now. So, Ally held back on voicing her doubt and opted for nothing more than a shaky, tight nod.

“Dean and the sheriff make a good team.” Sarah’s expression hardened on the road, and she took her hand back, as though she saw through Ally’s weak attempt at bravery. “They’ll have outside reinforcements coming in.”

Sarah’s flat delivery belied doubt. Like her encouraging words were, in part, also intended to keep her motivated too.

Even if we survive, then what? Do we live out the rest of our days in hiding?

A lifetime void of any real life?

The car shot toward another intersection, and wanting to acknowledge Sarah’s efforts, Ally turned back to her friend and prepared to offer a weak thank-you. Only the driver’s side window behind Sarah filled with an ever-growing white blur.

Ally’s mind pieced the image of a van moments before her entire world exploded, and a sharp scream tore through her throat.

The unstoppable impact. The BOOM.

The wrench of her body. Head hitting her window before inertia swung her loose the other way. Sarah’s car screeched and spun from one side of the road, all the way to the other, then slammed to a sudden stop into a tree.

The unforgiving violence dropped to an eerie kind of quiet, the engine no longer running, though the soft ticking from within joined the smell of wet earth, burned rubber, and oil.

Ally groaned and focused on Sarah. The tree’s thick trunk filled her crumpled window and blood wept from the top of her forehead where she’d likely made contact with the steering wheel.

Though pain crept into Ally’s lower back, she was thankful to see Sarah dab a hand to her new wound. As if by instinct, Ally followed the same gesture, ignoring the multiple aches along her spine and shoulders where whiplash already set in, her fingertips touching the side of her head.

Just like Sarah, Ally’s fingers came back slick with blood, and she twisted to find her window a glistening spiderweb of cracks, the center-most point level with her head and splattered with red.

The engine made a reluctant choking noise, and she peered over to Sarah stabbing at the start button, her breaths bursting in and out as she slammed her foot to the accelerator and yelled for the damn thing to start.

But nothing happened. Before Ally could form any bright ideas, her door swung open, and she peered up to find the solid-set man from the bus stop glaring at her.

Disallowing any room for escape, he filled her door and wrestled with her seatbelt, seemingly unaffected by her screams in his ear, or the scratches she soon inflicted on his forearms.

The seatbelt released with a jolt, and he wrapped his meaty hand to the front of her sundress, yanking her from the car in one long sweeping movement, her legs collapsing beneath her so that she skidded onto the rough forest floor.

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