Page 69 of So Far Gone

“Hey, kid, good to see you again.” Chuck nodded at Asher in the backseat. “Hard to believe it, huh, that your body could forget something as simple as how to take a leak?”

“Leak?” Asher repeated.

Lucy stepped off the porch. “Chuck! Why don’t you come back inside?”

But Chuck leaned both arms onto the door of the car. “That yokel sheriff wants to charge the idiot who shot me with unlawful discharge of a firearm. You believe that? A misdemeanor! I said ‘Why not just charge him with speeding?’ Says I could face misdemeanor endangerment charges, too! For what? Second-degree tire assault? Oh, and he still wants to talk to you, by the way. Asshole kept my Glock as evidence, but I’ve got my service piece at home. You and I could go get it—” He suddenly looked across at Bethany. “Hey, is this your daughter? You found her? Nice work!”

“Oh. Yeah. Bethany, this is Chuck. Chuck... this is my daughter, Bethany.”

“Thank you for”—Bethany hesitated—“your service?”

“Just doing my job,” Chuck said.

“Not your fucking job,” the woman said as she arrived at Chuck’s side.

“We have to go,” Kinnick said. “But I appreciate your help, Chuck. More than you know. And I’ll be back soon. We’ll get this squared away and I’ll come see you.”

But Chuck still looked concerned. “You don’t want to at least borrow my other piece?”

“No,” Kinnick said. “No more guns.”

Lucy put her arm around the big ex-cop. “Come on,” she said gently. “Let’s get you back inside. You’re supposed to be resting.”

“Okay.” Chuck reached through the open window and patted Kinnick once more on the arm. “You go easy up there, partner. Stay out of trouble.” Then he backed away, leaned on Lucy, and allowed himself tobe guided away, her hand firmly on his back. As they walked toward the house, though, Lucy glanced back at Kinnick and used the hand on Chuck’s back to flip him off.

“Sorry, Lucy!” Kinnick said, in a tone that seemed to indicate that much of their relationship involved his apologizing. He turned back to Bethany. “So. Those are my friends, Lucy and Chuck—”

In her lap, Bethany’s phone vibrated. She looked down at the screen, then held it up for her father to read the name. Pastor Gallen.

***

Bethany cleared her throat and answered the call. “Hello.”

“Sister Bethany? It’s David Gallen. How are you?”

She recoiled a bit, hearing his voice, recalling his dark and doom-filled sermons. She knew that Shane had complained to him about her, questioning her commitment to the Blessed Fire. She always sensed judgment coming from the church leader—and that was before she ran off to a psychedelic electronica festival. “Hello, Pastor. Thanks for calling me back.”

He stumbled through his words at first, as if he’d had a prepared script for ministering to her and was rushing through it. “I-I’ve wanted to talk to you for some time now. I should have called right after your mother’s death and before this business between you and Shane reached a crisis point. I’m sorry I didn’t. You were new to our congregation and have seemed a little wary of us at times. But I should have told you how, in our deepest struggles, in times of sorrow and grief, God still has a plan for us. He calls on a grieving wife to first care for her husband and for her children, even in times of great pain, as He cares for us even as we disappoint Him. He shows us that we can only begin to heal through His love—” But then he suddenly shifted to Leah and David Jr., “—but, obviously, we have another situation on our hands right now—”

“Are they with you?” Bethany asked.

“No,” the pastor said. “I had hoped they were with you.”

“No,” Bethany said, “but you think they’re together?”

“Yes. We’re sure of it. David Jr. was supposed to drive home from Tacoma yesterday. But then he called Darlene on his way and said he was making a detour to pick up Leah because her family—your family—was imploding.”

“I wouldn’t say imploding.” Bethany looked over at Kinnick.

Pastor Gallen went on: “His last text said that something came up and he wasn’t coming home after all. Darlene wrote back, but Davy didn’t even open the text. She can follow his phone’s location. I don’t entirely understand the technology like Darlene does, but she says his signal cut out last night somewhere up there. Maybe his battery died, or he turned off his phone, or drove out of range—”

“In Spokane?”

“Well, no,” he said, “she lost the signal northwest of there. Near a town called—”

In the background, the voice of a woman, his wife, Darlene, saying, “Springdale.”

“Springdale,” the pastor repeated.

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