Page 55 of Talon
“We could take one of the trailers behind one of the ATVs, or possibly rig some kind of travois.It wouldn’t be ideal, but it might work.”
He looked around, looking for something they could use as poles, as well as something to stretch between them for a platform between them.
“You’ve been on a four-wheeler, right?”he asked without looking at her.He thought it would be easier if they were each on their own machine, that way if they needed to bring Kerry back on one, there would be space and if they had to tow her somehow, there were two to share the load.
Heather didn’t answer.He turned to find her completely absorbed in checking the contents of the largest portion of the first aid kit.
“Hey!”he called, watching until she’d looked up and met his gaze.“You’ve been on a four-wheeler, right?”
She nodded.
“You comfortable driving one on your own?”
Heather frowned at him.“Yeah.Of course, I’ve been riding since I was seven or eight.”
He nodded and turned back to scanning the interior of the barn, trying to come up with some way they could get Kerry back if she was unable to sit up and ride.
“Shit,” he said when something popped into his head.He pulled a nylon hammock in a bag down from where it hung, then grabbed a couple of large steel carbineers and took them back to where Heather was putting the first aid kit back together.“Is there room in there for these?”He held them out in one hand.
Heather barely glanced up before shaking her head.“Sorry.No.I might could get the hooks in but not the bag.”
Talon pulled them back and looked around.There was a work around, he knew, and they might not even need them.Still, it would be better to have it and not need it than need it and have nothing.He spotted a large plastic jar of bungee cords on a counter on the far side of the barn.They were the perfect answer, not just to secure the hammock to the four-wheeler but the first aid kit too.
He fetched the jar and fastened the hammock to the back of one of the four wheelers.He wanted to do the same to the first aid kit, but held off.If they ended up needing the truck, he’d have to undo the fastening and that would take time he didn’t want to waste.
The minutes seemed to creep by as they waited for word that they’d found her or what kind of shape she was in.Talon had no doubt she’d have some kind of injury, because Kerry wasn’t the kind to go along meekly.If someone had taken her, and there was no doubt someone had, then she would have fought with all she had.
He was actually surprised that she hadn’t screamed, or that if she had, no one had heard her.It wasn’t that far between the main house and the foreman’s place where she lived with Lurch.Someone should have heard her, even that early in the morning.
But what if someone had come up behind her and knocked her out before she had a chance to scream?
His phone alerted an incoming text.He pulled it out, desperate to see if they’d caught up to Kerry and whoever had taken her yet, but found the message was from Jake, not one of the men who went after Kerry.
Talon stood staring across the barn, trying to think of anything they might need, that wasn’t in the first aid kit already, but came up with nothing.He didn’t know if it was because there was nothing they would need or if his brain was just stuck on the what-ifs.
He didn’t know how long he’d stood, staring off into space before he shook his head, jarring himself back into the present.Knowing that doing something was better than standing around waiting, he grabbed helmets for all three of them and set them on the four wheelers, then went out and made sure the pick-up they would take was gassed up and ready, then checked the tires and oil.Yeah, it was busy work, but it kept his hands and at least part of his mind busy while the time seemed to stretch, interminable.
He'd just slammed the hood shut when his phone rang.Glancing at the screen, he saw the call as from Malice.
“Ready for us?”he said as an answer.
“We don’t have her yet, but we’ve got them in our sites.She’s up right and struggling, so we don’t need the truck.Bring four-wheelers to the pin I’ll send as soon as I’m off here.We’ll have her by the time you get here.”Malice didn’t wait for Talon to respond, but hung up and seconds later a link came into a GPS location.
“We’re up,” he said, walking back into the barn.“Let’s get this mounted up and hit the trail.”He double checked that the boxes for the first aid kit were secure to each other, then lifted it onto the back of his four-wheeler and started securing it.“You can strap down her helmet and open the door, if you don’t mind.We’ll leave it open for when we pull out to make coming back easier.”
It took them less than three minutes to get everything mounted and pull out of the barn.Talon wished for a moment that the four-wheelers had mounts for phones, like his bike did, so he could keep an eye on the GPS, but he knew the general direction and headed that way.He could check again as they got closer.
They rode across the prairie for a good ten minutes before he thought they were in the right area.He stopped and pulled out his phone.He used one hand to flip up the visor on his helmet while he used the other to unlock his phone.It only took a moment for the map to load and another for him to adjust the screen and realize where they were.
“We’re almost there.The location they sent is just over there,” he said to Heather, motioning to the southeast.“Let’s see if we can spot them once we get there.”He closed the front of his helmet and thumbed the accelerator.He turned enough to see that she was following him, then kept his attention on the horizon.
His heart thundered in his chest, though it was hard to hear over the roar of the two four-wheelers as they bumped and rolled across the landscape.
How had this happened?What could they have done to prevent it?What if it had been Madison?
Questions spiraled through Talon’s head as he reached the top of a small hill and found three dirt bikes surrounding a four-wheeler, several hundred yards away.
He hit the accelerator harder, rocketing toward them now that he knew where they were.Even from this far away he could see Kerry standing and in Lurch’s arms while Ghost and Maverick had someone, he was too far away to be able to tell who, standing to one side, his hands clasped behind his head.
