Every Precious Thing

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

Harp kept his eyes closed, hoping the others would think he was asleep. It wasn’t that he had some elaborate plan for escape. That was something his son might think up, not him. He just didn’t want to talk anymore.

It wasn’t fair. He was a nearly eighty-year-old man, whose son was the only family he had left. Once threats were made about Logan, Harp hadn’t stood a chance, and he’d talked. He hated himself for it, but what else could he do? He couldn’t run. He couldn’t fight. He couldn’t call anyone even if they hadn’t taken his phone away.

Harp could hear other vehicles entering and leaving the truck stop. Most sounded like regular, family-sized cars, but every so often there were low rumbles and vibrations of big rigs pulling in to fill up.

Once he’d tried to signal a passerby, but his interrogator had simply reached over and slapped his hand down. If he tried again, he was pretty sure he’d get more than a slap.

As soon as they had stopped, the driver had made a call, told the person on the other end their location, and hung up. The two men then took turns going into the station to use the facilities. Harp, though, was not offered the same opportunity.

Finally, his mind started to drift. His body, on edge since the moment he’d been taken, felt suddenly drained and useless. If he were lucky, soon he wouldn’t just be pretending to sleep.

A phone rang, loud and jarring.

Harp’s eyes sprang open, his breath catching in his throat, as whatever adrenaline he had left shot through his system.

“Hello?” the driver said into his cell. He listened, nodding, and hung up without saying anything else.

“Well?” the man in back asked. He was the one who’d introduced himself as Leon Clausen at the hospital cafeteria.

“Almost.”

They fell into silence again.

Almost what? Harp wondered.

He didn’t have long to wait for his answer. Only a few minutes went by before a gray sedan with a blonde woman behind the wheel pulled up next to theirs and stopped.

“We’re switching to the other car,” Clausen said to Harp. “Don’t do anything dumb.”

Dumb was getting out of bed that morning. Dumb was offering to get water for Pep by himself. Dumb was telling the men where Alan and Emily lived. Trying to get away from men with guns would be colossally idiotic.

Harp moved over into the gray sedan without a fight. The man who’d been driving took over the same duties in the new vehicle, and soon they were back on the interstate.

Once they had settled into a steady speed, the woman twisted around in the front passenger seat and looked at Harp, studying him.

“I see the resemblance,” she said. “Your son has your eyes, and your…ears, I think.” Her smile sent a chill through Harp. “But I’m glad to hear his stubbornness didn’t come from you.”

Harp said nothing.

“I advise you to continue to be cooperative, Mr. Harper. If I get the feeling that you’re not, you become unnecessary, and I don’t keep anything unnecessary around.”