Every Precious Thing

CHAPTER SEVENTY — FOUR

Logan knew he couldn’t count on Dr. Paskota and the man with her staying in the house for more than two minutes.

Keeping as close to the neighboring home as possible, he jogged to the sidewalk, went down a couple of houses before crossing the street, and worked his way back to the car his father and Alan were being held in.

He was only one house away when the shadow of a man passed around the back of the car and walked up to the driver’s door.

Logan ducked down, thinking that the reinforcements he’d worried about had arrived.

Then suddenly the shadow pulled the door open and hauled out the man sitting behind the wheel. The driver’s arms flailed as he tried to bring his gun around, but his assailant wrenched it away and tossed it to the ground.

Two quick punches, then a third, and the driver slumped motionless on the asphalt. The shadow immediately grabbed the guy by the shoulders and hauled him around the back of the car. As he yanked him up onto the grass that lined the curb, a second shadow peeled away from the hedge in front of the nearby house and joined him.

Kneeling beside the unconscious man, the face of one of the shadows moved into the bit of dome light filtering through the car’s window.

Dev.

Logan extracted himself from his hiding place, ran out and picked up the suppressor-enhanced gun off the street.

As he joined the others at the curb, Dev looked at him and smiled. “Figured that was you,” he whispered.

“Hey, Logan.” The second shadow was Pep.

“Where’d you guys come from?” he asked.

“Found them parked just up the street around the corner,” Dev whispered. “Thought we’d take advantage of the other two going inside. Guess you had the same idea. Where’s everyone else?”

“Safe,” Logan said. “I hope.”

“Is this the son of a bitch who ambushed me?” Pep asked, looking down at the driver.

“Um, we’ll have to talk about that later.” Logan looked at the car and saw that Harp and Alan were still inside, looking around nervously. “Didn’t you tell them to get out?”

“I didn’t really have time to say anything,” Dev said.