No Going Back

20

The Yukon was a huge, very masculine beast of a vehicle, but Jay found that it handled the desert in a way her father’s SUV would never have managed; the lighter model car would have been bouncing and skipping all over the place. It was a good job that the Yukon was so massive, because Jay often had to apply brute force to keep her heading in a straight line. Sand drifts and even some of the smaller rocks were no object and it blasted through with no problem. Twice her concentration was so distracted that she ploughed through mounds of grit and stone she’d have been better avoiding, but they didn’t halt the Yukon. It suffered a few dints to the paintwork, that was all.

Jay had no idea how long she had been driving. Probably nowhere near as long as it felt. Her mind was working at hyper-speed as she tried to make sense of all that had happened, and all that still needed doing. Coupled with that, dozens of what if? scenarios concerning Joe Hunter, Nicole, Ellie and the Logan family were tumbling through her mind. Most of the developments she imagined ended with Joe and her friends dead, and it made her sick with anxiety. She should drive faster, but to do that could mean her mission ceasing abruptly when the Yukon met an obstruction even it couldn’t handle and she ended up dead in the mangled wreckage. More prudent to take things steady, make it to the highway in one piece and then call the cops as Joe had commanded. She glanced over at his phone where she’d placed it on the passenger seat, but no signal registered. The red SOS icon that flashed in place of the signal strength bars was an ominous reminder of her situation.

She thought about her parents, as well as Nicole’s. They must be frantic with worry by now and she had mixed feelings about their reunion. Though they’d be infinitely relieved that their daughter had returned home to them, Jay could expect huge recriminations. It was her idea to come on this damned trip, after all, she who’d promised that she would keep Nicole safe from harm. Well, she’d failed in that, hadn’t she? Blame might go unsaid, but it would be there, in the looks she received and the loss of trust she’d have to work hard to regain. That was supposing they ever did have the reunion, because it wasn’t a sure bet yet. No, she had to stop thinking like that. Joe Hunter would save Nicole and Ellie as she would bring back help.

Again she pictured what might be happening back there in the sun-parched desert. Was Joe Hunter even alive? She didn’t doubt his abilities, but he was going up against three monsters who had no care for the sanctity of life. They thrived on hurting others and would have no compunction about murdering Hunter or the girls. What if their savagery proved too much for Hunter? What would they do to him? What would they do to Nicole and Ellie?

‘Stop it!’

Her voice surprised her.

She had not meant to shout out loud. Since it was the first time she’d said anything above a whisper in the last few hours her voice sounded alien, the shout of a stranger.

The desperation was enough to clear her mind and she understood how close to hysteria she’d come. She hadn’t even been aware of the tears smearing her face and wobbling on her lashes. She batted them aside with a grimy hand, before fixing both hands on the steering wheel again. ‘Stop it, stop it, stop it,’ she said, much calmer now. Worrying about hypothetical scenarios was getting her nowhere, and certainly wasn’t helping her friends. Be strong, she commanded herself, and do what you have to do.

Hunter had told her to keep the sun over her right shoulder. She had mostly done so during her flight from the desert. Occasionally the trail had disappeared under drifting sand, or had followed the contours of the land around some of the larger mesas, but she was happy that she had not deviated from her heading. Soon she should see the highway and a route south to Holbrook.

A check of Hunter’s phone showed the SOS symbol still displayed.

She was thirsty and the water was a temptation but she ignored the container. It would be unwise to try driving in this rough terrain while juggling the container to her lips. Nor did she want to stop; while she was moving she felt she was doing something positive and she wouldn’t jeopardise that sense of worth for anything.

Regularly her gaze slipped from the road to her mirrors. She expected to see that damn pick-up truck materialise from the dust haze as it had when the Logans chased her from the gas station. Had Samuel made it back to a rendezvous with Carson, and were they even now chasing her down? She didn’t think so, but it was always a possibility. One thing she knew for sure was that she wouldn’t stop this time. If a gun was pointed at her head again then she’d rather chance a bullet than let them have their way with her.

She thought about how easily she’d given in that first time when she should have fought harder to get away. Had she done so then Nicole wouldn’t have had to suffer the way she had, but what of Ellie? Jay was under no illusions; she’d have put the run-in with the Logans down to the crazy antics of some rednecks letting off steam, would have fled the desert and picked up the route west as they’d initially intended doing. She wouldn’t have reported the incident to the police, having no desire to have to attend court hearings and face those crazies a second time. No one would have known that the Logans had the teenager. God, she didn’t want to think about that. Maybe the torture she and Nicole had been put through was for a greater cause; perhaps a controlling force was ensuring that Ellie’s suffering wasn’t prolonged. No, she realised after a moment, no unseen hand was at work here, just a sequence of unfortunate events that had enmeshed her in the warped plans of a group of mad men. She’d had no power over these events, but things had changed in the shape of Joe Hunter. He was the only thing she could rely on now, not divine intervention, and by a strange quirk of fate he was now relying on her.

Power lines, strung from poles like serried ranks of soldiers, were the first indication that she was approaching the highway. The power grid led all the way from Holbrook towards Indian Wells, adjacent much of the time to Highway 77. Seeing the tall steel structures looming from the dust haze, she almost cried out in joy. It was way too soon for that, though, so she only gritted her teeth, fixed her hands on the wheel and headed directly for them. The phone’s SOS symbol had been replaced by a single white cross. Still no signal; and it would only get worse as she drove closer to the pylons. Nevertheless, she believed that there’d be booster stations at several locations along the route where she could raise the alarm.

Within minutes she was under the power lines and seconds after that the Yukon found asphalt beneath its tyres and Jay swerved wildly on to the highway. She recalled the last time she was on a similar road and how she’d longed for a freightliner to be heading in the opposite direction; she was thankful that the road was deserted now. She floored the gas, shooting south, her concentration split between the road ahead and the phone which she’d now grabbed up and held against the wheel.

With only five miles until the truck stop, she finally found a signal.