A bright light beckoned him just beyond his reach, he stretched out toward it, but his arms didn’t move.
“Cliff! Come on!” the voice called out again. It seems familiar, but he couldn’t pinpoint it. Air swirled in his lungs and an ache pounded at the back of his head. Suddenly water rushed out of his diaphragm and lungs until it was spilling from his mouth.
Cliff coughed uncontrollably as he fought the pull to continue retching up the freshwater.
“Thank goodness,” that familiar voice sighed. Preston. Cliff watched as the man sat back on his heels, his own chest heaved with exertion.
The entire afternoon roared to life in Cliff’s mind and though he fought off death only seconds ago, his body yearned to move, yearned to fight.
“Alexis,” he groaned as he rolled onto all fours. “They have her.” Even to his own ears, his voice sounded foreign.
“I know. Look, we need to get out of here. I smell gas.”
Oh, shit. The self-destruct. In a last-ditch effort, Cliff set off the self-destruct button from his phone hoping to create a diversion. If the smell of gas had already reached the lake area, then there wasn’t much time to waste. The entire process took about ten minutes.
“Can you walk?” Preston asked as he helped Cliff get to his feet. He was unsteady but moved as quickly as possible through the trees.
“How did you find me?”
“Ryker. He called me after you left and said something didn’t sit right. Then he saw the black cars barreling down Main Street and kept me in the loop. I’m sorry I didn’t get here sooner.”
“I’m glad you’re here at all,” Cliff acknowledged as the field came into view. His muscles continued to shake as they hobbled out of the tree line, just as the rest of his house went up in flames.
“Oh, fuck,” Preston shouted, trying to shield his face while Cliff kept his gaze trained on the car speeding away. Once it was out of sight, Cliff looked back to find his truck just at the edge of the dancing flames.
Grabbing Preston’s arm, he asked, “I need you to take me to my apartment above the studio. And I need you to get Joseph to put this flame out before it gets too bad.”
Typing on his phone, Preston nodded until they reached his cruiser hidden behind the brush along the gravel path.
No sooner than the cruiser pulled into the back of his shop did the town descend on him. Many offering their worries for Alexis, others comforting him. This large extended family wanted nothing more than for him to get Alexis home safe and sound. It was his own wish.
Harlan guided everyone into Cliff’s shop while he, Preston, and Dylan made their way upstairs. Dylan showed up with the rest of the town.
“Hey, man, I’m sorry,” Ryker apologized as if the entire fiasco was on his hands, but Cliff assured him that her father and half brother fooled them all. Cliff went on to explain how Wade had been in it. He came to town at first to learn about his sister, knowing that she had been here a few years back. The side missions are in her FBI file. But when her father put a bounty on her, he wanted to be the one to bring her in.
“Fucking, sicko. Both of them,”
Dylan growled. “Selling your own daughter and sister into sex trafficking. I just can’t fathom it.”
“They think women are weak. If Alexis has her wits about her, I’m sure she’s giving them hell right now,” Cliff told them as he sat at the large computer in the center of the room, bringing up the tracking application.
“I placed a tracker in her shoes when she came to live with me. Let’s hope that it’s still working and didn’t get knocked loose. Or that the stubborn woman found it and took it out.”
Clicking on a few keys, a map came to life on the screen with two small dots, one right on top of the other.
“God, I love that woman.”
“What?” Preston asked, leaning closer to the monitor.
“Somehow, she found my box of trackers, which doesn’t surprise me, the little snoop. But she placed one on her body. So now we have two trackers to follow.”
“Smart girl.”
“Preston, did you get my message relayed?”
His friend nodded and explained that he called the Asheville department and they were setting up a police barricade, but they needed a time frame. With the tracking system, they would be able to stop them before Lev had a chance to get to the larger city.
“How did they get through Main Street without anyone seeing them?” Cliff asked Ryker.