Blindside

we’ll get that lucky.”
    His right hand thumped the steering wheel. Sam jerked, but didn’t awaken. “So there’s still danger.”
    “Well, yes. I felt much better thinking he was dead and accounted for, given what’s happened. I’m hoping that he’ll run as far and as fast as he can. At least when we catch him, we’ll have a chance to get out of him why he and Beau took Sam.”
    “That would make me feel a whole lot better. There wasn’t a ransom note. Everyone was thinking a pedophile had taken him. Now? I don’t have a clue.” He paused, then added, “I guess you don’t think he’s dead.”
    There was such hopefulness in his voice, but she didn’tlie. “No, I don’t. Life is never that neat and tidy. When you mix criminals in, things really get mucked up.”
    “So that’s why you want me to stay at this B and B in town.”
    “It might be for the best.”
    “Wouldn’t we be just as safe with you and your deputies, Sheriff?”
    “Two deputies will be in front of the house all night and there will be lots of people there tomorrow. Either way, you should be fine, but it’s up to you, Miles.”
    “If you’ll have us, Sam and I would like to stay with you. He knows your house, Sheriff, he’s comfortable with Keely and with you. I don’t want to take him to another strange place unless I’m forced to.”
    “No, you don’t have to. But please remember, Clancy and Beau came back to my house to get Sam again. I’m not really sure Clancy is going to hightail it out of here.”
    “Ah, I don’t think you know this, Katie, but I was in law enforcement myself until five years ago, in the FBI. Savich and I worked together, as a matter of fact, and that’s how we became friends. I can handle myself and a gun, if the need arises.”
    She shook her head at him. “I knew there was something about you, something that made me think you’d been in the military, or something.”
    “Yeah, I can just imagine how bad-ass dangerous I looked holding two children in my arms.”
    It took them a good twenty minutes to get there, never going faster than twenty miles an hour. The rain had slowed to a drizzle but a low-lying gray fog blanketed the ground. The air was bone-numbing cold, pregnant with more rain.
    The children continued to sleep all the way back to Katie’s house, a neat two-story with a wide porch built in the forties. It was just outside Jessborough proper, along aroad lined with tulip poplars, set back on five acres that were mostly covered with hardwood trees—beech, red maple, white ash, sassafras.
    Miles said, “Do you know, I can’t see the mountains, but I know they’re there, nearly in your backyard.”
    “Just wait until morning. Fall is the most glamorous time of the year. So many different trees, so many bright colors, each one distinctive. Come back, say, the end of March and it isn’t so pretty.”
    Miles pulled the Ford in behind the deputies. Katie waved to them, then handed a sleeping Keely to Miles to put on his other shoulder. She watched him pause a moment and stare at the still smoldering van and the boarded-up front window. Then he took the children into the house.
    Katie was pleased the car was parked right out in front, as conspicuous as could be. No way Clancy could miss them. They also had a huge thermos of black coffee on the front seat between them, enough, they assured her, to last them until doomsday, or later.
    It was nearly 2 a.m. when Katie handed Miles a cup of hot chocolate and pointed to a big easy chair.
    “Why don’t you drink this. I find hot chocolate always slows me down even if my brain is revving. I’ll bet it’ll send you right off to sleep.”
    “Your headache under control?”
    “Oh yes. But how did you know?”
    He smiled at her. “I just knew.”
    She couldn’t help herself and smiled back. “It’s been an eventful day,” she said and both of them sipped the hot chocolate.
    She closed her eyes in bliss as it warmed her belly.
    “An understatement. Both kids were boneless. I just poured them into their beds. It’s always amazed me how a kid can do that.”
    Katie smiled. “Thank you for taking care of Keely. My sweats are warm even if they don’t fit Sam very well. Ihaven’t had time to wash his clothes. We can do that first thing in the morning. Sam’s a brave kid, Miles.”
    “Yeah, he is. Obviously it’s you who deserves thanks for saving my son’s life. I owe you, Katie, I owe you forever.”
    “You’re welcome.