Shiver

more that she could do.
    I’m lucky to still have Tyler. We’re lucky to be alive.
    “Before you got in the car, Tyler told us some of what happened. He said that the bas—”—Marco broke off, cast a glance in Tyler’s direction, and corrected himself—“ bad guys in your house hit you both with some kind of chemical spray.”
    Sam nodded. The effects of the pepper spray were wearing off—thank God she’d gotten only a small dose, and Tyler, she was almost certain, had gotten even less—but still her eyes teared and her vision was blurry and her eyes and skin stung. She had to keep blinking rapidly just to keep everyone in focus.
    “We locked ourselves in Tyler’s bedroom. They shot pepper balls under the door.” Sam swallowed, or rather, tried to swallow, remembering. Her mouth was still Sahara dry, and what little saliva she had tasted bitter. She made a face, shuddering.
    “Here.” Marco passed her a half-full bottle of water that he got from the guy holding Tyler, plus a box of Kleenex. “Wipe out your eyes. Wipe your face and any exposed skin.”
    “Mom shot them,” Tyler said as Sam accepted the items, then immediately took a swig from the water bottle. The wetness was heaven to her parched mouth, but the taste as the water went down made her think of Brussels sprouts mixed with battery acid. She grimaced and shuddered again. “She had her gun. She said she was going to shoot them some more if they tried to get into my room.”
    “You shot them?” Marco asked the question, although all the men looked at her with widening eyes. Sam nodded as she grabbed a handful of tissues from the box, wet them, and started applying them to her eyes. Oh, the relief!
    “I shot at them. I don’t think I hit any of them. I wish I had, though, believe me. Speaking of, I’d like my gun back.”
    A few yeah, right looks, a couple of negative headshakes, and one definitive no from the driver were her answer. Sam thought about arguing, decided it was a waste of time, and remembered that she was out of bullets anyway. Then a thought occurred, and she quit wiping her eyes long enough to frown up at Marco. “How did you find us? How did you find my house? I never told you where I lived. In fact, I was really careful not to.”
    “I said my address.” Tyler sounded proud of himself. She’d spent days teaching him his address and phone number just the month before.
    “When the—bad men—first broke into your house, Tyler called your cell phone looking for you. I have your phone, remember? He told me everything that was happening as it happened,” Marco answered the look she gave him. “And he gave us your address.”
    “I told you I talked to Trey, Mom. I told you he was coming,” Tyler said.
    “I remember.” She managed a smile for Tyler, along with another quick hug. “You did good, baby. I’m proud of you. You saved us.”
    “Are the bad men gone forever?” Tyler asked. His voice was suddenly very small.
    “I hope so,” the driver said grimly. But something about his tone told Sam that he wasn’t convinced. Then she realized: the looks she’d thought he’d been giving her through the rearview mirror? They hadn’t been directed at her at all. They’d been aimed behind her, as if he were watching for a following car. In fact, the marshals on either side of Marco had been casting quick glances behind them all along. The guy in the front passenger seat had been keeping a lookout through his side-view mirror.
    “Yes, they are,” she told Tyler in a firm tone that dared any of the men to contradict her. But even as she said it, her eyes met Marco’s, and what she saw in them made a chill run down her spine.
    They said as clearly as words could have done that the men who were hunting Marco weren’t going to stop until he and, Sam very much feared, now her and Tyler, too, were dead.
    She hated to pose the question in front of Tyler, because she hated to plant so much as another sliver of worry in his mind. But she had to know.
    “So what happens now?” she asked.

CHAPTER TWELVE
     

     
    “T hey stay with me,” Danny told Sanders fiercely, referring to Sam and Tyler. He looked at Sam, who was seated in one of a line of folding chairs placed against the cinder-block wall of a small, dimly lit office off the National Guard hangar at Scott Airfield. Drooping and pale, she looked indescribably weary, along with a number of way less relevant things, like far too young to be anybody’s mom