Shiver

which meant the Lortab must be wearing off. Now was the time to pop a couple more pills—before the pain set in again for real—but he hated to reach for the plastic bag in which they were tucked away in the seat back pocket in front of Sam because he didn’t want to wake up either Sam or Tyler.
    He set himself to endure.
    The marshals were talking quietly among themselves. Danny couldn’t really hear what they were saying, and he didn’t much care. He watched out the window as the flat plains turned into wooded hills and thunderheads rolled in to obscure the mountains to the west. An eighteen-wheeler roared past, shaking the SUV. Beside him, Tyler gave what sounded like a little burp.
    At the sound, Sam woke up instantly, straightening away from him like he’d suddenly turned red hot. She stretched a little, glared at Danny in passing—maybe she was pissed because she’d been leaning against his shoulder as she slept? Otherwise, he didn’t have a clue what that was about—then looked anxiously at Tyler.
    Tyler was awake, too, ducking out from under Danny’s protective arm, rubbing his hands over his face.
    Taking advantage of the moment, Danny leaned forward to grab the plastic bag of pills.
    “Mom,” Tyler said in the tiniest voice Danny had yet heard from him. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
    Sick? As in, upchuck?
    After one frozen-in-place instant, during which Tyler made a terrifying gagging sound, Danny had his answer: yep.
    Galvanized, desperately thankful that the Lortab had worn off enough for his reflexes to be halfway close to normal, Danny dumped his pills from the plastic bag into his lap. Even as Sam leaned across him, crying, “You need to pull this car over right now, ” to the unsuspecting chumps up front, Danny took one look at Tyler, snapped the plastic bag open, and held it by its handles in front of the kid’s pale and perspiring face.
    Just in time for the kid to fill it up.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
     

     
    I t had been, hands down, the worst twenty-four-hour period of Sam’s life. Mrs. Menifee was definitely dead: that information had been relayed to Sanders right before they had boarded the plane. Sanders had passed it on to the other marshals, who had passed it on to Sam, and she felt by turns heartbroken, horrified, grieving, and guilty. So far she hadn’t told Tyler. She wasn’t sure that she would, certainly not if he didn’t ask. She and Tyler had nearly been killed, too, and were still, she feared, marked for death, so she was in a constant state of low-grade fear. Plus they’d been ripped away from their home and everything they knew, and she had no idea when they would be going home again. In other words, her life been run off the rails straight into the twilight zone, and she didn’t see any way that it was going to improve anytime soon.
    Head pounding, so tired that just putting one foot in front of the other was an effort, Sam walked out of the unfamiliar bedroom in which she had just told her son what felt like a million bedtime stories—usually she read to him, but here they had nobooks—until he had fallen asleep. What she saw as she stepped into the darkened hall stopped her in her tracks. In the bathroom opposite, wrapped in a white toweling robe, Marco stood balanced on one foot, leaning precariously against the sink, the aluminum crutches he’d switched to upon reaching this house leaning against the sink next to him, his head tilted back and his hand at his mouth as he swallowed. The small brown plastic pill bottle clutched in his other hand told the story: he was downing more pain meds.
    Her brows snapped together.
    Crabby didn’t even begin to describe how out of sorts she was feeling. It was after 11:00 p.m. mountain time, which meant that it was after midnight back home in East St. Louis. Except for the catnap she’d grabbed in the SUV earlier—annoying to remember that she’d wound up snoozing against Marco’s shoulder—she’d had no sleep for about thirty-six hours. Lunch had been McDonald’s, procured on the fly via a drive-through after Tyler, poor baby, had done what she had feared and succumbed to motion sickness. It happened sometimes, usually when his stomach was empty. She should have insisted that they stop for food, but she hadn’t. She had still been running scared, damn it, and Tyler had been the one to pay the price, which wasn’t going to happen again if she could help it. Supper had been pizza, picked up on their way