“This time?”
Ethan lowered his eyes.
“She tried before.”
“How many times?”
“Three.”
“Who stopped her?”
The boy hesitated.
Then he said the name.
“Clay Mercer.”
Millie went cold.
Everyone in that part of Arizona knew that name.
Clay Mercer was not merely dangerous.
He was protected.
He paid people to look away.
He paid people to tell him things.
And, according to Ethan, he always found Sarah.
The first time she tried to escape, someone was watching the road.
The second time, she called a shelter, and someone informed Clay.
The third time, she made it all the way to Wickenburg.
Clay brought her back.
Then he put her in the hospital.
He told everyone she had fallen.
Rosie finally looked up.
“Is our mom going to be okay?”
For a moment, something human broke through Grim's hardened expression.
He looked at the little girl.
“I'm going to find out.”
It wasn't reassurance.
It was a decision.
He stood.
“Millie.”
She already knew.
“They stay here,” he said. “Nobody tells anybody they're here.”
“They're not going anywhere.”
Grim looked at Ethan.
The boy's expression remained carefully neutral.
His mother had told him to find someone safe.
He had found the most dangerous man in Arizona.
“What's your mother's name?”
“Sarah. Sarah Cole.”
Grim nodded.
Ethan stared at him.
“She made us promise not to go back,” he said. “But she didn't say anything about someone else going.”
Grim studied him.
Then he said only one thing.
“Eat.”
He walked toward the pay phone.
That night, for the first time in twenty-three years, Victor Hayes wasn't riding away from something.
He was riding toward it.
Twenty-Five Miles
Rosie fell asleep eleven minutes after Grim left.
She didn't slowly drift off.
She simply disappeared into sleep.
Ethan pulled her against him and kept watching the door.
Millie brought him apple pie.
He stared at it.
“You don't have to do that.”
“I know.”
He ate.
Slowly this time.
After a while, he asked, “Is he coming back?”
“Grim?”
“Yes.”
Millie thought carefully.
“Because he said he would. And in eleven years, I've never heard that man say he was going to do something and then not do it.”
Ethan studied her.
“What kind of things does he do?”
“Eat your pie.”
The boy almost smiled.
Then he asked for another slice.
Millie laughed.
It was the first genuine laugh in the diner all night.
Then the pay phone rang.
Millie answered.
Grim.
“They still there?”
“Rosie's asleep.”
A pause.
“Millie.”
Something in his voice changed.
“It's worse than the boy said.”
She turned away.
“How much worse?”
“She's locked in. He's got people at the road.”
Millie's stomach tightened.
“And one of them is wearing a badge.”
She closed her eyes.
“Can you get to her?”
“Working on it.”
“Keep the kids here.”
“I understand.”
When Millie hung up, Ethan was watching her.
“That was him.”
“Yes.”
“Is she alive?”
“Yes.”
Ethan nodded.
He took another bite of pie.
Then he said quietly, “She's been alive every other time too.”
Millie sat across from him.
“Ethan.”
He looked up.
“The man who just called me? I've known him for more than a decade. I've seen him do things that scared me.”