Page 13 of Be Courageous

Then there was the kid himself. Grayson didn’t cry or whine. He’d been smart enough to move his zip-tied hands to the front of his body. When Brian opened the trunk and saw him curled up in there, blue with cold, he’d been horrified, thinking he’d killed him on accident. Imagine how it was going to feel to kill him on purpose.

Turning into the strip mall where the liquor store was located, Brian bought cigarettes and the biggest bottle of cheap whisky he could find, intending to watch TV and drink until his doubts went away. Back in his car, he set the bottle on the seat next to him and tore the cellophane off the box of cigarettes. He shook out a cig and put it to his lips. Taking the lighter from his pocket, he flicked it and sent it tumbling by accident between his seat and the console.

Cursing, Brian dug a hand into the crevice, but the lighter had fallen out of reach. With a growl of frustration, he climbed out of his car and hauled open the door behind his. As he bent down to feel under his seat for the lighter, his hand curled around an unfamiliar object.

Surprise, then shock, reverberated down his spine as he stared at what was obviously a cell phone, turned on with plenty of battery left. The unlit cigarette fell from his lips as his jaw went slack. The kid had lied to him! What’s more, he’d cleverly hidden his phone beneath Brian’s seat.

Brian turned hot, then cold. He jerked his head up, half-expecting the police to swarm toward him right here in the parking lot. The phone would lead them straight to him.

He had to get rid of it, along with the backpack that was still on his front seat. First things first, though. After powering down the phone, Brian dropped it onto the cement slab and stomped it with his heel. The gratifying crack made him smash it again, then grind it with the heel of his boot while glancing nervously at the camera inside the liquor store.

The owner better not have fixed it without telling him. Just to be safe, he’d better not toss the phone into the bin close to the building. Picking up the battered device, careful not to get glass in his skin, he got back into his car, then cursed as he realized he had yet to recover his lighter. All in good time. He had to ditch the evidence first.

A short distance up the highway, Brian slowed his speed and dropped two tires onto the shoulder while lowering his passenger window. Then he hurled the cell phone into a thicket, followed by the lightweight backpack, which fell just short of the bushes.

Should he get out of the car and toss it farther in? A car was coming up the road behind him. Nah, nobody was gonna notice it peeking out of the tall stalks of dead grass.

Punching the accelerator, Brian spun up gravel as he fishtailed back into the slow lane. Anger burned in him over the kid’s sneakiness. Young Grayson had deceived him. Like father like son.

Jerry Saunders had come into Brian’s secondhand gun shop, declaring he was new to the area. They’d bonded over their common interest in firearms. Brian hadn’t had any idea his new friend was an undercover state police officer checking to see if the gun store owner abided by state laws and did his due diligence running background checks.

A decade-long bitterness gnawed at Brian anew. So maybe Saunders wasn’t alive to suffer the way he had suffered. But the only way to be free of the canker eating away at him was to go through with his original plan.

One bullet to the back of his head. The kid would never feel it. But the score would be even—a life for a life.

CHAPTER4

Faith hadn’t visited the State Police Field Office since Jerry’s death. Two stories high, its brick façade and large tinted windows, not to mention the enormous antenna looming over it, gave the building an intimidating demeanor. Stepping through the door, the institutional smell brought back memories of visiting Jerry at work, only Jerry wasn’t here anymore. The familiar, round face bearing down on her and wearing an encouraging smile belonged to Seth Malloy, Jerry’s senior special agent.

Seth pulled her into a bear hug. “I need your signature before we can track Grayson’s phone.”

She stiffened. “Seriously? I thought you were doing that already.”

“Sorry, Faith.” He stepped away from him. “Gotta jump through the appropriate hoops, but you’re here now, and the process won’t take too long.”

It was four o’clock in the afternoon. Grayson ought to have gotten off the bus an hour ago, only he hadn’t. Nor had Faith waited for Olivia’s bus to drop her off. Leaving the baby and Olivia both in Sonja’s care and promising to pay her babysitter overtime, Faith had driven out here to assist the state police in finding her son.

In Seth’s office, she signed a document giving him consent to monitor Grayson’s cell phone. Seth promptly sent the request to their cell phone provider.

Then they waited. Seth filled the tense moment with chitchat. His wife was expecting their second child in February. He asked about Mary Mae and Olivia, then gently asked how Grayson was coping with his father’s passing.

“It’s been hardest on him than on anyone,” Faith admitted.

Seth nodded, his expression sympathetic. “Any chance he may have run away?”

“I…I really don’t know.” It was galling to admit she had so little insight into her own son’s thought processes.

“Well, that’d be a whole lot better than him being abducted, you know what I’m saying? Running away is a lot less glamorous than it seems. He might soon realize that and call you to come pick him up.”

Faith shook her head. “I just don’t think he would do that to me.” Especially since she’d given up Fitz for him. “Plus, he would have told his friend, Cameron, and Cameron was the first person to tell me Grayson wasn’t at school.”

“Hmm.” Seth sat back in his seat. “Well, if he’s not found within twenty-four hours, the presumption is he was taken across state lines, at which point the FBI takes over.”

Faith’s stomach somersaulted at the mention of the FBI. Of course, Fitz would never get involved as he was a supervisor now.

Seth’s cell phone rang, spiking Faith’s blood pressure.

He snatched it up. “Chief Agent Malloy.”

---