Page 59 of Shelter for Tanna

It was approaching twenty-four hours since Tanna had taken those four orders and driven away in that truck, and Braden had enough EMT training to know what that meant. They had to find her. And they had to do it soon.

* * *

The pain was becoming unbearable. She knew better than to take her shoe off. If she did, she’d never get it back on. Not that it mattered. It was pretty obvious she wasn’t going anywhere.

Tanna tried to think about what she’d planned to do that evening. It would be Braden’s second night to work, so they’d have the leftover pork roast and vegetables in the refrigerator. The boys would work on their homework, and Max would fuss and fume and lose his cool over something on one of his papers. Then he’d stomp and scream because he couldn’t have PEZ. Or maybe not. Since Braden had come into their lives, she wasn’t having nearly as much trouble with him, and that was a relief.

There were no sounds above the hole, and she wondered where everyone was. Had she run too far? Would they stop short of where she was? It had taken her quite some time to get to that area, and it would take them a while to reach her, she reckoned. If they were out there calling for her, she couldn’t hear them over the pounding of the rain.

But there was something else happening, something scary. The water level in the sinkhole had come up. It wasn’t much, but it was about an inch, and she knew that was because of the water table. What if it kept raining? What if the hole filled with water? What if the walls of the sinkhole collapsed? Surely that wouldn’t happen.

She was hungry and thirsty and cold, and her spirits were flagging. There was no way to know what time it was with the sky so dark and cloudy, but she had to believe it was somewhere around noon on Thursday. How long could she survive in those conditions?Please, Braden, please find me? Please?her heart cried out. He wouldn’t give up. That much she was certain of.

And that was her only hope.

* * *

“We’ve got a hit!” Braden heard an officer yell, then he called out a string of numbers. Braden recognized them as geographical coordinates.

“What’s happening?”

“They got a hit on her cell! They’re going to find it now,” an officer called back to him.

To Braden’s surprise, two cruisers rolled out and headed toward the Baptist church. Had she climbed out and started walking that direction? Had he passed her time after time and not seen her? He waited, pacing, for the cruisers to come back, and in about forty minutes he heard a transmission on the cruiser sitting right in front of him. “Dispatch, unit three nineteen. Advise we have two suspects in custody. Repeat, we have two suspects in custody. Returning to home base. Over.”

“Copy that, unit three nineteen.”

Two suspects in custody? Time and space evaporated around Braden as he thought about what that meant. The two men who’d been threatening her had been there. They’d stolen her phone and bag. What had they done with her? A hand reached out and touched his arm, and he heard Fresh’s voice, as though miles away, say, “Monkey, you’re not looking too good. You need to sit down. Pokey, grab your cuff and let’s take his blood pressure.” Hands helped him onto the edge of a table under the tent and people moved around him, but he was too terrified to care.

Minutes later, the two cruisers were back, each carrying one apprehended man. When they were pulled out, an officer Braden recognized, KipSallenger, marched straight toward them. “That’s them. They’re the ones I saw up in town harassing her.”

“Harassing her? When?” Braden yelled, wheeling to look at the officer.

“Monday afternoon.”

He didn’t even realize what he was doing as he grabbed one of the handcuffed men by the throat and pounded the back of his head against the nearest cruiser. “What have you done with her, you fucked up redneck?” Hands grabbed at him and in just a few seconds, two officers were trying to restrain him. “Let go of me! I’m gonna beat them both senseless!”

Kip laid a hand on his arm. “Calm down, Nichols. We’re going to get to the bottom of this.” Then he strode toward the two men. “So you’ve been found with Ms.Hilliard’s phone, and you were seen?by me, I might add?harassing her Monday afternoon.”

“We wasn’t harassing her!” the red-haired man screamed. “We was trying to find our car!”

“Yeah, she dragged it off the interstate and we need it!” the dark-haired guy yelled. “It’s got important stuff in it!”

“And if we go get that car and look inside it, is that important stuff going to lead to a jail sentence for the two of you? You’ve got one minute to tell me what’s going on here and then we’re going to drive you to town and book you on suspicion of murder.”

“WHAT? We didn’t murder nobody! I want my lawyer! I WANT MY LAWYER!” the dark-haired one of the pair shrieked.

Kip’s downturned palm motioned for them to get quiet. “Just calm down. Nobody needs a lawyer. Yet. You got names on these two?” he asked the other officers.

One officer nodded. “Yep. WayneWeston and BeauFarley.”

“So, Beau? Wayne? Why don’t you tell me what happened out here and maybe I can help you.”

They both looked at each other and then the red-haired man dipped his head. When he lifted it, he started talking. “We just wanted our car. She wouldn’t tell us where she took it. So we waited for her out here. To have a friendly little conversation, you know? But she run from us.”

“Wait.” Kip’s hands closed around his utility belt. “Are you saying you called in a report to the wrecker company to get her to come out here?”

“It was the only way!” Beau answered, his voice strained.

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