Page 80 of Midnight Ride

“We couldn’t find her either, Dad,” said Virgil. “We tried hard. Honest, we did.”

West Coast Freight. Vancouver.

Eldon dropped the trailer at the depot, and we headed out of the city of Vancouver. I’d never been there before, but it didn’t look like a city I wanted to hang around in.

There seemed to be dozens of homeless people on every street we passed. I felt sorry for them, but there was nothing I could do to help them.

“Can we make it to the cabin tonight, Eldon?”

“No. We’ll stop and sleep in Merritt. It’s about halfway home.”

“Sounds good to me. I’m getting tired, and you must be too.”

“I want to park the truck and lay down next to my beautiful girl and sleep. That’s what I’m looking forward to.”

“Same,” said Tammy. “We want the same thing.”

Chapter Fifteen

Monday, September 16th.

Wild Stallion Ranch.

Travis cooked bacon and eggs and when everybody sat down to eat, he asked us for a recap of everything we knew about Tammy’s kidnapping.

“Let’s try handling this like any other case, keeping our emotions out of it so we can think and make more sense out of the sequence of events.”

“Good idea,” said Billy. “We’re all so fuckin freaked out, we’re not doing our best police work.”

“Okay, I can try to look at it more objectively,” I said. “At least, I’ll try.”

“The lady who saw Tammy get into the rig on the highway near the trailer park said it was big and black,” said Virge.

“She notice any writing on the door?” asked Billy. “All the rigs have a name of the owner or of the company they haul for.”

“She saw writing but couldn’t remember reading it,” I said.

“Did she describe Tammy so that we know for sure it was her?” asked Dad.

“Yep. Long dark hair. Pretty girl about nineteen or twenty. It was Tammy.”

“We can’t figure why she’d get into a rig heading east,” said Virge. “Does that mean she don’t want to come back to us?”

Travis let out a breath. “Can’t figure it out, Virge. None of it makes any sense after she shot the guys and got away. From that point on, Tammy is in control of what she is doing, and it all goes haywire.”

“What about the guys we have locked up?”

“One locked up and two in the morgue,” said Billy.

“You’ll see Franko Garrison when we get to the station,” said Travis. “First, I have to do something I should’ve done two days ago.”

“What?”

“Call Annie and tell her Tammy is gone. I was hoping we’d find her and get her back and I wouldn’t have to tell Annie I lost her step-daughter.”

“Do you think Annie is gonna come up here and bust our balls, Dad?” I asked.

Travis nodded. “Always bet on a sure thing, son. I’m putting ten on it.”

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