Page 116 of Devil and the Deep Blue Fish

He grabbed a hefty tree branch, blown off by the wind, while Cody picked up a fist-sized rock.

“I’ll take the guy in front,” Jackson said, and they both clambered to the top of the boulder, one on either side of the tree.

Cody stayed on his perch, cocking his arm back like a pitcher on the mound, and Jackson slithered to the ground, thinking unhappily about road rash on his ass as his jeans shredded.

Oh well.

They’d planned their entrance almost perfectly so he was arriving in the first driver’s blindside. Jackson braced his giant tree branch like a baseball bat and shouted, “Play ball!” as he swung, and the ATV growled under the arc of his weapon.

He heard a satisfying “Oolf!” and the sickening thump of the tree branch probably cracking open a couple of ribs as the ATV pilot sailed off the machine and landed flat on his back slightly to the side of the path of the other ATV, his arms extended, stunned but still breathing.

And then, even over the engine noise of the two machines, one of them still coasting in idle after its driver had been dumped, Jackson heard the kind ofthunka watermelon makes when it hits pavement.

Neither of the drivers were wearing helmets, and Jackson grimaced as the second driver’s head snapped sideways and he slid off his ATV and directly under the wheels of the attached trailer.

He was still out of it when Jackson and Cody ran to the ATVs, put them each in Park, and then turned toward the teenagers, bound and furious on the back.

But not gagged.

“Who are you?” one of them—a rail thin, tall, and sturdy boy—asked as Jackson pulled his Leatherman tool from his pocket and went to work on the zip ties holding his hands together behind him.

“Random cowboy, hoping to give help,” Jackson told him. “Were you guys staying at the mansion up the way?” They’d gotten close enough to see the roof, peeking over a long rise of hill in front of them.

“Mr. Hoover and Mr. Dwayne,” the boy said, shuddering, and one of the other two boys began to cry—small heartbreaking sobs that twisted Jackson’s heart. They were all male, reinforcing Jackson’s sick supposition of why some of the kids had been transferred up to Sonora instead of staying in Sacramento, and they all looked shell-shocked and angry.

“Shit,” Cody muttered. “Jackson, we gotta get to the mansion. Can you feel it?” Cody rubbed his stomach, and Jackson had no choice but to nod. First Retty and Gannett Hoover’s wife and now these three kids. They were cleaning house, fast and furiously, andEllery was walking into that house!

“I got an idea,” Jackson told him, and he pulled out his phone, wondering at the miracle that gave him a strong signal in the middle of South PigBlanket, USA.

“Manning,” came the voice of a man who wasnotused to hauling ass through the underbrush.

“You almost at the first site?” Jackson asked.

“Drawing close now,” the man confirmed. “Are you here?”

Jackson gave him directions to travel into the cave and through the tunnels. “The dog handler will be staying with two women, one of them still alive, while the chopper pilot tries to land closer. I’d tell you to stay and help them, but we’ve got a problem about three miles east of the dump site, and you, sir, are our solution.”

With that he gave Manning absolute orders to keep heading out, and to follow the ATV path until he found the trailer full of young people eating protein bars and drinking a good portion of Jackson and Cody’s water.

“There’s two assholes with broken ribs and concussions that will be tied up with zip ties nearby,” Jackson told him. “I’m giving the kids sticks and rocks to use to beat the fuck out of them if they try to get away, so you need to get over here before your suspects are beaten to death by sticks and rocks. You understand me?”

“You’releavingthem there?” Manning gasped.

“My people are walking into a meat grinder!” Jackson yelled. “They arecleaning house, and if the cleaners are there, your FBI guys aren’t going to have enough time to get there. Now shut up and run faster!”

With that he hung up and went to help Cody bind and gag the two injured men, ignoring their groans of pain as they double-bound their wrists and ankles in zip ties.

Then Cody surprised him by pulling out two lengths of paracord from his own pack and helping Jackson bind their feet to their wrists—and then wrapping a length of P cord around their throats and making the hogtie complete.

“Only hit them if they escape,” Jackson told the kids.

The boys, busy gulping down fresh water and huddling under some more of those foil blankets, all nodded.

“You swear,” one of them whispered. “You swear help is coming? ’Cause… ’cause we all screamed. In that house. We screamed and screamed and help never came.”

Jackson squatted, putting himself near to the boy. This one was young—not twelve yet—and small, and Jackson’s stomach lurched at what the kid must have been through. “I’ve got family in that house now,” he said softly. “You’re out. You’re safe. We’vegot help coming. I need to go help my family so they don’t have to scream like you did. Is that okay?”

And the hell of it was, he meant that. God, he was leaving these kids in the woods and—

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