Page 60 of Running Scared
Still, after Reg was done eating, Bailey touched his elbow from the seat behind him.The sky had smudged with purple night over the desert, and stars threatened to peek out overhead.The droning of the twin engines was finally working its magic, and Chance had finished his food and curled up and gone to sleep with the dedication of somebody who probably still had two inches to grow.
Reg turned to him, pulling an earbud out as he did.“’Sup?”he asked, reinforcing how young he was compared to Dean.
“Has there been any movement?”Bailey asked, rubbing his stomach nervously for the umpteenth time in an hour.
Reg took his phone from his pocket—he’d been listening to music—and pulled up a screen, frowning.“Mm… hold up.”He touched the screen on Dean’s pulsating dot and grunted.
“What?”Bailey asked.
“It’s… well, he’s moved about a half mile in the last five minutes, but not linearly.”
Bailey squinted.“So he’s been running around?”
“Yeah.A lot, actually.And quickly.And hold on a sec….”A different pulsating dot joined Dean’s.“He and Marcus are still together—like, running in lockstep.But… oh wow.”
“Oh wow?”Bailey asked, and his voice pitched enough for Chance to mumble in the seat next to him.“Oh wow?”he said again, this time in a stage whisper.“The hell does that mean, Reg?”
“It means they’re on the move,” Reg said.“Fairly quickly—about a hundred twenty knots, actually, which isourairspeed, which means—”
“They’re on a plane?”Bailey actually found this was reason to hope.“Which way are they heading?”
“Northwest from their position—so exactly toward Juarez.”Reg glanced up from his phone and smiled hopefully.“They might meet us there.That would be… well, a little like we made a mountain out of a molehill, but….”He shrugged.
Bailey swallowed, trying to contain his relief.It wasn’t for certain; it wasn’t seeing Deanright there,but God, it was hope, right?
“Can I see your phone for a second?”he begged.“I promise not to touch the screen.”
Reg handed it over without question, and Bailey thought for the hundredth time that this family was sort of magical, and then he concentrated on the two dots.Sure enough, much like one of those diagrams you saw in a commercial airliner, the dots were coursing a stately path along the very simple map presented on the phone’s face.There was nothing much underneath it, but the dots continued to course, continued to—
“Oh shit!”Bailey squeaked, but it was loud enough to turn both Reg and Anthony toward him in their swiveling chairs.“Look!”
As the three of them peered at the little screen, the two dots slowed their course, slower, slower….
“If that’s a plane,” Anthony said gruffly, “it’s about to crash.”
“Oh God,” Bailey said.“How far away are they?How long will it take us to get to them?”
“Hold on,” Reg muttered.“Anthony, give me your phone so I can do some calculate—”
“Oh shit!”They all said at the same time.The two dots had stopped.And then they’d gone out, leaving nothing but the blankness of desert on Reg’s phone.
Bailey felt himself vibrating with fear, and Anthony took the phone from Reg’s shaking hand.“Cell phones break in airplane crashes,” he said softly.“And everybody, including my dad, says Bird is the best pilot he’s ever met.Now I’m going to show their last known to our two pilots, and you two are going to take twenty deep breaths, do you understand me?”
“Dean!”squeaked Reg.
Anthony cupped his cheek with undisguised tenderness.“Baby,” he said softly, “we’re going to get there.Did you do your calculations?”
“Four hours,” Reg whispered.“That doesn’t count getting gas in El Paso.”
“Then five hours,” Anthony said, stroking Reg’s cheek with a tender, work-roughened thumb.“You and Bailey here are going to have to put all your fears on hold for five hours.Can you do that?”
Bailey wanted to sob.He wanted tohowl.He’d done this before—oh God, he’d done this before.He’d seen proof that all his heart’s plans had come to nothing but ashes, and he’d grieved.He couldn’t… he couldn’t… he couldn’t….
And he remembered Dean, getting in the shower behind him, holding him, talking him out of his mood.Talking about his family.GivingBailey to his family.It was the best, most perfect gift a man had ever given him, and Bailey couldn’t pay that gift back now by giving up.
“Yes,” he whispered, wrapping his arms around himself so he wouldn’t fly apart.“I have to.”
“When you’re done telling the pilots,” Reg said, in a still, stony voice, “I’ll text Rory and Val.We’ve got a place to start.It could be so much worse.”
