Page 61 of Holding On to a Hero
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Freshly showered, Cole and I sat on the ratty old sofa that graced our drafty little cabin hideaway. The cat he’d stumbled across on our walk in the woods yesterday was laying across his lap, purring. It looked like it’d had a hard life thus far, sunken-in skinny with a torn ear and rough, muddy fur. Cole had wiped it down with some baby wipes, but it really needed a full-on bath. I’d refused to participate in that madness until we acquired some sort of claw trimmers.
Cole was trying out names while I opened our laptop.
“What about Bogart?”
“He’s orange. Bogart seems more dark and mysterious.”
“So a redhead name. Irish? How about Finnegan? Oh! In elementary school I knew a redhead named Dave. How about Dave?”
I eyeballed the cat, smug and sure of its place as our new ruler. It knew it had won the lottery, and the rest of its life was set. “I’m not sure he’s a Dave either, but he’s your cat.”
“What do you mean? He’s going to get adopted through the ranch, just like the horses and sheep.”
“Uh huh. You keep telling yourself that.”
“Well, I’m naming him Dave.”
“Go for it. Are you ready to see if Will added a new photo?” During our third week on the run we’d been talking about Will and I’d thought to go look at the photos of the sheep he’d loaded into a file sharing folder for us.
The URL had been his own website name with “/jason” after it, so it was easy enough to remember. He’d created the folder the day we’d met, to send me the photo of Endora he’d taken, so of course the password was “jackass”. It still made me laugh every time.
I’d been a little nervous about going to Will’s website in case the shooter had a way to track visitors. But we used an incognito browser window and accessed the internet via a personal hotspot from our encrypted phone, so I decided it was worth the risk. Especially once we discovered Will was adding a photo to the /jason folder every day.
He didn’t always upload them at the same time each day, so we restricted ourselves to only checking the folder once in the morning. We had nothing but time right now so we had to make every activity count.
Will uploading a new photo daily was like a love note to me and Cole. At least that was the way we’d decided to think about it. Even though we couldn’t respond, we were reassured he was still thinking of us and we hoped he still wanted us. But I worried constantly we’d be stuck in hiding so long that one day the photos would stop.
Cole leaned over my shoulder as I made the browser anonymous and typed in the URL. We both held our breath as I entered the password.
“There!” I clicked on the thumbnail and Cole and I gasped simultaneously. It was a selfie of Will and his niece. Until now Will had never added a photo of himself.
I enlarged it to fit the screen.
“God, I miss him so much. How is that possible since we’d barely started spending time with him?”
I blew out a breath. “I don’t know, but I feel the same.”
Cole traced Will’s face with his fingertip, and then he made a concerned sound. “He looks tired. And skinny.”
“He does. I’m sure he’s worried about us.”
“I hope Brian is keeping him updated.”
“He promised he would.” I thought of something concrete to focus on. “Hey, he doesn’t have an arm brace or sling. His shoulder must be healed up.”
“Wow, I wonder how long that took. I hope the bullet wound didn’t make his back issues worse.”
“Crap, it must have been hell while his shoulder was out of commission.”
Cole leaned his head on my shoulder. “Fuck, Jason, I’m still mad he had to go through all of that without us there to help him. I mean, I know he had his sister, but, shit!”
“Cole, you can’t feel guilty. Brian said Will understood why he couldn’t come with us.”
He fisted his hands, staring straight ahead instead of facing me. “Jason, I’m done with this. It’s time to go back. We have a plan. I need this fucking hiding out to end!”
“Cole, you know it’s not safe.”
