Page 32 of Treasured

"Do you know what I could do with all that money? I could live on the beach and gorge myself on frothy umbrella drinks."

I gape at him, trying to imagine him on the beach still wearing his dark suit and shoes. I shake my head. It just doesn't compute, though I keep that thought to myself.

"How do you know that Dexter hasn't already moved all the money anyway?" I say. "It's been weeks."

"Ha! So you do know where the money is! I knew you were a liar." He steps toward me and though I try to back away, I'm trapped between him and my car. He's closing in on me.

"Hey," I say to him, desperate to change the subject and distract him, "where's your car? How did you get up here?" He looks around, kind of confused, like he is expecting to see his car.

"What did you do with my car?" he demands, glaring at me.

Wow, this guy has gone way off the deep end. But he's still holding that gun and it's frighteningly close to my ribs.

"I didn't do anything with your car! How did you even know how to find me in the first place?"

"I put a tracker on your car. For the last few weeks, I couldn't get a signal, I suppose because you were up here in the middle of bumblefuck where the signals are weak. But this morning I got an alert that you were in Hound Dog so I tracked you down." He chuckles, like he's impressed with his own cleverness. Yeesh.

Leave it to this guy to spoil what was supposed to be the most important day of my life.

Suddenly, I'm just fed up. Sure, I ought to have some compassion for people suffering from mental health problems, but that's easier to do when they don't have a gun pointed at you.

"How clever of you," I say, though the words make me sick. "Hey, let's use my car to go and get the money."

He looks at me and blinks as my words sink in. "Yeah," he says. "That's a good idea."

"Here, let me take the gun." I hold my hand out and he moves as if he's about to lay the weapon against my palm. I hold my breath and pray for him to do it.

And then a siren blares through the fog.

* * *

Jake

Creed, I need you to pull over right away. I'm not fooling around.

Sergeant Gary Wallace's voice booms from the speakers on his patrol car. It's like he's sitting in the back seat yelling at us.

Creed's fingers tighten on the steering wheel and he glances my way. "We're going to be in some deep shit when this is all over."

"I don't care! We have to get to Tracy. I know we're almost there. You have to believe me, Creed. Don't you feel it too?"

He takes a deep breath. "I do. Probably not as strongly as you, but I feel it. I'm just not sure Gary is going to be very sympathetic."

"Just keep going to the top of this ridge. If we don't find her then, we'll stop and try to explain to Gary."

Creed nods and keeps driving. "Okay," he says, "we're in this together."

The fog is lifting and visibility improves. We round a bend in the road and Creed hits the brakes. We come to a screeching stop, but not quite fast enough and he bumps into the rear of Tracy's car. Not enough to do damage but it moves the car forward a few inches.

We both jump out of the truck and rush to Tracy. Then we see the gun.

In Tracy's hand.

And she's holding it on a man I've never seen before.

* * *

Tracy

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