Folsom proved herself.
Time and time again, she found me what I needed before I’d even asked.
Though she was sitting in the back of the helo now since Sam had taken the front, she’d still given me her every thought as if she was sitting right next to me. Even Sam had cracked a smile a time or two, despite his utter horror at the situation.
Bayou sat beside and to the left of Folsom, and she allowed Bayou to keep hold of her phone for the entire two-hour trip. His eyes never left the screen, and instead of saying she needed her phone back—which she likely did—she’d let him have it to give him peace of mind at seeing his son in the back seat of that car.
“Up on your left is a place to land,” she said. “About a half a mile out. There are two cars already there waiting.”
I frowned as I thought about the logistics of this.
How had she…
“I know a few people up here,” she explained. “They’re fellow hackers.”
I glanced at her in the mirror, then nodded.
Hacking, from what I understood, was a weird business. They hated each other, always going out of their way to make sure that they one-upped the other person, but when in need, they were always willing to lend a helping hand.
Sure, that helping hand always came with conditions, but it was a helping hand still the same.
“See it,” I said as I started my descent.
Five minutes later, we were in our vehicles.
Folsom was in her own, and the three of us were in a large F-250 made for a king.
“You sure you trust her by herself?” Bayou asked, sounding worn out and sick.
“Not really, no,” I said. “But the fact that she said ‘I don’t do gunfights’ is probably a good thing. I don’t know how she’d handle that kind of thing, and honestly, I don’t know…”
“Keep talking great about me,” Folsom said as she chirped into the truck’s speaker system. “Now, what you’re going to do is drive. That Wagoneer is on its last fifty miles. The first gas station is a big one. They’re probably not going to go to that one because there are too many people. The next one is a little more decently sized. I don’t think they’ll go to that one, either. My guess, they’ll go to the third station. I’m going to drive straight there. Park off in the distance. I won’t really be able to help unless you want me to pick the child up and drive off. That I’m okay with. But if you’re gonna need assistance in the way of a gunner, I’m not that. I don’t even know how to shoot.”
I looked at Sam, who smiled at me. “Nice to have someone that knows what their limits are.”
We drove.
We caught up to the Wagoneer in ten minutes.
Mostly because I was doing seven over, and the Wagoneer was doing exactly the speed limit, if not a little under each time.
“My guess, he’s gonna dump this one here,” she said. “He’s not going to want to chance driving a stolen vehicle, especially one that flashy, any longer.”
I could practically see Bayou and Sam stiffen up in anticipation the closer we got to the SUV.
I kept a respectable distance back, staying well out of the “he’s following me” zone.
Folsom was right. The dude skipped the first two gas stations and chose the third.
It was much smaller. Which meant it was quite a bit harder to hide in any way.
But Folsom managed it.
We, on the other hand, didn’t even try.
We pulled up right next to the Wagoneer, watching as a man and a woman got out.
“There are two in the front, one in the back,” Folsom whispered. “Now, get out and start refueling. Make it look normal.”
I looked at the fuel gauge.
It was barely below full.
This would be a short fuel-up, but I got out and filled it up anyway.
I went through the motions while Sam got out and went inside.
Bayou stayed where he was, tense and watching the car like a hawk.
“They’re not going to fill up. They’re going to find a new car,” she assured us.
That was exactly what they did.
“The only one left inside is a younger man. Maybe an older teen,” she said. “I’m gonna set the car alarm off.”
Bayou tensed even further.
I waited, door open so I could hear Folsom.
A few seconds later, the car alarm for the SUV started going off, and a frantic-looking teen got out.
He looked around, almost as if he was trying to find his accomplices in crime.
I took half a second to consider what I was doing, then reared back and let my fist fly directly into the kid’s glass jaw.
He dropped so hard and fast that the curb met his fall.
Bayou was out seconds later, practically ripping the door off its hinges to get to his son.
His son, who came into his arms with a sleepy smile a second later, turned his face into his daddy’s neck and went back to sleep.
I’d never seen a grown man cry before. At least not so silently, but Bayou did.
It was honestly quite terrifying.
To see the amount of emotion that the man kept bottled up inside…not even in his body did he show any of the tension that had to be filtering through him.
Just those silent tears.
“In the truck,” I ordered.
Bayou got in the truck.
I got in, too, and drove around to the other end of the station, where I expected to find Sam.
“I contacted state police,” Folsom said. “They should be here any second.”
Sam came around the corner of the building, wiping his lip free of what looked like a speck of blood.
So he’d taken care of the other two, good.
Bayou drew in a large, steadying breath and then pressed his lips to the baby’s forehead.
The tears dried up. Just that suddenly.
He opened his eyes again, and I saw the rage, barely concealed, hidden in their depths.
Oh yeah, dude was pissed as hell.
“I called the mama,” Folsom said. “She knows that you have him. I’ve also dealt with the police. Head back to the helicopter.”
So we did, trusting her to be telling the truth.
“Think they’re gonna make it?” I asked carefully.
I’d hit the kid pretty hard, and he’d hit the concrete quite forcefully. If he was okay, I’d be surprised.
However, in my deep moral code, I knew that I’d done the right thing. That “kid” I’d hit wasn’t really a kid. Hadn’t been for a while. He’d been playing dangerous games, and he’d won a dangerous prize.
I just hoped that, if he was okay, he would know to turn his life around, learning from this experience.
We all arrived at the helicopter at the same time. After dawdling slightly around with the vehicles, she pulled a magic marker out of her backpack, then wrote on a piece of paper before slipping it under the hood of the truck. Then, pulling out a couple of crisp hundred-dollar bills, she placed those under it, too.
I was just about to get out and offer her some of my own money—because this had been my op, after all—when she started running toward me.
I finished my checklist, made sure everything was safe to fly, then had us in the air moments later.
Sam was offering her money about two minutes into our flight, handing it to her expectantly.
She waved him off. “I stole it out of his wallet,” she waved her hand at me. “Give it back to him.”