And then there was another face, but it didn’t belong. Older. Grayer. Concerned. He was saying something, too. The same thing. Above? Allowed?
Unlock. They wanted her to unlock something. The window. Casey found the metal clasp in the center of the pane and twisted it. Johnny was doing something outside. Taking something off. A screen. And then Davey Wainwright—how could it be that he was there with the kids?—was pushing the large window to the side, reaching in, grabbing her.
Casey groaned, and Davey froze. She listened. Was someone coming?
“Mr. Wainwright, we have to get her out.” Johnny again, whispering.
Then they were lifting her out, holding her under the arms, easing their hands under her legs. There were more of them, not just Bailey and Johnny and Davey, but others, looking down at her, eyes wide, and scared.
“Come on, over here, this way. Somebody put that screen back. Close the window.” Who was that? Someone else talking quietly, so quietly Casey almost couldn’t hear it.
Around the old wooden trailer they carried her, lit only by the lights from the front parking lot. Faces anxious, jaws clenched as they hurried next door, through the loading dock for the big box store, toward Old Navy, to a covered pickup truck, onto the bed, under a cap, where blankets lined the floor, and people lined the sides of the truck.
The tailgate squealed as someone pulled it up, and Davey knocked gently on the truck’s back window. They started to move. Casey looked up into another kid’s face. What was her name? The girl held a cool cloth to Casey’s swollen face.
“We’ve got you, Casey. We’ve got you now. Everything’s okay.”
Casey did her best to believe her.
Chapter Thirty-Two
“I think she’s waking up.”
Casey blinked up into Bailey’s face. Bailey’s bloodshot eyes were ringed black with smeared mascara and eyeliner, and her hair stuck up in all directions. “Casey, it’s me. Bailey. We got you out. You’re okay.”
Okay was a relative term. She knew she was okay in that she was alive—for the moment. The fact that she hadn’t died of internal bleeding yet gave her hope that she wasn’t going to. But she knew they all weren’t okay in that Yonkers and the rest of those men would be hunting them down. If that band of dangerous dimwits could find her.
“Who got me out?” Casey managed to say.
“The five of us. Well, and a couple more people. Davey and Wendell.”
The two men stood so she could she them. “But how…?”
“My phone.” Terry stood at her feet. “It was Sheryl’s idea. We looked at everybody you’d called, or who’d called you. We found Mr. Wainwright, and he called Mr. Harmon.”
“What about…cops?”
Everyone shuffled their feet and looked around at each other. “You didn’t seem real keen on cops,” Davey said. “The kids called them to the pizza shop, but then the men took you away, and when it came down to finding you, we figured we’d do it ourselves without involving police. Thought you’d want it that way.”
Casey gave a little laugh. She’d risked all of their lives, and here they were, risking their lives again. For her. “But how did you find me? I didn’t tell any of you where I was going.”
Davey frowned. “Wish you would’ve. But I called Tom. He said you’d been asking about somebody named Willie Yonkers, so we looked him up. Figured you might be with him. We checked his house first, but it was completely dark. Went to his business next. We just got lucky.”
She was the one who’d gotten lucky. But the kids… “He didn’t see you at his house?”
“No.” Wendell. “We staked it out from down the road.”
“And Terry and Sheryl went for a walk past it.” Bailey smiled. “They look the most normal of any of us.”
“Hey!” Martin said.
“The house was totally dark,” Sheryl said. “Kinda creepy, like nobody lives there.”
“His office,” Casey said. “The information is there.”
“What information?” Davey sounded exasperated. “You won’t tell anybody what information!”
“About the trucks.”
“The trucks. You mean the truck? The one Evan died in? Or trucks as in the ones you were asking Tom about?”
“Those. Tom’s.”
“Class A Trucking?”
“No. That’s legit. For the flower place.”
“Class A is legit?” Davey sounded surprised.
“But he uses them. The truckers. They do other jobs. Makes it look like they’re from other companies. Falsifies paperwork.”
“But for what?”
“Stealing loads and reselling them. He thinks he’s going to make enough money to save his business. The rest of the guys think they’re making money to get rich.” Casey was tired of talking up at faces and tried to sit up. Martin and Bailey rushed to help, pulling her arms, and Sheryl shoved something soft behind her back. When the waves of pain passed, Casey asked, “Where are we?”
Davey grinned. “Work.”
Casey looked around. Of course. The trailer at his scrap yard. “But they know about this place.”
Bailey frowned. “Where else could we go? They’ve been to the shed, my parents are home…”
Casey closed her eyes and let her head fall forward. “I need…painkillers.”
Sheryl rifled around in her purse and thrust two pills under Casey’s face, along with a glass of water. “Tylenol with codeine. I took them when I got my wisdom teeth out.”
“I told them you need a doctor.” Johnny spoke from behind everyone else, and he shoved through to see her. “You don’t look…well, you look bad. My dad could…it’s my fault.” He ducked his head.
Casey declined the pills, taking two Extra-Strength Tylenol Davey found in his first aid kit, instead. “I’ll make you a deal, Johnny.”
He looked up.
“You stop blaming yourself. That’s the first thing.”
His mouth twitched.
“The second is that if we can get Yonkers…if we know you all are safe…I’ll go see your dad.”
His lips tightened. “We could just take you there.”
“You could try.”
His mouth fell open slightly, and his eyebrows rose. “You mean you would fight us—”
“I’m going to get you safe, Johnny. Whatever it takes.”
Bailey pushed Johnny to the side to get in-between him and Casey. “She’s not going to fight us, Johnny. Don’t be an idiot.”
His face clouded.
“Oh, good grief,” Bailey said. “I didn’t mean it. It’s just the way we talk to each other. Friends do that.”
He looked at her, clearly not sure what to believe.
Martin punched his shoulder. “Come on, man. Lighten up. She called me a moron just yesterday.”
Sheryl grunted. “And she called me a—”
“We need to get out of here,” Casey said. “Before they show up.”
“And go where?” Bailey seemed relieved to change the subject.
Casey clenched her jaw. “To get Yonkers, where else?”
“I don’t know…” She heard the doubt in Bailey’s voice.
“Give me a minute,” Casey said. “ A few minutes. Okay?”
Gradually the pain medication went into effect, morphing the shooting pains into dull aches, but Casey’s head felt like it was wrapped in a huge transparent cotton ball. Her hearing was still off, and everything moved just a bit in slow motion. Bailey and Sheryl gently swabbed her face with cool cloths and alcohol—a can of beer they’d found in the back of the office fridge. The beer stung like everything, and stank, but at least it cleaned out the wounds. Casey held an ice pack over her eye and the left side of her face, and tried to stay present in the room.
Wendell didn’t like any part of the plan, vague as it was. “You really shouldn’t be going anywhere, least of all to confront a criminal. Look at you.”