And she smiled back.

  * * *

  Theresa didn’t even see the little store at first. Set back from the road—down a single-lane road, that continued past it up the mountain—its brown shingled siding and roof looked more like a dilapidated shack than a place of business. She frowned when Ezra slowed, then glanced over at him.

  “We’re going in there?” It was the first time they’d spoken in a while. She’d been busy reading a doomsday message board she’d landed upon. He’d been doing...whatever it was he did when he went into himself.

  “Fresh tracks,” he said, nodding off to his left. The mountain road was one lane in places, two in others, mostly paved, though badly so, and climbed slowly by going around the mountain, not straight up, with very little shoulder. They’d seen other vehicles, but sparingly. Mostly campers and trucks.

  And had rounded bends with drop-offs that were straight down one hundred feet of rock or more. She’d done better reading on her phone, trying to get into the Fitzgeralds’ mindset, than watching the road. If nothing else, when the girls got back, they were going to have heard things, and she needed to be prepared to refute them. With fact, not just motherly assurances.

  A rudimentary, handmade painted wood sign hung over a wooden screened door. Miller’s Deli and Market, it read. The screen was dirty, but she could see a couple through it—older-looking—sitting in chairs behind a counter. They both looked up as Ezra and Theresa entered.

  The place might have been a deli at one point. Any hint of fresh meat and cheeses had long since departed. Dust covered...everything. Much more aware of what she might be walking into than she’d been a day before, Theresa looked around for any sign of guns and ammunition.

  Found the latter stacked neatly on shelves along the back wall.

  “You camping?” the old man asked. Up close, she’d guess him to be eighty, at least. “Camping supplies is along the far wall, middle set of shelves. And water’s stacked in cases of four gallons to a case in the closet back there to the far right. You can’t miss it. You’ll have to help yourself with that. Can’t lift the damned things like I used to.”

  “Chip, the guy who delivers them each month, has to do it,” the woman offered.

  Smiling at her, Theresa felt Ezra close to her side. But not nudging her like a warning or anything.

  “We’d like a box of crackers and some peanut butter if you have it,” he said to the couple. And was told to take a look around.

  “There should be some out there somewhere,” the man offered. “Water’s in the closet in the far back right corner,” he said and pointed again to the opposite corner of the store. “Comes in four gallons a case, but you’ll have to lift it yourself if you want some.”

  “I think we will take a case.” Ezra nodded, starting to walk around one of the two small center aisles of goods.

  “I’m Nancy. This is Howard,” the woman offered to Theresa while Ezra “shopped.”

  “I’m ninety-four years old.”

  Though she tried to school her features, her shock must have shown, as the woman laughed. “Howard’s ninety-six,” she added. “He robbed the cradle when he married me.” She laughed again, and Howard chuckled, too.

  Theresa couldn’t smile with them. “I have a degree in senior health management,” she said, “and I have to say...I’m impressed. Do you two live around here?”

  She sure as heck couldn’t picture them in the Sunshine Senior Home.

  “Around that corner,” Howard replied, pointing to a closed door behind the counter, off to the left.

  “Been here five years,” Nancy told her, rocking back with her hands crossed over a belly that was only slightly protruding beneath the rose-and-white housedress she wore. Pride rang through the elderly woman’s words.

  “I met a couple who said they live up this way,” Theresa said then, not forgetting for even a second that her only purpose for being there was to find her daughters. She pulled up a picture on her phone. “You ever see them?”

  The couple leaned forward together, Howard pushing his glasses up, and Nancy raising her head to look through bifocals that were as thick as any Theresa had ever seen.

  “Yep,” Howard said, as Nancy spoke over him with, “They’re nice people. Just wanting a safe place to live.”

  Ezra moved farther along the opposite side of the shelf separating them. Theresa could still feel his energy coming her way. There’d been no plan for her to be in charge—ever—but the opportunity had presented itself, and...

  A deep breath helped her steady her shaking limbs.

  “You see them recently?” she asked then.

  Nancy looked at Howard, who looked at Theresa and shook his head. “Not for a while, I don’t think. But we don’t open every day. Mostly all’s that ever comes up here is campers, and they buy their stuff in town. Cheaper that way. We’re just here for locals who don’t like to go to town, and they know to knock hard on the door if it’s locked.”

  “Locals?” Ezra came up beside her. “There’s a settlement up here?”

  “Just folks looking to live safe,” Howard said. “Next hundred miles or so, they’re scattered about.” And Theresa’s stomach churned with roosts of butterflies. “We had a safe place up here ourselves, been here forty years, but it got hard to haul the water in.”

  “I’m ninety-four,” Nancy piped in. “I told Howard, what we staying safe for anymore? I wanted some flowers and blue skies overhead. So we bought this place and sit and watch the birds and look at sunshine every day.” She smiled again.

  “And wait for the Good Lord to take us,” Howard added. “There’s water in that closet back there in the far corner. Comes in cases, four gallons to a case...”

  Ezra pulled a couple of twenties out of his pocket and laid them on the counter, handing Theresa an older-looking unopened box of saltines and a dusty jar of peanut butter as he went to collect their water and head out. She followed him with a chorus of “Have a nice day” from the husband and wife.

  Waited while Ezra pulled open the only closet in the place.

  The skinny space behind the door was completely empty. No water in sight.

  * * *

  “Their memory issues were age-appropriate,” Theresa said the second they were outside the store, hurrying across gravel in the hot sun. “That doesn’t mean that they didn’t really recognize Eric and Jennifer.”

  Heading to his side of the Jeep, Ezra climbed inside and had the engine going and the vehicle in gear by the time she’d fastened her seat belt beside him.

  “Whether they recognized them or not, they just told us that the next hundred miles contains bunkers,” he said, feeling energized in a way he hadn’t been since he’d come home for his brother’s wedding.

  He was closing in on his target. “We’ve only got one area on the map over the next hundred miles—about halfway up this road to a turnoff that I’m going to assume is more of a dirt drive than an actual street.” He didn’t want to get her hopes up.

  But he wasn’t going to lie to her, either.

  The Fitzgeralds weren’t going to give up those girls easily.

  And they were well armed.

  He called his brother. Gave Dom the coordinates of the area he’d be searching. The war wasn’t won. Hadn’t even started.

  The battle was still ahead.

  But at least he had one to fight.

  With only one troop out of his usual hundreds. Himself.

  He had fifty miles to prepare her.

  “They might see us before we know they’re there,” he said. “I can almost guarantee they will.” Even if they weren’t on the run, doomsdayers would likely have traps set to alert them if anyone got close to their domicile. It was all part of protecting oneself.

  “And when they do, they’re going to come out fighting. At this point, not only do they stand to lose the girls, but they’ll be arrested, separated and sent to live in a cage with criminals if they’re caught.”

  Theresa broke in. “It would make more sense for them to leave the girls, as a distraction—because they know that Claire and Neve are who we want—and run. They’ll have an escape route, Ezra. From all the reading I’ve been doing today, I’m sure they already have a secure plan in place in case we do find them.”

  He hoped to God the plan wasn’t to take the girls with them, risking them getting killed, to keep them from suffering through the slow burn of a nuclear blast with their mother.

  And knew he couldn’t rely on hope alone. It was up to him to make sure that Eric and Jennifer Fitzgerald didn’t detect them in time to take the twins and disappear off the grid forever.

  He was the front line in the fight of his life.

  With a very special untrained soldier at his back. He had to keep her there. Behind him. So he would take any hits that came their way. And be the only one to see if something horrible happened.

  That was his plan.

  It was weak.

  Unfinished.

  And it was all he had.

  Chapter 18

  The mountain road climbed and then rounded and seemed to slope back down. She’d seen the map they were traveling. A half circle around Benson. Since Ezra had already mapped out the areas without underground utility lines, lakes or streams nearby, or a lot of trees, there wasn’t much reason to keep her eyes peeled out the window during the interim miles.

  The challenge then became keeping her mind occupied so that fear didn’t take possession of it.

  Because while she much preferred the scenario where Eric and Jennifer sent the girls running at them, as a distraction, while the couple bolted through some underground escape hatch that would lead to a vehicle aboveground somewhere—maybe even a garage only ten feet away with a ladder up to it—she knew that another, probably more likely, possibility existed.

  They’d take the twins with them. Why not, if they believed their escape plan was viable? And then, if something went wrong, they could all die together...

  And...cut. She blinked, stared at the phone screen in front of her—her own phone, because the burner was only for use if she had to assume Molly’s persona again.

  Molly and Jack. Yes. Molly and Jack. A lighter feeling entered her system for a second. Easing the panic that her mind had brought on once again.

  Molly and Jack. Her and Ezra.

  He’d held her. No questioning or warnings. Just a wordless sliding under the covers and pulling her into his arms.

  And the weirdest part was...she’d laid her head on his chest, closed her eyes, listened to his heartbeat and fallen asleep.

  She couldn’t remember the last time she’d drifted off so quickly. Or slept so peacefully.

  Was it wrong to want to do it again?

  If thinking about it kept her emotions from spiraling into panic, then that was definitely okay. Conversation might have helped, too. About the night they’d spent, or anything else. But Ezra was...Ezra. He was on a mission, and there was no way she was going to interrupt his process.

  No way she’d do anything to save herself if it meant putting her daughters further at risk.

  Thinking back over the way he’d gotten them out of Tom Smith’s place, the way he’d read the second that congeniality turned into danger, even the shooting at trees as a cover to get himself back to her...

  It was like Charlie had known exactly what he was doing when he’d burst into Alice’s room the afternoon Ezra had been visiting his great-aunt.

  Ezra was only with them for the moment, but she’d spend the rest of her life being thankful for him. Maybe when the girls were home, and Ezra left for his next assignment, they could keep in touch...just a text or email now and then, letting her know he was okay.

  He might want to know she and the twins were okay, too. Since he was risking his life right now to save theirs.

  What if Eric and Jennifer really did see them coming and grab the kids? What if Ezra foiled their escape plan and they felt trapped and chose to die together rather than risk leaving them to suffer what they believed to be an unbearable fate?

  Jerking her head in Ezra’s direction, she said, “It’s more important to me that you rescue those girls than watch over me,” she said as they drew closer to the area where he suspected the girls were being held. He had his phone lying on the console. She could see the live map on his GPS. “I’ll distract Eric and Jennifer while you get the girls.”

  So much for staying out of his process.

  He glanced her way. Briefly. Frowned. Then said, “Let’s see what the situation presents, first.”

  Of course. That was a given. But... “I’m just saying, if it comes down to protecting me or saving them, there’s no question. It’s them.”

  The words garnered her another serious look.

  But no verbal response.

  * * *

  Ezra had never felt so ill prepared.

  As he pulled off the dilapidated paved road onto an even more unkempt dirt one, he had a bad feeling. If it weren’t for the fact that every second could make a difference between saving those kids or losing them to off-the-grid nothingness, he’d pull back. Gather a team of trained professionals, study a map and discuss parameters.

  Law enforcement was already doing just that. And so far had much less than he did. There were only so many of them, and they couldn’t spend an entire day driving in the wilderness on the off chance that the landscape might produce a lead.

  The first part of the road was wooded, so he passed through it with only cursory glances for signs of recent habitation.

  Saw newly trod tracks from large-sized wheels quite clearly. Determined to follow them as far as they led.

  Took his gun out of his waistband, safety still on, and laid it on the console.

  “I know you don’t know how to shoot, but if you have to pull the trigger, do so.” He explained how, with one quick move, she would need to turn the safety off.

  He saw her peek down at the gun. Was looking at her as she then turned to look up at him.

  The road grabbed his attention almost immediately.

  Which was a good thing.

  No way he could afford to drown in those expressive warm pools of her eyes. Not then.

  Not ever.

  “The bunker entrance might just be a flat piece on the ground like a trapdoor. Oftentimes with brush over it so you wouldn’t ever know it’s there,” she said, drawing another quick glance from him. Her voice was a little shaky, but her thoughts seemed to be steady.

  As was her gaze.

  He didn’t blame her for her fear. He’d been living with his own version of it all of his adult life.

  She feared for the lives of her daughters. He did, too, in that moment.

  Overall, his biggest fear was failure.

  He wasn’t going to be able to live with it. Didn’t set himself up for it.

  And yet there he was...driving into God knew what, with no idea what he would actually need to do to rescue those little girls.

  “Some of the fancier ones have actual shed-sized structures with a front door that opens to steps down into the living space below.”

  Climbing a ladder ten feet underground to be home didn’t appeal to him. Nor did sleeping under all those feet of earth. With an inner shudder, he tried not to think about what two innocent little kids would think.

  Unless their grandparents had made a fairy tale out of it. Like the hobbits, or Alice, who passed through the looking glass.

  And...there. Foot on the brake, Ezra brought the Jeep to a slow enough stop not to kick up a lot of dirt. The tracks turned onto a rudimentary road that was little more than two tire tracks of tamped-down earth. As though the road had formed from being driven on over and over, not by formal construction.

  “I’ve been following recent tire tracks,” he told Theresa. “They turn here.”

  “But it’s wooded.”

  “Yeah, but look around. Trees at the edge of the road, but none on either side. And while they’re alive, they aren’t particularly thriving.”

  “You think they were purposely planted here? Like...as a cover?”

  “I think it’s possible. Or they’re natural, but not predominant in the area.”

  He didn’t like what he was going to say next in the event that she argued with him, and he knew she would. But he saw no other option.

  “I have to do the rest on foot,” he told her. Which meant she’d be left on the open road alone. “Do you have phone service?”

  She shook her head. He didn’t, either. Hadn’t since they’d turned onto the dirt road.

  “I’m leaving the gun with you,” he said. “I’ve got my knife.” Pulling up his right jeans leg, he showed her the weapon.

  “I’m not staying out here.” Knowing the objection was coming didn’t make it any easier to take.

  “Theresa.” He said her name firmly, not kindly. “I have no idea what I’m walking into, what kind of maneuver I might have to do...”

  “Which is why you need your gun. And if it comes to you going into action, I can always lie flat on the ground and wait. And pray. It’d be a lot harder to hide sitting out here in the open in a Jeep.”

  She had a point.

  “Besides, I might be able to help.”

  Looking at her, seeing the stubbornness, and knowing their time was wasting, that they could have already been discovered, he did what he did. Came up with a plan.

  “You come with me as far as the edge of the trees. And then you wait. Your job is lookout. Do not come out of the woods for any reason. You get seen, you likely get dead. If you see the girls and they’re in danger, you scream once and change your location within the trees immediately. If you’re in danger, you scream twice. If I find the girls, and have to use myself as a distraction and can’t escort them out, I’m sending them your way and you take them to the Jeep and then straight back to the main road to alert Dom. Got it?”