Every Precious Thing by Brett Battles Page B

just wasn’t time. Maybe someday she’d call her and explain.
    It wasn’t until she was twenty miles out of town that she remembered the picture taped to the underside of her nightstand drawer. There were times when she’d look at it every night before she went to sleep, and other times when she’d go weeks without remembering it was there. It was a comfort, a reminder of the important things.
    Though it would be hard for anyone to find, eventually someone would. And if it was the wrong person? She could not let that happen.
    She called Richard, and told him to wait for her in Kingman, Arizona.
    “You’re going to confront him, aren’t you?” he said.
    “Absolutely not.”
    “Then what are you doing?”
    Ahead she spotted a turnaround in the center medium, and slowed to take it. “Please, just wait for me. I’ll get there as soon as I can.”
    Braden was even deader than it had been when she’d left not long after two a.m. As she turned onto her street, she noticed a blue Chevy El Camino parked at the curb in front of her house. It had definitely not been there earlier.
    Fully alert, she drove past her driveway, parked at the curb half a dozen houses down, and made her way back on foot. She approached the side of the house, and peeked through the kitchen window. From there, she had a partial view through the living room and into the hallway that led to the bedroom.
    For a few seconds she saw nothing unusual, then a burst of light briefly cut through the darkness at the far end of the hall. When it came again, its source, a flashlight, moved all the way into the hall, and started heading back toward the living room. She ducked down and leaned against the wall, unsure what to do. Part of her wanted to sprint back to her car and race away, but the picture…she had to get the picture.
    As silently as possible, she retreated to the street and ducked behind an old Dodge van parked on the other side.
    Nearly twenty minutes later, the front door of her duplex opened. Since her porch light was off, she couldn’t get a good look at the man who stepped out, but as he walked toward the car at the curb, he passed into the light of the corner streetlamp.
    It was the guy who’d come into the bar earlier that night. Not a surprise.
    She stayed rooted to the spot until long after he’d driven away. Finally, she forced herself to move. Once inside her former home, she spent only as much time as needed to get the picture and get out. A minute later, she headed for the freeway, but just before she reached the on-ramp, she pulled to the side of the road.
    There was an opportunity here, she realized. The man would be under the impression she’d left town. Even if he hadn’t read the note, which she believed he must have, the signs of her departure were there. She could use this to her advantage and stay in town, spying on him—where he went, whom he talked to. She could turn the tables on them, know what they were doing, and control the situation instead of being controlled by it.
    Her mind made up, she called Richard again, and had him meet her just on the Arizona side of the border. Since locals would know her car, but no one had seen the rental he was using, she wanted to switch vehicles with him. That turned out to be easy. The harder part was convincing him to leave his gun with her.
    “If you need a gun, then you need me,” he said.
    “It’s just in case.”
    “Then you need me, just in case .”
    It took nearly all the energy she had left to convince him to go back to Kingman and wait until she contacted him again.
    As she drove back into Braden, she donned a hoodie and then searched through town for the El Camino. It wasn’t difficult. The car was easy to spot. As she’d figured, it was parked at one of the town’s motels. She found a spot at the other end of the lot, and dropped her seat back as far as it would go.
    It had been a long day, and the one that had already begun was sure to be another. A few