Page 45 of Last Man Standing

“Scar?” Lincoln is an impatient motherfucker, nagging when we’ve got our own shit to deal with. Whining when it’s not his life in the crosshairs. “Where is he taking you?”

“I don’t know.” She brings her feet to the seat, her knees pointed to the sky, then she forgoes scribbling in her notebook and draws directly onto her jeans. “He hasn’t told me yet.”

“Where are you taking my sister, Jameson?”

“To the only place I know that’s remained a secret for three decades already.” I wrap my hands securely around the steering wheel and tighten my grip on the leather. “It’s locked down, has its own army, eyes in the sky, and escape routes only my family knows about.”

“T-to your mother’s compound?” His stutter turns into an explosion. “To a military compound Richard Aster spent his life paying homicidal assholes to locate? Are you insane?”

“The codes are destroyed, and the code keepers are no longer in play.” I glance across and catch myself in Scarlett’s wide, doe-eyed stare. “It’s the safest place I know.”

“It’s also hidden!” Lincoln roars. “Which means I can’t get to her unless you tell me where it is. Are you gonna text me the address, dickhead? Send me GPS dots?”

“Nope.” I drag my gaze front and center and hope, I fucking pray, I’m making the right decision. “But you’ll know she’s safe, and she’ll be able to contact you anytime she wants.”

“Jameson!”

“The sooner you smoke this dude out and make this bullshit go away, the sooner we all go back to our lives.”

“And what about Scarlett when it’s all done? Nova only had one code, one of five, and you’ve been up her ass for months already. Now you’re just gonna walk my sister through the front doors and… what? Put a bullet between her eyes so she can’t pass the secret on to someone else? God forbid she knows where your mommy lives.”

“Let me deal with me,” I sneer.

Tension and fear roll off Scarlett’s trim body like heatwaves on a scorching hot summer day.

Nice work, Castro. Terrify the already terrified woman.

“I’m taking the key out of play,” I grit out dismissively. “If he can’t find her, he can’t hurt her. In the meantime, you need to figure out who he is. Then neutralize him.”

We pass a sign advertising a diner two miles up the road. I’ve gotta piss, and eat a meal to make up for the sleep I didn’t get. Most importantly, Scarlett needs to not hear her brother bitching about the possibility I might kill her.

I’ve already told her I would too many times to count. Back when it was hypothetical.

“We’re gonna stop in a minute, get some gas and something to eat.”

“But—”

“We’ll stay in contact, but you won’t be getting GPS dots for much longer. Enjoy ‘em while they last.”

“You—”

I tap the button on my steering wheel and end our call, and before I miss the exit, I merge right and bring my truck around the interchange a little faster than road laws allow. “Time to get out and stretch our legs for a minute, Princess. I need food before I die, and you need to stop staring at me like I already have my gun to your head.”

She tears her gaze to the front, straightens in her seat, and drops her feet to the floor. Re-capping her pen, she nervously brushes strands of hair behind her ears, while I bring us off the road and into the massive driveway leading to a gas station with an attached diner.

When Linc’s name illuminates my phone screen, I decline his call and tug the device clear out of the cradle, disconnecting it from my truck’s stereo system, and beside me, Scarlett anxiously fusses with her sweater, smoothing the fabric over her torso and peeking up at the vanity mirror. “Ugh.” She scrunches her lips and hurriedly reties her messy ponytail. “Gross.”

I slow the truck and bring us into the parking slot closest to the diner’s front doors, then cutting the engine, I snatch my keys and unsnap my seatbelt. “You look fine.” I push my door open, only to be slammed by the arctic breeze cutting across the open driveway. Fuck. “Climb out this way, Princess. I’m starving.”

I lead Scarlett to a booth in the rear corner and place my back to the wall. While she shakily drags her cross-body bag over her head and slides gingerly onto the bench seat opposite mine, I study the long counter in the middle of the room, cracked and worn red leather-topped stools running from one end to the other, while equally aged booths wrap around the entire space, even in front of the windows so diners are rewarded with a view of… well, more mountains.

So many fuckin’ mountains.

Cooks go about their business in the kitchen, and a radio plays something from the sixties in the far corner, while a woman works the counter, snatching up a pen and order pad in one hand, a coffee pot in the other.

We’re not her only customers, but it takes only a second to count the five others in here; two sets of two, and a single man with a trapper hat pulled low to keep his ears warm.

“Hiya.” The waitress moves with more enthusiasm than the early hour should allow, blasting us with a bright smile and glistening white teeth. The buttons of her dress struggle with the size of her chest, but she doesn’t seem to mind, and Scarlett’s refusal to drag her eyes away from fidgeting fingers means she doesn’t notice. “I reckon you folks might’ve been on the road all night, huh?” She dips her pad and pen into her apron pocket, then flipping two mugs, she fills both without asking. “That’ll get you pepped right up. You want something to eat, or…?”