Running Blind (Tom Rollins Thrillers Book 19) by Paul Heatley

Author:Paul Heatley [Heatley, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Inkubator Books
Published: 2025-12-07T00:00:00+00:00

27

It’s almost dawn, though it’s still dark outside. Tom is back on watch. He got a few hours of sleep, and then Jess woke him to take back over. She didn’t see anything. Tom hasn’t seen anything, either, but he remains vigilant.

Li has slept through the night, barely moving. Probably a sugar crash after the cherry pie, not to mention an adrenaline crash. It’s been a long day. Jess lies on the other bed, curled into a ball. No sooner had Tom relieved her on watch than she was already asleep again.

Tom stifles a yawn, refusing to succumb to tiredness. He stays alert. By now, his eyes are well-adjusted to the dark. It’ll be light out again soon. Another hour or so, and he’ll wake Jess and Li, and they’ll start moving again. He hasn’t heard Jess’s phone ring or sound a message alert through the night, which means Cal hasn’t tried to get in touch yet. There’s still no extraction point planned for, so their journey will remain vaguely east. If Cal leaves it too long, they’ll have already reached Virginia.

Of course, the chances of that happening are slim. It’s a two-day drive from here, and Cal should be aware of that.

Tom sees movement in the dark.

The movement occurs at the rim of the parking lot, where the glow from the streetlights doesn’t reach. He zeroes in on it, watching for more. Nothing happens for a while. Minutes tick by. Tom is patient. He knows he saw movement, and he knows it was too big to be an animal. He watches and he waits, like a sniper waiting for the opportunity to take the perfect kill shot.

More minutes pass. Tom focuses on the darkness, but keeps his gaze wide enough in case there’s movement elsewhere. He doesn’t shift from his position. Doesn’t open the curtains any wider. If someone is out there, he doesn’t want to give away that he’s noticed them.

His patience pays off. There’s movement again. They were concealed behind a rock. They stand now, and Tom sees that there are two figures in the dark. He thinks they’re looking toward the horizon, gauging the arrival of the dawn. They turn to Tom’s left, and they move off, disappearing out of sight.

Tom makes sure no one else appears, and then he wakes Jess and tells her what he saw.

“What did they look like?” she asks. She’s wide awake at his story. She rubs at her eyes so she can see straight.

“Too dark to tell,” Tom says.

“What are you thinking?”

“That it could be the people coming after us,” Tom says. “Triad or otherwise. But it also could have been kids messing about in the dark. It could have been drunks, squatting behind the rock to use it as a toilet. Whoever they were, it’s going to be light soon. If they’re lurking around the motel and looking for us, we’ll see them.”

“We know they don’t just lurk. They shoot.”

“True, but maybe they’re not so confident about which room we’re in.

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