You Can't Run by Hope Davis (best way to read books .txt) 📗

out of the room. He could feel himself panicking. He tried to search his mind for what to do and found himself blindly pushing redial on the number that Atlas had called from earlier that morning. He stumbled out onto the front porch, gasping for air.

“Atlas.” He answered after a single ring.

Kevin found himself tongue tied for a second before he was able to choke anything out. “Uh...”

He cleared his throat and tried again. “It’s Vance. I, uh, don’t think he’s alive.” Kevin felt himself going into shock.

“I’m sending a bus right now. How’s Naya?”

Seeing his friend dead had almost made him forget the reason he had come over in the first place. “She’s…she’s not here.”

“Jesus. I should have driven her home I knew she was too tired to drive, I need to check the accident reports—”

What Atlas was saying sunk in and he rushed to cut him off. “Her car is here. I’m looking at it.”

Now it was Atlas’ turn to be at a loss for words. The phone was silent for a moment.

“Fuck.” He whispered, then he took a deep breath. “I’m on my way. And I’m bringing the cavalry.”

Kevin doesn’t remember hanging up the phone. Maybe he never did. Maybe it had just gone dead while he was holding it against his ear, he couldn’t be sure. He didn’t even remember sitting down, but he was sitting frozen in the exact same position on the cement step with the front door still hanging open behind him when the ambulance and police officers arrived.

An EMT began asking him questions and all Kevin could do was motion to the open door behind him. The EMT went in only to come out a few minutes later and speak to one of his colleagues who had stayed outside with Kevin.

A different EMT offered him water and a cookie, saying what he was experiencing was shock. Kevin kind of wanted to yell at him because he clearly knew that but he couldn’t find the energy to do so. He was still holding the bottle of water and cookie when Atlas pulled up an intangible amount of time later.

He got out of his car and headed straight for Kevin.

“What happened?” He quickly turned and shouted orders over his shoulder, ordering the officers that had pulled up behind him to secure the scene after they removed the body.

Kevin shook his head. “I knew something was wrong when I walked in. The front mat was all bunched up and the door was unlocked. Naya wouldn’t just leave it like that.”

Atlas nodded. “What else? What did you do next?”

“I went up the stairs. Her bed was still made. I knew then that she probably hadn’t made it to her bed. But I checked the rest of the house to be sure. I knew it was dumb though. I had called her name when I walked in. If she had been awake and cooking breakfast she would have answered. Then I checked on Vance and…” He couldn’t bring himself to describe what he had seen then.

Atlas stood up and went to talk to the other officers that were there in a whisper. Kevin couldn’t even bring himself to listen in. But the more he sat there, the more it began to set in that Naya was missing.

Where was she?

Kevin remembered that he had called Trevor the night before to check on Vance. He wondered if he had spent the night and just left early or had left the night before.

He pulled out his phone and dialed Trevor’s number. The phone rang and rang. Finally, a recorded message came on to say the number did not have a voice mailbox set up yet. That was odd…

Atlas came back over. “Were you with Vance last night?”

Kevin shook his head and stood. He was finally getting his wits back. “No. Vance and I had a bit of a heavy talk on Sunday. So, I was taking a little break. Naya texted me last night and asked me to have someone check in on him. I called my friend Trevor.”

“Trevor who?”

“Carlson. We work together. Him and Vance are buddies too.” After the words came out of his mouth, he gulped. He couldn’t say those words anymore.

Atlas put a hand on his shoulder. “What’s his number?”

Kevin held out his phone. “I just tried to call him. He didn’t answer.”

“Okay I’ll have some officers see if they can intercept him at work. Can you tell me where you work?”

Kevin nodded and gave him the cross streets of the construction project Trevor had been on this week.

“What do you think happened to Naya?” Now that the shock was wearing off, panic was setting in. What was Naya going to do when she found out Vance died while she was working? This was going to crush her. Where was she? Had him not coming over last night caused her to do something rash?

“I have no idea. But my best guess is someone was waiting for her.”

“But who would want to take Naya? She doesn’t have any enemies.” As he said it, he realized he actually didn’t know that for sure. She could have had enemies in La Junta he didn’t know about.

Atlas shook his head. “She’s a detective and was a Sheriff. She’s probably pissed off any number of people over the years. I’m having a colleague send up her files from La Junta now.” He checked his phone for the time. “This is just really bad timing because our case was about to break. And now she’s missing.”

“Do you think they’re connected?” Kevin asked apprehensively.

Atlas thought for a second, he clearly hadn’t considered the fact that they might be yet. “I don’t know. But if they are, this isn’t good.”

“Why?” Kevin asked even though he knew he probably