“Are you okay?” the second receptionist wanted to know, already on the phone.
“Ask me tomorrow.” Howard stiff-armed the glass door open. Hardly breathing, Peri followed him out into the dark. Lights were coming on in the lot, and the nearby traffic seemed to glow from the mist. Howard stood with his hands on his hips as he looked at the green monster she’d driven in on. “You stole that piece of crap?”
“You can’t hot-wire a new model,” she said in affront. “They have chips and things. If I had taken a Lexus, I wouldn’t have gotten ten minutes down the road before getting busted by the cops.” Gratitude filled her, and she hesitated. “Thank you.”
“I haven’t said I’ll help yet.” He was moving again, and Peri hustled after him. “That’s my van,” he said, the vehicle flashing its lights when he pointed a fob at it.
She jogged to the passenger side. The no-windows thing it had going made her uneasy, and she hesitated, fingers on the handle. “What does your gut say?” she whispered, cold in the mist, and then in a flash of decision, she lifted the latch and got in, squirrel-rocks sliding.
Howard was already behind the wheel, coat in the back, key in the ignition, when she flopped into the seat. The van was cluttered with a mishmash of boxes. Peri tossed the shoebox to the floor with the rest and put her seat belt on.
Distracted, Howard said, “The fact that you trust me does not instill me with confidence.”
Peri nudged a take-out bag away from her foot. “My gut is usually right.” Something felt off, even though everything was going the way she wanted it to.
“So is mine,” he said, starting the van. “Go sit in the back and look at the door, princess, so I don’t have to knock you out, or cover your eyes, or anything else dumb like that.”
Seriously? But he wasn’t moving, and she finally undid her belt and picked her way awkwardly through the clutter until she sat on a pile of clean but frayed towels. They were for the animals, she guessed, and her bad feeling grew when he put the van in gear and crept to the entrance, brakes squeaking as he halted for traffic. “Where are we going?” she asked, not expecting an answer.
“Safe house. I’m passing the buck.” His face was silhouetted in the lights from the passing cars as he waited for a gap in traffic. He looked angry, and his hands tapped the wheel impatiently. Muttering under his breath, he slammed the van into park when the light at the corner turned and his chance to drive away vanished. He stared out the window, then pulled the scrunchie from his dreadlocks and tossed it to the dash to sit with the three others. Turning to her, he said, “I want to know something. What did Silas defragment for you that he’d never seen?”
Peri licked her lips, feeling lost in the back of his van. “That I loved Jack,” she said, not knowing if it would help or damn her. She looked away, blinking fast. Government agents didn’t cry, even when they were lost, alone, and fighting their own people.
Nonplussed, he turned to the front and put the van in drive, griping at the car that didn’t slow down when he gunned it into the street. Miserable, Peri propped herself up against the rocking van, hating how relieved she was that someone was willing to help her.
“You treacherous bitch!” Howard yelled, and she eyed him, thinking he had some serious road rage, but he was looking at her. “You lied to me, and I bought it!”
“What?”
Peri’s eyes widened when she looked out the front window. Cop lights, red and blue, were coming up the road. Instinct made her reach for her pen pendant, but there was nothing to write.
“I should have known!” Howard shouted, dreadlocks swinging. “Silas warned me you were slippery as slime mold.”
“Howard, you took the chip out, and Silas bought me a new phone they can’t track. I’m telling you, it’s not me.” Cops. Opti wouldn’t be so obvious, but they might use the local police to drive them into a trap. “I found your address in fifteen minutes knowing only that you worked as a vet and had a thing for squirrels,” she said calmly. “Maybe Silas let something slip. Or maybe they just followed your sorry ass back here, Mr. Janitor. I saved you by getting you out. See?” she said as the cop cars squealed past the van, lights still flashing. “They aren’t following us. They’re headed to your office.”
Howard’s anger was replaced by stone-cold fear. “I can’t go back.”
Peri moved into the front seat, scrunching low to keep out of sight. “It sucks, doesn’t it.” They had to get off this road. There were traffic lights every block, and they were making zero time in the rush hour.
Howard’s teeth clenched, and the glow from the oncoming cars glinted on his beads. “They’ll have my address, everything.”