Go in hot.
Then the computer screen returns to normal, a spray of icons over a shot of AT&T Park mid–Giants game. The alarm system even lets out a weak, strained chirp, like whatever Bailey’s done is the equivalent of a stopper being pulled from a drain.
Charley tears the Post-it note from the pad, folds it neatly in half. She appears gripped by excitement, but when their eyes meet, she blushes in a way he’d find undeniably cute in any other circumstance.
“Go in hot?” Luke asks. “What does that mean?”
“Pick a screen name that’s got something to do with fire. Or Burning Girl, I guess. I assume you’re gonna come with me.”
“Uh, yeah. I am.”
“OK, well, let me just tell—”
When she turns from him, he grabs her by the shoulder. Not thinking. Too hard. She spins. Her eyes lock on the hand he’s gripping her shoulder with. He removes it quickly, even manages to spread his fingers in a silent gesture of apology. But he’s not sorry he stopped her hasty escape from the house. And she seems more fascinated by his sudden grab than angered by it. Which is odd.
But all of this is odd.
“Look, you may not think I’m in a position to ask a lot from you right now, but he’s my brother. Marty cannot know about this. Like at all.”
He can see a flash of some kind of struggle in her expression, but she hides it quickly under a tense mask, looks to the hardwood floor between them, her fist closing around the folded-over Post-it note.
“Charley, it’s obvious you’re in some kind of trouble, and I can tell he’s watching out for you. And that’s great. But he doesn’t like me, and we’ve already been at each other’s throats once this week and . . . I just . . . He can’t. He can’t know about this. Please.”
“What if he follows us to the library but doesn’t go inside? And I don’t tell him what we’re doing there?”
“You really think he’ll think we went there to check out some books? He’ll know we’re there for the computers, and he’ll probably connect it up with that thing my brother did with the manure store in high school.”
“You’re being paranoid, Luke.”
“My brother’s wanted by the FBI, and he’s been secretly watching me move around my house for months.”
“But Marty doesn’t have anything to do with that.”
“I know, and I want to keep it that way.”
She stares at him. Not aggressive or fearful—calculating. Whether she’s assessing him or the situation, he’s not sure.
“What kind of trouble are you in, Charley?”
“The big kind.”
“And you honestly think Bailey can help?”
“Maybe, yeah.”
“Can I?”
“I don’t know. Can you?”
He’s not sure exactly what she means, but he’s surprised by how quickly he made the offer. Big trouble usually means trouble with the law. Only once she turned his question around on him did he wonder if that might be the nature of her dilemma. If she’s on the run for something she’s done, as opposed to from someone who wants to hurt her. He has a badge now. Not the government-issued one he’d always dreamed of having, but it’s still a badge. But in this moment it feels no more meaningful to him than a child’s toy. Did Agent Rohm leave him that angry and jaded, with that little respect for the law, for the system?
The answer comes out of him before he can stop it. “I can try. If you let me.”
“So you’re saying I should milk this apology thing for all it’s worth.”
“Something like that, yeah,” he answers.
“OK. Fine. No Marty.”
With that, she turns and heads for the door. When she realizes he hasn’t followed, she looks back, sees him in the kitchen strapping on the holster for his gun. The expression she gives the weapon in his hand is almost wistful, like she thinks he’s cute for bringing it along.
“A date?” Marty asks. “Really? Right now?”
“It’s not a date,” Charlotte hisses. “And if you say that one more time, I will reach through this—”
“You’re going off alone with him. You won’t say where. What the hell else could it be except for a date?”
She grips the edge of the truck’s open window, glances back to where Luke is sliding behind the wheel of his black Jeep Wrangler. Avoiding, on purpose, she assumes, her pointed glares. How could he put her in this position?
Simple, she thinks. Because it’s his brother; that’s how.
“If I follow, what’s he gonna do?” Marty asks. “Have me arrested?”
“Probably not.”
“Then I’m following.”
“He’ll probably take me in for questioning.”
“For what? How much did you tell him?”
“Marty, just . . . please. I need you to trust me on this one.”
He lets out a long hissing breath between clenched teeth, shakes his head.
“When we get back, maybe we can all sit down and have a meal together, and you two can bury the hatchet or something. Or, you know, do what men do when they’ve been bumping chests so much their backs are starting to get sore. Like yoga.”
“My back’s fine,” Marty says, voice low and growl adjacent, “and this isn’t about me.”
“It is, though. Whatever words you guys had the other day, they’ve got you confused.”
Got you confusing your ego with your brains, she wants to say.
“So you trust him? You don’t think he’s part of this?”
I think he’s about to become part of this if his brother turns out to be helpful. But you can’t know that. Yet. Instead she says, “Maybe. We’ll see. I’m still figuring it out.”
Marty shakes his head and stares out the windshield.
“Besides,” Charlotte says, “it’s not like I won’t be able to protect myself if I’m wrong.”
“Pill’s been sitting in your system for how long now? For all we know it might wear off if you don’t, you know, activate it in time. There’s too damn much we don’t know about this stuff.”
“I agree,” she says.
“Yeah, sure you do.”
“Marty.”
He checks the dashboard clock. It’s almost 1:00 p.m. She feels an ultimatum coming.
“If you all aren’t back by six this evening, I’m gonna consider you a missing person and make sure Mona believes it, too. And I’ll be damn sure to let her know you were last seen with her shiny new deputy.”
“Fine.”
“And I’m gonna take that video we made last night to the FBI and tell them everything you told me.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re not because you can’t. I’ve got the thumb drive we put it on this morning.”
“You didn’t . . . but the . . . Crap, you deleted the original off my phone when I wasn’t looking. Slick, girlie. Real slick.”
“Girlie? Really?”
He glares straight ahead, hands tensing and untensing at ten and two on the steering wheel.
“I’m starting to feel unappreciated,” he says quietly.
“Feel something else.”
“What?”
“Spared.”
He looks her in the eye, expression doleful. “Maybe I don’t want to be spared all this.”
She leans in, kisses him on the cheek. He’s clearing his throat, preparing to say something else maudlin but kind, she’s sure. But just then she reaches across him and pulls Jason Briffel’s disposable cell from the armrest. His eyes widen and his jaw gapes when he realizes she’s just swiped his last possible bargaining chip.
“Six o’clock,” he calls after her. “First part of what I said still stands. If you’re not back by six, I—”
“Six o’clock,” she calls back.
When Luke starts the Jeep’s engine, Marty fires up his truck a second later. For a minute or two, it seems as if the men’s vehicles are conducting a little battle of the bands over her; then Marty peels off down the street, making the biggest show of not following her that he can.
“How’d it go?” Luke asks when she climbs inside his Jeep.
“Not well,” she answers.
He nods and backs out of the driveway.