As I dug into my trench, I could not believe that I actually missed Wolf Glaser. At this distance, Wolf could blab all he wanted. There was no way Phil Din would ever hear us, or even consider a sniper might be waiting for him to come out of the Atomic Inn. I thought how sweet the love story was between Wolf and Tracy, actually. He’d apparently been pining, much to everyone’s annoyance, for a year now, waiting to steal Tracy back. Roman had verified Wolf’s incessant but romantic story of how she’d been saved from the trap house.
The website had mentioned that the Atomic Inn served a free breakfast. I was right on the money that Phil Din wouldn’t take advantage of the cereal dispenser and the rubbery eggs. Like clockwork he exited his dingy room. Through my scope I could see him fumbling with his car keys with his gangrene-riddled fingers. Santiago Slayer was right. It did look like he wore zombie makeup. Of course he had a long-sleeved jacket on, but the decay in his mandibles was evident. I’d seen Krokodil addicts whose fingers had literally fallen off in front of me. I’d seen their calves eaten down to the bone. There was no coming back from that shit.
I waited. I was making a huge assumption that he’d head on toward 95 and Winnemucca, and that’s what he did. I squeezed the trigger while he waited to turn right onto 95. His head whipped toward the passenger seat like he was falling asleep with a spray of blood and brains. Hitting him this way, instead of standing up in the Atomic Inn parking lot, made it a lot less obvious. It earned me precious seconds to pack everything up and tear out of there, hitting the highway before poor dead Phil ever could. Or should I call him Jim Fell?
I chuckled as I hit the highway. Tonopah had a diner that was a safe bet for breakfast. It was about half an hour until a couple of CHP cages went flying past me toward Beatty, cherries and sirens at full tilt. That made me chuckle even harder. Since the highway was a straight shot and practically no one was going in my direction, I checked my phone. There was a text from Tobias.
Fox, Pippa took off last night when I gave her Shelda’s info. I tried to stop her, but she wouldn’t listen.
Fuck! Took off where? I read the next text from Lytton.
You gonna be at my house before I am? My housekeeper said there’s a guy asking around for Pippa. Name of Randy Blankenship.
Fuck me dry! There was no point in heading north anymore. I hung a U at the next safe place to do so. I’d have to ride right past the Din murder scene, but nothing seemed to matter anymore.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
PIPPA
“So what’re you calling this bud and breakfast inn?”
I giggled. “Smoky Mountain High. At least, that’s it for now.”
My sister giggled too. “In Colorado…”
I slapped her arm. “Oh, God! You were the one into John Denver. You drove us crazy with his CDs. All of that corny whining…”
“Hey! He was my boyfriend!” Shelda reached for the bottle of wine I’d brought. “Oops, empty. Let me get another one.”
“Sure. I’m taking a taxi back to the airport.”
“When do you have to leave here?”
I looked at the clock on my phone. “One more hour. Boo.”
“Boo,” Shelda called from the kitchen. “And you know Randy Blankenship’s gonna be waiting for you. What an asshole.”
Randy was her handler too, but he’d only flown to Oklahoma City a couple of times to check on her. She wasn’t a witness in the case. Jones had threatened her safety, holding it over my head if I dared try to escape from the warehouse. WITSEC had promised to relocate her with me, but they’d flaked on that promise. They claimed it was too dangerous to keep us together—if Jones got one of us, he’d get both—but we were miserable apart.
After Tobias had found her phone number, I’d turned on my phone for a brief minute to call her, gotten her address. And the rest, as they say, was history. I’d hitched a ride with a solo biker going to Reno to catch the next flight to Oklahoma City. It had stopped in Denver so it had taken me all day, and now night was falling again. It’d be sunrise before I landed in Phoenix, miserable all over again. More so now because the man I’d thought I was falling in love with had been sent to kill me.
“So tell me,” said Shelda in a new tone as she came back with the opened bottle of wine. “Are there any dudes in your life? Your new persona of Pippa Lofting sounds very attractive. Knitting and working at a weed dispensary. What guy could hold out against that?”
I couldn’t even giggle now that she’d mentioned dudes. “I don’t know if I’m ready for dudes, you know, after Russ and all.”
“Yeah, but it’s been awhile. I’m dating someone. Miss Sally Decker knows how to turn on the heat.” That was Shelda’s new persona. She swam in the community pool every day, rode a Vespa, and worked in a jewelry store. She used to be a chemist for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. I had ruined her life by dating the wrong dude.