“Yeah, but the Malefactor was an asshole,” Blaze said.
“Oh, there’s more. If you didn’t acknowledge someone properly at a dinner party, they wouldstillbe pissed off about it a decade later. Maybe their grandkids will still be pissed off at your grandkids acenturylater.”
Blaze inclined his head to the side. “I can see that in Logan.”
“Dodging my aunt for a few weeks won’t even delay the inevitable,” Sarah said. “It will all happen on her timeline no matter what we do.”
“Then we’ll go to Mexico. Again, lots of unguarded border crossings, and you don’t need much money to get along in Mexico.”
“If my aunt is who you say she is,surelya White Russian Bratva mob boss would have contacts in Mexico who will whack us.”
A pang like homesickness soured into anger in Blaze’s chest.
Micah had used the wordwhackto meanmurderwhen they were in high school, back when the four of them were a squad. “But they will definitely look for you at your farm in Iowa. It’spredictable.”
“Maybe it’snotpredictable because we’ve already been there.”
“By that logic, we might as well go to my house in Chicago. It’s closer.”
Sarah’s phone chimed, and she glanced at it.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“Nothing important.”
His face smoothed to a dangerous focus. “Who was it?”
“Group chat. High school friends in Kalona talking abouteverything that’s going on in Kalona,which makes my point that you don’t even know yourneighbors.Kalona is my community, so I have intelligence sources on the ground. I’ll get the word out that some Easterners want to hurt me. Suspicious-Easterner sightings will be posted in the community forums so fast that we’ll be able to track their progress across town like NORAD tracks Santa Claus.”
The words jumped out of Blaze’s mouth before he knew he was formulating them. “I just want you to be safe! I don’t care what happens to me. I don’t care what I have to do to make it happen. I just want you somewhere they’ll never find or hurt you, and you’ll be safe!”
Sarah tilted her head to the side and raised her hand.
Blaze braced himself to be slapped and not respond. He was, after all, sort of holding her hostage.
She cradled his cheek in her palm. “I know, but there is nowhere that’s safe. In Kalona, at least I’ll have other people around whom I can trust.”
“They’ll track us.”
“They won’t. You wiped everything off your phone that might track us, and my phone’s so old that most of the apps don’t work anymore.”
“They’ll find out. They’ll track us somehow. Social media, maybe.”
“We won’t get online. I’ll tell my friends not to mention me. Several of our high-school friends have gone full-metal prepper, and we aren’t allowed to mention their names or even that they exist on social media. My friends won’t slip, not after the Easter Dinner Incident of 2021. There was a lot of yellin’ after that.”
Trepidation swarmed around him. “All right. I guess the better tactical choice is Iowa, then.” At least going there was sound military tactics. “You almost sounded like a SEAL Team operator.”
Sarah dropped her hand, and her sardonic smile was infuriating. “I read.”
After making the bed so tight that a quarter would bounce off the blanket and switching off the well pump, Blaze left a C-note for the owners’ trouble in one of the kitchen drawers and packed their few bags into the Vantage’s hatchback.
Sarah was already sitting in the passenger seat when he got in. She asked, “Any more dithering about our destination, or should I set the GPS to go to my farm?”
“The plan is to go to Kalona,” he affirmed, though reluctantly.
She thumbed his phone, typing in the address. “Even though the plan never survives first contact with the enemy.”
“But as Eisenhower said, ‘Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.’ So, that’s why we plan.”
