Chapter Twelve
Jade
“Shit.”
I got in, started the engine, my pulse racing.How’d they find me? Did Arnaud order a tracking device put on my car? Did he also put one on Alix’s? Holy shit.
I drove out of the mall parking lot, watching my mirrors. Sure enough, the Chevy followed. My mouth dry, I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel while I tried to create a plan. Lose them. They’ll find me again if there’s a tracker on my car. I sure as shit can’t lead them straight back to the safe house. Nor could I drive to a car lot and buy another vehicle with those bozos on my tail.
I can’t lose them if there’s a tracker on here. Where would they put one?As I drove, I frantically opened the console and flung maps, a plastic spoon, napkins, and a bunch of old receipts onto the passenger seat. No tracker. Leaning over, I quickly searched the glove box. My car’s manual, battery warranty, tire warranty, and more maps fell to the floor.
“Damn it,” I yelled, staring at the SUV in my mirrors. “It’s somewhere outside the car. Under it.”
Think, think. Go to a public place. Would they dare shoot at me in the midst of a shopping mall? With cameras and witnesses? Can I lose them long enough to stop someplace public and find the wretched thing?
I had to try.
Driving to a sedate stop at a red light, I saw the Chevy two cars back. This was it. Not far ahead was an outdoor flea market. Even in this cold weather, people loved to shop there. It would be heavily populated. After a rapid glance to my left and right, I floored the accelerator.
Horns honked angrily as I sped past the red light, barely avoided a collision, crossed all the lanes of traffic, then drove on without slowing. Two intersections later, which I also blew through, I skidded into the flea market’s parking lot. Observing the seller’s entrance, I drove through that, too.
Well hidden amidst other cars, trucks and vans, I stepped out of the car, but left it running. On my back, I slid underneath, searching frantically for a tracking device. But what the fuck did a tracker look like? I had only minutes to find it before Arnaud’s goons landed on me.
There.I saw a small metallic box with a blinking red light attached to the car’s frame. “Gotcha.”
Sliding out from under, I got back into my car, setting the tracker on the console. Grinning, I drove from the flea market, slowing down for old folks and their wheeled carts, then found the exit. I hit the street again, driving fast, looking for the perfect opportunity.
“The overpass.”
Exceeding the speed limit, I drove onto the freeway’s overpass, and parked illegally. Getting out, the tracker in my hand, I stepped to the guard rails and looked down. I needed – I needed –there. Hot damn, an open roofed semi-truck with what appeared to be scrap metal in it drove toward me. Toward the overpass.
I waited – waited – then dropped the tracker just before the truck drove under. The tracker fell amidst the junk inside the semi-trailer’s bed.
“Yee haa, Jester’s dead!”
Avoiding cars, I ran back to mine, jumped inside, and hit the gas. I merged back into traffic, pulled the first U-turn I could, made my first right down a side lane before meandering my way back to the main avenue I needed. I saw nothing of the SUV.
“Have fun chasing that beast,” I said with a chuckle.
***
Loaded with groceries, a new hasp and padlock for the back door, I drove back to the safe house. As I’d made several wrong turns in order to reveal any tails, I relaxed with confidence I’d lost Arnaud’s soldiers. We still needed a different car, but at least I wasn’t bringing the bad guys to our door.
The fire had burned down low when I went into the house. Magnus sat still as stone, his head against the chair, his mouth open. At first, I thought he’d died while I was gone. Until I saw that he breathed.
“Shit,” I muttered. “Don’t scare me.”
He didn’t wake as I brought the groceries and goods from the car. I’d bought cleaning materials but wasn’t in the mood to clean up the dirt, dust, and mouse droppings just then. That could wait. I put the groceries in the kitchen, set the sleeping bags and mattresses near Magnus. I set up the camp stove on the old linoleum kitchen table and attached a canister of propane to it.
With a sack full of gauze, a sling, iodine, and cotton balls in my hand, I gently woke Magnus. “Sorry, dude,” I murmured as he blinked up at me. “Time to clean you up.”
“Oh. Okay.”
I ripped the rest of his shirt off as he sat forward in the chair and tossed the bloody rags onto the fire.
“Hey, I might need that.”
“I bought you new shirts. Now hold still.”
