THIRTY-FIVE
Andi stoodon the sidewalk outside the hotel, watching the team load bags beneath the tour bus, the early morning air cool enough to sting her lungs.
She’d slept poorly—again—but this time it wasn’t just images of Gina or the grainy footage looping through her mind.
It was the weight of leaving when they still didn’t have answers.
They’d called the real Pam last night. Fake Pam still hadn’t returned her call, and Andi knew she wouldn’t. The silence felt deliberate now—another door quietly closed.
Andi could still hear Real Pam’s voice, tight and strained as she tried to sound steady. “So the police are taking this seriously now?”
“Yes,”Andi told her.“They’ve officially opened the investigation. They questioned Colin and ruled him out. Things are finally moving.”
There’d been a long pause on the line. Then Pam said, “I hate that you’re leaving.”
The words had lodged somewhere behind Andi’s ribs.
“So do I,” Andi said, forcing the promise to sound stronger than she felt. “But we’re not done. We’ll keep working this—from wherever we are.”
The doors of the bus hissed open, pulling her back to the present.
She climbed aboard, the familiar scent of diesel and coffee settling around her.
Jack, the driver, glanced up from his clipboard and smiled. “Morning.”
The man looked to be in his forties, easygoing, with laugh lines that suggested he didn’t let schedules—or life—get to him too much. They had two different drivers who operated the bus. Andi had casually chatted with both of them.
“San Francisco treat you okay?”
“Mostly,” Andi said. “Though I think it liked us more than we liked leaving.”
He chuckled. “That’s the trick. Gets you attached just before you go.” He nodded toward the windshield. “Looking forward to heading south today?”
“I’m not sure I’m ready for Los Angeles.”
“You’ll have some warmer days down there. Traffic will be a mess either way.” He grinned. “I’ll get you there in one piece.”
“I appreciate that,” Andi said. “We’re pretty fond of our pieces.”
Jack laughed. “Seat belts help. Coffee too.”
She moved down the aisle and slid into a seat by the window. Duke settled in across from her, already scrolling through messages on his phone, jaw set in that familiar, focused way.
Others filed on, murmuring good mornings, clutching backpacks and travel mugs.
Rupert climbed aboard last and immediately launched into instructions. Andi tuned him out, resting her forehead briefly against the cool glass.
The bus eased away from the curb, the city beginning to slide past.
Andi watched it go, her thoughts drifting back to Pam—to the promise she’d made and the uneasy certainty that distance didn’t mean disengagement.
It just meant they’d have to work harder.
San Francisco blurred by as the bus rolled onto the highway. Mariella had insisted on travelling along the Pacific Coast Highway, despite the extra hours it would add and the warning Jack had given about tight curves and slow stretches.
Andi opened her laptop.
If Gina’s case connected to the case in Portland—and everything in her gut said it did—then the perpetrator wouldn’t stop there. Patterns rarely did.
