“Not sure the law is on your side there. Are we driving it to my place? It’s not garbage day on my street. People will notice.”
“The transfer station is on the way to yours. We’ll swap vehicles there.”
“And take these coveralls off, I hope. Hang on, you know where I live?”
The crease on the nearest side of his mouth deepened. “Secret spy tools.”
“Really?”
“No. You’re in the phone book.”
“How impossibly naive of me. How long have you been planning this?”
“Plan? Now you’re overestimating me.”
Maybe so. She thought she knew Anderson Holt intimately. Very intimately. How would she give a guy like that the slip? If he assumed she was on his side, meekly going along with it,perhaps he’d let his guard down. Once they were at her house she could climb out through the bathroom window and call an Uber from the neighbor’s.
“What will we do with the computer once we have it?” she said.
“Figure out how much Nika knew about the murder.”
“You think she knew something you didn’t?”
“Turns out she knew a lot of things I hadn’t given her credit for. And I gave her a lot of credit. But reading that book…”
“There’s a line that Nika wrote about our heroine:Their underestimation of me…”
“… will work in my favor,” he finished. “Seems we all underestimated her.”
He turned into the transfer station’s loading bay, hit the button on a garage door remote and rolled to a halt inside a large shed, beside two other trucks. He set the roll-up door to close behind them and they jumped out. On his instructions, they ditched the coveralls and left them in a laundry hamper—where he’d dug them from, presumably. Underneath, he wore faded jeans and a gray T-shirt stretched over a chest that promised to be every bit as spectacular as the fictional one. He kicked off the work boots and lined them up beside several other pairs, pulled on a pair of worn leather boots—his own, presumably—tossed his cap onto the truck’s driver’s seat, and held out a hand for hers.
“Should I hold onto it?” she said. “For a disguise?”
“I’ve known better disguises. And I thought you weren’t into theft.”
She handed it over. “A dirty cap isn’t quite the same as a dirty truck.”
He picked several curly strands from the cap and pocketed them, then climbed up to stash it in the glove compartment, hisjeans tightening across his ass as he leaned into the cab. She heroically forced her eyes away.
“Is this where we whip out the Aston Martin?” she said, as he jumped down.
He gave that sly half-smile. “I’m guessing all the wry little jokes in the book—they were your additions?”
Compliment or criticism? She hadn’t intentionally put any jokes in the book. Holt wasn’t the joking type, and neither was Galina. She was pretty sure Nika hadn’t laughed the entire time she’d known her—but then, what was there to laugh about?
“You’re taking this all relatively calmly,” he said as she followed him around to the front of the truck.
“Not on the inside, I assure you. In my job, a blank face is the first line of defense.”
“Mine too.” He stopped at a large black motorcycle and opened a saddlebag, pulling something out and tossing it to her. She fumbled to catch it before it hit a slimy puddle at her feet.
“Jeans?” she said, holding them up.
“They’ll be better protection than those.” He nodded at her capris. “Your boots should be sturdy enough, though don’t go scratching my bike with those heels.”
She checked the label. “You knew my size?”
“I used special spy software to get your measurements.”
