Chapter Seventeen
By the time I got there, I had worked myself up into a lather. And not the sweaty kind; I’m in good enough shape that a quarter mile walk along a winding road isn’t going to tire me out. I exercise, thank you very much.
No, I had remembered that in leaving my phone in the car, I had given up contact with the rest of the world during the time I had been snooping around Sal’s place, and anything could have happened while I’d been incommunicado. An arrest, a mob hit, the zombie apocalypse.
Or none of the above. There were two new texts and a number of frantic phone calls when I finally got back inside the Lexus and had fished my phone out of my bag, but none of them applied to any of the above.
The calls were all from Zachary, so I opened his text message first. Sal is on the move, it said. I’m following.
And then every panicky voicemail after that said the same thing again, with increasing volume and anxiousness.
Three minutes later: “He got a phone call or something—he was looking at his phone—and then he left the Body Shop like a bat out of hell. Megan looked worried—she watched him go, then she went back in the office and made a phone call, too.”
Probably to Mendoza. Or to Lieutenant Copeland.
“He’s headed west on Charlotte,” Zachary added. “I think he might be going home. If you’re there, Gina, I hope you’re not doing anything stupid.”
Too late for that. I had done something very stupid, and something about it had, it seemed, alerted Sal that I was here. Maybe he had one of those security systems that Mendoza had recommended, that sent breaches directly to his phone.
Ten minutes after that came another voicemail in Zachary’s voice. “We just passed Sawyer Brown Road, so it doesn’t look like he’s going to Nick’s. I really think he’s going home, Gina. And I really hope you’re not inside his house. Call me.”
Six minutes after that came another. “We’re on the interstate now, and he’s definitely headed to Pegram. If you’re there and you get this, you have to get out ASAP.”
Four minutes after that came another: “We’re off the interstate. It’s definite. He’s coming home. If you’re there, Gina, get out of sight.”
That one had arrived just a few minutes ago. I was ready to call Zachary back, but before I could, my phone rang again and it was him. “It’s me,” I said.
“Oh, thank God.” He sounded as frantic in person as on all the voice messages. “He just turned the corner onto his road. If you’re there, Gina?—”
“I’m out of the house,” I interrupted. Not that I’d been in it in the first place. “Or off the property, I should say. Sitting in my car about a quarter mile up the road.”
“Well, get out of there. Something alerted him to something going on, and it must have been something you did, because he went straight home. Don’t let him find you.”
“I wasn’t planning to,” I said, and tried not to let his panic infect me. “Where are you?”
“I’m up on the main road. I didn’t turn when he did. I’ve been directly behind him ever since we got off the interstate, so I figured if he was just going home anyway, there was no point in me blowing my cover any further. Why? Do you need help? Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine,” I said. “Just sitting here, like I said. I just got back to the car. I left my phone inside while I snooped.”
I could hear the eyeroll. “Stupid. I was about two minutes from calling Jaime and reporting you missing.”
“I’m glad you didn’t. There’s nothing wrong.”
“Yet,” Zachary said darkly. “Do you see him?”
I didn’t, but then I was parked nose in and watching two horses graze lazily.
Before I could say so, I heard him, though. Or at least I heard the roar of an engine coming down the road fast.
“I think that’s him now. If it is, he’s speeding.”
“He sped all the way here,” Zachary said. “It was a miracle that I could keep up. I need a better car.”
The truck came around the curve just as my eyes hit the mirror. Sal’s truck, the same one I’d seen at the Body Shop, came barreling down the road like he was being chased.
“That’s him,” I said.
He shot past me—I breathed out—but then he hit the brakes hard enough to make the entire truck shudder. There was the screech of rubber on pavement, and the smell of burning tires.
