“Then I think you’d better leave.He’s working, and when my employees are working, I expect them towork.”
Trevino nodded; the smooth professional was back, and with a low word to Van Cleave, she turned for the exit.“We’ll be in touch, Mr.Berger.”
Little Dick watched them leave.
Jem caught himself still trying to smooth the front of his shirt.His hands were trembling.
“Fucking pigs,” Little Dick said when the showroom doors closed behind the SBI agents.Then he glanced at Jem.
Somehow, Jem managed some kind of screwed-up smile.
Little Dick watched him.The dark eyes were calculating.And then Little Dick said, “Brian did a fucking terrible job with those balloons.”
Jem’s head felt loose on his neck when he nodded.“Right.Yeah.I’ll, uh, fix them.Right now.”
“Never trust a dumbshit to do a man’s job, you know?”
And then, after that, a hooked silence.Waiting.
Jem forced himself to laugh.
21
When Tean left the DWR, the sky had gone blue with cold, and a Subaru Outback was waiting at the curb.It took him half a moment to recognize Jem behind the wheel.
“You bought a new car?”Tean asked as he got in the passenger seat.The carsmellednew, anyway, and it was spotless inside.Spotless and warm.Even the seat was warm, which meant Jem must have turned on the seat warmer for him before Tean even came out of the building.
Jem rolled toward the parking lot’s exit.“Borrowed.”
“Um.”Tean tried to think of the right way to ask his next question.
With a laugh, Jem settled into his seat—it wasn’t until the tension was gone that Tean realized it had been there.“I didn’t steal it.”
“I didn’t say that!”
“You were wondering, though.”
“No.But I know you have friends, and I thought maybe, well, you know how sometimes you— Not that it’s anything bad, but—” Tean found himself reaching for his hair.He blurted, “Please help me.”
Jem was grinning.“It’s a loaner from the dealership.I figured you weren’t up for two-plus hours on a motorcycle at the end of October.”
“Thank goodness,” Tean said.
Which, for some reason, made Jem laugh again.“Hannah’s still good to take Scipio tonight?”
“She left work early because she said, quote, ‘He’s my baby now.’”
“Over my dead body,” Jem growled.Then, in a completely normal voice, “So, first stop: the UFOlogist who found Brennon?”
“I suppose.Although I’m not sure how we’re supposed to track down every UFOlogist in the Uinta Basin.Or any of them, for that matter.”
“We don’t have to track down every single one.At least, not by ourselves.What do you say we start here?”
On his phone, the Maps app displayed directions to the Strange Lights campground.When Tean tapped the link to the website, the banner at the top said,Uinta Basin’s Experts on the Unexplained!
“If it’s unexplained,” Tean said, “how can they be experts on it?”
“Give me that.”
