Page 28 of North

“Can you explain why my best friend is lying dead in a morgue in Leavenworth?”

* * *

North jerked awake to rain tapping the Sonic’s roof, his neck wedged against the window at an angle that made his vertebrae scream. His legs had cramped into pretzel shapes in the tiny car. Of course he had to rent something designed for hobbits. The dashboard clock blinked 9:47 a.m., mocking him. He’d meant to be at the clinic when it opened.

He sat up and scrubbed his hands through his hair. What a night.

Those back roads from Leavenworth had turned treacherous in the dark. What should have been a forty-minute drive stretched into two hours of switchbacks and unmarked turns, his phone losing signal between the mountains. Twice, he’d nearly driven off the edge of logging roads that disappeared into nothing. The Sonic’s headlights barely cut through the fog that had settled into the valleys like cotton wool.

Empty coffee cups littered the passenger seat, along with crushed granola-bar wrappers and a rain-wrinkled map he’d bought at a gas station when his GPS failed. Again. The car smelled like stale coffee and wet clothes, and his muscles vibrated with the desperation that had kept him pushing too hard for too long.

His phone buzzed. Ham.

He swiped it open. “Tell me she called in and that someone found her.”

“Good morning to you too.” Ham’s voice sounded like he’d had his morning coffee. “And yes, she called her parents last night. And Jake called me. She’s okay.”

North leaned back in the seat, closed his eyes. “Okay as in she hasn’t been taken hostage by Alan Martin?”

Silence.

Perfect. North sighed. “I talked to an eyewitness last night. He ID’d a guy that York said sounds like Martin. I don’t get it—what does he want with Selah?”

“Maybe it’s not intentional,” Ham said.

“York seems to think it is.”

More silence.

“Here’s what we think happened,” Ham said. “The report from Logan on the train heist—which is what it was—was that the dump truck was left on the tracks deliberately. After the train derailed, the Bratva went in to steal the obsidite. It’s being transferred in small plastic containers packed in mineral oil. Very flammable when exposed to air.”

“The shooting couldn’t have helped.”

“No. According to sources, the freight car derailed, turned over, and the contents came untethered.”

“Did they get away with any?”

“It’s possible. At the very least, we know they want it. This was the first of many batches of refined obsidite.”

“Next time, tell the government not to take a train.”

“They can’t fly it—too risky. Like lithium, it can ignite. So, over the road, but that’s even more risky than train travel⁠—”

“Maybe next time don’t use a passenger train.”

“Lots of finger-pointing going on right now, so my guess is that’s been suggested.”

North sighed. “Sorry.”

“I have no doubt that if you’d been in charge, North⁠—”

“Don’t patronize me. Just—where’s Selah? I’d like to find her, get her away from Martin, and go home.”

“I dunno. She didn’t tell her parents that little tidbit.”

He wanted to punch the tiny steering wheel, but he couldn’t chance accidentally taking it off. “Great. So she’s running around Washington State with a known global terrorist who she thinks is named James.”

A beat of silence from Ham.