Jordan shouldn’t have stopped. Now he was facing away from the MCP, and worse, he had allowed Silverman to bait him into a public confrontation. Video of him turning his back on Silverman would be all over the ten o’clock news.
“We all truly appreciate your help, Troy,” he said through gritted teeth.
Then—screw it.
“If the danger’s too much for you,” he couldn’t help adding, “maybe you’re not suited to the office of sheriff.”
Never had camera lenses felt so much like eyes to Jordan. The journalists quieted and leaned forward, eager to watch the fireworks.
“Is this a campaign event to you?” shouted Silverman, impressively irate. “Because it sure isn’t to me!”
A hand pulled Jordan’s sleeve insistently. He turned and found himself face to face with Wen.
“Sheriff Burke will have to finish talking to you later,” she announced. “I have very important information for him that can’t wait.”
Equal parts galled and grateful, he let her pull him through the crowd so forcefully he almost lost his footing. Moments later, they were inside the MCP again. This time they huddled in the bedroom-turned-storage room to avoid disrupting his comms team.
“What do you have to tell me?” he asked.
“That, like, facing the media is harder than it looks?”
He examined her expression carefully but found no trace of gloating or self-satisfaction.
“I think I may have come to that conclusion on my own.”
She shrugged. “Your move. So what do you want to do now?”
On the wall behind her was a large, glossy poster of an oiled woman in a camo bikini, fondling an AR-15. Jordan reached out, tore it off the wall, and crumpled it.
“Let’s bring her in.”
FOURTEEN
CARA
Another L.A. vegan repents.
—@Eatmeatitsneat
With its hickory facade and hand-carved sign, Ye Olde Country Market looked like the kind of place that would have farm-fresh produce, homemade muffins, and maybe even an actual pickle barrel.
A bell jingled as Cara pushed through the door. Inside, it was little more than a small countrified grocery store with a rusty cooler ofLIVE BAITnear the entrance. Since abandoning her all-day country breakfast back at the diner, she was so hungry that she might actually have considered eating a worm. She grabbed a Slim Jim instead. Never had one looked so appealing.
You’reeating yourself into oblivion, her mom would whisper under her breath, can of Tab in hand, whenever Cara picked out a Reese’s or a pack of M&Ms at a gas station.Successful men are attracted to shapely but slender women.As an adult, she sometimes succumbed to the allure of a Tootsie Roll, whichlasted longer and was fat-free, or made a bargain with herself: if she didn’t buy anything, she could splurge at the next stop.
Cara felt a film of syrup and potato grease on her fingers as she scanned the produce and settled on a slightly bruised banana. If she were smarter, she would have taken at least one bite of everything on her plate before finding Devin and Sanjay. She grabbed a yogurt from the dairy section, three protein bars, the Reese’s she always wanted, a generic water bottle she could refill at water fountains, and a small package of tampons. Plucking an area map and a bus map from a carousel near the front of the store, she headed for the register.
A shopper materialized behind her as she placed her purchases on the conveyor. Instead of pushing her cart into the line, the woman stepped in close, bent over, and grabbed a Milky Way from the bottom shelf of the checkout display.
When she stood, she eyed Cara up and down.
“OMG!” she gasped, pulling out her phone. “You’re the woman they’re... you’re Cara?—”
“I must have left my credit card in my car,” Cara told the cashier, pretending to check her pockets as she speed-walked toward the door. “Be right back.”
She was outside and behind the store, where no one from the highway could see her, before she realized the Slim Jim was still in her hand.
Being a fugitive had caused her to steal yet again—something she would have never, ever done. For the first time in her life, she really was on a crime spree.
