“Not just yet. It could still prove useful. You see?” Darnell nodded to his mirror. “They’re back.” He swung into a side street, tires squealing, the back of the car swinging out. Lana clutched her seat.
“Still following,” Griffin warned.
Lana shrank down. “I really don’t want to get tased again.”
“On The Origin of Species,” Griffin said.
“Huh?”
“Dewey number—go.”
“I see what you’re doing, Griffin Hart. Not sure it’s going to work this time.”
“Are you saying you don’t know it? Did I find the chink in your librarian armor?”
“You’re alibrarian?” Darnell said “librarian” with the awe other people reserved for “astronaut.”
“It’s a book by this guy called Charles Darwin,” Griffin continued. “Look, if you don’t know it, you don’t know it. We all have our?—”
“Five-hundred seventy-six,” she whimpered as Darnell swerved, “point eight-two D.A.R.W.”
“Bet you can’t doRoget’s Thesaurus.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously!”
“Four-hundred twenty-three point-one R.O.G.E.”
“Get out—you know Dewey decimal numbers by heart?” Darnell jerkily overtook a cab and took a left into a side street, crossing in front of several cars. More honking.
“They’re still behind us,” Griffin said. “They’re even crazier drivers than you, Darnell.”
Darnell jammed on the gas. The glove compartment burst open, pelting Lana with a pair of reading glasses and several small boxes. She picked one up—a new phone, unopened.
“Are these burners?” she said, shoving them back.
“You care about your privacy, you shouldn’t use anything else.”
“Darnell even uses burner cars,” Griffin said.
“What does that mean—you throw them away?”
“I hire them.” Darnell tailgated a bus so close they had to be touching it. “A different car every couple of weeks. But also, I like fast cars.”
“I can see that. Is that a thing in your world—burner cars?”
“Not for Griffin. Hard to find rental cars with bulletproof glass.”
“You get shot at?” Lana went to turn to Griffin, but the G-forces pinned her—or perhaps it was the sheer terror of cars and stationary objects rocketing by.
“Not so much,” Griffin said, “but people have been known to throw rocks.”
“While shouting, ‘I love you,’” Darnell added.
“Go figure,” Griffin muttered.
Darnell pulled out to overtake the bus, then lurched the car to one side to avoid an oncoming van. The tires squealed. “If tens of thousands of folks adore you, statistically you’re gonna get one who’s psychotic enough to kill you.”
