The crowd clapped louder when the girl turned the card over to reveal the queen of diamonds.
Krish’s neck itched, and he looked behind him, but no one was there. He was growing paranoid; perhaps they’d lingered too long. They were barely a couple of hours out from where they’d left Viktor. Time to get out of here.
He walked toward Sejal as the crowd dispersed, most of them dropping money in the upside-down hat on the table. She nodded at Krish when he tapped his watch. “That’s all for me today, folks.”
Ramona’s uncle, who had been lingering, pouted and allowed his niece to drag him away.
“Was that guy wearing a wedding ring?” Krish couldn’t resist asking as he came to stand next to her.
“He was indeed.”
“You do seem to attract a type.”
“Yes, unfortunately, I’m irresistible to the worst people.”
Krish tapped the table. “Those were some cool tricks.”
She raised a shoulder and his sweatshirt slipped off of it. “Patter and misdirection.”
“You two make a cute couple.” A scratchy voice came from his elbow, and he looked down to find an old woman with bluish silver hair.
“Oh, we’re not—”
“We don’t—”
They spoke over each other, but both stopped without finishing. The woman nodded knowingly. “Still just friends, I suppose? I predict that’ll change.”
They weren’t friends who would fall in love, though. He wasn’t sure what the trajectory of their relationship was. Pretend lovers to enemies to... question mark.
But in any case, things wouldn’t end the way this old romantic thought they would.
“You should be onstage, young woman.”
“I was about to tell her the same thing,” Krish said. Sejal wrinkled her nose and shook her head.
“Nah. There are people who are much better than me.”
The old woman reached into her handbag, pulled out some cash, and stuffed it into Sejal’s hat. “Good luck, you two.”
Sejal waited until she walked away, then picked up the hat andtook out the chunk of cash. She raised an eyebrow at Krish. “Not enough for a car, but maybe enough for bus tickets?”
He took the money from her. “Yeah, this is more than enough. You rescued us this time, Sejal.”
Her chest seemed to expand, her shoulders going back. “I didn’t do much,” she demurred, but he could see the sparkle in her eyes.
Do not be charmed by the way she likes positive validation.“Let’s get a move on.”
“Do we need to go back to the car?” Sejal asked as she broke down her table. Krish walked it back over to the taco truck, where the men waved away his thanks and offer of cash.
Returning, he patted his bag. “I have everything we need.” Out of an abundance of caution, they’d parked the shot-up car in the corner of the parking lot of the train station a mile or two away and walked over to the park. Mentally, Krish had bid farewell to his low insurance rates. “I’ll call the rental car company and report the car as stolen once this is all over. Good thing I got the extra insurance on it.”
Yes. Think about the insurance and not the sound of metal hitting metal and glass shattering. Or the little dings of bullets ricocheting off the car.
He shoved his hands in his pants pockets. He was fine. Everything was fine. Yes, he’d been in a traumatic car accident once before in his life, but it had been so long ago, he’d only heard of it, didn’t remember it. He was an FBI agent, and he was used to things like freeing a hostage and fleeing while being shot at. Sejal had been cool as a cucumber, and so was he.
“Usually it’s only the suckers who take the optional insurance,” Sejal remarked.
“Happy to be a sucker this time.” They walked into the bus station. He checked the screen at the front for departure times first. Then he paused at the newsstand right inside the station and pulled out a ten. “We don’t have much extra cash, but why don’t you get us some food while I get our tickets? We have about twenty minutes.” Eventually, she’d know where they were going, but his mother had drummed into him the need for secrecy around their various properties so well that the habit was hard to break.
