Of course it wasn’t going to be Piper, though. She wouldn’t call her own phone. She’d callmine.
And my phone is in a fucking garbage can next to Devil Tower, because I’m an idiot and I followed Logan Colt’s instructions.
Why the fuck is Josh calling Piper’s phone at 3 a.m. anyway?
“It’s Quill. What the hell do you want?”
“Quill!” The fucker somehow sounds ecstatic to hear me. “Sorry to call so late. I’ve been trying to reach you nonstop. Is Piper okay? Did you find her?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh.” He shudders out a relieved breath, and I actually feel bad at what I’m going to tell him next.
“I lost her again.”
“Oh.” Thisohis very different from the first. There’s a pause, and then he asks, in a much more subdued tone, “What happened?”
I can’t bear to answer him, so I focus on the road, still trying to catch sight of any minivan that might be painted the mysterious shade of mint green.
“Can I help?” he asks after another beat. “I want to help. What can I do?”
I roll my eyes, but then blurt out, “Do you know what mint green is?”
“Uhm. Mint green?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s, uh… kind of like turquoise, I guess.”
Fucking hell.Though I guess I haven’t seen a minivan yet, turquoise or otherwise.
“Where are you?” asks the fucking dweeb.
I have no idea why I answer.
“In fucking Oregon State. Hold on, I’ll send you my location.”
Defying common sense as I drive down the highway, I take my eyes off the road so I can do that.
“Why are you on a highway?” questions Josh.
“I’m looking for her,” I snap. “She was taken by two guys in a mint green minivan.”
“But do you think they’d be driving on the highway where anyone could see?” he argues. “I see on the map that there’s a ton of little country roads around that region. I bet they would have taken her down one of them instead. It would be a lot harder to track.”
“What are you, fucking Ned Nickerson?” I snort, hating myself for even knowing that name, but being around Piper, I’ve learned way too much about Nancy Drew over the years. Way more than anyone should know.
“Thanks,” he answers seriously, and I roll my eyes.
“A minivan—a mint green one at that—on a small country road would be noticeable,” I say, thinking through his theory. “A lot more noticeable than on the highway.”
“But a highway has cameras,” he argues. “It wouldn’t be so hard to hack into them.”
“Can you do it?”
“Huh?”
“Can you hack into the highway cameras?”
