For a few seconds she looks at me, before her whole body seems to relax.
“You okay?” I ask, suddenly husky.
“Just processing. I don’t know why he would bother following us. Trevor made his point when he hit me.”
“What point was that exactly?” I keep my voice carefully controlled, even though what I want to do is turn this car around and find that Mercedes.
“That I need to mind my own business.” She shakes her head, angry that she’s in this position at all.
I reach over, settling my hand at the back of her neck, hoping to keep her grounded when it feels like the world is spinning out of control.
“I’m right here,” I say, “but I need you to tell me what he’s after.”
She looks at me. Long enough that I know she’s deciding something.
“I want to show you something, but we’ll have to wait until I can get into my email. I sent it to myself on a secret email account.”
Every instinct I have comes to full attention. “Where did you get this information you’re going to show me?”
“Could this car be wired?”
I glance at her. “Yeah. It could.”
“Then...” She shivers. “It should wait.”
Smart. Careful. Brave enough to steal whatever she stole, smart enough to know the walls might have ears.
This woman isn’t just a victim. She’s been running an operation of her own.
I take an exit without warning and she grabs the handle. A few seconds later I’m pulling into a quiet residential street, houses lined along both sides, tall oaks throwing shade across the road.
I come around to her door, open it, extend a hand. “Let’s go for a walk.”
“Oh.”
“Leave your phone here.”
“Of course.”
She pushes her small pocketbook under the passenger seat.
We don’t go far. Just far enough that I’m confident anything in that car can’t pick us up. I position us on the sidewalk with a clear view in both directions and turn her to face me.
“Tell me,” I urge. My eyes don’t settle though. They keep watching for trouble while I listen.
“I didn’t go looking for anything,” she says, keeping her voice quiet so no one else could hear. “I used to clean the sheriff’s office sometimes for extra money. My dad would leave me there after hours. He’s the Sheriff by the way.”
“The jail is somewhere else?” I ask because the thought of her cleaning the jail alone at night makes me want to punch someone’s face.
“Next building over. But I was at the office at night, and my father’s computer was still on. I wasn’t paying attention at first. I was wiping down his desk and the screen lit up like it had just come out of sleep mode.”
Her fingers curl in her jeans pockets as she gets lost in the memory for a second.
“There was a case file open for a missing person. A girl from a county over. I remember because I’d seen her face online—people were sharing it, trying to find her.”
This already sounds bad.
“But the file said inactive. Closed,” she says, shaking her head.
