"Hope." His voice is very low.
I jerk my head in acknowledgement.
"Look at me."
I look up.
His eyes are almost black in the dim barn. Hismouth is slightly parted under his moustache. There is a pulse visible in the column of his throat, steady and fast, and a flush high on his cheekbones tells me he’s not as calm as he wants to be.
“How did that feel?”
Before I can find the words, his phone vibrates, interrupting the privacy of this moment.
But Zane doesn’t look away. Reality has intruded again, and life must go on, but he’s waiting for me to answer.
“Powerful,” I whisper, smiling at him as I back up. “Thank you.”
“Any time.” He rubs his wrist, then reaches for his phone.
My sign to leave.
I nod, and then I nod again, and I keep nodding all the way out of the barn, and as soon as I’m out of sight, I tip my face up to the sun and groan, because what the heck did I just do?
But I’m still smiling so much it hurts, and that’s the best feeling in the world.
Chapter 15
Zane
I felt a little guilty for quietly texting my brother to ask about trackers when Hope was having her meltdown with Shadow, but it turns out, my instincts weren’t off.
Cash
Need you to come into town ASAP
When I get to the garage, Hope’s car isn’t on the lift like I expect. It’s not anywhere to be seen. And neither is my brother.
The second mechanic who works for him, Riley, jerks her thumb to the back of the building. “He’s in the yard. Told me to send you on through.”
“Thanks.”
The yard is a fenced off space where he puts cars that are bound for the crusher, where he parks the tow truck and has an implement shed.
Today, apparently, that implement shed is doubling as an extra garage bay, because this is where he’s got Hope’s car.
“Why are you working out here?” I ask.
He gives me a grim look. “You were right to wonder if there were any trackers on her car. Pulled one out of her engine and left it in the garage. Checked it over from bumper to bumper, made sure the rest of the vehicle was clean, then wheeled it in here so it’s not visible should someone show up asking questions. I don’t know what it’stransmitting, and I don’t really want to open it up and try to figure that out, lest we alert the person who placed it in her car that it’s not, you know, in her car anymore. So what I want to do is install it into your truck. You’re gonna drive it out of town, and when you get the fuck away from here, you’re going to leave it somewhere. Something in the city with a lot of cars that would make locating it a challenge. A parking garage, for example.”
I stare at my brother. My little brother, who once upon a time cried when he fell on his bike and I needed to wipe his tears with my t-shirt.
Cold, hard resolve stares back at me.
“Yeah,” I hear myself say. “Got it.”
“You have any idea who she’s mixed up with?”
I think about the way Hope freaked out, just two hours ago, when I joked that I’d been tracking her on my phone. “She told me she pulled two AirTags out of the car before she went to Vancouver. I don’t know who she’s running from, but he’s a paranoid fucker if he also had this on her engine.”
