"A bag of cookies. Or brownies. Or maybe a muffin."
"Excuse me?"
"I never let anyone touch my bag." He glanced at the backpack in her lap before turning east and heading down a small ravine. "But this morning, Praline tucked some treat in there as I was leaving. Something for me to snack on later. It annoyed me, but she’d been flirting hard for three days. I figured it was one last ploy even though I told her I had a girlfriend."
Zadie pulled out a small brown bag. "Let’s see what’s inside." She pulled out a cookie and then peered deeper. "I’ll be damned. Blondie’s either smarter than she looks, or someone told her what to do." Zadie held up a small, round disc.
"Son of a bitch."
Zadie tossed it—bag, cookies, and all—into the brush. "Has she given you anything else? Touched anything?"
"No. Today was the first time." He twisted, looking behind him again. "She was a little over the top and came on way too strong. But she didn't deserve to die."
"Let’s hope she got out." But Zadie knew better. She craned her ear. "Sounds like they’re slowing down. But once they realize we ditched their device, they’ll follow our tracks."
"I’ll make some loops," Gideon said. "There’s a biking trail close to here. I can pick that up for a bit. Should confuse them." He gripped the steering wheel with his arms straight and his focus dead ahead. "We’ll get to my campsite, grab just a few things I need, and head to this bunker of yours."
Zadie glanced at her watch. "It's possible we won’t make it there by nightfall. I'd rather not risk it. I’ll need to contact my team and Darwin, and we’ll need to find a place to crash."
"I know just the spot." He leaned closer. "Felicity." He lowered his chin. "And then we can talk about why you’re chasing someone named Flatline."
"How do you know…" she let the words trail off. "No way."
"In the flesh," he said. "You’ve got some explaining to do."
"Just drive." She did another quick scan, biting back a smile. This encounter was no longer anticlimactic, at all. She wasn’t sure what to call it, but Gideon Rhodes was certainly still living up to his legend status.
Chapter Four
The retaining wall rose out of the hillside like a scar that refused to heal. Three feet of poured concrete, cracked, stained, and half-swallowed by sagebrush. It ran forty feet along what had once been the edge of a road or a property line.
This area was all part of "Ghost Under the Lake" or Minto City. And Gideon had only found it two weeks ago. He'd learned about it in school, but he’d forgotten until he stumbled upon it.
Gideon dropped his pack against the base and crouched, running his hand along the surface. The concrete was cold and gritty under his fingers. Somewhere beneath Carpenter Lake, the rest of Minto sat in the silt, drowned and forgotten because someone decided progress required erasure.
He understood that impulse better than he wanted to.
His mind wandered back to the diner. To Praline. To the way she’d been with him, and the other few customers he’d seen enter Moose & Munch. She was flirtatious with everyone. Including women. Always greeted people with that big smile. While she paid more attention to Gideon, he’d noticed that she did the same with any man who appeared single. He couldn’t believe she was some kind of operative working for… who? Someone inside Hyperion? If they wanted to stop Gideon, all they needed to do was call the police. Prison would put an end to it, and they had cause. It wasn’t like what he was doing was legal. No reason to kill for it.
He threaded his fingers through his hair and tried to put the death and destruction he’d witnessed out of his mind. He hadn’t even seen that much during his time in the military. Hell, he hadn’t seen it at all.
"Come here often?" Zadie asked. Her question, and her voice, cut through the tension. There was a familiarity about Zadie. It was as if he’d known her for more than a few hours. Or maybe it was just because he’d been alone in the woods for too long.
He loved her dry sense of humor. He also adored that aspect of Felicity, who’d seemed familiar. His thoughts scattered as if they couldn’t coalesce quickly enough for him to make connections he sensed were important.
Betrayal was everywhere.
"Not as often as I bet you get shot at." He winced. That was rude. If his mother were still alive, she’d smacked the back of his head. "Are you still in the military?"
"Technically, I’m dead. Died serving my country." Zadie moved along the wall, scanning the area with the kind of efficiency that told him this wasn't her first time making camp in a place no one was supposed to be. This spot offered excellent concealment from anyone's line of sight. A lost city that, during some months when the lake rose, you couldn’t even see a single part of it.
They’d be safe here for the night. Even if a chopper came buzzing overhead, they wouldn’t be seen.
Zadie had stowed the SxS under a natural overhang of rock and brush about fifty meters back and covered it.
He’d watched every movement, which had been deliberate and served a purpose. Nothing was wasted. It reminded him of the way she moved through encrypted systems—or at least, the way Felicity did.
And that was the problem.
