A cough filled the headset before a voice on the other side said, “Go ahead.”
“Let’s go with… ‘Dear John. I never want to see you again. You’ll find your stuff at the old house. It’ll be gone by Saturday, so get it while you can, you jerk.’”
“That’s all?”
Mark grinned. “Yep.”
“Harsh.”
“John needs help realizing it’s over.” After choking back a snicker, Mark added, “Payment will hit your account by five.” Without waiting for acknowledgment, he disconnected.
That settled, Mark went to fill a duffel bag—listing items one by one. Cash… phones… guns… cartridges… His gut sank. It’s just like what Flynne did.
Ten
The car drove straight at them as Flynne turned off Rosewood and onto 42nd Street. Just as it turned back onto Rosewood, she caught a glimpse of the driver. He didn’t even look her way, but he didn’t need to. The moment his facial features morphed into a profile, she knew she knew him. “Sit up and look at that car. Do you recognize it?”
Too late. It was gone by the time Erika struggled to a seated position. “Didn’t see. Why? Should I? Was it Keith? Tyler?”
Flynne froze. She wanted to close her eyes and remember—needed to, but they needed to get out of there, too. “I don’t think he saw us. Can I, like, stop for a minute?”
“Sure.” Flynne might have ignored that, but Erika added, “Just pull into a driveway so you look like you belong there, and he probably won’t notice if he comes back. Is it Tyler?”
The next empty drive was near Elmhurst. She could go to the nearest parking lot… No! I’ve gotta do it while I can still remember.
Tires squealed as she jerked the wheel hard and shot up the drive and almost to the detached garage in back. Erika’s complaints filled the backseat, but Flynne gripped the steering wheel and took a long, slow, deep breath. Exhale… She forced the air through her lips and took another long draw of air through her nose.
It worked. Second by second, a sense of peace calmed her racing heart. The slower her heartrate dropped, the more clarity she found. “I know the car. I know I do. I can see it. The guy, too… sort of. Maybe not. But it’s not, like, Tyler or any of the agents—except maybe Sol? Could it be Sol? I think this guy was totes too short, but then Sol drives with his seat, like way back—so far back that he looks like he’s five-foot nothing.”
“You know none of that means anything to me, right?”
No matter what she did, all Flynne knew was that the car, the guy, or both felt familiar. “I’ll think about it later. We’ve gotta get out of here.”
“Well, it worked for Scarlett O’Hara.”
“What did?”
Erika just snorted.
A mile from the freeway Flynne saw the car again. “Wait. How? How did he find us?!”
“What?”
“The car!” A moment later, the bumper came into view as Flynne braked hard. “Wait, no. The other one didn’t have a ‘My kid owns Elmhurst Elementary’ bumper sticker.” Beads of perspirated relief dotted every surface of her skin. “I’m just being a couple of Brooklyn nerds about it.”
Silence followed that. Flynne grinned as she shot onto the loop. Just gotta wait for it.
“I give. What are two Brooklyn nerds?”
“A pair of noids.” That grin grew as Flynne counted down. Five… four… three…
There it was—the groan. Erika stayed silent for a quarter mile and then said, “Remember to send that to me when we’re done with this mess. Between saying thanks and beating you up, I’ll send it to my dad. He’ll like it.”
“He gets humor?”
“Yep. Just not emotions.”
Flynne couldn’t comprehend that. How could you find something funny without emotions? “So… he, like, laughs, but not because he’s happy?”
“He laughs because he sees what you did with the words—how you used them differently than expected. And since he’s been programmed to laugh when that happens, he laughs.”
In that one line, everything she hadn’t understood about Erika’s emotionless father came together. “Oh, so when he kisses your mom after she says I love you, it’s because they coded it into him that it’s what you do?”
“No…” Flynne thought that she heard a snicker. “He kisses Mom because he likes the endorphin and dopamine rush that comes with a kiss, and an ‘I love you’ means she will be happy to get one.”
Five miles around the loop—miles that she spent trying to figure out what to do next. Then she saw it—I-64 West. “St. Louis. We’re totes going to St. Louis. I know a supes delish place—Air BnB. It’s perfecto. No one knows that I go there—not really. Just vagueness. They’d never find it, even if they thought to look.”
At that moment, fog cleared from her mind. “The dude! From The Java Hut! That’s the car! What’sisname?”
“Brent Knupp? And it’s Java the Hut.”
“Whatevs. He’s the one! He’s the one in the car!”
Erika sounded doubtful as she said, “The one who you stared down in front of that house?”
Without bothering to answer, Flynne shot off the exit for I-64 West and down the first offramp. At the bottom, with no cars behind them, she pulled out the phone and signed into Erika’s account. It didn’t request a verification code. “The gods are with me—or yours is.”
“Why do you say that?”
“It didn’t ask for a verification code for your account. Signing in from a different device and all…”
Two hashtags. That’s all she sent. Two.
Just shy of St. Louis, the car slowed. Flynne hadn’t spoken for the last hour or two, and though it had been a relief at first, the grunted answers to her recent questions had grown “Totes anoyz.” I can’t believe I just thought that.
“Will you—?”
“Will you just shut up? I’m going on memory here!”
Erika made it several seconds before she blurted out, “How do you usually get there?”
No response. It took five more minutes, not that Erika counted every second of them or anything, before the car slowed to a rolling stop. She snapped off the engine and turned to face Erika. “GPS. Can’t use that now. Obvies.”
It took Erika much too long to figure out what “obvies” were, and by the time she did, Flynne had started in on something else. She interrupted. “What?”
“I said,” Flynne growled. “You need to stay low. I’ll go talk to Morgan and be right back. I need to get his okay, first.”
“Okay for what?”
“Cash.” Flynne blinked down at her. “He has to be willing to take cash.”
She’d kick herself later, but Erika couldn’t help but suggest, “Maybe tell him you’ll pay upfront, but he can run it through a card when we leave if he prefers.”
“We can’t—oh. Leave…” Flynne grinned at her. “Yeah… that.” She scooted out the door and leaned close to the back window with her index finger pressed against her lips.
Ten minutes later, the sounds of shoes slapping against pavement announced Flynne’s impending arrival. She hopped in the car with more energy than she’d shown through the whole ordeal—all, what… forty-eight, sixty… or so hours of it?—and started the engine. “He’s totes coolio with it. You’ll love him. Well…” Dead silence followed. “But you can’t see him. I didn’t tell him you were here. We’ve gotta keep you doin’ the radar limbo.”
Oh, don’t go there. Just. Don’t.
“Okay, so I’m going to do something weird. I’m, like, going to dig around in the backseat and undo your stuff. Then you scooch down by the floorboard so I can dig out suitcases from the trunk—you know, behind the seat?”
“So it makes sense that you were in the back seat?”
“Right!” As if that solved the issue of the world’s lack of peace, Flynne parked the car and began the process. “Don’t mess this up. Morgan will freak if he finds out you’re here. He thinks I’m hiding out from my ab
usive boyfriend.”
She had to admit—it was a nice move. “Keeping him sympathetic… good one.”
They stopped, and Erika rolled to the floor so Flynne didn’t have as much to do—just a few seconds at most, but maybe it would help. Why am I helping her? I could scream. She didn’t gag me—should have. Keith usually did.
It didn’t take long for Flynne to jerk the back seat down. “Oof!”
“Sorries,” Flynne whispered.
Another voice appeared. “Need help?”
The door slammed shut with Erika curled like a squished pretzel under the seat. Flynne’s voice barely drifted in. “No, but that’s totes sweets of you!”
She couldn’t be sure, but it sounded like Morgan asked if Flynne wanted to play a game of Dragon’s Circle. Confirmation came when he said, “I got the new bonus pack.”
“Ooooh! Yaaaasss!”
I hate you.
“Just give me, like, two hours to crash. I’m dead. All the driving.”
“I’ll order pizza.” It seemed innocuous enough, but then he added, “You like pastrami and dill pickles, right?”
If you remember that, things just got interesting. What will you do when Flynne mentions her boyfriend?
“Oooh! You’re awesomesauce to remember my faves!”
Flirting? I might need a translator most of the time, but I don’t need one for tone. That was “all the flirts.”
Claustrophobia had never been a part of Erika’s infirmity repertoire, but with every passing minute—half of which included actual giggles on Flynne’s part, no less—the temptation to scream for air shifted from an idea to a need.
I can’t actually be oxygen deprived down here, can I? The windows are up…
Her leg cramped. Tears poured down Erika’s face as she fought to straighten that calf and tilt her toes forward. Gasping for air, fighting back the screams, stretching with no room to stretch anything. Pain…
What she endured for hours probably lasted a minute at most.
The car door opened, the seat flipped up, and amid Flynne’s “Sorries!” Erika’s leg shot out and her foot connected perfectly with Flynne’s chin.
They’d made it through the first quest when the worst thought she’d had hit her. “Oh, noooo.”
“What? Is he here? I’ll call the police. Hang on.”
Flynne snatched Morgan’s phone from his hands. “No! No one’s here but you and me.”
She could have sworn his eyebrows tried to waggle—tried and failed. Thank goodness, or the lord, or… whatever you’re supposed to thank. Morgan and waggles don’t work.
“Just the way I like it. You should come without the gaggle more often.”
All thoughts of extraction woes zipped away with that one. “The gaggle?”
“That’s what Jim calls you guys. He hears you’re here and says, “Well… should we count on the gaggle taking over the pool tomorrow?”
Her heart sank. “He doesn’t like us being here?”
“No! It’s just his way of saying he knows we’ve got guests, and he’ll leave the pool free for you guys. He does it with everyone—just doesn’t give everyone a nickname.”
“Not sure how I feel about being called a goose, but whatevs.”
Morgan excused himself to the bathroom, and Flynne lost herself in panic mode. What do I do now? I’ve got her out safe. Now what? I don’t have anyone back home who has my back—who’s trying to catch the bad guy. They think I’m he—she—her—whatevs.
A buzz sent her fumbling for her phone, but the screen lit up on Morgan’s. “Someone’s calling you!”
“See who it is?”
The screen said Jim Werner. “The lord and master of the realm!”
“Answer it?”
“Hey! This is head gaggle girl here answering Morgan’s phone. Hi, Mr. Werner!”
“Flynne?”
Can’t believe he remembers me!
“Hello?”
“Sorry, Mr. Werner. Yeah. Didn’t expect you to remember me.”
A low chuckle sounded more maniacal than the guy probably intended. “Well, as often as Morgan talks about you, it’s not easy to forget.”
“Aw… that’s totes adorbs!” The bathroom door opened. “Yeah, he’s coming. Hang on.”
She thrust the phone at Morgan and hopped up to clean up their pizza mess. “He says you talk about me a lot.”
Morgan flopped to the couch just as his face flamed. “Jim!”
The “guest cottage” was bigger than Flynne’s duplex. Boasting three small bedrooms, a large kitchen-dining combo, and a roomy living area, the place was bright, clean, and furnished like an Ikea catalog photo shoot. Except this is, like, the stuff Ikea knocks off or something.
Despite the size and taste of their surroundings, nothing overrode the knowledge that Erika was trapped in a room twenty feet away, and Flynne had no idea of how she’d get them out of there. What would Keith do? didn’t solve much. Perhaps it would have helped if she’d ever been “protected.”
Even if I lose my job, I’m telling Mark that he has to train new office technicians by putting them in protective custody long enough to get the deets on what needs to happen. They’ll, like, be so much better in emergies.
“So… want to go swimming?”
Flynne heard the question, but that didn’t make it any easier to answer—not with her brain fighting for some idea… any.
“Flynne?”
Coming up with an excuse for being distracted—not easy. And then, as if handed to her, it was. “Sorry… just trying to remember the name of a book I started to read at the doctor’s off—”
“Doctor? Are you sick?”
She brushed off the question with a dismissive, “Annual exam.”
“Right…” Morgan sank against the back cushion and, if her “spidey senses” could be relied on, watched her. “I should do that, too. I never go.”
He’d interrupted her thoughts—again. Flynne tossed him a look that should have quelled his curiosity but only incited it. “Um… no. No, you shouldn’t.”
“I shouldn’t?”
“Guys don’t need girlie swipes.” Green gills blended with a flushed red and formed a rather grotesque puce. Yeah, well. You totes deserves that one.
“Right. No. Um… sorry. Book?” He spat out the word so fast, his desperation was almost cute.
“Can’t remember the name…” Flynne turned to him and crossed her legs into a pretzel. “Okay, so this office girl discovers that some gg—uy is in danger, so she, like, kidnaps him.”
“Because that doesn’t put him in danger—kidnapping.”
I could kick you right now. Just one swift jab. You’d totes deserve that one, too—like me with Erika.
“Sorry. Go on.”
Okay… he did sound really sorry. Flynne gave him the smile she suspected he liked best and went back to work on her story. “So, she does it, right? She gets the gir…uy out of the picture and off to a safe place where no one should be able to follow them. But someone does.”
“It wouldn’t be a good book if they didn’t. How’d she get away?”
“Stole a car. Anyway,” Flynne continued. She’d hooked him, and it was time to get him reeled in. “After that, she got them to this other place. She was all safe. And, like, it wasn’t even the middle of the book!”
There it was—that look. No doubt. Morgan had a thing for her. All she had to do was send the right signal or two and he’d help with anything. Even if I need him to help me hide Erika, I bet.
“So… oh! Duh. Sure.” Morgan hopped up and held out his hand. “Let’s go look it up. Come on inside.”
Flynne sat there, staring up at him. Her hand reached out to take his, but she didn’t stand. “Look what up?”
“The book? So, you can finish it? Just download it to your phone—”
“No!” She winced. Oops. That was totes ridik. “Sorry. But, man, all that online stuff is dangerous. No access to the accounts, or anything like that.�
�
He didn’t hesitate. Morgan just pulled her to her feet and almost into his arms. She’d just begun the split-second debate on yes or no when he thought better of it. “Whoa… sorry. Anyway, you can use mine.”
“I don’t know the title.”
“We’ll find it. C’mon…”
You’re supposed to be helping me, like, you know, figure out the end? Not helping me buy some non-existent book!
“I just can’t figure out,” Flynne began as he led her, his hand still wrapped around hers, from the bungalow. “—how this office girl is going to get someone to find the bad guy, neutralize the threat, and get word to her that it’s all safe, if she’s hiding out!”
Morgan squeezed her hand before lacing their fingers together in an even more intimate move than the last. “That’s why you read the book. If you could figure it out, it wouldn’t be a good book!”
Eleven
At the sight of a black speck on his rear horizon, Keith knew the worst. He hung up with Mark and began barking at Langat. “I need you to try something and fast. You need to try to break those restraints.”
A muffled “Mmph” was Langat’s only response.
“Put your hands as high back as you can get them, and then jerk them down and apart.”
The man tumbled, headfirst, into the floor of the van each time.
“Okay, that’s not going to work. Pull as far away from that loop as you can and rub your arms up and down. We need to break the ties or the loop. If you see anything else that might wear it down, do that.”
Another, “Mmph” preceded shuffling sounds.
A glance in his side mirrors showed the black spot growing larger. “They’re gaining. Okay… um…”
The problem wasn’t that he didn’t have a plan. No, he had one, all right. Keith just didn’t like it. Too many risks. Still, they couldn’t outrun the Suburbans in a little Mitsubishi mini cargo van.
Langat’s arms worked with impressive fervor, but it wouldn’t work, and Keith knew it. He shot a prayer heavenward, another, and yet another. Time to act, though. “Okay, this is what’s going to happen.”
Hashtag Rogue Page 8
