by Kieran Scott
“Shit,” Kaia muttered.
I glanced in the mirror. The car had followed us off the highway.
chapter 8
KAIA
When Oliver finally put the car into park, he exhaled like a pilot who’d safely landed a 747 full of innocent people without his landing gear. He looked shaken, but I didn’t have time to let him compose himself. A couple of cars had gotten between the Camry and our Honda on the local roads, but that would only buy us a minute or two.
“Come on. We have to move.”
I shoved the door open, pulling my backpack with me—the Beretta tucked inside. We were on a side street in a town called Barton Mills, Kentucky. Pedestrians streamed by on the sidewalks, all headed toward Main Street, which was closed down due to something called “The Big ‘Un BBQ Festival.” Normally, I would have avoided a situation like this because of the traffic complications, but we needed to disappear into a crowd, and the crowd was on Main.
“Oliver!” I whispered desperately. “Let’s go!”
He got out of the car at the same moment the gold Camry parked illegally across the street, half-blocking a crosswalk. I cursed under my breath and ducked down, waiting to see who would get out of the car. In my mind’s eye it was Scarface, twirling a silencer onto the end of a black .22, turning to aim at me with hard eyes. But it wasn’t Scarface. It was a woman. Her brown hair was pulled into a bun, and she wore a camel leather jacket over torn jeans. She rose to full height and adjusted the jacket over her holster. She didn’t look German and she didn’t look Mexican. She had a more Nordic features—pale skin, high cheekbones. But who the hell really knew?
“What about our bags? The food?” Oliver asked.
“We’ll come back for it if we can.” Everything I really needed was in my backpack—iPad, cash, phone, gun—plus I had Jessica Martinez’s ID in my jeans pocket and a knife in my jacket. I hated leaving Sophia behind, but I couldn’t navigate this crowd on a skateboard. I walked around the car and grabbed Oliver’s hand as the woman turned to look for us. “Don’t turn around. Don’t run. Walk. Fast.”
We dodged in and out of foot traffic on the flower-lined sidewalk, making our way toward the police barricades set up across the intersection where the street met Main. Up ahead there were colorful tents, bobbing balloons, and clouds of smoke rising off the grills of a hundred barbecue pits. The air was filled with the delectable scents of sizzling meats and spicy rubs. Oliver and I dove into the crowd, milling around tables and lining up for beanbag tosses and bowling games. When my instincts said to hook a right, I went left instead. If I thought right, our newest stalker probably would, too.
“Do you have a plan?” Oliver asked.
“I’m trying to come up with one, but I’m suddenly starving.” I told him.
“God, me too. Does it have to smell so good around here?” he asked, as a man in a white cowboy hat walked by us gnawing on short ribs.
The woman from the Camry appeared on the far corner, scanning the crowd. If she turned ninety degrees, she’d spot us.
“Over here.”
I dragged Oliver across the sidewalk and into a brick alcove outside a large bank. We ducked into the corner, and I glanced out. Our pursuer paused in the center of Main Street, traffic parting around her as she blatantly studied each face that passed her by. The sun glinted off the mirrored sunglasses she’d pushed to the top of her head.
“Maybe we should split up,” I said. “She’s after me. I could try to draw her away and you could go back and get the car.”
“And then what? How’m I supposed to find you again?”
Oliver had a point. Neither of us knew how to navigate this town, especially not with hordes of barbecue-eating pedestrians who’d taken over the street.
I peeked around the corner again. The woman’s back was to us. Across the street, a restaurant with red awnings had three wide doors propped open to welcome in the public. I saw a man in a chef’s hat walk out with a silver tray full of brisket and give it to one of the guys working the stands. He took an empty tray back inside with him.
Huh. Where there was meat, there were freezers. An idea came to me in a flash. My dad had once told me about a mission in Russia where he’d eluded a rival spy by using a freezer truck to his advantage. It had seemed so silly that I’d always wondered if he’d made it up as a bedtime story for me, but in this situation, it might actually work.
“Oliver?” I reached back and grabbed his hand. “I have a plan.”
“Does it involve us eating chicken?” he asked, practically salivating as two girls with baskets of wings and fries strolled by the alcove. “’Cause that looks really—”
“If we pull this off, I’ll buy you an entire bird,” I promised him. “Now here’s what you have to do.”
• • •
Oliver and I walked across the street, passing right through the sight line of our pursuer. I saw her flinch, and then we took off at a run, which wasn’t easy. There were kids everywhere. Oliver tripped over a stroller and nearly took out a man hawking balloons. I was so busy helping him up, I didn’t notice the woman with her yip-yip dog coming at us, and I momentarily got tangled up in its leash.
“Watch it, y’all!” The woman sneered, bending to scoop up her shaggy pup and standing squarely in our way.
I was about to snap at her when Oliver smiled. “Sorry about that ma’am,” he said. I swear if he’d had on a ten-gallon, he would’ve tipped the brim.
The woman actually blushed. Then Oliver grabbed my hand and sidestepped her.
“You have a nice day!”
We were off again. Apparently a charming sidekick was an asset. It didn’t hurt that he was gorgeous, too.
I glanced over my shoulder as we slipped inside the restaurant with the red awning out front. The Nordic chick had closed the gap between us big time. Clenching my jaw, I led Oliver toward the back of the restaurant. The tables were so jammed with diners, the servers so harried, the busboys so laden down with dirty dishes that they didn’t even notice us breeze by. I pushed open the door to the kitchen and let Oliver in first. Before I ducked in after him, I caught a glimpse of a camel-colored jacket.
The back of the house was no different than the front. Four chefs worked the line, their hands blurred with movement. We moved along the wall, blending into the chaos.
At the rear of the kitchen, two hulking subzero freezers greeted us. One was propped open with a brick. I pulled Oliver behind a stack of empty glass crates and crouched down as the door pushed wider and a man emerged toting two huge sides of beef. He let the door slam shut.
“Okay. Stay here. Do not move until the time is right.”
“Got it,” Oliver said.
I started to stand, but he pulled me back and kissed me. Even in the insanity, my heart pitter-pattered when his lips met mine. I pulled away and smiled. “What was that for?”
“Just in case,” he said, breathlessly.
“It’s gonna be fine.” I hope.
I got up and yanked open the door to the second freezer, then waited for the woman in leather. She caught sight of me, and I slipped inside, pretending to be startled—desperate. The walls were lined with shelves full of plastic vats, probably full of sauces and soups. The door hadn’t even closed when she grabbed the handle and swung it wide open. The woman had beady eyes and a pointed chin. She didn’t look like the type of person who was going to take any crap.
So many things could go wrong with my plan, and confronted by this woman, I instantly saw every one of them in vivid detail. She could shoot me. She could knock me out with a frozen pork loin to the skull. She could fight off Oliver. In fact, come to think of it, I didn’t know how skilled Oliver was. That guy last night had gone down like a ton of bricks, but that could have been because he’d underestimated us. Or because Oliver had gotten in a couple of lucky kicks. What was I thinking?
Trying to look even more terrified than I felt, I backed to the wall. The air inside the freezer tightened my skin and made my breath cloud. I saw the moment the woman registered the fact that I’d backed myself into an actual corner—a glint lit up in her eyes like she’d never felt so lucky in her life.
“Rookie mistake.” She pulled a .38 special from her holster and aimed it at my chest. This girl was old school. I had to respect that. With her other hand, she checked her phone, then narrowed her eyes at me. “You changed your hair.”
“What?” I snapped. What the hell was on that phone?
“Look, I don’t want to hurt you,” she said. “So why don’t you come quietly?”
“Who the hell are you?” I demanded.
I wanted answers. Did she know the German? Was she working with Scarface? Did she have the locations of my family’s secret hideouts tucked in her passport as well? Who had sent all these crazies after me?
The woman tilted her head in a shrug. “Not important. Let’s just say there are some people out there who will pay a lotta money to have you brought in.”
“So you’re a bounty hunter?” Silence. “Who hired you? Does this have to do with Oaxaca? Hamburg?”
“I don’t know nothin’ about Oaxaca or Hamburg.” The woman sneered, contorting her features. “But wow, sure seems like your parents got around. You got other folks on your tail too?”
So it was about my parents. Not that there was ever any doubt. Her eyes narrowed as she leaned toward me slightly, the gun still steady. She took note of the scrapes on my face, the bruise on my head.
“Looks like someone worked you over in the last couple days.” She seemed pleased. “I may have to up my fee.”
She snapped my picture, then typed with her thumb.
“If you’re going to make money off of me, the least you could do is tell me who sent you,” I said.
“Like I’m gonna tell you that. Where’s your little friend? He need a pee break or something?”
At that moment, Oliver stepped behind the woman and lifted his right foot. I dove out of the way as his heavy boot collided with the small of her back, sending her flailing forward, her gun and phone clattering to the floor. Turned out Oliver didn’t need mad skills in this case, just the element of surprise. I grabbed the woman’s gun, then brought my boot down on her hand as hard as I could. Her scream almost drowned out the crunch.
I raced past her and plucked her phone off the floor. Oliver dove out behind me and slammed the freezer door. Which had no handle on the inside, as I knew it wouldn’t. The freezer was essentially a very cold prison cell.
“Did you really have to break her hand?” Oliver asked.
“You gotta do what you gotta do,” I said.
He grimaced, and I grabbed his arm.
“What?” I demanded. “Are you hurt?”
“No. But now that she’s mentioned it, I really do have to pee.”
I rolled my eyes and hit a couple of buttons on the bounty hunter’s phone. It hadn’t locked yet. The picture she’d taken in the freezer was on the screen—I looked like a freaking zombie—and I deleted it. But the picture that popped up in its place made my blood run cold.
It was a shot of me and my mom. One I’d never seen before. We were both smiling as we held each other tight, cheek to cheek. It was how we always posed for photos when my dad was taking them—which was pretty much always. I had a purple streak in my hair, the same purple streak I’d had when we were in Oaxaca.
My dad never took pictures when we were on a job site, but he sometimes did before we left, or in the airport. He must have taken it when we were on our way to their last job. He’d never even had the chance to forward this to me. There was no way anyone could have this picture. Not unless they’d gotten ahold of my father’s phone.
“Kaia? What is it? You look like you’re gonna pass out.”
Right then, the bounty hunter must’ve slammed her body into the heavy door. There was a thud followed by angry shouting. The words were so muffled by the heavy freezer door, I wouldn’t have understood what she was saying unless I’d had a very good idea.
“Let’s go,” I said, shoving the phone into my pocket and pushing out into a dumpster-filled alley. No one in the kitchen was going to hear our captive, and if she had another gun on her, she couldn’t shoot her way out without risking the bullet ricocheting back and hitting her. If the chefs were using the meat from the other freezer, it would be a while before anyone found her. I jogged to the end of the passageway with Oliver at my heels. There were plenty of people on the side street, but not as many as had been clogging Main. I walked to the next corner and ducked around the building.
“Are you gonna tell me what was on that woman’s phone?” Oliver asked.
“Yeah, but first I’m gonna try something.”
Hand shaking, I opened the bounty hunter’s list of recent calls. The last five were all from the same number. Before I could double think it, I hit the callback button.
“What’re you—”
I held a finger to my lips. Oliver sighed, but shut up. The line connected on the second ring.
“You got the girl?”
It was a woman. Clipped voice. Accent I couldn’t quite place. “Yeah, I got her,” I said. Oliver’s eyes widened as he realized who I was talking to. “I’m calling for further instruction.”
“George Bush Intercontinental. Get her there by ten p.m.”
What. The. Fuck?
“Where’re you taking her?” I asked, trying to keep my voice gruff. My mind was whirring, thinking three moves ahead, like my mom taught me when we played chess. Anticipate their next move and the one after that and the one after that. I thought of the hundreds of flights I’d taken over the years, the dozens of airports I’d waited in line in, eaten meals in, taken naps in.
“That’s none of your concern.”
“It is if you want me to drop her at the right terminal,” I said.
There was a pause. A long one. I was caught. She was going to hang up.
“Air India,” the voice said finally. “She’s flying out on Air India. Our operative will meet you there with your payment.”
The line went dead.
“Well?” Oliver asked. “What did they say?”
“Air India. They were going to take me to Asia.” I looked at the phone’s screen. I suddenly wanted to drop it on the ground and jump on it. Repeatedly.
“Shit. So first Germans, then Mexicans and now Indians? What the hell?”
“And look at this.”
I brought up the picture of me and my mom and showed it to him, explaining its significance.
“How did some random bounty hunter get a picture that only your dad had access to?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe someone stole my dad’s phone in Mexico? Someone who had a vendetta against my family?”
Was that what this was? Whoever’d killed my dad, then shot up our hotel room and killed my mom and thought they’d killed me had somehow realized I’d survived, and they were coming to finish the job?
Why had they taken my mom’s body and not tried to take me? Why had they left me behind, only to come back for me now?
There was a loud peel of feedback from one of the stages at the Barbecue fest, and I jumped. An announcer drawled, “Welcome one and y’all to the twenty-first annual Big’Un Barbecue festival!”
A cheer rose from the street, and someone, somewhere, shot off a cannon.
“Let’s move,” I said.
I grabbed Oliver’s hand, and we headed back toward the festival. I dumped the bounty hunter’s phone in the first overflowing garbage can I saw. If she had GPS on the thing, I couldn’t have her tracking us. Actually, shit. Why hadn’t I thought about that before? I dug in my bag until I found the German’s tablet and chucked that as well.
/> “What the hell?” Oliver said. “I spent like ten hours trying to hack that thing.”
“Sorry. He could be tracking us with it.”
“Oh, crap.” Oliver’s eyes widened, and he covered his mouth, glancing around as if Picklebreath was going to round the corner any second.
“God, I’m such an idiot,” I said. “I should have ditched that thing the second we found it.”
“Hey. It’s okay. You were trying to figure out who’s after us and why. It’s totally understandable.” Oliver put his hands on my shoulders, leaned in, and kissed the top of my head. “You, are anything but an idiot.”
“Thanks.” I allowed myself a half a second to lean into him. Okay, two or three seconds. “We should go.”
“Yeah, but where’re we going?” Oliver asked.
“First we find you a porta potty, then we get food, then we floor it.”
“Sounds good,” he said, tucking my hair behind my ear. “But you floor it. I’m done driving for a while.”
“Whatever you say, Wingman.”
Oliver grinned at the nickname, and together we lost ourselves in the crowd.
chapter 9
OLIVER
I never should’ve turned on my phone. I’d done it in a moment of postbarbecue, full-bellied euphoria, thinking that having bested a badass bounty hunter, on a beautiful day like this, with my girl at my side, our situation couldn’t be as horrible as I thought it could be. I was wrong.
We’d been back on the road for about an hour, Kaia behind the wheel, and I’d been staring at my cell phone screen for almost the entire time. There were a bunch of “Where U at?” texts from my friends and a few from my coach, which had left a knot in the pit of my stomach. I had a soccer game this morning, and there were going to be college scouts there—some of them looking to meet me. I’d never missed a game before unless it was for a broken bone. But missing the scouts was the least of my problems. There were dozens of texts and missed calls from Robin in the last twenty-four hours. I didn’t listen to the voice mails, but the texts were unavoidable. Once I started reading, I couldn’t stop. The first few were seminormal.