Page 53 of Tangled

Tristan said, “We did. And the doorknob is broken.”

28

Break-In

Tristan

The balcony outside Colleen’s apartment was above them. Through the lattice of the steel-pipe railing, they could see the doorknob dangling from its socket, and a chunk was missing from the doorframe where the deadbolt had been broken out.

Tristan grabbed Colleen’s hand and ducked under the cement walkway, and they stole back to the parking lot and got into the car. Colleen drove out of the parking lot and down the street. The streetlights flashed in his eyes as they drove.

“Dammit,” Colleen said. “Probably the Butorins, right?”

“Yeah,” Tristan said, thinking, but his mind trudged with exhaustion from sleeping little for the past few days whilst they were coding, and it was so late at night. He blinked, and the world spun a little.

“Okay,” Colleen said, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel, and then she pulled over into a grocery store parking lot. “We have options. I’m a little freaked out that they thought we would be in there and asleepandwe almost were,but we’re going to be fine. Just have to sort through our options and decide. We could call Jian and head for the airplane, maybe go to Chicago, or maybe get a hotel room somewhere and go the heck to sleep for a few hours before we make any decisions. Or we have a car. I can just get on I-10 and head for Mexico.”

Tristan nodded, the weight ofeverythinggrinding on him. “I can’t keep my eyes open. I don’t think I’m even safe to drive.”

“Well, I’m okay for a few more minutes, but let’s get someplace safe and sleep for a while. I’m not going to last.”

“I can create a burner credit card, and we can book a hotel.”

“Sounds good.” He opened the website for Geneva Trust and logged in. He transferred money to a cryptocurrency wallet and then to a disposable credit card with no name on it to book a room at a hotel on the other side of the university campus, seven miles away. “We don’t even have to go inside the lobby. We just use a bar code on my phone to open the door.”

“Perfect.”

She drove them over to the middle-grade hotel that was nicer than anything in Marengo, Iowa, but not as upscale as the Hilton Garden Inn in Iowa City. They staggered in, locked the door, and collapsed on the bed.

At eight o’clock the following day, after six desperate hours of sleep, Tristan’s phone rang its usual brisk ringtone.

He grabbed it off the nightstand and pressed it to his face. “Yeah?”

“Mr. King, this is Jian. We have a problem.”

He mumbled, “Yeah. I’ll say we have. Somebody broke into Colleen’s apartment whilst we were out in the middle of the night and were waiting for us to come back.”

“Um, no, Mr. King.” Jian’s very nervous tone finally broke through the woozy film around Tristan’s brain. “I mean,Ihave a problem. He says his name is Sergey, and he’s currently holding a gun to my head.”

29

Options

Colleen

Colleen heard a phone ring, but it wasn’t her ringtone so she stayed burrowed under the covers.

Tristan muttered into his phone for a moment, and then he threw the covers off and sat up. “What’s going on?”

At his serious tone, Colleen opened her eyes. Summer desert sunlight streamed through the wide hotel window, drawing bright lines across the rumpled king-size bed they’d slept in.

Tristan rubbed the side of his face and held up his hand to signal that she should not speak. “Let me talk to him.”

Colleen pushed herself up.

“Don’t hurt them, Sergey. We can make a deal. We can solve this.”

The person on the other end of the line, presumably Sergey, the Butorin henchman, spoke rapidly.