Page 9

C HAPTER 9

I ’d never been a runner. My preferred form of physical activity was yoga and the only marathons I participated in were of the Netflix variety. But running for my life lit a different kind of fire than a perfunctory resolution to get more exercise ever could.

Anthony led the way as we crashed through the woods. The lack of a clear path made for branches and sticks and pointy little rocks ready and waiting to lash out in a reminder we were disrupting their territory. I ran with my arms out in front of me for safety, one eye on Anthony’s back and one on the uneven forest floor. The fact we were both in all black—me still from the funeral, and him because he didn’t own anything else—was both a blessing and a curse. Other than my pink shoes, we’d be hard to spot, but I kept losing sight of him in the dark too.

The moon cut through the thick trees in silvery streaks. Given all the branches and our speed, it set off a strobe light effect that had me blinking away dizziness.

Or maybe that was from the head injuries. Or the cumulative blood loss from all my various cuts. Or the fact we were being chased and shot at.

“Anthony!” I pled, once we were deep enough into the dark to have lost all sense of direction. “Can we stop for a minute?” My breath sawed in and out of my lungs. I doubled over with a cramp. “I don’t hear anything anymore. I don’t think they’re chasing us.”

I heard him slow to a stop ahead of me. He wasn’t nearly as winded, but the breaths he was taking were jagged and shallow. He paused to listen for half a minute. Only silence called back. He walked to meet me in a small pool of moonlight between two trees. He leaned an arm against one and put a hand on his hip.

Sweat dampened my brow. It took me three gulps of air to be able to speak. “You’re still bleeding.” I raised a shaky hand to point at the gash on his forehead.

He touched his fingertips to it and pulled away blood. “Shit.” He used the hem of his shirt to swipe at it again, flashing his bare abdomen and half of his chest. I gasped at the purple-and-black stain already spanning his ribs like an abstract oil painting. “That bad, huh?” he said with a small huff, which made him wince.

“We need to get you to a hospital.”

He shook his head. “No. We need to get out of here.”

I approached him with my hands raised in a sign I planned to touch him. “Yes, out of here and to a hospital.”

“Penny, we can’t. Ouch!” he responded, hissing, when I pressed my thumbs to his forehead.

“Sorry. At least let me help you, then. You’re bleeding all over the place.”

He waved a dismissive hand. “Head wounds bleed a lot. I’m fine.”

I glanced around, almost as if I’d find an opportune first aid kit stashed in the middle of the woods; then I realized I’d obviously have to improvise. “Sure, and it’s a good thing blood doesn’t make me woozy, because you look like Carrie on prom night.” I bent over and reached for the hem of my skirt, suddenly finding inspiration.

“What are you doing?” he asked over the sound of a loud rip.

“Improvising.” Thankfully, my dress was a cotton polyester blend, which meant tearing the fabric was pretty simple. I tore up two inches and then followed a path all the way around the skirt, ripping off a makeshift bandage as I went. When I finished, it was markedly shorter and looked more suited for a rock concert than a funeral.

“Come here,” I told Anthony, and beckoned him to lean down.

He cooperated, wincing at the motion, and let me fashion him a bandage. Given the size of my skirt and the size of his head, I wrapped it three times, making sure to cover the wound before I knotted it. Then I took what remained of my skirt, which was much cleaner than his shirt, and wiped the blood off his face in gentle strokes.

“Better,” I said. “Although now you look like Rambo.”

“Between a telekinetic murderous prom queen and an action hero, I’ll take the latter.”

“I have faith you could pull off the former with the right dress.”

Our banter served as temporary distraction from the serious matter at hand. Namely, that I had just stabbed someone so we could escape. I could still feel the knife going in, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to un feel it. I truly hoped I’d only incapacitated him and had not done worse.

“So, now what?” I asked after several moments of silence. After what had happened, I knew we wouldn’t be going home.

He shifted against the tree, clearly in severe pain. He must have been running on adrenaline back at the house, and it was now catching up to him. “We need to get to Daly City.”

“What’s in Daly City?”

“A backup plan.”

I frowned at yet another cryptic answer. “Why don’t we go to the police?”

He shook his head. “No. Involving the police would be a mistake. They are not my biggest fans right now.”

I tugged at a thread dangling from the bottom of my skirt. “Well, then, can I go to the police? I mean, I was kidnapped.”

Even in the dark, I could see the guilt on his face for putting me in that position. “No. You are safer with me until we figure this out. I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

The ferocity in his voice stopped me from arguing. I chewed my lip in thought. The last several hours had changed everything. “My sister is probably worried sick.”

“She called your mom for support. She’ll be fine.”

“She—what? She called our mom? How do you know that?”

“She told me. When you disappeared from the reception, she came and threatened to kill me with a bamboo shrimp skewer, and then said she was calling the police and your mom. I talked her out of the first, but not the second.”

“Oh, God. If she called our mom, she is not okay.” Guilt washed over me with enough force that I weighed the risk of fleeing on foot back to her house.

Anthony must have seen the struggle in my eyes.

He sighed a weary breath, which made him sound a hundred years old. “Penny, I’m sorry for all this, but we can’t go home. My uncle is dead because of me. Portia is trapped because of me. You’re in danger because of me. I’m not putting anyone else even more at risk.” The sincere sorrow in his voice sang out into the night like a requiem. I ached for him, this bruised and broken man held together with grit and a torn funeral skirt. The pain in my chest pulled me toward him.

“Did they really kill your uncle?” My voice was soft. Gentle.

He met my eyes, and even in the dark, I could see the ocean of pain in his. He nodded. “Yeah. Shot him in a parking garage and left him there.”

There was obviously much more to the story, but in that moment, my only thought was to take away even an ounce of his pain. I placed my hand on his arm, as if I could absorb it through his skin. “I’m sorry.”

He shook his head with a haunted look in his eyes. “At least I got them to keep it out of the news, but it’s my fault. I put this whole thing in motion. It was my idea, and now everything is a disaster. Well, I guess not everything. ” He looked up at me with a shy flutter of his lashes and then quickly back down at the ground.

A deep flush curled into my face with the heat of a bonfire. I was glad it was too dark for him to see it. I thought back to what the tweed man had said about him running to my rescue. My hand was still on his arm. I moved it, for fear he’d feel the sudden nerves coursing through it.

“How did you know where to find me?”

“I knew they’d take you somewhere isolated and secure. The Slates’ house is basically a prison compound, as you saw.” He huffed a dark laugh, which sounded cryptic and layers deep.

“And if you knew they would take me here, why didn’t you expect it to be a trap?”

He closed his eyes and quietly hummed another laugh, this one warmer and light. “Humbling me again, Dr. Collins.” He opened his eyes and gave me a tiny half smile. “I told you, I’m the suit side of things. I’m not exactly a field expert here.”

My lips twitched with a mirroring smile. “Is that why you shoved the bodyguard in your closet right before you had an estate sale?”

He grimaced in embarrassment and laughed at the same time. “They dumped him on the back porch literally ten minutes before the sale started! What was I supposed to do?”

I shrugged. “Put him in the garage?”

Despite all his blood loss, he still managed to blush.

“You seriously didn’t think of that?” I asked with a grin.

“I panicked!”

The sound of our laughter felt out of place in the dark pit of this night, but my heart still fluttered at it.

“So,” I asked, once we had quieted, “what’s your plan?”

He tilted his head up toward the sky, either in thought or pain, I couldn’t be sure, but I traced the line of his jaw with my eyes. A smear of blood had run beneath his chin and dried there. “We have to get to Portia.”

“And where is she?” I asked the million-dollar question once more.

He gave me a look like he was closer to sharing the truth, but still not willing. “Not Iceland.”

“No, really?” I said sarcastically. “Don’t tell me she’s in Daly City and has been right under their noses this whole time.”

He leveled me with a flat stare. “No, she’s not. But we do need to get there. How far is it from here?”

“Way too far to walk.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I drive this peninsula all the time. It’s at least twenty-five miles.”

“Shit. Why is everything so spread out here?”

“Welcome to California. What’s in Daly City?”

My question hadn’t dissolved on the air before a branch snapped in the distance. We both turned toward it. I stopped breathing and felt Anthony’s hand protectively circle my wrist. His thumb rested directly on my pulse, which had sped up considerably.

I gazed off into the dark, straining my eyes in search of whoever was out there. As my heart pounded, I silently hoped it was a forest creature, a deer or even a mountain lion, and not a deranged human with a gun. I’d happily take my chances against either of the former.

Another snap cracked, and then a gunshot sliced the air. The bullet splintered the tree, mere feet from us, opposite the one Anthony was leaning on. Before the shattered wood even hit the ground, he was yanking on my arm and pulling us away.

In that moment, I didn’t care what was in Daly City as long as going there got us the hell out of the woods.

We ran until we found a road. We followed it, turning in toward the trees and shielding ourselves whenever a car passed. We definitely wanted to avoid getting hit, but also didn’t want anyone to call the cops on us—a man and a woman traipsing through one of the most affluent areas in America, looking like they either had escaped or were serial killers.

It must have taken two or three miles before we wound down out of the hills and came to flat land in a residential area. We stopped under a streetlight to catch our breath. The street was wide and empty; all the luxury vehicles were in their driveways or tucked into garages for the night, with the exception of a little blue Honda Civic parked on the curb outside of a towering Colonial, with a rose border.

“We need a cab,” Anthony murmured.

“There are no cabs; this is Woodside,” I said as I kept my eyes on the blue Honda. It was clearly out of place, and I wondered if it might be an opportunity. A plan started to take root in my head.

He huffed in annoyance. “Train?”

“Not this far south.”

“What is with the serious dearth of public transportation around here?”

“Again, welcome to California. You don’t have your phone, right?”

“Of course not. He took it back at the house.”

“Figured. Just checking. What about your wallet?”

He patted his pockets, as if it had only now occurred to him to check. “Yes.”

“How much money do you have?” My eyes were still on the house and the Honda.

He opened his wallet and thumbed through the bills. “A few hundred bucks.”

The house’s front door swung open, and I couldn’t believe our luck when a pretty blond girl stepped out. She wore jeans and a Stanford hoodie, with a tote slung over her shoulder. She had nanny practically emblazoned on her forehead.

“Perfect. Give it to me,” I said, and held out my hand.

“Give what to you, the money? Why?”

Clearly, he hadn’t been paying attention. I pointed at the girl approaching her car. She didn’t think to look across the street for any suspicious characters, because she was in a very safe area.

“Because I’m getting us a ride,” I said. “See her? She’s nineteen, twenty, tops. If she goes to Stanford and is working a side hustle over the summer, she’s a financial-aid student. She’ll be interested in a bribe.”

“How could you possibly know that?” he asked with a heavy dose of skepticism, but notably didn’t put his wallet away.

“Because my life is college kids, Anthony. Kids who go to Stanford and drive old Hondas and work part-time jobs are not the spawn of millionaires. This girl will happily take a few hundred bucks to drive us up the peninsula if it means she can skip a week with whatever hell brats live inside that house she just came out of.”

He silently blinked at me like he didn’t understand or believe the words coming out of my mouth.

I tsked and snatched the money out of his wallet. “Watch, I’ll show you.” I stepped out into the street with my arms raised, money clutched in one hand, and slowly approached her. “Excuse me? Miss?”

She turned, and the second she saw us, she pressed her back to her car door and instantly brandished her keys between her fingers in a jagged claw.

“Whoa! It’s okay. We’re not going to hurt you,” I said, and cursed the world that required women to be so afraid in public. I well knew the fit of my own keys between my fingers. “We need help.” I waved the money at her and aimed for a smile that would land closer to desperate victim than stranger on the street trying to trick you.

She cautiously eyed me, taking in my ripped dress, bloody ankles and wrists, and the swollen bruise at my temple. Her eyes flashed to Anthony, still some distance behind me, and her gaze hardened. Her jaw clenched and she jutted out her chin toward him. “Did he do that to you?”

I glanced back at him to see he’d taken a few steps closer and wondered if lying would at least get me a ride. But that wouldn’t solve anything, given the fact there were people still chasing us, and I did honestly feel safer by his side.

“No, not at all,” I answered with a shake of my head. “We’ve had a rough night.”

She continued to eye him, unsure. But she hadn’t run away or pulled out her phone or screamed for help, so I figured I’d keep going.

“See, I actually got kidnapped earlier today, and he rescued me. Kind of.”

“Kind of?” Anthony blurted from behind me. The sound of his voice came closer, and he appeared at my side.

“Okay. It was a team effort. But I did most of the heavy lifting.”

“I threw you over a wall with broken ribs!” he sputtered.

“Anthony, please!” I held up my hand to quiet him.

The girl’s eyes bounced back and forth between us. We had her interest, but I couldn’t tell if she was swaying. She leaned back when she took in the full size of Anthony, now that he’d come closer. In that moment, I was thankful for the dim light and his black shirt disguising the fact he was soaked in blood. From the corner of my eye, I clocked the bulge of his gun still tucked into his waistband, and I thought for a second we could approach this situation very differently. But then I decided this poor girl would already be traumatized enough from bloody Bonnie and Clyde asking for a ride; she certainly didn’t need us stealing her car at gunpoint too.

“How much money?” she asked, and my heart soared.

I looked at the wad of cash in my hand and wondered why Anthony carried so much with him—all my money was plastic—and then I remembered the estate sale. I almost laughed when I realized I was probably holding the candlestick money.

“Two hundred dollars,” I said.

She nodded and pulled out her phone. The little screen lit up her face in a blue glow. “Look, I’m not going to give you a ride. I’m smarter than that. But I will call Dave for you.”

A swell of pride hit me at the recognition this girl had been raised to be so aware, but at the same time, I hated the reasons she needed to be. But my criticism of society’s shortcomings was for another time.

“Dave?” I asked.

She nodded and continued to tap her phone. “Yeah. Designated Dave. He was in my stats class. He’ll drive anyone anywhere. He’s cheaper than Uber and stops for food at no extra charge. He usually only takes payment through his app, but he’ll probably make an exception for the price.” She held her phone to her ear as an outbound call started to ring.

I smiled in hope, not at all surprised we’d stumbled upon an entrepreneur so suited to our needs, given the locale.

“This kid has his own app?” Anthony muttered.

“Of course he does. Did you forget where you are? Half the kids at Stanford only go there so they can drop out, found the next unicorn company from their garage, and become a billionaire before they’re twenty-five.”

“Huh,” he said right as Dave answered.

“Hey, Dave. It’s Sadie,” the girl said. “I ran into some people who need a ride. They seem like they might be a little unhinged, and maybe running from the cops or something, but they’ve got two hundred dollars in cash.” She listened while Dave spoke. I strained to hear what he was saying, but even in the quiet night, the volume was too low. “I’ll ask,” she said, and then looked over at us. “He wants to know where you’re going.”

“Daly City,” Anthony said. “East Side Self-Storage.”

I turned to him in surprise. A storage facility? What kind of backup plan was in a storage facility?

Sadie repeated the information to Dave and listened again. “Yeah, I’m leaving work. They’re here on the corner. I don’t know, they appeared out of nowhere. This man and woman. He’s tall and has a weird headband, and she’s wearing pink running shoes. Otherwise, they look like they escaped a funeral.”

I glanced down at our appearance and ironically smiled that she had no idea how correct she was.

She listened again, and I hoped she was friendly enough with Dave to convince him of this favor if the two hundred bucks alone didn’t do the job. I imagined she was, considering he knew where she worked without her needing to tell him an address. Maybe they were in a financial-aid-kids side-hustle club. “Okay,” she said, and lowered her phone. “He said he’ll do it. He’s finishing a run nearby, but he’ll be here in five minutes.”

I squeezed my fists in victory and heard Anthony let out a breath of relief. “Thank you!”

“Yep. Please don’t murder him. Dave is a cool guy.” And with that, she slipped inside her car, slammed the door, and sped off.

Anthony and I were left alone again. This time, not completely in the dark, but still dark enough to blend in with our clothing. Which was good, because we didn’t need the neighborhood watch sounding the alarm on us.

“What time do you think it is?” I asked while I stared up at the sky. We were far enough from any big city to see the stars. They twinkled in the warm night, immune to the trivialities of human existence below them.

“Probably nine or ten.”

“Hmm,” I hummed inconsequentially and mostly out of exhaustion. The funeral felt like a thousand years ago, when it had only been hours. “How are you feeling?”

“I’ve been better.”

“You know, there’s probably an urgent care within walking distance. Actually, Stanford is one of the best hospitals on the West Coast, we could—”

“Penny, no.”

I knew he’d refuse, even before I made the suggestion. “But you’re hurt.”

He turned to me with a gravely serious look in his eyes. The streetlight highlighted a blotch of dried blood on his neck. “I know, but the people who are on our tail are never going to stop. So, if we stop, that will only slow us down and let them catch up. We have to keep moving. At least until we are somewhere safer.”

A frightened lump pushed its way up into my throat at his tone. I forced it down with a swallow. The fact he didn’t even consider Woodside safe told me enough about trusting his judgment. I took a breath and braved a question I’d been fearing all day. “What about my sister and her kids? If they’ve been following me, they know they are your neighbors.”

Sincerity painted his dark eyes, and he gave me an assuring nod. “They’ll be fine. I called a friend to keep an eye on them.”

“A cop?”

“No.”

I paused and considered my words. “A not bad guy?”

He looked over at me with the same silent acknowledgment—he was saying yes without saying yes—that he’d given me when I surmised his uncle was a fixer.

“So, is there like a network of you all, or something?”

His mouth twitched at the corner like he was considering smiling. “Something like that.”

“Interesting. Well, when we get wherever we are going, can I call Libby to at least tell her I’m alive?”

The way he eyed me, with an uncertain combination of guilt and worry, replaced the nervous lump in my throat, like it had never gone away. “Sure.”

“Thank you.” My voice shook only slightly. I looked back up at the sky. “So, what’s at this storage facility?”

“You’ll see when we get there.”

The smooth, calm sound of his voice, like the concern was minimal, broke something loose inside me.

“You know what? No. I want you to tell me right now. After the day I’ve had—the past few days since you came along, actually—I think I deserve some answers.” My voice snapped louder than I meant.

He flinched at the sound and dragged me a few paces away from the streetlight. “Keep it down!”

“Okay! I will, sorry. But you owe me information.” I realized the words were the same ones I’d said the night I’d taken him the key. He’d been frustratingly vague then, and I wasn’t going to allow him to be now. Not anymore.

I could tell by the look on his face he was reliving the same memory and realizing how unfairly elusive he’d been this whole time. “You’re right. Five questions,” he said.

I snorted. “How about as many questions as I want?”

“Is that one of the questions?”

I glared at him and punched my hands into my hips. “Okay, first question. Where’s Portia?”

He folded his arms with a frown and a wince. “You know I’m not going to answer that one.”

“Why not?”

He leaned in, and his voice became a gravelly growl. “Because if they somehow catch you and you have that information, I don’t know what they will do to get it out of you, and I can’t risk that. So it’s better if you don’t know.” A vein pulsed in the side of his neck. His eyes burned like black coals.

“Oh,” I whispered, thoroughly intimidated and oddly turned on by the intensity in his voice. I cleared my throat to regain my bearings and tried another approach. “Okay, here’s a better question, then. How do you know Portia?”

He cocked a brow at me.

“You said she wanted to disappear, and this was all your idea. The look on your face when I first asked about her that day you came over was nothing short of desperate panic. And you let the tweed man hit you like a punching bag, instead of telling him where she is. Also, you clearly know your way around her house. So that makes me think this all started as more than a 1-800-find-a-fixer situation. I think you know her. From before all this.” I waited for his response, hands still on my hips. I even tapped my foot.

When he decided to tell me the truth, I saw it in his whole body. His posture changed from the rigid, firm wall I’d grown accustomed to and turned soft at the edges. His shoulders loosened; his jaw relaxed. He exhaled in a way that sounded like one would exhale at a homecoming. The pure relief of comfort and family after being away.

“We grew up together. In Queens. Her brother was my best friend.”

As unsubtle as his shift in demeanor had been, my dawn of realization could have lit up the entire night sky in a blaze of light. The keystone of the whole puzzle fell into place. The motivation behind it all.

He cared about her.

“So you really know her.”

“Yeah.”

As I let the revelation settle, a detail I’d read when I was mining the Web for information on Portia came back to me. “Portia’s brother died when she was thirteen.”

“I know,” Anthony said solemnly. “We were in high school. They didn’t have the best home life—none of us did—and I promised Jake I’d always look out for her. After he died, I kind of took over in his place.” He stepped toward me with a plea in his eyes, as if he wanted me to absolve him of some sin. “I tried to talk her out of marrying Connor, but she didn’t listen to me. He’s a monster, Penny. I knew it from the very start, but Portia only saw a way out from a life she hated. It was a huge mistake. I could see it on her face every time she visited— literally. She tries to hide it all with her online image, but she’s miserable and not safe.”

His words were coming faster and faster, as if he’d been holding his breath and waiting to tell someone this story for ages and had to get it all out before he ran out of air again. “A few weeks ago, she visited me in New York, and . . . something bad happened. Something worse than anything before. I had to help her. So we made a plan.”

I was floundering for what to say. He’d just confessed that the billionaire’s missing wife was essentially his little sister and they’d made a plan to make her disappear on purpose. And now we were fleeing from said billionaire and his henchmen in an effort to get to Portia and, I assumed, finish the job.

Anthony desperately searched my face, as if I held the answer to an unspoken question. Or perhaps the solution to all our problems.

“I—” I started, but didn’t know where to go. I felt like I needed a diagram to keep straight all the information I’d learned in the past few hours. “What was the plan?” I managed to ask.

He gave me a hard look. “I’ll tell you the whole story when we’re someplace safer.”

I opened my mouth to protest right as a silver minivan turned the corner blaring pop-punk out the windows at far too loud a volume for this neighborhood and time of night. The driver, a twentysomething kid, with buzzed hair minus his topknot, leaned out the window.

“Yo! Tall dude with headband and girl in pink shoes, your chariot has arrived!” He thumped his palm against the outside of the door twice as if to say saddle up!

“This is Dave?” Anthony muttered.

“What were you expecting, a tinted limo?”

Dave whistled along to the song pumping from his speakers and drummed his fingers on the door.

I gave him a friendly wave as I approached.

He tipped an invisible hat, still whistling, and pushed a button to automatically slide open the side door.

The smell of artificial fruit came billowing out of the van in a cloud thick enough to make me cough.

“Hi, Dave,” I said as my eyes watered. I climbed in and moved to the far middle seat to allow Anthony to climb in behind me. “Thanks for the ride, I’m P—”

“Pamela,” Anthony cut me off.

I turned and glared at him as I sank into my seat. He shook his head with a scolding frown and mouthed, No names, like it should have been obvious.

I realized with a flare in my cheeks it should have been. “Right,” I said. “I’m Pam. And this is Tommy.”

Anthony rolled his eyes and buckled his seat belt.

“Right on. Pam and Tommy,” Dave said, bless his oblivious little Gen Z heart. “Nice to meet you. Where are we headed?”

Anthony gave him the name of the storage facility, and he punched it into the phone mounted on his dash.

I noticed then the cluster of fruit-shaped air fresheners dangling from the rearview mirror like a bunch of rainbow-colored grapes. Every air vent had a clip-on freshener too, giving the van the fruity, cotton-candy odor reminiscent of a middle-school locker room.

I coughed again.

“Don’t mind the smell,” Dave said, and flipped a U-turn. “All part of the experience when you ride with Designated D. People puke in here a lot. Gotta keep it fresh.”

I instantly yanked my hands off the seat’s armrest and pointed my feet up on my toes as if he’d said there was a mouse on the floor. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Anthony frown and noticed not only were our seats fashioned with rubbery upholstery, but the floor was rubber too.

“That’s the difference between me and other rideshares,” Dave said. “I don’t charge you for puking in my car. I know what I’m signing up for when I accept the job. Plus, my uncle owns a power wash in Menlo Park. I take old Starla there and hose her out whenever I need to.” He lovingly patted the dashboard above the wheel. Then he whipped around in his seat and pulled a business card out of his shirt pocket. “You guys don’t look like my normal clientele, but I’m expanding my fleet next semester. I’m trying to take on a few new drivers. Hit us up if you need another ride sometime.”

I took the card from between his fingers, fully convinced we’d just met the friendliest person on the planet. “Thanks, Dave.” The card was clean and simple. DESIGNATED DAVE , with a QR code I was sure linked to his app. If I’d had my phone, I would have scanned it and assessed his work. But if I’d had my phone, we wouldn’t have been in the backseat of a college puke trolly, to begin with.

“No problem, Pam. Hey, are you guys hungry?” he asked as we cruised past a Taco Bell near the freeway on-ramp. “I’m happy to stop.”

“Yes, please,” I said; right as Anthony said, “No, thanks.”

I shot him a glare and mouthed, I’m starving.

He glared back and mouthed, Later.

“Sooo no?” Dave said, slowing with his turn signal on.

“No,” Anthony confirmed.

“Right on, boss.”

I folded my arms like a petulant child and pouted. Until he’d offered, I hadn’t realized how hungry I was. The last thing I’d eaten was a mini quiche at the funeral reception. No wonder I was so lightheaded and cranky.

Dave chattered like a happy little squirrel nearly the whole drive. Anthony stayed mute, brooding like a vampire in the shadow, while I did my best to engage without disclosing any personal information that would earn me another glare from my accomplice. Luckily, the drive was relatively short, so late on a weeknight. We flew up 280 without interruption, and soon Dave was slowing outside East Side Self-Storage in Daly City.

“Here’s fine,” Anthony said at the gate. He presented the wad of cash to Dave from over his seat.

“Ah, right on, man,” Dave said, sounding like he’d forgotten he was getting paid for our trip, and maybe was simply doing a friendly favor. “You guys have a nice night.”

“Thanks, Dave. You too!” I sang as I climbed out the door and heaved a breath of non-fruit-scented air. A headache poked at my temples from the ride.

The crisp night hung gritty with fog farther north. The stars were gone now, lost to the hazy dome of light pollution and marine layer. I shivered at the slight chill in the air. Daly City sat directly south of San Francisco on the narrowest part of the peninsula. I couldn’t recall a time I’d intentionally made a trip to the city; I only ever passed through.

“That kid lives on another planet,” Anthony muttered once Dave drove away.

“The smart ones usually do. I’m excited to check out his app.” I flicked his card with a smile. “Will you hold this for me?”

He took it with a frown. “Your dress doesn’t have any pockets?”

I laughed. “Your naivety is adorable. Now, what are we doing here?”

He pocketed the business card and headed for the slatted black gate guarding the entrance. It was a set of gates, I realized: one big enough to drive through and one to walk through flanking its side. Anthony pushed a button inside a metal box mounted on a skinny pole, and the smaller gate opened with a buzz. “Getting supplies. Come on.”

“What kind of supplies?” I asked and followed him through.

“The necessary kind.”

“You know, if you’re more forthcoming to start, I won’t have to ask so many questions.”

“And if you trust me and do what I say, all the answers will become clear.”

I kept quiet and followed him along the ends of several aisles of storage units. Overhead lights buzzed, casting yellow pools on the concrete. The night was quiet, save the distant rush of the highway and our footsteps. I got the sense we were the only ones at the facility.

We eventually turned down one of the aisles and passed several orange garage doors pulled taut in their stucco walls. Each had a padlock, combination lock, or large chain securing it shut. I could only imagine what was behind each—and most important, what was behind the one Anthony stopped in front of.

With a sharp breath and a grunt, he sank to a knee and lifted the dial lock.

“You know the combination to that, right?”

“Thankfully, yes. The combo to this was inside the safe at the house.”

“Ah,” I said, nodding. “A safe inside a safe. So that would make whatever is in here pretty important, then.”

“Yes,” he said as he finished the combo and yanked the lock free. He grabbed the handle at the door’s base and shoved it up. Then he stood with another grunt and wiped the grit off his hands. “Like I told you, it’s the backup plan.”

We stood back as the door rolled all the way open.

I blinked at what I saw inside, not exactly surprised, but not sure how it was supposed to help us.