Page 139 of Frisco

His eyes went down, saw I was holding the phone and staring at him as I was unlocking my phone, and then moving to silence it. No buzzes. No alerts. Nothing could get through.

“Uh–”

“You remember seeing pink from her bottle?”

“Huh?” He was still distracted, watching me working my phone.

“The bottle. Sometimes when the water is drunk, there’s a flamingo on the inside of the bottle. Guys remember the pink, but don’t remember the flamingo.”

His eyes lit up. “You’re right! It’s that water.” He frowned. “What brand is that, do you know? Also–” His head went down and he was going to ask about my phone, or worse, he was going to make it obvious I was doing something.

I stepped forward, grabbing the bottle his girlfriend probably liked and I grabbed two for myself.

Anything else?

I handed it off and moved past him, my finger moving over the texts and trying to remember Shane’s number. I had no idea. Dammit. But, man. I bet he’d been calling, texting me. I put the phone in my pocket, remembering there was a mirror above that could see down all the aisles.

In my pocket, I moved to the texts and hoping against hope that the last text sent my way was his. Not my dad’s because oh my God, I had no idea what would happen if he got involved. He’d call the National Guard on us, but first he’d probably call Ruby and see if she knew what was going on.

Please, please, please.

I grabbed some snacks, going the long way to the counter.

There was a line of people so I waited, finishing my text and hoping it wasn’t too jumbled. I hit send as soon as the last person moved and put my items on the counter. She rang me up. I had to make a show of pulling my wallet out, paying for the items.

As I did, I hit call on my phone, still hoping it would go to Shane.

Shelly made me promise not to use a card, use cash. And I could feel her eyes on me. She was watching, so I counted out the cash and handed it over. The front desk worker gave me change back, and I put everything in my pocket. Grabbing the water and bag of chips, I headed back outside.

“Hey, Shelly.”

She glared at me, but that turned to a frown when she saw the chips. Snatching it, she opened it and put it between us. “I’m starving. Ready?”

Not on your life. I smiled. “Yep.”

I had to do something. I needed to stall.

44

SHANE

We were an hour on the road when we met up with Stripes. He was waiting on the side of the road, so we pulled over. All of us. He stood up, heading over to me, but looked at the rest. “Some of the guys stayed back?”

“They had some guys to handle.”

He gave a slow nod, his eyes flicking to Boise. Neither of us got off our bikes. This was a quick meet and we were heading off again.

“I was in contact with our computer guys, and they found ’em. They think she’s sticking to back roads, staying away from any street cameras, which is smart. That’s good for us. They’ve got a head start, but we can go interstate, get past them, and move to intercept. Their last spotting was in Arizona.”

I cursed under my breath because we were so behind. “Let’s get going.”

Stripes dipped his head down, and went back to his bike.

After that, we rode.

We rode fast.

My phone started vibrating not long after, and I grabbed it up, but then immediately pulled over. I hadn’t saved her new number, but that was Kali. I knew it.