Page 141 of Frisco

“She loves her sister too. I think if we slowed down for her, she’d take a gun to all of us.”

Then that had been just fine with me.

Machete answered now, rubbing a hand over his jaw, “They didn’t touch her, but they took her. Said they killed her sister. That made a mark on her, even if it’s in the head. It’ll always be there.”

Our life, what we do for a living, how we do it–sometimes there would be collateral damage. That happened to his woman. My own was in a fight of her own right now, and after all of this, the whole reason both got pulled in hadn’t happened. But it would, and when it did, that’d be another mark on both of them. They just didn’t know it.

I glanced to Machete and saw his eyes were on me. They were haunted, and I had a thought, wondering if he was thinking the same thing as me.

He was when he said, “We gotta do it a different way.”

My gut clenched. “There isn’t. He told us himself.”

“There has to be. Both of them–”

“I know, but…” I couldn’t finish, because first, I needed to get Kali back. If I didn’t… I couldn’t finish that thought either.

We just had to get her back. Period. There was no other way out of this.

“Okay.” Stripes came back, bringing my phone with him. He handed it over and showed me his screen. “So, the guys have her call linked in and this is for you.” He handed over an ear piece. “Put that in your ear, and you can black out your phone. I put the call to a collective line so if you lose the connection, we’ll still have it from their end.” He waved his phone so I was guessing he meant the computer team. “They’re tracking her and they’re able to guess the route she’ll go, you know, since it’s not such a straight shot if she’s taking back roads.”

Boise came back, putting his phone away. “Looped in Roanoke. He’s on board and he’s putting the call out to his guys.” He said to Stripes, “Since you’re the Tech Contact right now, can you tell the computer guys to loop in Roanoke on their end. They’ll probably be able to intercept before we even get to Arizona.”

I didn’t like it. I didn’t like that another charter would get to Kali first. On that meet, so many things could go wrong. If she didn’t trust them? If Shelly had a gun? But it was better than anything right now.

“Oh.” Stripes’ tone got all our attention, and he was listening to his phone. His gaze went to mine and he didn’t look away, not one time until he lowered the phone. Things were already serious, but I had a fucking feeling things were going to get a whole lot more serious with whatever he was just told. “They hacked Shelly’s phone. They know why she’s doing what she’s doing, and they know where she’s taking Kali.”

I turned to him slowly and squarely. “You gonna fill me in, or are we playing I Don’t Have the Patience to Read Your Fucking Mind?”

He didn’t blink before he said, “They took her daughter. Estrada didn’t send two teams up. He sent three. Shelly’s supposed to deliver Kali to a location or they’re going to kill Katie.”

I was right.

Things just got way worse.

“Let’s go.”

At this rate, there was nothing more I could do so I did what I could do.

Stay alive, Kali.

45

KALI

Two hours later, and I was out of things to say except for, “I gotta pee in Flagstaff.”

There. Not obvious at all.

Shelly let out an exasperated sound, her eyes bulging as she glared at me. “Are you serious?”

I shifted in my seat. “It was the coffee. And I’m a pee-er when I’m nervous.” Totally lying. I was not a pee-er when I was nervous. “You’re all tense and I don’t know what we’re driving into.”

Another exasperated half growl before she turned on the signal and slowed down to turn onto another road. I had no idea what her exact route was because she kept changing and taking other roads, and then other roads, and other roads until I was pretty sure one time we did a full circle and started all over again. The only thing I could get was that she was trying to stay off the main roads and trying to be unpredictable? Either way, I was glad when a sign popped up saying Flagstaff was nineteen miles ahead. I was also relieved when I saw other cars on the road with us.

I was not expecting to see all the trees.

We’d definitely been north of this area when I was road tripping with Aly and Harper before.