Edge of Midnight (McClouds & Friends #4)(56)

She blinked. “Oh, my God.”

“Yeah, it’s a tracking device. And yeah, I put it there.” He tossed the thing off into the woods. “You going to give me a hard time about it? Go on. I dare you.”

She bit her lip, her eyes wary. “Um, maybe not right now.”

“That’s smart.” He gave her back what was left of her sandal. She held the flapping, ruined thing in her hands, bewildered.

He slammed her door, and loped to the driver’s side. “We’re sitting ducks,” he said, starting up the engine. “We can’t wait around for the cops with just five 357 Magnum bullets between us and TRex. He’s probably planning to ambush us on the road. Or pick us off from up there—” he indicated a rock above them, “—or there.” He pointed at the wall of granite that bounded the lake. “I’ve seen enough dead bodies. I will not let this guy kill you. I have had enough, you hear me?”

“OK,” she soothed. “I don’t want him to kill me, either. It’s just that…wouldn’t we be safer on the road if we were with the police?”

“We’re not taking the road.” He steered around a washed out, yawning hole in the road, and picked up speed, bumping and jouncing.

She gave him a big-eyed look. “Um, excuse me?”

“Offroad. We’ll cut across Long Prairie and hook up with Burnt Ridge Road, which will take us to Garnier Creek, towards Taggert. Don’t worry. This vehicle can handle it. T-Rex’s Jeep could, too, but hopefully he won’t be expecting us to go that route.”

“If you say so.” Her voice was small. “So we’re hiding, then?”

“Until we know who’s chasing us. Kev was smart. They killed him, and got away with it. They are not to be f*cked with, whoever they are.”

“But the police—”

“The police didn’t help the last time. I don’t have any reason to think they would help me now. Get your head down.” He shoved down on her head until she sprawled sideways, and dialed Davy’s cell.

“What the hell?” Davy snarled, without preamble.

“We’re alive. So’s the f*ckhead. I don’t want to meet up with him again until I have a lot more firepower. I tossed the beacons.”

“You did what? Are you nuts?”

“Tell Liv’s folks she’s OK,” Sean said. “Watch your back. Con, too. Keep Margot and Erin close. These are the guys who killed Kev. They know all about us.” He hung up, and punched up Miles’s number. “It’s Sean,” he said. “Call me back, and enable your scrambler.”

“The scrambler? Jesus, why? What’s going on?”

“Do it.” He hung up, stuck the phone between chin and shoulder as he guided the truck over the rough track. It rang again, in seconds.

“I need help,” he told Miles. “Are you still at the Rock Bottom?”

“Yeah,” Miles said. “We just loaded up the sound system. Why?”

“Is anybody listening to this conversation?” he demanded.

“Are you doing your paranoid freak-out McCloud routine on me?”

“Cut the shit. Get out of earshot. Have you got the fogeymobile?”

“Uh, yeah,” Miles said. “What’s it to you?”

“I want it,” Sean said.

“Do my ears deceive me? You’re willing to be seen in my vomit-tinted, butt-ugly piece of no-testosterone shit?”

“This is serious. I almost got killed a few minutes ago. I need to disappear.”

“Oh. I get it.” Miles’s tone was ironic. “What better way to disappear than the magical invisible car?”

“Exactly.” Sean negotiated around another gaping washout.

“Didn’t Seth give you a fake ID, like he did for Davy and Con? Can’t you rent a car under your false name? Why do I always have to be the schnook with no wheels?” Miles complained.

Sean gritted his teeth. “The rental places won’t open for three hours, I’m covered with blood, and I’ve got a naked girl in my truck.”

“No shit!” Miles breathed, impressed. “Naked? Really? Is it, you know, her? That girl you’re so nuts about? Jeez. Why’s she naked?”

Trust Miles to grasp the kernel of the situation. His own fault, mentioning a naked girl to a guy who hadn’t gotten laid in ages, if ever.

“No time to explain,” he snapped. “You know the Lonely Valley Motor Lodge, in Taggert? Behind the shopping center? Rent me a room. They get trucker business, so someone will be on duty. Got any cash?”

“I can get some at the all-night convenience store,” Miles’s voice had taken on its habitual long-suffering tone.

“Get me some. Ask for a room in back. Don’t say anything to anyone. Get me disinfectant, bandages, surgical tape. And T-shirts.”

“I’m on it,” Miles said. “See you there.”

Amazing, how the mention of a naked girl made a guy perk right up and hop to attention, any hour of the day or night.

Sean gave the truck more gas. They topped the rise out of the cleft of the valley and up onto the road that skirted the Long Prairie plateau. Dawn lit up the clouds into a fabulous range of pinks on the horizon.