Bone Music (Burning Girl #1)(64)

“What’s that?” he asks, eyes on the phone resting in her lap.

“It’s a phone.”

“I know that.”

“I’m expecting a call on it. At some point . . . I think.”

“OK.”

Up ahead, Marty takes a sharp left into the middle of town. She can’t help but watch his truck as they fly past. Maybe she’s afraid he’s going to double back and land on their tail, or maybe she feels a stab of guilt at having left his protection against his wishes, especially after he dropped everything for her.

“He’s a good guy, isn’t he?” Luke asks.

She’s startled he’s read her thoughts, until she realizes it’s not that hard for him to tell what she’s looking at. No doubt her expression’s far from serene.

“He is,” she says. “But it sounds like you didn’t think so yesterday.”

“We had a . . . thing.”

“What kind of thing?”

“What’s it matter? It’s the reason you and I got to talk today, and that means it’s ultimately a good thing, right?”

“Is it?”

He blushes. It looks good on him. Again. But she’s always been attracted to any small sign of vulnerability in a man who works hard to look strong. Her kryptonite would be a calendar of nothing but shirtless firemen cooing over kittens. But she’s got more experience with calendars of men than actual men, which is why the thought of playfully drawing attention to the bands of pink on his right cheek and jaw makes her both dizzy and nauseated at the same time.

“Well,” he finally says, “you’re the reason my brother decided to break radio silence after a year, so I guess that’s good for me, right?”

“Yeah, that’s gotta sting a little.”

“More than a little, but I appreciate your understanding.”

“Sure. So which way are you gonna go?”

“The 101.”

“I wish you wouldn’t,” she says.

“Really?”

“Can you take Bennett Road around the fort? That should get us there, right?”

“And it’ll add about forty-five minutes to the trip.”

“The library’s open till five, right?”

As he slows and shifts lanes to avoid leaving the valley, he gives her a long, stony look. Scans her from head to toe, it seems. Only then does she remember she’s got the URL for the chat room where they’re supposed to meet Bailey written on a Post-it note in her pocket, and unless Luke memorized the thing when she wrote it down, the note’s the only connection he has to his brother. She didn’t set it up that way, but it’s how things are. For now.

A few minutes later, they’re heading south on Bennett Road, past horse farms and spreading oaks and golden fields.

“You couldn’t have traveled back-road and surface streets the whole way here,” he says.

“Says who? You don’t know where I was coming from. But, you know, nice try trying to get me to tell you.”

His tongue makes a lump under his upper lip, and it’s clear he’s trying not to smile.

“You really afraid of freeways right now?” he asks after a brief silence.

“I’m limiting my use. Not the same thing. You know, it’s like the option on the GPS. Avoid freeway usage, or whatever.”

“I’ve heard of it. But most people don’t use it to run from the cops.”

“I’m not, either.” I think.

“Good thing, ’cause you’re riding with one.”

“Yeah, and he didn’t stop to ask me what kind of trouble I was in before he got in the car with me,” she says.

“I did, though.”

“Did not.”

“Did. I asked what kind, and you said big,” he says.

“And that was good enough for you?” she asks.

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

She looks at him until he feels the force of her stare and glances in her direction.

“What?” he asks.

“Are you just gonna keep asking me random, rhetorical questions until I give you the information you want?”

“They’re not random. And only one was rhetorical.”

“The last one.”

“Right. The last one.”

She looks out the window, amazed suddenly to be back in this familiar valley. It’s like the past couple of days have blown the newer layers of sand and grit from her life, leaving only the rocky fundamentals underneath. Or some crazy rearrangement of them.

Her grandmother’s on-again, off-again boyfriend is now her temperamental bodyguard. Her former bully blushes in her presence when she teases him. While chauffeuring her places.

Maybe this is what growing up feels like for people whose lives aren’t marred by serial killers and stalkers. Things shift underfoot only slightly. Some people remain but change roles.

And maybe this is exactly what Dylan wanted, she thinks. For me to go home again, back to Altamira. Why?

“Charley?”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t have to tell me who’s after you, but tell me this.”

He waits until she turns her attention to him.

“Is it who you’re going to ask my brother to find?”