Wherever She Goes(76)

I need that USB drive. I have no damned idea where it is. I can’t imagine Kim stashing it in the farmhouse. She’d find a safe place where they’d never look. . . .

I flash back to that first day in the park, when I met Kim. She’d been playing a hiding game with Brandon, and I’d noticed, thinking it’d be a fine game to play with Charlotte. I’d watched her hiding a small object . . . an object the size of a USB drive.

She’d been trying to find just the right spot for the drive. One Brandon couldn’t easily figure out . . . meaning no one would accidentally see it. But also, I think, letting Brandon know where it was, in case it came to this, a situation where his life might depend on being able to find that drive. She made it an absolute last resort. If something happened to her and he was taken into safe custody, then he was better off not knowing about the drive. But if he was taken hostage and questioned properly—do you remember Mommy hiding something about this size—he’d think of the park.

It was an imperfect plan. So imperfect that clearly it’d gone wrong. Either his captors weren’t asking Brandon the right questions or he wasn’t around to— No, I wouldn’t think of that.

Get the data. That was my goal. Pray that I wasn’t making wild and desperate connections. Pray that USB drive was where I thought it would be.



I’m in the park. I’ve driven back to Oxford, watching to be sure I’m not tailed. Laila has called twice. I haven’t heard from Zima. I doubt I will. I suspect that even if he manages to get Paul away from Orbec, I’ll hear from Paul instead, Zima too concerned with finding his son and settling a score with his parents.

I saw Kim play her hiding game in a small patch of forest. On the drive here, I mentally move past the “finding the USB” part and on to planning my next move. That’s how easy I expected this search to be. It’s a quarter acre of forest. I know what I’m looking for. It’s a simple matter of retrieving the drive.

It is not a simple matter. A quarter acre seems tiny when you’re playing with a child. I remember once walking through this “forest” with Charlotte and laughing as she darted from tree to tree, hoping to spot a deer or fox. I remember thinking I really needed to get my daughter out of the city more often if this was her idea of wilderness.

Yes, this patch wouldn’t hide a herd of deer, but it’s more than a few trees. It’s dozens of them, plus fallen logs and piles of dead leaves and pockets of brush. After ten minutes of wild searching—under this log, in this knothole—I stop and force myself to proceed methodically. Check every tree for knotholes. Lift every log and fallen branch. Forget the leaf piles for now—if I were Kim, I’d pick a spot he’d remember, and a random leaf pile wasn’t good enough.

I’m still searching when my phone rings. I think it’ll be Laila again, and I’m ready to ignore it when I see that it’s Orbec. I check the clock. It’s been fifty-five minutes.

“You said an hour,” I say when I answer.

He gives a chuckle. It sounds strained, but it’s probably just the connection. “If you don’t have it by now, you won’t have it in the next five minutes, Aubrey. Did I make a mistake taking your estranged husband? Are you hoping I’ll kill him? Save you the hassle of a divorce?”

“If that’s a joke, it’s not funny.”

“Good. I read the situation correctly. You want him back, which means you have the drive—”

“I don’t have your drive, asshole. I met Kim once. Maybe you can’t imagine a stranger getting involved in this, but take a closer look at your life and consider the possibility that’s just you.”

“No, I’m quite certain it’s not. If you’re stalling—”

“Yes.” I check yet another knothole. “Yes, I am stalling. Because I’m hunting for this damned drive. I have a good idea where it is. That’s detective work, not insider information. I’m searching for it right now.”

“I don’t believe you.”

I let out a string of profanity that makes him chuckle again.

“You have quite the mouth on you, Aubrey. Not exactly the nice little librarian you pretend to be.”

“Give me another half hour.”

“I’m not giving you another half minute—”

I let out a grunt of pain that stops him short. I’ve stubbed my toe, walking with my gaze on the trees. I look down to see a rock. A rock beside a depression. A rock that has been moved.

While Orbec blusters, I bend and move the rock. There, under it, is a small black box. My hands shake as I take it out. I open it to see . . .

“I found it!” I say. “I have the drive.”

I swear I hear Orbec exhale in relief. Apparently, I’m not the only one who needs this data. If he doesn’t get it, he’ll be in deep trouble with his boss . . . a guy who solves problems with bullets.

“Describe it,” he says.

“Thumb drive. Silver swing top. Blue base. There’s lettering . . . Zima Auto Body.”

He definitely exhales now. “That’s it. Bring—”

“I want to speak to my husband.”

“You’ll see him soon.”

“I don’t trust you. Let me speak to him, or I turn this over to the feds.”