Chapter Thirty-Two

Nina

“Hey, thanks for this,” I breathed, not focusing on the Uber driver too closely. The files were right on my lap, and I couldn’t help but train my eyes there, subconsciously deconstructing all the information. I was positive that some of my “vendors” were major drug or weapons dealers in nearby providences.

“Yep,” the driver murmured.

My eyes shifted from the files to the outside world again, focusing on the backseat window. “If you could step on it, I’d appreciate it.”

“No problem.”

The Honda lingered at the perimeter of the motel parking lot, and then spilled out into the morning traffic of uptown Hinton. We weren’t into the thick of it yet, still surrounded by pawn shops and gas stations, but the road in front of us had skyscrapers rising up on either side. The police department wouldn’t be far. They were farther north, and a little east. Ten minutes to get there, ten minutes to drop off the documents, ten minutes to get back, and viola. By the time Eli woke up, I would have already solved the case for him. For both of us.

Outside the window, pawn shops and gas stations turned into banks and capitalist companies that were established a hundred years ago. Traffic was sluggish, and my fingers worried at the ledges of the files, doing mental math on the odds of whether I was about to get caught.

“I’m in a hurry,” I reminded the driver, still keeping my tone friendly and not pushing too hard. There wasn’t much anyone could do about traffic, but maybe it would help incentivize him if he was reminded. “I need to be back as soon as possible.”

“Ah.”

The turn toward the police station was still a few blocks away, but the driver twisted his Honda to the left and took it between a law firm and a deli. We were on the far east side of town, and we needed to get to the middle. What was he doing?

“What’s going on?” The little hairs on the back of my neck prickled. “We’re going the wrong way.”

“Shortcut,” the driver explained.

“Oh.” I quieted, but my subconscious still didn’t calm. Something was wrong in this car. He had pulled up to the motel room, not to the lobby. And it was overcast outside. Why was he wearing sunglasses? Why was he so bundled up? “I need to get back before my boyfriend wakes up, or he’s going to be pissed, you know?” I offered the driver a friendly smile out of some habitual need to be polite to strangers, even the creepy ones. I also wanted the driver to know that someone was waiting on me back at that motel. “He’s very protective of me,” I added.

My eyes tipped up to meet the eyes of my Uber driver in the rearview mirror. I couldn’t see their color, but the skin around the eyes crinkled warmly in response. Tan skin with fine lines…

“Is that so,” the driver purred in amusement, speaking clearly for the first time since I had gotten into that car. “And here you always told me that you wanted to develop your career before you settled into a serious relationship.”

My heart beat hard, but it was frozen solid at the same time.

“L-Laurence?” I stammered, speaking in a tiny squeak. How could it be? How could he be in the Uber?

The Honda lurched and jostled over a curb, out onto a narrow inlet that would soon connect to a stretch of highway at the crossroad ahead. That highway fed into Hinton and was also a tributary to the surrounding suburbs.

My jaw dropped. He was taking me out of town.

The locks all came down in unison, resounding with a horrific latch. My automatic response was to paw at the handle and then fumble with the lock. Critical thinking flew out of my head like a flock of bats. Panic settled into its place.

“Hey, doll,” Laurence called back to me, no longer attempting to disguise his voice. “It’s good to see you again. We thought we lost you for a minute.”

Think, think, think.

The lock I’d fumbled up clacked back down by some button mechanism up front.

There’s a stop sign up ahead. When he stops, go for the lock and the handle at the same time. Jump if you have to. Just get out of this car.

“What you got in your lap there, anyway?” Laurence asked. The Honda slowed as it approached the stop sign, even though no one was in the intersection at the moment. He was driving by habit. He didn’t realize how desperate I was to escape. “More importantly, since when did Eli become your boyfriend? You do know that he’s technically your brother, right?”

“Stepbrother,” I growled, pouncing on the door. I grasped the lock and the door handle at the same time, but Laurence caught the flurry of movement in the rearview mirror easily. He jammed his foot down onto the gas pedal and the Honda spilled out into the intersection with no regard for human life. His foot jammed harder onto the gas and we were probably doing fifty-five as we raced down the highway entrance ramp and then blended with the traffic already on it.

No stop signs on a highway. No red lights.

I swallowed thickly, and my dazed eyes turned over my shoulder to observe the gray city becoming smaller in the distance. I should have known. How could I have been so stupid? He came to the motel room instead of the lobby! He took the wrong turn! Why did I think that everything was okay and normal?

Because that’s what you’ve been trained to think. All your life, you’ve been trained to believe easy, obvious things. It was Eli who had to figure out the hard, secret way that life works. He’s the one who lost his mother. He’s the one who lived on the literal street. He knew that the world was an ugly place, and he tried to warn you, but you wouldn’t listen. You couldn’t let go of that lie everybody tells each other all the time: Everything will be all right.