Reception was worse than spotty. No hotspot. Data didn’t work until it did for five seconds, then my phone would buzz so hard with back notifications I thought the casing would break.

I pulled into the motel parking lot. Two long stories. No cars. Unlit soda vending machine and a snack machine with nothing in the spirals. The office door had a coded realtor’s key box on it.

So much for the locals knowing where to find a hotel. I plucked up my phone. No signal, but I could see what had come in. I ignored everything but Deepak on our cloaked and encrypted message stream.

“Don’t tell me.” I scrolled down. “It’s—”

“We have to close the hole first. Then GreyHatC0n.” I was talking to myself in the front seat of the car. I never talked to myself. I was too secretive for that.

The crunch of tires on gravel made me look up from my phone and roll down my window. A claptrap Chevy with a rusted-out bottom pulled up alongside the Caddy. At some distant point in the 1990s, it had been either dark blue, forest green, or some shade of grey. The hand-tinting on the windows was buckling and cracking, leaving clouds of transparency on the glass.

The passenger window rolled down slowly, with an uncomfortable grinding noise, revealing the blonde from the grocery store.

Harper.

“Hey,” she said. “I called, and it turns out they closed.”

“Apparently.”

“Sorry. I don’t stay in the hotels.”

“Not your fault. I should have listened.”

She acknowledged my apology with a smile. “I can take you somewhere else.”

“Actually.” I ended the sentence. I didn’t want to ask this across car windows. I opened the Caddy door as much as I could without denting the Chevy and slid out.

She took the cue and got out of her car. We met by the taillights.

“Actually?” The wind caught the edges of her hair, sending blades out in a corona around her face. I gripped my thumbs in my fists. She folded her hands in front of her.

“Do you know anything about the Barrington Bottling Plant?”

She gave me half a laugh that was as good as an eye roll but wasn’t. I got the impression eye-rolling was beneath her.

“Why? It’s cl—”

“—osed. I know.”

“You want to buy it? It’s up for sale if you can pay the back taxes.”

“I’m not in the market for a bottling plant. I just… you know…” I put up one hand in surrender. “I’m a lousy liar. So I can’t make up something plausible, but I can’t tell you either.”

“Okay?”

“Can you take me to it?”

“Are you going to cut me into little pieces when we get there?”

“Uh, no.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Do you intend any harm to me at all?”

“No.”

“Are you going to come on to me?”

“No, but if you want to come on to me—”

“I don’t.”

“Too bad,” I said.

“You really must be a lousy liar.”

“Truth is easier. You’re safe. Promise. I’ll keep my hands in my pockets.”

“We take my car.”

“Deal.”

She pulled out so I could open the door. When I closed it and she smiled, for the second time, I had the nagging feeling I’d seen her before.