It worked.
Slowly, my head began to clear, like feeling your ears pop as the plane makes its final approach. My hands steadied and my legs seemed to come back under my own control. I got to my feet, brushing away the sand that still clung to the sweat-soaked knees of my silk trousers. Trey stepped back, hands hanging by his sides now, watching me.
We were nearly as far down the beach as the Boardwalk but I couldn’t quite remember how we’d got there. All I could feel was my own raging thirst and the fact that any exposed areas of skin had started to burn. I needed to get out of the sun. Find a bolt-hole. Somewhere I could regroup and take stock.
Somewhere I could try and come up with a plan to get us out of this mess.
“So, like, what do we do now?” Trey asked. He was panting a little, too. Not just me who was feeling the burden of the heat, then.
I smiled at him. Not a full-blown, reassuring, this-will-all-be-OK kind of a smile but not a bad fake, given the circumstances.
“We need some cover,” I said firmly, gesturing to my reddened arms when we both knew I was really referring to the FBI. “Do your ears feel up to another tour of the show?”
I saw his shoulders come down a fraction with a relief he tried not to let show too much. He shrugged, going for nonchalant, going for cool. “Whatever,” he said airily.
I guessed that was the nearest to enthusiasm I was going to get from him.
***
Inside the Spring Break Nationals it wasn’t any quieter than it had been the last time we were there on Friday. In fact, I realised that it had probably just been warming up and now, late morning on Sunday, it was building towards its climax.
Most of the exhibitors’ booths had acquired a new attraction today, it seemed. Pretty girls wearing not much more than their underwear were signing posters of themselves for queues of adoring, if slightly hungover, teens. The girls all wore exactly the same shade of tan, like they’d been sprayed out of a bottle.
I had to link my arm through Trey’s to stop him tripping over his tongue. When he realised he’d been caught ogling he dropped his gaze to the carpeting and kept it there unwaveringly. Until the next scantily-clad lovely, at any rate.
When my eyes and ears had had enough punishment we ventured back out into the heat. I let Trey lead me in apparently aimless fashion up and down the rows of cars on display, with no real clue what I was supposed to be looking at.
To be honest, half my brain was taken up with scanning the people around us, checking not so much for uniforms this time, but for the ones with the watchful eyes and ready hands. Looking for the ones who were looking for us.
It was with a jolt, then, that my eye ran across two faces I recognised but had never expected to see here.
Aimee and Xander.
For a moment I made no moves, did nothing to alert either them or Trey. My first thoughts were suspicious ones. Xander had claimed he was grounded for years. I’d assumed the same went for Aimee. So what were they doing out at all? Were they here as bait for us? If so, who was pulling their strings?
Every nasty scenario I could think of flashed through my head, including that the two were somehow connected to Whitmarsh or Oakley man. No, it was much more likely that they’d been drafted in by the Feds to betray us.
Almost as soon as my doubts arrived I dismissed them, but still I couldn’t bring myself to make contact. Xander and Aimee and Scott had thought of Trey as their friend. They’d trusted him – trusted me, more to the point – and had paid a high price for that friendship. Too high a price? Scott was still in hospital. He might not walk again. Even if they were completely on the level I doubted that they’d really want to see either of us right now. Besides, coming hard on top of the morning I’d had already I didn’t think I could face another showdown.
Then Aimee turned and caught sight of us, and it was out of my hands.
She gave a whoop and ran across the short distance that separated us, scooping Trey up into a bear hug so fierce I thought his skinny ribs would crack.
I realised then that Xander was watching me and something about the tension in him told me he knew I’d spotted them first. Spotted them and done nothing about it. As he moved across to join us the nod of greeting he gave me was cautious, to say the least.
“So how did you get out?” I tried but couldn’t keep the touch of cynicism in my voice. “Dig a tunnel?”
Xander didn’t react to the faint jibe. “Once Mom and Dad got over being angry and being scared they kinda realised it wasn’t our fault Scott was caught up in a, like, random drive-by,” he said, with little apparent irony in his tone.
“Mine even thought we’d acted kinda brave and responsible, y’know, under the circumstances,” Aimee put in, releasing Trey so he could catch his breath.
“So here you are,” I said, cool.
“Yeah, here we are,” Xander said, matching me, his eyes a little narrowed.
Aimee flicked her eyes over the three of us. “How you doin’, girl?” she asked, studying me with her head on one side. “You hanging in there OK?”
“Just about,” I said, breaking my gaze away from Xander’s to glance at her.
“Anybody thirsty?” Trey asked suddenly, his voice a touch high. “Let’s go ‘cross the street and grab a bunch of sodas, yeah?”
For a moment none of us gave any sign of having heard him, then Xander blinked a couple of times. “Sure,” he said, raising a smile. “Good idea. Why not?”
We walked out of the show area and crossed over the road, dodging the backed-up traffic that was already snarling the main drag. As we went I noticed Trey casting anxious looks at each of us and realised that he’d just been trying to keep the peace. We were the only things so far he’d been able to rely on. He couldn’t afford us to be at one another’s throats. Not when I’d cracked up on him once this morning already.
We went to the same little diner where we’d been eating when Henry’s fateful phone call had arrived. It was only after we’d sat down at one of the round outside tables that the significance of that seemed to occur to him. He shuffled for a moment, looking awkward, but the waitress arrived to take our order and the moment passed.
I hutched my chair sideways until I was mostly in the shade of the umbrella over our table. Even so I could feel the heat radiating from my burnt arms like I was sitting next to a furnace.
“You should, like, put something on that, y’know,” Aimee said, nodding to them. “It’s real bad to let yourself burn like that.”
I’d been doing a lot of things lately that were real bad for me.
“I know,” I said. She shut up.
The drinks arrived, full to the brim with ice, and I settled for leaning my arms against the sides of the tall red plastic glass instead. It wasn’t scientific, but it was certainly soothing.
To begin with the kids were stiff and uncomfortable with each other but gradually they began to loosen up a little and to chat. I didn’t join in, just let the conversation flow over and around me. I kept my gaze sweeping over the surrounding area, looking for trouble.
It took about ten minutes before I found it.
One moment my eye had skimmed across the far pavement outside the front of the Ocean Center and it was empty of any threat. On the return pass, however, there was a man standing there.
He stood easily, relaxed, with his thumbs hooked into his pockets, waiting. Waiting for me to spot him and make my move.
I came to my feet automatically, clutching my bag.
“Wait here,” I said to Trey, clipped, without shifting my eyes from my target. He followed my gaze and let out a gasp, half rising in his seat. I put a hand on his shoulder and eased him back down again.