Kris and Penny grabbed their purses and, without a backward glance, left.
Twenty minutes later, going well below the posted speed limit, they passed a convoy of dark SUVs roaring along in the opposite direction.
Penny kept driving. Kris followed the putative police rigs, and found herself looking at Jack in the backseat. Ever the gentleman, he was doing yoga in its small space. Their eyes met.
“How much you want to bet me,” Jack said, “the folks in those rigs really want to make our acquaintance?”
“No bet,” Kris said through a grin. “I can’t bet. Remember, I’m just a poor, homeless waif.”
“Thank God both of us felt the strong urge to be homeless again,” Penny said, and kept driving.
* * *
Senior Chief Agent in Charge Foile surveyed yet another empty hideout. He was getting very tired of being one step behind the Longknife princess.
“Boss, you need to see this,” Leslie said, waving him over to look at a six-by-six post that supported the roof. Three darts stuck out of the wood. Leslie pried one out and lifted it to the light.
“They’re sleepy darts, sir. They have a coating on the tip of the dart that should put anyone it hits to sleep. Princess Longknife’s troops have used them a lot.”
“So they won’t kill you,” Foile grumbled.
“Not if you don’t have a bad heart or fall asleep in the bathtub. They are a weapon of less than lethal intent, but they’re still a weapon.”
“Three darts,” Foile counted. “So likely three less than deadly guns on our three fugitives.”
“A good guess, sir.”
“Have shots been fired in this place?” Foile said, raising his voice in an omnidirectional question to the forensic team now taking the place apart.
“Shot or shots were fired. Strangely, not a lot of residue,” one CSI investigator with a large black box announced. “No evidence of high explosives, though. Certainly nothing here to qualify this as a terrorist location.”
Foile chose to ignore the additional information. No doubt it would come out in the media. “Would the low residue fit the sleepy dart hypothesis?”
The CSI investigator nodded.
“When did they leave?” was another wide-open question to the experts.
“Somebody had lunch and didn’t eat the crusts of their bread,” a CSI type at the table announced.
“Someone stoked the fire for us,” Mahomet reported from where he was warming his hands by it. He’d led the outside search team and looked frozen.
“Anything outside?” Foile asked.
“The great outdoors,” his chilly agent replied. “No car, so they’re likely on the move back to town. Other than that, nothing since last night’s snow but a few footprints between here and the garage.”
“Clean as a whistle,” came from the head of the CSI team. “There is evidence of sexual activity in front of the fireplace. A lot of it. Some fresh.”
Leslie got a big grin on her face.
“Not a word,” Foile ordered sternly. “The Prime Minister will not learn of any of this; nor will the media.”
“Yes, boss, but a girl’s got the right to be glad when another girl gets lucky.”
“Yes, but you can store your grin. This girl has the job of checking out every surveillance camera between here and town. I want to know where they’re headed.”
“Sir, I told you there are not a lot of cameras between here and town, and the snow made all of them lousy.”
“Well, it’s not snowing right now. Hunt, my fine agent, hunt.”
31
Kris had them pull off the freeway into a working-class neighborhood. Penny was just about to do it herself. “We ought to be safe here,” the cop’s daughter said. “No one pays for surveillance cameras where there’s little worth stealing.”
They cruised the side streets, working their way slowly toward the town’s center. Penny was the first to call for a halt. “I need a cup of coffee, which is a ladylike way to say I need to pee.”
“Nelly, can you find us a small restaurant with a back entrance?”
“Kris, I have a map of Wardhaven. It’s about two years old, but it does have all the traffic cameras on it. There’s a small bar and grill five blocks from here. It’s on a main drag with traffic cameras, but we can get to it by back streets.”
“Let’s head for it. I need to powder my nose. Noses, from the looks of the proboscis you put on me.”
Five minutes later, a visual check showed no cameras covering the rear of the place, so they pulled into the back parking lot of Mulligan’s Irish Bar and Grill.
Inside was shady and cameraless. They ordered coffee and pie, then took turns keeping an eye on things while one of them took care of business.
Jack was just coming back as the pie arrived. Kris studied the few occupants, it being between lunch and dinner, and the several TV screens, which showed various sporting events. One, however, was on a news channel.
Kris watched it out of the corner of her eye for about ten minutes, but none of their faces appeared. If they were the subject of a search, it hadn’t gotten to flashing their faces every five minutes.
They slowly enjoyed their coffee and pie. Jack had acquired Colonel Hancock’s receiver for the police net, and he and Sal monitored it while they ate. Traffic stayed moderate with no spikes. After a quiet hour, Jack paid the bill in cash, something that didn’t raise the waitress’s eyebrows even a smidge.
While he did, Kris browsed the back of the bar. Between the men’s and ladies’ room was a phone with a bright red and yellow sign. FRIENDS DON’T LET FRIENDS DRIVE DRUNK. CALL A CAB. There were numbers for four cab companies’ phones below it. There was also a bulletin board beside it with twenty or more business cards pinned to it.
NELLY, RECORD ALL THOSE CARDS.
DONE, KRIS. WHAT’S IT FOR?
WE’LL SEE LATER.
Jack rejoined them, and they slipped out the back.
“Where to?” Penny asked.
“Cruise the back streets,” Kris said. “Don’t do any one twice. Stay in quiet, middle-class neighborhoods. We’ve got time on our hands until eight. Think about where we want to eat supper.”
Kris had missed out on cruising as a teenager. She’d heard about it but never done it, having Harvey to take her anywhere she wanted. Somehow she suspected the usual teenage cruising was not done with two girls in front and a lone guy in back. Still, she got Jack talking about himself, and that was a good way of spending time.
Around five, they found a small seafood place, the Sail Inn, with an easy rear entrance. Again, no cameras, and plenty of screens showing sporting events and one on the news. Their faces were still not up. That was nice.
Kris still didn’t relax.
As it got close to six, Kris visited the powder room. Sure enough, there was another phone with the injunction to call a cab rather than drive drunk. There was also a collection of business cards pinned or taped up next to the phone. Cards for town-car businesses. Unregistered and without any of the controls that cab companies operated under, the town cars were usually just a driver and a car and a lot of business cards. They weren’t quite illegal, it being hard to outlaw someone offering to drive you around town and you offering to pay them.
NELLY, ARE ANY OF THE CARDS AT THE BAR AND GRILL NOT PINNED UP HERE?
THREE OF THEM, KRIS.
GIVE ME THE NUMBER OF THE ONE CLOSEST TO HERE.
Kris made the phone call, asking to be picked up at the back door of the Sail Inn. The driver said he’d be there in five minutes.
He was there in fifteen.
As Kris and her team got in, she noticed a police car pulling into the back parking lot. Maybe he was there for supper. Maybe he wasn’t. Kris ordered the driver to turn left, away from the main street and back toward quiet residential ones.