“Well, we are being chased. I mentioned that to you earlier, didn’t I?”
“Ha. Ha.”
“Oh, and someone spotted Nate in Walla Walla a little while ago.”
She sat up. “What? Where is he?”
“Right next to me.”
She waited for him to go on, and when he didn’t, she said, “I swear to God, if you don’t tell me what happened right now, I will find you before the sun rises and—”
“Calm down, honey.”
In an instant, she went from worried to pissed off. “Don’t you tell me to calm down!”
“I didn’t mean it that—”
“Tell me what happened!”
“I will, okay? Just—”
“If you say relax, this is the last baby you will have the chance to create.”
After a beat, he recounted the close call they’d had before leaving Walla Walla.
“They’ve got to be using traffic cams,” she told him. “You need to get onto a road that’s not covered.”
“I know, but our options are pretty limited right now.”
Orlando looked at the map. “I show you nine miles outside Waitsburg. Is that right?”
“Give or take.”
“When you get there, take 124 west.” It would take them in the opposite direction they wanted to go, but the likelihood of their being captured by any cameras would be near zero.
“We were already planning on doing that.”
“Oh…well, then, good,” she said.
“Get some rest, okay? It’s late,” he said. “You guys aren’t still on the road, are you?”
Reflexively, she cupped her hand around the bottom of her phone to block the sound of the RV. “All tucked in for the night.”
“Then sleep. I’ll call if there’s anything you can do.”
“One thing.”
“Yeah?”
“If you get a chance, ask Dani about a girl named Marianne Trudeaux.”
“Who is she?”
“Facial recognition kicked her back as a possible match for Dani. She isn’t, but they look enough alike that they could be related.”
“All right, I’ll ask. Now go to sleep.”
Quinn glanced at Dani as he hung up the phone.
She was staring at the dark countryside, lost in thought, like she’d been doing since not long after Nate picked them up, so he decided to leave Orlando’s question unasked for now.
At Waitsburg, they switched to the lesser used road and headed west. It wasn’t the perfect solution. Once the others knew the three of them weren’t on the highway anymore, they would quickly figure out what had happened. Route 124 was the only logical alternative in the area.
Darkness settled in tight around them as the lights of the town faded. For the first few minutes, theirs was the only car on the road. Then Nate’s eyes paused on the rearview mirror. “Someone’s back there.”
Quinn and Dani looked out the rear window. There was a single pinpoint of light, maybe a mile back — a motorcycle or a car with one of its headlights out. Quinn watched it for several minutes. When he was sure the distance between them hadn’t changed, he relaxed. Dani also looked less concerned, so he decided now was as good a time as any.
“My friend wanted me to ask you a question,” he said.
She looked a little confused. “What?”
“Does the name Marianne Trudeaux mean anything to you?”
She sat up, her eyes wide. “Where did she hear that?”
“She didn’t tell me. Is it your name?”
“No.”
She seemed to be telling the truth. “Someone you know?”
More controlled than she’d been a few moments before, she said, “Sorry, I don’t know her.”
This time she was lying, but he knew if he pushed she’d completely shut down. He sent Orlando a text:
She’s not admitting it, but she knows the name.
Bianca caught up with the Lexus five miles before it reached Waitsburg and followed from a hundred yards back, tucked in behind a minivan. Tailing them through the small town had been trickier, the place all but dead at that time of night. But once she realized they were headed to the state road, she backed off.
According to the map, only a handful of roads led off the route. She could afford to give them plenty of space to get comfortable before she made her move.
She watched the Lexus’s taillights. A few miles out of town, the car disappeared around a corner. When it was out of sight, she switched off her lights and increased her speed.
Quinn looked out the back. The other vehicle had not reappeared after they took the bend in the road.
“Must have turned off,” Nate said.
Quinn settled back in his seat. “Let’s hope so.”
“Donnie, give me something, man. I should have caught up to them by now.”
As soon as Orbits knew Quinn and his companions had skipped town, he hightailed it down the highway, not worried about getting pulled over. A few minutes before, he had passed Waitsburg and continued east on US 12, but unless the others were driving as fast as he was, he should have seen them by now.
“Hold on, I’m scrolling through the footage.”
“Faster!”
A pause, then, “Dammit.”
“What?”
“I just caught up to the live feed and you just drove by but they haven’t yet. You must have passed them.”
Orbits braked to a halt in the middle of the road. “If I’d passed them, I would have known it. I’ve only seen four cars and none was a Lexus.
“The last image I have of them is from before Waitsburg. Maybe they stopped there.”
Orbits executed a U-turn and headed back the other way. “Why would they stop? It doesn’t make any sense.” Waitsburg was only about thirty minutes from Walla Walla, where Quinn and the others had stayed for several hours. There was no reason to stop again so soon.
“How should I know?” Donnie said. “Maybe they had car problems, or maybe…oh.”
“Oh what?”
“There’s a road going west. Route 124. They must have gone that way.”
“Goddammit, Donnie! I just lost ten minutes. You should have figured that out sooner!”
Stevens kept the helicopter on the ground until the techs had identified not only the targets’ current vehicle but where they had gone. Once that information was received, he and his team lifted off, all running lights extinguished.
Instead of following US 12 to Waitsburg, they flew in a straight line northeast to the edge of the town. Stevens then ordered the pilot to parallel Route 124 a quarter mile to the south and fifteen hundred feet up.
One of his men spotted a car a mile outside of town, heading west. A check via night vision scope revealed the vehicle was not a Lexus.
Five empty miles of road later, a different spotter said, “Headlights.”
About a half mile farther on, two lights cut a lonely path through the darkness.
When they confirmed it was a Lexus, Stevens consulted the map. “There’s a small town coming up,” he told the pilot. “After that, it’s clear for a long stretch. Here.” He tapped the map. “There’s a curve in the road about twelve miles ahead. Take us there.”
CHAPTER 25
Quinn, Nate, and Dani drove through the little village of Prescott and continued west. With each passing mile, the hills on the right closed in until they were right up against the road.
Three cars had passed the Lexus going the other way, but so far the only car on their side of the road had been the one Nate had spotted way back at the beginning.
In another twenty minutes, they should reach Kennewick. From there, they could take smaller roads to the Columbia River. They would have a decision to make at that point — stay in Washington or take a chance by crossing over via the interstate.