“It’s hard to figure why no one’s seen her though. A new car seems to pull in here every ten minutes with people out scouting for her. Teddy must have half the town searching,” Jason said, turning back. “If she’s on foot, someone should have seen her by now. Maybe she thumbed it.”
“Thumbed?” Drina asked blankly.
“You know.” He held out his hand, fingers curled into a fist and thumb up. When she still looked blank, he added, “Hitchhiking. She must have hitched a ride or something.” Jason smiled faintly when her expression cleared. “Your accent. . you’re not from around here, huh?”
Drina shook her head, and murmured, “Spain.”
“Cool.” He nodded. “Always wanted to go. Someday I will.”
“Were there any other cars here when Anders was getting gas?” she asked suddenly.
“Anders,” Jason said blankly, and then his expression cleared, and he said, “Oh, you mean the cool black dude who lost the girl?”
Drina nodded.
“Well, yeah, some old dude was in here paying for his gas and getting junk food. A real asswipe,” he added with a sneer. “He saw your Anders guy get out and start pumping, and says to me, “You better lock up the till and door, boy. That nigger’s probably here to rob you.” Jason snorted. “Racist old prick. I checked the security tape after he’d left and, sure enough, he was the thief. Pocketed at least three chocolate bars when I turned my back to get the lottery tickets he wanted.”
Drina stilled. “Security tape?”
“Yeah.” He waved toward a corner of the store. “My boss put them in last year. Said it would keep the insurance down.”
Drina peered at what looked like a rounded mirror in the corner and considered the direction it was pointing.
“That Anders guy asked about them too, but there aren’t any outside, and it doesn’t show the pumps. There’s only the one inside, so he didn’t bother with it. But you can check out the security tape if you want.”
Drina hesitated, but then decided she might as well. They hadn’t been able to find Stephanie by driving around. Perhaps there was something on the tape that might be useful. “Yes. Please.”
“Come around,” he invited, waving toward the end of the counter.
Drina walked around the long counter and came up behind it as Jason knelt to start typing on a keyboard under the counter next to where he stood. There was a very small computer screen next to it.
“What are you doing?” she asked, as he typed, tapped at a mouse, and typed again.
“I’m pulling up the program and punching in the time I want so it will start replay there,” he explained, and muttered, “A late-night Two and a Half Men rerun was on so it was between eleven and eleven thirty.”
“A late-night Two and a Half Men rerun?” she echoed with confusion.
“A comedy show on television. I watch it instead of the news,” he explained, gesturing to a small television on his other side. “It passes time while I’m sitting here twiddling my thumbs.”
“Oh.” She nodded, and then glanced to the door as Harper entered.
Apparently, he was done pumping gas.
“What’s going on?” he asked, as the door closed behind him.
“Security video,” she answered, and he came around the counter to join them.
“There,” Jason said with satisfaction, and an image popped up on the computer screen of the store.
Drina noted the miniature Jason slumped in the corner watching his little television. Her gaze started to shift to the background, but Jason fiddled with the mouse a bit, and the image sped up. When a beer-bellied older man entered the store on the screen, he hit a button, and the image played at normal time again.
“That’s the asswipe,” Jason announced.
“Asswipe?” Harper echoed with amusement.
“Racist shoplifter,” Drina explained, but her attention had shifted to the background. It was true you couldn’t see the pumps, but she could see the parking lot in front of them and the exit sign.
“See, I told you he lifted three bars.”
Drina glanced to the man shoving something in his pocket while Jason worked at the lottery machine, but then her attention shifted back to the background as the nose of a vehicle appeared halfway up the left edge of the screen. The SUV, she was sure, and was proven right when Jason said, “That’s the Anders guy’s truck, and now the asswipe’s making his crack about locking up the till and store.”
Drina nodded but continued to watch without comment.
“Then he just stood there in the store for a bit like he was afraid to go out, like your Anders guy would rob him or something,” Jason commented with disgust. “There, Anders must be heading in to pay ’cause that’s when the guy scooted out.”
They watched the old man leave the store. Three seconds later, Anders entered and waited as Jason punched buttons and jiggled things on the cash register.
“I had trouble ringing him up. This is a new system, and it’s kind of glitchy,” Jason muttered, sounding both annoyed and embarrassed.
“Stop!” Drina barked suddenly, and Jason started, and then scrambled to grab the mouse and pause the image for her.
“What?” he asked, glancing at the screen uncertainly. “He’s just signing the slip.”
“Back it up, but just a little,” Drina said. He hit his mouse, it started to rewind, and Drina said, “Stop,” again.
Jason’s hand was on the mouse, and he paused it at once, but frowned. “I don’t see anything.”
Harper had apparently seen what she had. He leaned past Drina and pointed to the car on the street. It had just pulled out of the gas-station exit. “She’s in the backseat.”
Jason leaned closer and squinted. “I see a smudge that could be a head, but-”
“It’s her,” Drina assured him. She’d been watching the car when it had driven into view, headed for the exit. The backseat had been empty as it cruised to a stop at the street. Then it had turned onto the road, and a head had popped into view. It had to be Stephanie. “She hitched a ride.”
“That explains why we haven’t been able to find her walking the streets,” Harper muttered. “We should call Teddy and give him a description of the car and the license-plate number. He can pass it to everyone.”
“Good thinking,” Jason said, grabbing his mouse again. “I’ll make the image bigger and see if we can read it.”
“No need, I’ve got it,” Drina assured him. “Can I use the phone again?”
“Well, yeah, sure, but-” He fell silent as she turned sideways to pick up the phone on the counter behind them. Then he bent to squint at the screen again. Shaking his head, he glanced to Harper, and said, “There’s noway she can see the license plate, let alone read it.”
“She has very good eyes,” Harper said solemnly, as Drina punched in Teddy’s number.
“Man, that’s not good eyes, that’s whacked, superscary sci-fi eyes,” Jason assured him, and then frowned, and said, “You look familiar. Are you-” He stopped suddenly and slapped himself in the forehead. “You’re that vamp guy who rents a room next door to my buddy Owen’s place.”
Drina saw Harper wince and bit back a smile, but then Jason turned to her, his eyes widening farther.
“Oh, whoa, that means you’re probably one of the vamp chicks staying there. Aren’t you?”
“Owen is the son of Elvi’s neighbor,” Harper explained to her, then in answer to the question said, “Yes.”
“Damn,” Jason muttered, not even sparing Harper a glance. He then added mournfully, “I shoulda known. You’re too hot to be human.”
Drina just shook her head and turned her back to him. She was human, and she definitely was not too hot to be anything. In fact, she didn’t consider herself hot at all. She was really rather average. But she was immortal, and for some reason mortals tended to find them attractive. Beth had a theory about it. Since she drew a lot more attention from mortal men now that she was immortal, Beth suspected it was another little trick of the nanos, making their bodies create and release extrastrong pheromones to attract prey.