Page 10 of Fire Peak

She cursed under her breath as she watched the car disappear out of the lot. After such a quick, faraway glimpse, she couldn’t be a hundred percent sure it was Nick Perini. If she could have seen his hair, that would be different, but that beanie hid it almost entirely. She’d never seen Nick wear a beanie. But that didn’t mean anything. She hadn’t spent enough time with him to know if he never wore beanies, or if she’d simply never seen him in one.

She started up the Buick and set off after the beige rental car. The Buick handled like a slow-moving tank on a Sunday afternoon drive. It wasn’t the best vehicle for catching up to someone. Probably best, she thought. What would she do if she caught him—whoever it was? She wasn’t interested in any kind of confrontation. All she wanted was to know what was going on and how much jeopardy she was in.

Once she was sure the car was out of reach, she pulled over at a rest stop and hauled out her private encrypted internet Mi-Fi. No one could track her moves on it, other than the NSA, the CIA and probably multiple other spy agencies. But there was no reason she’d be on that kind of radar.

Besides, all she was doing was a simple internet search on a guy she found attractive. Standard practice for single ladies everywhere. She should have done it earlier. Too distracted.

Nick Perini and Nicholas Perini both turned up multiple hits and pages of images. She scanned through the images first to make sure she got the right guy. Not a single one matched the man she knew as Nick Perini.

That was suspicious. But not impossible. Some people weren’t on social media, strange as it was these days.

Nick worked for himself, so no company would have posted a photo of him on their public-facing page. But wouldn’t he have his own site somewhere? Nick Perini, researcher for hire. Let me be your eyes and ears before you lose your shirt, or something like that.

Her searching turned up nothing, so she switched gears. He’d been staying at a hotel within walking distance of Il Trovatore. A quick check of all the nearby hotels would at least tell her if he was back in town, with a rental car to follow her to the penitentiary for some reason.

She didn’t spot any beige rental cars in the parking lots of any of the three hotels near the restaurant. Would it be worth going inside to ask if he was staying there? Probably not. She’d have better luck hacking into their reservations systems.

As she drove home to her laptop, she sorted through all the other details Nick had dropped during their encounters. His daughter. Was she even real? What if he’d made up that entire wild story to gain her trust? Was anything he’d said real?

Hector the bird was real.

She swerved the Buick in the tightest semi-circle it could manage, which called for executing a five—make that seven—point turn in the middle of her street, and headed for the Wildlife Waystation.

“He’s recovering well,” the white-bearded avian vet assured her. “He should be ready for release into the wild in a week or so.”

“What a relief! I wonder if you could help me. When Nick and I brought the bird in, he asked me to send him regular updates on how Hector was doing. But I dropped my phone in the toilet—long, embarrassing story—and I don’t have his number anymore. Is there any chance you could help me get in touch with him?”

“Oh, there’s no need. He came in earlier today to check on Hector. Didn’t he tell you?”

“No, he did not, it must have been a last-minute change in plans. Well, as long as he knows how great Hector’s doing. That’s what matters.”

That wasn’t what mattered. Not at all. What mattered was the fact that Nick was in town when he was supposed to be gone, and the chances that he was the one tracking her had just skyrocketed.

Who was Nick Perini? Law enforcement? Her stomach roiled at the possibility. If he was regular law enforcement—a police officer, a U.S. Marshal, even an FBI agent—there would probably be some mention of him somewhere on the internet. But he could be part of a more low-profile group.

Or he could work in private security. So private he didn’t post any pictures of himself anywhere.

What if he was working for Hobbs Financial Services, trying to figure out who had secretly siphoned two million dollars off their obscenely overblown bottom line?

Suddenly Barlow, Indiana, felt far too small and exposed. Nick knew her car. He could easily find out where she lived, if he hadn’t already. In fact, now that she thought about it, hadn’t she noticed a smudge of dirt on a windowsill where there shouldn’t have been one? She liked to keep Granny’s house as clean as Granny had—in other words, literally spotless. Otherwise, she might get a ghost scolding.

She ran through her options. The first one that came to mind was to pretend that she hadn’t spotted Nick and carry on as before. Maybe Nick would reappear and she could try to figure out what he was up to.

Another option would be to confront him.

Neither of those options appealed to her at all. Nick might just be the tip of the iceberg. Whether he was law enforcement or private security, he had access to backup. She didn’t.

What if she was wrong and he wasn’t tracking her? Someone was—that note had told her that and asked for a pause. What better way to “pause” than to disappear for a while?

Which brought her to the next option. Leave town. Lay low. Until she knew what she was dealing with, she needed to stay off the internet. Make zero phone calls. Charge nothing on her credit card. In other words, she needed to go into hiding.

Only one place came to mind. The perfect remote off-the-radar off-grid location, complete with friends for support. Firelight Ridge.

5

She formulated her plan quickly. Speed was important here. Her best chance was if Nick didn’t know that she’d spotted him, and thought he could simply reappear at the park tomorrow morning with some explanation about the board meeting getting canceled. The faster she acted, the bigger her head start would be. If she could hit the road immediately, that would be best.

But first she needed to grab some things from home.

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