Page 39 of Wired Justice

His hand served no useful function so Sophie ignored it, palming her Glock as well. “How far off the road did you park the Jeep? I didn’t pay attention.”

“Not very far. Hopefully they went by too fast to notice it. I wish I’d hidden it better. That SUV has a gangster vibe.” Jake beeped open the Jeep. They jumped in, firing up the engine, as the dogs woofed a greeting.

Sophie gritted her teeth and Ginger gave a startled yelp, as Jake floored it, peeling out onto the road,. They roared down the potholed road, catching air on the dips due to the Jeep’s stiff suspension. Sophie clung to the door handle as they took a curve too fast, throwing her against the window.

Jake hung a left once they reached the main highway, continuing to break speed limits for a few more miles. He hung a left onto a tiny side road, and backed the Jeep in under some trees so they could watch the highway. He turned off the lights.

Darkness settled over them, marked by the dogs’ panting.

They were rewarded a few minutes later by the sight of the big black SUV streaking back toward Hilo. Jake craned to look after it. “Did you get a plate number?”

“No. They were moving too fast. Not that any plate on that SUV would go back to anything real.” Sophie’s heart rate was finally settling. “Speaking of, maybe we should obscure our number, too, in case they took it down when they passed us near the house.”

Sophie got out of the vehicle, scooped a couple of handfuls of handy mud from a nearby puddle, and rubbed the slurry over the rental’s license plates. She got back in the car and poured some of the dogs’ water over her hands. “I can’t wait to get a shower at the cabin.”

They drove at a much more sedate pace back toward Volcanoes National Park, just a couple of tourists in a rental Jeep. There was no telling whether that SUV was pulling the same trick they had done, and hurrying would draw attention.

Sophie liked it that Jake knew this, that he knew how to shake a tail, that he’d thought of staying off the road when they left the house. They worked so well together that they hardly needed to talk about what they were doing.

What she didn’t want to think about was another night, tossing and turning on the other side of a wall so thin that she could hear him tossing and turning, too.

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