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“Oh, come on, Tegan,” she said. “I was in a car crash, remember? It gave me all kinds of passes a moment ago.”

“That was then,” Ms. Byers said as if she was talking about something that had happened ten years ago. “Nothing that irritated me then involved the police.”

“How does everyone notice?” I asked, my voice low. Not expecting an answer.

Ms. Byers scoffed at me. “Easy. You keep checking each other out all the time. The little show you just pulled in front of the laptop confirmed it.” She sat with her arms folded as she looked at us. If she hadn’t been so outraged she might have looked like a sleuth revealing her theory of a crime to her audience.

At this point, though, I realized one thing. I was done being ashamed of that part of my time with Evans. And I really had been. Ashamed and angry. She had managed to get me to give that up, hadn’t she? She could have dropped the cuffs, though. I hadn’t liked that part. But there was no point in being angry because I found her attractive. And let’s face it, I did. Trusting her, though, that was a whole other issue.

“Regardless,” I broke into the discussion between the two women. “We have more pressing matters, yes?”

Ms. Byers stared silently at me through eyes narrowed to slits before she looked at her friend again. “I’m just saying that you know better, Maggie. They always turn on us.”

“I can’t deal with this now, Tegan,” she said. “He’s right. We need to see if Andrea is being kept out by…what was it called again?” she directed the question to me.

“Steep Rock,” I said, studying the map. The house was mounted on a rise in the terrain, cliffs rising from a sandy beach.

“They really put their imagination into it, didn’t they?” Evans said as she spread out her hands in anothing to do about itgesture. Ms. Byers kept her arms crossed but nodded. Even if she had not been there to see Andrea, she understood what was at stake.

Evans found a khaki-green jacket to replace the one that had been soaked in Thomás’ blood. I saw that hanging over one of Ms. Byers’ living room chairs.

“In case you don’t hear from me,” Evans said to Ms. Byers as she headed for the door.

“I know. Twenty-four hours and I call Gerard,” she said, unfolding her arms now. She might be pissed about something that was not her, or anyone else’s, business, but she was also worried about her friend. “Just be careful, okay, Maggie?”

Evans simply nodded and opened the door, almost stepping on Misty, who apparently sat there waiting for Ms. Byers.

“You weren’t kidding about the animals, were you?” I asked as I managed to close the door without the cat getting in. Somehow, I didn’t think it was in Misty’s best interest to be commanded again by the now furious thought-controller in the apartment behind me.

Eight

“Stop the car.”Hansen sat up and placed a hand on the dashboard, straining to see what was ahead of us. It was a car, visible in the darkness because the emergency blinkers were on. The front door on the driver’s side was open, while something lay on the road in front of the car.

Odd.

“What are you doing?” Hansen asked. “Slow down.”

I did and stopped the Beetle behind the other car. Nothing moved ahead of us. No cars coming, no one moving around on foot. Granted, it was late and the middle of a work week, but still.

I turned toward Hansen. “Listen, this—”

He was already on his way out of the car. I rolled my eyes and opened the car door. “Don’t you think it’s odd?” I told him. “Two car accidents on the same road…on the same day?”

He halted a moment and looked at me with surprise. “Not like the first one was a normal accident.”

He had me there, and I watched him walk around the front of the Beetle and further along the car in front of us checking the driver’s side. It was a blue Ford. I couldn’t see the driver anywhere, and I doubted he was the figure on the ground in front of the car. All I saw from where I stood, leaning one elbow on the car door, and the other on the Beetle’s roof, was a pair of feet. Was it a hit and run? Such things did happen, of course, but usually, the driver would take off in the car, not on foot. I scanned the nearby area, but there was nothing to see. Only the road, trees to each side, the smell of exhaust, black sky above.

Hansen stopped by the front of the Ford and stared at the body on the ground. I sighed. If he wasn’t leaping into action, there was likely nothing to be done for the person. It had to look bad I guessed, for him to see that the person was dead without needing to check.

Hansen turned back toward me. “Can you kill the engines?” he shouted.

I nodded, sat back in and turned off the Beetle’s engine. The only sound left was the Ford. A steady low rumble.

I got out and headed for the other car. The blinking emergency-lights lit up the area in sharp bursts. An odd thing to remember to use in a panic. Hansen seemed fairly calm, though, and I sat in the car and reached around the wheel to turn the key. With the door not obstructing my view, I saw that Hansen had drawn his gun.

I froze.

No gun needed for a dead body.

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