“Sorry,” the girl checking up on me said.“Carson was worried about you and sent me to check on you. Are youfeeling all right?”
“He didn’t mean kill,” Gina said. “Hejust meant hurt. We just won’t get paid this time. It’ll be okay,you’ll see.”
I knew I had to answer, but I didn’t want tomiss anything from the parking garage.
“What about the money? We need that!” Karinawas in complete hysterics, and I wanted desperately to swoop in andsave the day. I could play it off as a chance meeting. It would beso easy. But I couldn’t. The mission came first. In truth, I’d beputting myself and the girls in a lot of danger, and things couldgo very wrong. There was a pause in the conversation, so I tookit.
“I think so.” The pause had been super long.“I felt a bit sick and needed to get out of there. It was gettingso hot.”
“No kidding. We really should have a biggervenue.”
I made my way to the sink. She waited. Iwould have to go back out to the dance. How would I hear what washappening to the girls? I groaned inwardly as I washed and dried myhands. Blast that Carson. At any other moment, I would have praisedhis actions, but not today.
As I threw the wad of paper towel away,something came over the com. “What are you two doing?” I recognizedthe husky voice right off. It was Jericho. “You need to shut it.You want to wake up the whole area or something?”
I smiled at the girl who’d been sent tocheck on me. “Thanks for checking on me.”
“No problem. I’m Kirsten.” She wasn’t goingto leave me. I really was going to have to go back to the dance. Inanticipation, I used my phone to up the volume in my com as wewalked out. Booming music hit my ears, but I focused on my com,mindlessly following Kirsten.
I nodded as I listened to the action in thegarage. “What’s the problem?” It was Mikado. “We expected youfifteen minutes ago. S-Dub sent us to see what was taking solong.”
Four of the six car thieves were together.One was here. I spotted him at the far end of the dance floor. Atwisted fear squeezed my gut. Were the girls safe? I countedeveryone in the room. No one new had left. I guessed I wouldn’t beuncovering the two mystery thieves tonight. “We couldn’t get thecars to start,” Gina said. “They must have some anti-theftmechanism we haven’t learned about, yet.” I heard feetshuffling.
A car started. “I don’t know what you’retalking about.” Jericho spit the words at them. I wondered if thegirls were cowering or standing their ground. Most likelycowering.
Kirsten and I wove our way through thepeople dancing.
“What other car were you supposed to lift?”Mikado asked.
“That black Camry,” Gina said. I couldimagine her pointing in the direction of the other car, her fingershaking.
We made it to Carson, who was dancing with acrowd of kids. “Ah, you are alive.” He smiled, and without a shredof explanation, I joined the dance, hoping it was an extendedversion of the song so that I could focus on the girls and not onconversation with anyone.
“Take the Honda to the drop off point, andhurry.” Jericho’s voice was menacing. “Somebody has probablyalready noticed your absence. This was sloppy work, you two.” Thesound of a slap, a cry, and a gasp flew to my ears. I cringed andcouldn’t hold back my own gasp, which I hid behind a fake cough asI covered my mouth. “Don’t ever let me catch you crying again.”
One of the girls sucked in a ragged breath.Had it been Jericho or Mikado who had hit one of them? Anger welledup inside me. They were worse than bullies. I wanted to go teachthem a lesson. I had to consciously hold myself back from jumpingout the window and going after them. The quiet hum of a car met myears. The girls must have climbed into the Accord. I heard theengine get louder. They must have been leaving the garage. Quietsobs broke through the hum. I could imagine Jericho and Mikado wereright behind them in the black Camry.
I pretended to get a text and pulled out myphone. I texted the team that the cars were on the move. I hopedthey were able to pick up on the feed from the girls, but just incase, I wanted to make sure they knew so they could follow them totheir destination—the chop shop or the pier or wherever—even if thetrackers failed again. The girls hadn’t mentioned anyone gettingnear the cars, so I assumed Halluis had been successful. I hopedhe’d been able to get the trackers on. I wanted someone to watchout for those girls. What would Shareweather do to them?
When I’d finished my text, I yelled out to aquestioning Carson, “Parents! They drive me crazy sometimes!”
“I hear ya!”
The song ended, and we moved toward therefreshment table. The sound of the slap repeated itself over andover in my mind. Apparently, someone, most likely Jericho, liked topick on the weak. The nauseating feeling hit me that I would needto become buddy-buddy with him sooner or later. All his actionsscreamed sociopath, and I wanted to stay away from him at allcosts. However, the truth hung before my face. If I hoped to getanywhere with this group, I couldn’t remain with the peons; Ineeded to be with the upper-level workers. I needed to unravel thehierarchy of this car-theft gang.
I tried to focus on the girls in the car,but it was getting increasingly more difficult.
Karina still cried, and Gina shushed herover and over again. “You can’t let him see you’re weak. Bestrong.”
She blubbered over and over again, “We’ll becigged.”
I figured I didn’t want to know what thatmeant.
“Karina,” Gina said, her voice firm.“Remember when that boy was trying to hurt you?”
Karina just continued to cry.
“You know, back home, out in thegardens?”
I could imagine Karina nodding.
“Remember how I ran and got
