But there was also a sadness in his drinking because, the truth was, he didn’t want to do what he would have to do tomorrow.
Don’t think about that. It’s the deal you made. Just do it and don’t think about it.
He finished the glass of wine and resisted the urge to have another. He still had an hour’s drive ahead of him. He was sure a second glass wouldn’t put him over the limit, but he didn’t even want to get close.
The hacker went down to the cellar to tend to one last piece of business. Then he locked up the house, tossed the laptop bag into his truck, and, with hands still shaking from the caffeine, fumbled with the car key until he got it into the ignition.
One. More. Day.
CHAPTER 22
Like Roland, Connor and Olin ran. The cop shouted for them to stop. Yeah, right. Connor didn’t know where Olin was parked, but Olin seemed to be veering off to the left. The closest lot in that direction was behind the tennis courts.
Connor, on the other hand, was parked on the street, which meant his car was quite a bit closer. His little piece of shit Ford Fiesta might not be fast, but it would be fast enough to get them out of there.
“This way!” he said to Olin. “Stay with me.”
Olin fell back in line. They reached the Fiesta seconds later. “Get in,” Connor instructed, right before he attempted to slide across the hood. He had seen it done enough times in movies, imagined it would be faster than circling around the vehicle. But an action star he was not. The slide turned into a roll and he tumbled to the cement on the other side.
Olin gave him a look when he got in the car but didn’t say anything.
Connor threw the gearshift into drive and took off. There was no one parked in front of him, thank goodness.
For the first two blocks, neither of them said a word. Connor wasn’t even sure he took a breath. He kept glancing at the rearview mirror. He didn’t know what he was looking for. It was foolish to think they were suddenly going to find themselves in a police chase. There was no cop in the world who was calling in an APB because he had failed to chase down a couple of kids. Especially when there hadn’t been a crime committed. (Well, maybe grabbing Roland like Olin had would count as assault, but Roland wouldn’t be pressing any charges.)
Squat brick buildings and storefronts swallowed the park almost immediately.
Olin spoke first. “Did you see how red his face got?”
Connor could hear the amusement in his voice. He looked at Olin, couldn’t believe he found any of this funny.
Olin’s grin stretched wider and he added, “I thought his head was going to explode,” as he started laughing.
Then, for some reason, Connor pictured Roland’s head exploding and he laughed, too. There still wasn’t anything funny about their situation. Maybe it was just a subconscious effort to break the tension. Whatever the reason, once the laughter had passed, things got serious again.
“We still don’t have any idea what he was up to,” Connor said.
“Yeah, I know.”
“But at least we know he wasn’t involved, and I guess that’s something.”
“What makes you so sure of that?”
“What he said. He sincerely wanted to know what Dad had asked me to tell him. He wouldn’t have asked that if he already knew they were missing.”
“So what now?”
It was a fair question. As much as Connor had been glad to discover that Roland wasn’t involved in the abduction, he had been hoping (almost certain, actually) that he would get something out of their meeting.
A part of him even felt like he had. But if that was so, what was it? Roland had been evasive throughout their entire conversation. Had he slipped up somewhere? Connor tried to remember.
And then, all at once, he did. It had happened when Olin had Roland in a bear hug and the cop was only feet away. Connor had almost missed the comment entirely. In his mind, he was already running back to the car, even though his feet were not yet in motion.
“We’ll see how your father likes it when Lee—”
There was only one thing that came to mind when he replayed Roland’s comment in his head, and that was Leewood Construction. His father’s employer.
“Maybe,” Olin said, when Connor made the connection for him.
“Maybe?”
“It could also have been ‘Leroy.’ Or, hell, maybe he didn’t say ‘Lee’ at all. Maybe he said ‘he.’ As in, ‘We’ll see how your father likes it when he has to bail you out.’ Or ‘the.’ As in, ‘We’ll see how your father likes it when the police call to tell him his son is in jail.’”
Connor had to admit that seemed plausible. But: “I still think he was talking about Leewood Construction.”
Olin, whose knees were pressed up against the dashboard, fished around under the seat until he found the lever to push the seat back. “Okay. You could be right. So what’s next? Should we call Olivia and tell her what we’ve got? You want me to call my guy?”
“Not yet. We still don’t know this is anything.”
“The deal was—”
“Like I said before, let’s make sure there’s something to this first. You saw how Roland reacted. Do you want to waste the police’s time with this if it turns out to be nothing?”
Olin crossed his arms over his chest, looked out the passenger window. After a while, he said, “I just want my parents back.”
Connor felt a pang of guilt for keeping the story about the parking garage fire to himself. But he liked having a partner work the case with him, and, as far as he was concerned, they would get farther together than
