She chewed on that for a while, then pulled into the street and drove onto the ramp to the highway. We weren’t talking, apparently, but I could bear it. At least she didn’t want to kill me.
We drove to 520 and headed east toward the Cascades. Two hours and several increasingly narrow roads later, we turned off just before we came to a pass. We drove north for a short while, following a winding two-lane highway through the mountains.
It occurred to me that Catherine might have a report or a file about the job we were on. I asked, but she shook her head. Either she didn’t have one, or she wasn’t sharing. They came to the same thing for me.
We changed roads a couple of more times, weaving and winding through the Cascade foothills. We didn’t play music. Catherine was a very good driver, although I doubted most people would recognize it; she had complete control of the car, held the same steady speed, and had excellent lane discipline. Nothing flashy, but she knew what she was doing. I wondered how much time she spent behind the wheel every day.
We skirted a small town, passing along a road in the hillside above it. It was late, but Christmas lights still burned in the town below. It felt strange to be traveling several hundred feet above a star, but I was probably just tired.
I didn’t see the name of the town and realized I had no idea where we were. It didn’t matter. By my watch, it was just past eleven. The road and rain forest looked fake in the headlights, like a TV show. I felt adrift in the darkness.
We curved south and quickly came upon a high black iron fence on one side of the road. Catherine pulled to the shoulder and checked her GPS against a slip of paper in her pocket. “This is it. The gate should be up ahead.”
“I can cut through the fence,” I told her. The long drive had eased tensions between us. “We could hide the car and sneak onto the property.”
“That would take too long. The driveway from the gate to the house stretches three miles, and the terrain would be difficult. There’s also a second road off the grounds that heads east-northeast toward town and a whole twisty mess of access roads and horse trails, otherwise I’d suggest we hide outside the gate and snap photos of drivers and license plates of everyone who leaves. We’re going to have to risk driving it.”
I nodded and kept quiet. After a few minutes we came to the gate. Catherine drove by, slowing slightly to allow us to look up the driveway. I didn’t see any cars or guards, but a heavy chain held the two halves of the gate together.
She drove down the road a ways, turned off her headlights, then did a quick three-point turn. We approached the gate from the other side and stopped at the entrance. “I have a bolt cutter in the back,” she said, reaching for the door.
“We don’t need it,” I said. I opened the passenger door and closed it as quietly as I could. The
If there was an alarm system on the gate, it was hidden. There were no wires, electric trips, or warning signs. I took the ghost knife from my pocket. Holding it felt like holding my own hand.
I approached the chain snaked through the gate and laid the laminated edge of the ghost knife against it.
Metal rods extended through the bottom of the gate into a hole in the asphalt. I cut those as well.
The chain came off in two pieces. They had been wrapped around the gate but not locked together. I hadn’t needed the ghost knife at all.
I pushed the left gate open, making enough room for the Acura. No klaxons went off, no lights flashed, no Dobermans charged out of the darkness at me.
We drove up the driveway with our lights off. It was a winding road, dipping and curving around gullies and rock faces. I was glad Catherine had shot down my idea of crossing the estate on foot—it would have taken hours.
It occurred to me that, if the society wanted to get rid of me, this was the way to do it. Send a woman to pick me up. Dress her in bland, nondescript clothes. Drive all the way into the mountains. If this estate belonged to Annalise or one of the other peers, no one would ever find me.
I shook that off. A peer could just as easily throttle me in my bed and burn down my apartment. Or pull my head off with their bare hands. They didn’t need to be clever.
Catherine and I gasped at the same time as a curve in the road revealed a pair of headlights shining from around the next bend. She braked gently. I laid my hand on the door handle in case I needed to bolt from the car.
“Don’t,” Catherine said. The headlights were not moving toward us. In fact, they weren’t moving at all. We backed up a few yards and turned down an access road I hadn’t noticed. The tires crunched on downed branches and muddy gravel. She drove twenty yards, then shut off the engine. Once the sun rose, anyone on the drive above would be able to spot the car, but I hoped we would be gone by then.
We shut the doors as quietly as we could. Catherine changed from her office shoes into hiking boots and slung a pack over her shoulder, then followed me back to the driveway. My own black leather low-tops slipped in the mud.
Once back at the driveway, Catherine laid a long pine branch across the shoulder. She then placed a pinecone in the center of the asphalt.
With the access road to the car marked, we crept along the shoulder, staying just inside the line of trees. I heard the wind blowing above me, but I was sheltered down in the hills. Unfortunately, we were heading up. My jacket was too thin for December in the mountains, but I’d be okay if I kept dry.
I reached the edge of the curve. A BMW sat on the shoulder of the road, grille facing me, but the headlights were off. The lights actually came from a second vehicle: a panel truck on its side, the windshield cracked and the low beams shining into the trees across the road. The truck was lit by the headlights of a third car that I couldn’t
