CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

“MISS CRUZ, YOU’RE awake.”

“Buck, what happened? Did you take my car?”

“Funny story, that.”

“Are you okay? Tell me where you are.”

“What, the cloned ARGs only transmit in one direction?”

“Buck.”

I tried not to remember our time together only hours ago, the security I had felt with her. The calm I thought we had given to each other. I’d shown her the man, in all his organic weakness. She’d given me more lies.

“Let me explain.”

“Those are the three most outrageous words you could possibly offer me at this very moment.” I pounded the steering wheel. “Right now? Now! And you beg to explain. Well, let me explain something to you, Miss Cruz. I trusted you with my daughter’s life,” I licked the spittle from my lips and lowered my tone. I wanted her to resonate at a molecular level with what I was about to say. “And you failed. You’ve got it wrong. You shouldn’t be begging me. You should be begging Evie. Maybe someday I’ll give you the chance. Until then—”

“I’m the only one on your side! I’ve always been on your side, Buck. I—” It sounded like she was crying.

“No. You sold me out to the admin. You’ve been protecting their interests all along. You even called the police, didn’t you?”

“To save your life. I knew it had to be a trap.”

I heard tires squealing in the background. Unless she’d found a vehicle with a windshield, her ARGs must have been able to screen out considerable wind noise.

“Don’t you get it? You’re not thinking with your head. You can only think of Evie.”

“Exactly. And you’re not.”

“What if they don’t let her go? What then?”

“I won’t give them what they want until they do.”

“Dammit, Buck.” She paused to steady her breathing. “That’s not how it works. God forbid, what if they threaten to torture her until you comply?”

I swore. In less than two minutes she’d pinpointed the fatal flaw in my thinking.

She continued, hope rising in her voice. “Once they have you, they’ll hold all the cards.”

“You had your turn, and you folded. Now it’s my play.” I terminated the connection, tears falling from my eyes for the second time that night. I rolled to a stop at a red light just beneath the interstate. To hell with the rest of it. Evie was the only real thing left to me. My background mind bubbled with all the lies, rising over its banks in surges. Frozen, I stared at the light until the red lens became an iris within an eye, tugging at me.

No. In a blink the traffic light exploded, blossoming into a star of shrapnel and sparks showering onto the hood of the Camaro.