CHAPTER 4

FRIDAY, 10:15 A.M.

“Gary, bring up the rules again,” said Ms. Nowhere, shaking her head. “Go wide.”

Gary tapped the remote, and the lines of text appeared on every screen in the garage, including the team’s phones. Tony heard a grunt of frustration from the Yoka hub, where Frostee was busy examining Alecto’s transmitter. Frostee looked over his shoulder, narrowed his eyes, then started typing furiously. One by one, the screens in the hub cleared, and Tony smiled. I have a feeling Gary’s remote is about to turn into a very fancy paperweight, he thought.

Tony and Ms. Nowhere had been arguing for over an hour, pacing around the boxing ring, and they were getting . . . well, nowhere. One by one, his friends had drifted away from the conversation. Frostee was working on the transmitter. Echo had climbed up the car lift and was working on spraying an elaborate tag high on the wall. Cisco was working his way through a giant pile of nachos. Even Gary was darting glances at the arcade cabinet next to the couch. But Tony couldn’t let it go. He knew he and his crew had done the right thing.

“Having a job means having a boss, Tony,” Ms. Nowhere said.

“But you know exactly who you hired,” Tony countered. “And you know we would never leave family in danger.”

“Rule number two: Trust your resources!” snapped Ms. Nowhere. “In this case, me! Did it occur to you that my people could have easily tracked that sedan and intercepted Cisco?”

Tony rocked back on his heels. “Uh, no,” he admitted.

“Gary’s not just here for his skills with the remote, you know,” Ms. Nowhere said.

“Do you have Leethal Legendz on this thing?” Gary murmured to Cisco, motioning to the cabinet with his chin.

Cisco nodded enthusiastically. “You know we do! The original and all five sequels!”

Gary hummed in appreciation. “I was a beast on LL3 back in the day.”

“What?” Cisco shoved a handful of chips in his mouth and dusted off his hands. “I goh-uh shee thish,” he said through the food, rising to his feet.

“Gentlemen,” Ms. Nowhere said icily. Gary and Cisco froze in place, then guiltily lowered themselves onto the couch.

“Look,” said Tony. “Gary could have tracked Cisco, but could he have driven like we did to save him? Could any of your people?”

Gary shook his head. “Not quite like you did, no,” he said.

“And if we hadn’t been there when the sleeper stopped, we wouldn’t have found the transmitter, and we wouldn’t know how the thefts are happening. We’re getting the job done!”

“You’re getting lucky,” countered Ms. Nowhere.

“The bottom line is,” said Tony, “if you’re going to make plans for us, the plans have to include us having each other’s backs.”

Ms. Nowhere crossed her arms. “Then you’re going to hate this next plan, because I’ve narrowed Alecto’s next target down to two places, and you’re going to have to split up.”

“But what about the transmitter?” Tony asked. “Maybe that could help?”

Frostee leaned out of the hub. “Bad news, T,” he said. “The way this thing works, I can trace its signal while it’s transmitting, but once it cuts out, it’s gone. And I won’t even be able to track it unless we’re in range. So once the hack starts, we gotta get to where the signal’s coming from fast.”

Tony started to grin at the word fast, but Ms. Nowhere raised a finger.

“All the more reason to split up,” she said. “We don’t know where this thing will start or end, and if this is our only lead, we need you covering as much distance as possible.”

“Hold on,” Echo chimed in. “This isn’t our only lead.” She swung down from the car lift and turned to Cisco. “Right before you got car-napped, you brought up that story we heard from Mitch.”

Cisco’s face lit up. “That’s right! He had a couple of buddies with high-end sleeper cars that got stolen, one after the other.”

“Yup,” Echo nodded. “The cars were taken in the morning and found the next day in some random place with their electronics shot. The dudes were trying to figure out who was punking them, thought maybe it was us.”

“Who’s got time for that?” Tony snorted.

Cisco shrugged. “Us, a year ago. Except, you know, more ‘surprise tagging of the new paint job’ and less ‘straight-up theft.’”

“Good point.” Tony turned to Echo. “So you think maybe Alecto is using the same trick every time, turning the sleepers into routers?”

“It’s worth checking out,” said Echo. “Frostee—”

“I’ve been hacking since you said ‘stolen,’” Frostee replied distractedly. Tony turned to see Frostee typing busily, data flying across the screens in the hub. “I’ve got the GPS histories for Mitch’s buddies here. They spend most of their time driving between garages and taco stands, but look at this.” He pointed to a few lines in the first log. “Ms. Nowhere, where’s the place that got broken into on Monday night?”

“Tenth and Grand,” Ms. Nowhere said.

Frostee nodded. “The first car spent, like, six hours parked on that block before it drove to Griffith Park and fried itself. What about Tuesday?” He squinted at the second GPS log. “Lemme guess, is it on Wilshire near Figueroa?”

There was a pause, and Tony looked over at Ms. Nowhere. “Is that . . . do you look impressed?” he asked.

Quickly, Ms. Nowhere shook her head. “Hardly. Now we know where Alecto has been, but we already knew that. We still don’t know where she’s going.”

Tony held up his phone. “Rule number two,” he said. “There’s a huge resource we haven’t used yet: Layla. If anyone will know the most likely sleeper car to be taken next, it’s her.” He brought up Layla’s number, discreetly smoothed his hair, and hit send on a video chat request.

Echo rolled her eyes. “Tony, you’ve been texting her for weeks. No answer. What makes you think she’s gonna—?”

“Tony?” Layla’s face popped up on his phone. “You’re calling me, it must be important. What’s up?”

“Hi!” Tony blurted, then got ahold of himself. “I mean, hey, how’s it going? Where are you?”

Layla leaned closer to the screen, her ponytail swinging onto her shoulder. Tony couldn’t see around her head; she could have been next door or on the moon, for all he knew. “What’s up, Tony?” she repeated. “I only have a minute.”

“Oh, uh. Right. Have you heard anything about sleeper cars in LA getting jacked?”

“Yeah, I did. It’s up to four now, right? Why?”

“Long story, but if you were going to take, like, the next best sleeper in the city, which would you pick?”

“Oooh, good question. Tino’s been working on one for years, looks like a pickup, but it’s actually all ultralight carbon fiber with a rocket under the hood. But there’s also that girl Jezz. Hers looks like one of those teeny little cars that can barely break forty, but woo, y’all should see that thing go.”

Tony heard the rattle of keys as Frostee started to search. He nodded at the screen. “Thanks, Layla. When you’re around, we should—”

“Gotta go, Tony.” Layla smiled and broke the connection.

“Bye, Layla,” Tony muttered. He looked up and saw Echo smirking at him. “What? She answered, didn’t she?”

“It’s Tino’s pickup,” Frostee declared. He hit a button, and a screen filled with a police report. “Reported stolen an hour ago. I’m tracking it now . . . looks like it’s in . . . Woodland Hills?”

“One of the firms on my list is in a corporate park in Woodland Hills,” Ms. Nowhere said. “That must be the next target.”

“And Alecto will be holed up somewhere nearby,” Tony said. “This is great. As soon as she starts the hack, we’ve got her!”