John
He was halfway to the cabin when he got the call from Georgina. His truck was Bluetooth-enabled so that he didn’t have to break the law to answer. He didn’t like breaking the law unnecessarily.
“Someone put something under my car.” Her voice sounded breathless.
“What? What do you mean something? A bomb?”
“No. No. Not a bomb. It’s small.” Then she described it, and he knew what it was. “Am I in danger?”
“Sounds like a GPS tracking device. Which isn’t dangerous. It just lets people find you—which is a different kind of danger. You have any idea why someone might want to track you?”
“To stop my work. Our work. The police said that some detective was prowling around my backyard last night.”
“A detective?”
“A woman detective. The police officer said she was pretty. Blonde and young. You know anyone like that?”
He pulled over to the side of the road, across from a gas station and convenience store. He was outside Austin, not in the country yet, more suburban and commercial than country.
And he thought about the blonde woman who had picked him up in the bar the previous night. Who he’d taken home with him.
Was it possible that the woman he’d fucked was the same woman who’d placed a GPS device under Georgina’s car? She’d been great in bed, and then he’d fallen asleep—which meant that she’d had the opportunity to search his house.
How could he have been so careless?
“Can you send me a picture?”
“I don’t have one. The officer didn’t tell me her name either. Does it matter?”
“Probably not.” He could do some internet searches and see if he could find her. But that was secondary. Right now, he had a problem on his hands. Odds were that if Maddy—if that was even her name—was a detective, she was looking for Isabella Ramirez.
“You sound funny, John. Something going on that I should know about?”
“I’m doing something you’d be proud of, but no details. Not right now. We’ll talk later.” And not over a cell phone. People could overhear if they had the right equipment. “But meanwhile, destroy the device.”
“Okay.”
“I gotta go now. I’ll be in touch.”
He clicked off the phone and waited for the traffic to clear before pulling into the gas station across from where he’d stopped. He pumped thirty dollars of gas. Then he strode into the convenience store. The clerk behind the counter was a young Latino, but John didn’t mind Latinos. They tended to be more religious and more family-oriented than a lot of white people.
As long as they were in the States legally, he had no problem.
Everything in the store was overpriced, but he picked out a candy bar and seltzer water. After the clerk rang them up, John cleared his throat. “Hey buddy. You got any mirrors for sale here?”
“No.” The clerk shook his head.
“You got a mirror I could borrow for a few minutes?”
“Why?”
“I think something’s leaking under my truck. Want to see if I can find the spot and plug it.”
“I have a mirror in the employee bathroom. Wait here.”
John took the mirror outside. He had to kneel on the ground, but the mirror let him see the underside of his truck. He could see the dust and dirt from driving in Texas over back roads. And he could see something else. Something that was not dust.