Gisela didn’t even answer as their phones lit up simultaneously with incoming texts.
Group text, Joule thought but as the driver she didn't look. “Read it to me?”
“Ohhellohhell!” Gisela seemed excited or flustered Joule didn't know her quite well enough to read her.
She wanted to yell, “Tell me something I can use!” but instead she took a deep breath. “Is it good? Is it bad?”
“They found Sarah's car.”
Not thinking, Joule slammed on the brakes. Luckily, there was no traffic, no one behind her to run into her. Only maybe someone in one of these houses wondering why someone was running their car at a crawl down their street. “Where?”
“I don't know. It was Amber and Brooklyn, though.”
Joule thought about that for a moment. The other two roomies had picked a territory closer to the border. South, closer to La Escondida and La Mision.
Gisela nodded along as if she, too, was remembering information. “Let me check the map.”
Both had taken a photo before they left. However, Gisela’s phone screen was small, and it took a moment for her to scroll around noting individual territories and enlarging them enough to read.
“Yeah, they are down closer to here.” She held the phone up and pointed. “Should we go there?”
Joule was already hitting the gas and turning the wheel, making a three-point U-turn on the tiny street. Not only did she think they should go, but it was possible everyone would converge there. Whatever happened, she wanted to be there.
Joule simply didn't like relying on secondhand information. She preferred her own senses.
At least now Gisela’s initial oh hell oh hell made sense, not being either excited or sad or upset. There was still no telling what the news meant. They might be very close to finding Sarah. They might be very close to finding information that indicated Sarah was dead or hurt. They might be very close to finding out nothing except the location of Sarah's car.
Joule hated the uncertainty. She’d lived with so much of it. Maybe it was anxiety, but she preferred to have a plan for every possible outcome—and it was so hard to plan when there were so many. So many outcomes that she couldn't anticipate or get ahead of. Though her family had once made plans for what to do if one of the Night Hunters had actually gotten through one of the windows, it hadn't gone down that way.
No plan survives contact with the enemy.
Yet still she clung to her plans and hated being adrift without them.
The twins’ had found their mother's body sometime later. The details of her mother's death making it clear that she'd saved them all. Now, Joule wondered what the details surrounding Sarah's car would reveal. Without knowing them, she had no idea how to handle it. She stayed on the road, taking the turns Gisela indicated, her heart tight, her muscles clenching as they got closer.
Another car pulled onto the small road in front of them, seeming to be headed the same way. Though she didn't recognize it, she could only assume it was one of their group. Behind them, another car pulled onto the road. It pulled off a few blocks later, going a different direction, but another quickly took its place. The area out here wasn't populated enough for this to be anything other than members of their group converging.
Going back to the earlier conversation that had been interrupted by the incoming text, Joule decided to distract them both. She asked again, “Could that have been the name? Sal?”
“That was it!”
Salvador Torres. Apartment 104. Joule couldn't decide if she liked or disliked that the information was starting to come together. What would Salvador Torres have to do with the location of Sarah's missing car? She had no idea.
Was it possible she'd come face to face with Sarah's killer already?
The thought chilled her, and she had to admit she was surprised she hadn't thought of it before. He had not come across that way. Then again, any good killer didn't. They wouldn't last very long if they drew suspicion from the people they interacted with.
Other, darker thoughts passed through Joule’s mind.
“You're going to turn right up here,” Gisela told her. Sure enough, the car in front of them took the same turn. After a few moments, the headlights behind them followed.
Where was Cage? she wondered. He and Dr. Murasawa would surely be on their way, too. But they were coming from further back.
The car behind them pulled up closer, the old sedan clean and shiny. Compared to the local car she'd just been scoping, it stuck out. Her heart sank as she recognized it. Aurora and Malcolm Walker were right behind her.
Though Amber and Brooklyn might be checking it out already, the Walkers would get the information about their daughter about the same time Joule and Gisela did.
The phones lit up again, this time Joule could see hers. She wasn't trying to read anything, though she quickly recognized a series of photographs popping up in the text chain.
Amber and Brooklyn had gotten into Sarah's car.