“Is the cat still there?” he asked.
“Yes? But the hotel staff know she is. They won’t bother her.”
Hart let out a grunt, then turned off Augusta on Pump Street toward the hotel. “They might not, but I will bet you anything Augusta County’s finest will find some bullshit reason to come up with a warrant to search that room, and I don’t think they’re going to give two shits about the little fuzzball.”
“You think they’re going to search our room? Why?”
“Because they can and they’re pissed. Mostly at me, but if what you just told me is right, they’re also pissed at you for not being in that car. And now at Elliot foralsonot being in that car, since by now they know there’s no body in it.” I’d thought the same thing myself. I just hadn’t realized that it might have repercussions for me, much less my newly-acquired cat.
I pressed my lips together tightly. “You think they’re going to try again?”
“I think they’re going to try to find a body to put in that car,” Hart replied grimly. “And I’m not entirely certain if they care if it’s yours or Elliot’s or both.”
I felt the blood drain from my face. “Then we can’t go to the Hills’,” I breathed. “Not if they’re following us.”
“Nope, not straight there, anyway.” He checked the mirror. “We can justify you forgetting your keys or some shit at the hotel, or you needsomething.I’d stuff the cat in it, if I were you.”
“In what?” I asked him, staring. This was… horrifying? Confusing? Completely ludicrous?
“Backpack?” Hart suggested.
“You want me to just stuff a cat into a backpack?”
“I’d rather you do that than they lose the fucking cat. Or worse.”
I was even more horrified by the implication of that suggestion. “Jesus, Hart. Theywouldn’t.”
“Wouldn’t they? The guys who ran Elliot off the road and left him for dead?”
He had a point, so I said nothing. I got out, leaving him in the running car while I went up to our room, grabbed the cat, some cans of food, and both our laptops—since I didn’t want them in my stuff and I was pretty sure Elliot wouldn’t want them in his, either—and shoved them all in Elliot’s backpack.
As I walked back to the Charger from the rear door of the HoJo, I noticed the Sheriff’s Department car idling on the road. Waiting to see if we’d go where Hart said we were going.
Shit.
“Mrrrow!” said the backpack, angrily.
I slid back into the passenger seat, and Hart looked over as I carefully tucked the still-meowing backpack between my feet. “Okay, let’s go.”
“Where?” Hart asked.
“The house?”
“No shit. Where the fuck is it?”
I felt my neck flush. “I can put it mostly in GPS.” I punched the address for the start of the Community’s property into my phone, and Hart gestured toward a holder in his car. I set my phone in it, then pulled a charging cable out of my bag, plugged it into the car’s USB, and held out my had. “I assume you’d rather not have a dead phone?”
He shifted as he pulled it out of a pocket, his ears shading pink. “Yeah, thanks.” The phone buzzed slightly as the power hit its depleted battery. He’d briefly plugged in his phone long enough to text Taavi that he’d arrived in Staunton while peppering me with questions that I’d only partially been able to answer. But I’d assumed—correctly—that it hadn’t been enough power for his phone to still have any battery left, and that was why he hadn’t gotten my text about needing to go out to the farm.
“Tell me about the Hills,” Hart demanded as he started driving us out of town. Checking behind us, I noticed that the Sheriff’s Department cruiser was still following.
“He’s still behind us,” I told him.
“I know,” came his reply. “The Hills. Who are they? How long have you known them? How much can we trust them?”
I tried to answer those and the rest of the questions he came up with, filling the time and distracting myself from thinking about the fact that somewhere on this route, someone had tried to kill Elliot. Had driven him off the road and then shot the car until the gas tank exploded, fully intending to not only make sure he was dead, but to destroy any evidence of what had really happened.
I looked up, frowning, as Hart slowed the Charger. “What are we doing?”
