“Not as bad as the news I have for you,” she counters.
“No cars?”
“Worse than that. The platform that our software runs on got hacked overnight. One of those…what do you call ’em? Denial-of-service attacks. Some kind of security vulnerability in the”—she gestures at the ceiling—“cloud.”
Eden makes a soft sound of despair.
“How long is that going to be?” I ask.
She shrugs. “We’ve been told it should be up and running again by mid to late afternoon.”
“Will you have a car for us then?”
She wrinkles her nose. “Ishould? But without being able to look at the computer I can’t say for hundred percent sure.”
“Look,” I say, “this is pretty important to us.” I dig in my wallet and come up with a hundred-dollar bill. “Could you call me on my cell as soon as the software is up and running again?”
Wrinkles appear in between her eyebrows. “I’m not allowed to take bribes?—”
“It’s not a bribe,” I say. “It’s a tip.”
She looks at the money, then back at me. “Sure,” she says, lifting one shoulder.
“And there’s another hundred for you if a car’s available when that happens.”
She thinks about that for a moment, then says, “I’ll call you. Regardless.”
“Thanks,” I say.
We step outside the rental car office, and Eden sighs heavily. Resigned.
“We could hire someone,” I tell her. “We could pay someone to drive us?—”
“All the way across MontanaandSouth Dakota? That’s got to be eighteen hours.”
“Someone will do it for enough money. And we might catch Paul before he gets to Sioux Falls.”
She closes her eyes. “We can’t,” she says.
“We—can’t?”
“He blocked me.”
“Heblockedyou?”
“Yeah, I got ragey about him chasing after his ex-girlfriend and sent a text that said, ‘You need to turn that car around right now and bring me my quilts, or I’m going to call the cops and tell them you’re in possession of stolen property.’”
I whistle admiringly. “You’re a bona fide badass.”
She blushes. “Thanks. But I was a hundred percent bluffing, and he called my bluff by blocking me, which kind of fucks us for finding him before he reaches Grace’s place.”
I can still picture the crushed look on Eden’s face when she put two and two together about Paul’s probable whereabouts. “If that’s even where he’s going.”
“That’s where he’s going,” she scoffs. “We both know that’s where he’s going.”
For her sake, I want to believe it’s not true…but the evidence, even circumstantial, is pretty damning.
“So what wereallyneed to do is fly to Sioux Falls.”
