Page 82 of Death is Familiar

To an outsider, it would seem that Todd was angry, and was revoking permissions he’d bestowed on me.

But I read between the lines.

Our friendship wasn’t lost. He was warning me.

Again.

Without using those exact words, he was telling me to delete anything that I didn’t want to be found.

The flirty text messages between Jack and me came to mind. But I was certain they had only been flirty given the context, how they were read, rather than what was said. I mean, Jack and I both knew my device was FBI-monitored, there had been a reason I didn’t bother deleting them. Jack didn’t seem to mind sending them either…

“You couldn’t wait to tell me in the car?”

“It’s dark.” He released my arm, but I could still feel the lingering warmth. “And I’ll be driving.”

Without further fanfare, the three of us made the drive to Eureka together, albeit in two separate cars, driving through the night to make it to my hometown by morning.

We worked in enough time to plan our routes. To map out where Jack and Todd would station themselves within viewing-range of the bank and the parking lot.

We’d also agreed that if I found myself getting taken to a secondary location by Mads, that I should get myself into a position of power—also known as staying conscious and not getting locked in the trunk—and they’d give me a two-minute head start. I tried to negotiate three, so I’d have more time to grill Mads, but neither agent had been excited by the prospect of letting me out of their sight that long.

Understandable, given the situation and secrets I’d been keeping. Secrets I kept…

“—else, Delilah?” Jack’s voice brought me back to the present.

My eyes blurred over from watching the cornfields of Eureka whisk by, I’d missed whatever it was that Jack said, which was still awaiting my response. My mind had been elsewhere, and I didn’t have it in me to tell him I hadn’t been listening.

“Uhhh…yes?”

“You know what, never mind. Your mind is elsewhere. We’ll handle it at the station.”

Even though everything went according to plan, Mads in custody and riding in the cop car ahead of us, the agents’ displeasure was still palpable. I didn’t expect immediate forgiveness for my actions, and truth be told, they’d handled the discovery of my clandestine activities a lot better than I’d been expecting. But I could still feel the weight of their disappointment, and it was crushing.

And that was before Todd turned in his seat to glare at me.

Of course, I did what any well-adjusted woman in my position would do, and crossed my arms over my chest and glared right back. Though my return glare seemed to go unnoticed, as Todd furrowed his brow and turned his attention to the glove box. There was some zipping and the staticky pull of Velcro.

“Drink this.” Todd tossed a room temperature juice box at me.

Orange juice, just like when I’d been stabbed and sutured in the back of the car in Monongahela.

“Why do you⁠—"

“Drink.”

“—have a juice box?”

“I always have a juice box. Drink.”

“Why?”

“Because you look thirsty.”

I was, in fact, parched, and if I thought about it further, I was very close to plummeting off my candy-induced sugar high. “No, I mean why do you always have a juice box?”

Todd shuffled his bulging mass of muscle so that he faced me completely. “Why does Jack always have his dice?” They were swinging from the rear-view mirror as always.

“Because we are constantly in rental cars, and need to be able to quickly identify which one is ours?” I was always able to figure out which car was ours, even if the make and model changed all the time.