Page 72

Pike leads me past a workbench covered in wires and old engine parts, to a desk with four monitors. Two show code. One shows a security feed of chickens. One shows a paused video game.

“Busy?” I ask.

“Deeply.”

“With chickens?”

“I keep an eye on them. They have politics.”

“I believe it.”

He drops into a chair and spins once, because, apparently, even outlaws turned legitimate ranch mechanics have childish streaks. “What do you need?”

I hand him a flash drive.

He looks at it but doesn’t take it.

“That better not be full of something that gets me raided.”

“It’s names. Dates. Public records. Some social media pulls.”

“Legal?”

“Adjacent.”

Pike smiles. “Who?”

“Maggie Sterling. Sometimes White. Missing, probably. Maybe hiding. Maybe worse.”

The smile disappears.

Pike takes the drive and plugs it into an isolated laptop rather that any of the four monitors. He’s paranoid.

Also smart.

“Ben’s sister?” he asks.

I nod.

He doesn’t say sorry. I like that about him. Sorry can be a damp dishtowel people throw over a house fire.

Pike starts typing.

I stand behind him for thirty seconds before he says, “You’re breathing like a bear in a crawl space.”

“I can stop.”

“Breathing?”

“Standing here.”

“Better.”

I move to lean against the wall and cross my arms.

He works fast. A different kind of fast than Ashby. Ashby is precise, clean, every motion filed and labeled. Pike is laser focused when he has a target. Windows open and close. Searches stack. Data moves. He mutters to himself as if the computer owes him money.

I wait.