Page 49 of Destroyed With You

“But you are back,” he said.

“I am,” she said. “But for how long?”

He could barely hear her voice at the end, because that’s when the clanging started. The alarm bells ringing out, filling the quarry, echoing against the stone walls.

They filled the space and the sound was soon joined by a cacophony of machine-gun fire. Beside him, Linda screamed, and when he looked over, she was gone, and the water was red, red, red, and all he could do was scream and scream and scream…

* * *

“Winston!”

He felt the hands on him, shaking him.

“Winston!”

He sat upright, his heart like a jackhammer in his chest, his ribs aching from the force of his fear.

“You were having a bad dream.”

He exhaled loudly and scrubbed his hands over his face. “You think?”

“It’s Emma,” she passed him his phone. “I wouldn’t normally have answered it, but you weren’t waking up, and I saw who was calling.”

“It’s no problem.” He put the phone to his ear. “Emma?”

“Good God, Starr, what the hell is going on?”

“Just give me a sec.” He stumbled out of bed and toward the coffee maker. It was the single cup kind, and Linda hurried over, slipping on the hotel robe as she moved toward him.

“I’ll make it,” she whispered. “Go take the call.”

He nodded, grabbed his slacks from the bedside where he’d left them last night, and tugged them on. When he was finally seated and felt somewhat human, he focused on Emma. “Okay, shoot,” he said, then gratefully took the coffee that Linda handed him.

“Well, he wasn’t on the flight he had booked. A no-show. And he’s not got another reservation. Like I said before, he could be at the airport waiting to grab a plane at the last minute, but I doubt it. He knows you’re tracking him, he’s going to try to get as far away as possible. That makes me think that he skipped out during the night.”

“I agree. Hang on, I should have had this on speaker.” He put the phone on the table and tapped the button as Linda came over, her own paper cup of coffee in her hand.

“I figure he rented a car, right? But there’s no car rental in his name. Not from the Austin airport, not from anywhere in Austin.”

“So we’re out of luck?” Linda said.

“Actually, no. And you’re welcome. I’ve always told Winston I’m a genius. I’m about to prove it.”

Winston grinned. “I will happily repeat that if you get us a solid lead. What do you think you have?”

“As far as I can tell, he didn’t rent a car, but there are a number of rentals that could be aliases, assuming this guy doesn’t have much imagination. For example, someone named Barry Thompson rented a Buick.”

“Barry Thompson, Tommy Bartlett. It’s close,” Emma said.

“But not definitive,” Winston added. “I’d like more before we go chasing a ghost. You got any more?”

“I do indeed.” He could practically hear the grin in Emma’s voice. “The car that Barry Thompson rented was from a rental place that uses GPS trackers on their vehicles. Most do these days, but not all are as easy to hack into the tracking system.”

“This one was easy, I take it?”

“Fuck easy,” Emma said. “I got in because of my amazing skillset, thank you very much.”

“Where is he?” Linda asked.