Page 88 of Our Last Resort

There’s the crunch of gravel, and the heat of a car stopping a couple of feet from me.

I get up.

“Hey, Leon,” I say as I open the passenger door. “Thank you for coming all this—”

I stop.

There’s someone in the back seat.

“Hello,” he says.

He’s back. Tired, pissed off, but also, it would seem, hopeful. There’s a slightly manic edge to his smile—a shark who can’t believe he gets to stare down this particular chum bucket.

“Deputy Harris,” I say.

He pats the seat next to him.

“Get in.”

I do, because I have no other choice. My phone is still dead, and even if it weren’t, I’m not sure how long it would take to get an Uber all the way out here.

Leon drives to the end of the street and makes a three-point turn.

“So,” Harris says.

I sit in silence.

“I’d like to talk to you,” he continues. “At the station.”

“And if I say no?”

He shrugs.

“Then you go back to the hotel.”

And then what?

“We’ve made an interesting discovery,” Harris goes on. “I think you’ll want to hear what we have to say.”

“Tell me here.”

Harris shakes his head.

“No. At the station.”

I don’t have to say another word. It’s perfectly possible for me to wait until Leon drops me back at the Ara, pack my bags, and fly home to New York.

But.

Whatever Harris has—or thinks he has—on me or Gabriel, it’s not going away. It’s like he said yesterday: He can reach us at home.

Plus.

The image of Sabrina Brenner’s hair clip—the golden metal, so delicately bent into its butterfly shape—is burning inside my brain.

This will follow Gabriel home, too.

Fuck. I need to know. I need to peek inside Harris’s brain and see if he’s bluffing.

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