Page 43 of A Very Bumpy Christmas
“Copy,” Duke says. “Don’t burn. I’ll ghost from the east.”
I run the textbook: alter speed profile; take a right I didn’t signal; move into a lane with a bus I don’t like so I can use the reflection in the route map to check my check. He keeps the gap and the posture. I could admire him if I weren’t busy deciding how much I want to put his face through his windshield.
Enough is enough.
We reach a light. I let the car in front of me catch the green and stop long onto the yellow. The sedan behind us commits to the same choice a hair too late and has to brake harder than he planned. I use the stop to angle my mirror, catch his profile. Nose break, low cap, the non-blink. Mercer. The annoyance solidifies into a clean line of intent in my chest.
“Gunner,” I say, “I want a meet. Tonight.”
“Negative,” Duke says at the same time. “We control when we escalate. He’s sniffing. Let him smell what we choose.”
“Recon, then,” I counter. “No contact. I need to know where he sleeps and who he calls when he’s bored.”
“That,” Gunner says, satisfied, “I can live with.”
We guide the sedan to a mistake he thinks is his idea—Duke peels him at the grocery lot using a delivery truck as a curtain, and by the time Mercer clears his own sightline, we’re two turns gone.
I put us in the garage under Melanie’s building because I like the cameras and I like that I know which ones work. We sit in the car a second longer than necessary. She watches me, reading the leftover adrenaline in my hands.
“Do you need to go?” she asks. No accusation. Just logistics and care.
“I need to put eyes on him without him knowing,” I say. “I can’t promise I won’t get stupid if I see his face again without a plan.”
She nods once, taking that in. “I’ll call Amelia. She’ll sit with me.”
“Good,” I say, and then I turn fully to her because I’m done pretending any of this is normal. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For letting me do my job and be your person at the same time,” I say. “For not making me pick.”
Her mouth trembles. “I want you to pickus.”
“I am,” I say. It lands out of my mouth truer than anything I’ve said this week. “Every time.”
Upstairs, I do one more sweep like a man who is aware he’s stalling. Wedge. Chain. Blinds. I check the back stairwell because Mercer is the kind of guy who notices when building managers forget to replace a latch. It’s intact. My phone buzzes.
GUNNER: Rental traced to Valence lot on Pierce & 10th. He’s swapped rides twice this week. Lodging likely short-term. Three cheap hotels in radius. I’ll take the Hanover Motel. Duke’s got Harborview.
DUKE: Lucas, take the Kipling Motor Lodge. No burn. We collect. We do not collect him.
I brief Melanie in simple sentences. She calls Amelia, who promises to bring snacks and they chat about how they’re going to watch some show where British people cry about antique soup spoons. I pack a small kit I could justify to a judge: not weapons, just the tools you use when you’re curious and careful. I kiss Melanie like I meanbe back soonandbe safe anyway.She kisses me like she meansgo do the thing and come back to us.
Amelia arrives with grapes and a glare. “If you don’t textmewhen you get there,” she informs me, “I will call your boss and tell him you’re fired.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I say, because I like my job.
I hit the street with the temperature dropping and the day turning to monochrome. The city’s holiday lights are on early, shivering on in loops that try very hard to make cold look like an aesthetic. I park three blocks from the Kipling Motor Lodge because I know where their cameras point and I don’t like being in records unless I put myself there.
Kipling is the kind of place that trades in anonymity as a feature. Two stories, doors that open to the outside, ice machine that sounds like a man choking. I walk it once like I’m looking for a vending machine. I walk it again like I forgot my wallet. Themanager’s office smells like cigarettes and lemon cleaner. The night clerk is the type who noticesnothingunless it tips. I learn enough in ten minutes: Mercer’s car isn’t in the lot, somebody paid cash at a hotel on the south side, and a man matching his build brought in a single duffel and a paper sack.
I settle into observation—shadow of a stairwell, line on the door, sightline to the street. Duke drifts by on foot an hour later like a man checking his steps. He doesn’t look at me. Gunner texts photos of Harborview’s guest list like a proud father.
My phone buzzes with a different vibration. Melanie.
MEL: We’re okay. Amelia brought seven cheeses. Peanut is practicing their drum solo.
Good. Be back later.
