Page 1 of The Route to You

PART 1

1

KYLE

“Your sister called.”

Kyle Winnick barely registered the voice of his producer and friend, Davy Mehta, from the other side of the trailer bathroom, where he balanced on one foot, trying to pluck the miniature cactus spines out of his heel with tweezers.

Perfect. One more thing to add to the résumé—amateur foot surgery.

He winced, dropped one spine into the sink, and pushed the door open. “Did you get the glue?”

Davy looked him up and down like she was assessing whether he could be safely transported without a stretcher. Then she handed over a bottle of white school glue. “We should pack it up and take you to the urgent care.”

“I’m fine.”

“Sure you are. In the meantime, I’m going to have to write this up in a report for Antony, and he’ll insist you sign something saying you were offered—and declined—proper medical care.”

Kyle twisted off the orange cap. “This is urgent care. I learned this in Scouts.”

“You learned wilderness first aid in Scouts,” she corrected. “Not arts and crafts.”

He squeezed a generous amount of glue into his palm. “Same skill set. Different aisle at Walmart.”

“Great. I’ll just write in the incident report that you were offered professional medical attention and chose . . . Elmer’s.”

“Put it under alternative medicine .”

He examined the cactus spines. They were mostly just a pain in the ass—quite literally—rather than actually painful. Like a splinter. But he still had three more days of shooting left in the Mojave, and if he took off for an urgent care, it’d push them off schedule by at least a day.

A day he couldn’t afford.

He slathered a thin layer of glue on the spines in his foot, careful not to push them in any further.

Davy peered into the bathroom, then scrunched her nose. “Didn’t you land on that cactus on your arse?”

“Yes, but my feet were involved.”

“While wearing basketball shorts and flip-flops.”

Freaking moron. “Also yes.”

“I just want the record to show that nature tried to stop you, and you ran at it.”

He smirked. “You’re the one who wanted me to build my career on hold my beer. This is just brand consistency.”

“You know what? You do you. What you do with your glue is not in my pay grade.” Davy shook her head and turned away, hugging her clipboard to her chest.

“Hold on a sec.” Kyle lowered his foot from the sink, keeping it in the air so as not to bear weight on it. “Help me to the bed so I can put glue on my backside. I need gravity, dignity, and about five minutes bare-assed without interruption.”

“You lost dignity the moment you said glue .”

Together, they shuffled through the back hall, Kyle hopping. “So, which sister called?”

“No idea. Howard relayed it to Tomas, Tomas relayed it to me, and somewhere in that chain of command, the message lost every piece of relevant information. But apparently, it’s important.”

Kyle grimaced. “Great. That’s never a good sign. Could you find out more? I told my family I’d be out of cell phone service for a few days.”