Page 57 of Undertow

“How did you get out?” she asked.

“I had a good day. One good day when the fog lifted enough that I could see what they’d been doing. I waited for Pirelli that night. I hit him. Hard. He dropped the vial, so I picked it up. Then I found the car keys in his pocket, and I ran.” Elena’s jaw clenched. “I drove until the car went off the road. First I hid, then I walked until I couldn’t walk anymore. I didn’t know where I was going. I just knew I wasn’t going back.”

Cara let the silence sit between them.

“You’re hiding too,” Elena said. One woman reading another.

Cara looked out the window. The coast was a dark line against a darker sky, the ocean somewhere out there doing what it always did, indifferent to the small desperate things happening on its edges.

“Every day,” Cara said.

Elena reached over and took her hand. Didn’t squeeze. Just held it.

Piper: Fuel light on in Wade’s truck. Also I need a bathroom and a breakfast sandwich and I’m not negotiating on either point. Truck stop 20 mi ahead, pulling up intel now.

Five minutes later:

Piper: Hal’s Travel Center. Exit 87. Big lot, semi parking around back. Good cover. Reviews say the coffee is “surprisingly not terrible.” We’re stopping.

Cara texted back a thumb’s up emoji.

They pulled in just as dawn broke. The truck stop was set back from the highway, ringed by Douglas firs. Cara directed the convoy around back, where a row of sleeping semis made a wall between them and the road. They parked in a line between two rigs and killed the engines.

The morning air hit her face when she opened the door—cold, damp, smelling of diesel and wet pine. The ocean was somewhere west, a dull gray presence felt more than seen. Mist clung to everything.

Piper had her arms crossed against the cold, leaning into her dad, who had his hand on the back of her neck the way fathers do when reminding themselves their kid is still here. Wade was already scanning the lot—perimeter, exits, sightlines. Reagan had her phone out. Gabe stood with his hands in his jacket pockets. When Cara looked at him, she saw the question she’d been turning over for the last fifty miles already forming on his face.

“I have a plan,” Reagan said. “We’ll discuss it over breakfast. But first, you two shower.” She pointed at Cara and Gabe. “Your suitcases are in the back. We’ll order food.” She shepherded the others toward the diner.

Cara and Gabe took turns rummaging through their duffels for clothes and then practically raced to the truck stop showers.

By the time they made it to the restaurant, Reagan was already outlining her strategy. “We’re heading for San Francisco.”

She laid it out: The Whitfield Foundation’s West Coast offices were in San Francisco. So was whatever was left of Voss’s start up. Whatever money Derek had funneled through his shell companies, the trail started in the city—and Tom was the one who could follow it. Digital forensics. Corporate filings. Bank records that would be accessible from the Foundation’s own servers if they could get close enough.

Mouth full of toast, Wade nodded. “And Frisco’s big enough for us to get lost in. I like it.”

“And the vial?” Gabe asked.

Reagan looked at Cara. “I’ve got a contact at Oregon State. Forensic chemist. She runs an independent lab out of the science building—no university oversight, no reporting chain. She can break down the compound and tell us exactly what we’re dealing with. But she’s in Corvallis, and Corvallis is east, not south.”

Cara pulled a plate of pancakes close. “So we split up. Gabe and I will take the vial to Corvallis. We’ll be half a day behind you, tops.”

Tom spoke up. “Why you?” Not challenging—calculating. Working the angles.

“Because Cara can talk her way into anything and Gabe can talk his way out,” Reagan said.

Gabe caught Cara’s eye across the group. A look that lasted half a second and said three things: he’d been thinking the same thing, he didn’t love the splitting up, and he trusted her anyway.

She turned to Elena.

Elena was already reaching into her jacket.

She held it out to Cara.

It was lighter than Cara expected—barely anything, a few milliliters of liquid in a glass tube. The weight of someone’s stolen life.

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