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“I don’t know where he is,” Melvin Welch said, “and I don’t want to know. Don’t call me again. You want to know where he is, talk to the police.”
“Not suspicious at all,” North said after the call disconnected.
“It’s the same thing, though,” Shaw said. “If the Highway Patrol already talked to him, why would he answer?”
North made a noncommittal noise.
Shaw tried Maleah Donaldson, presumably the girlfriend, and got voicemail again.
“We might need to talk to her face to face,” he said. “Maybe she’s not calling back because she thinks it’s a scam. Or maybe it’s like you said, maybe she’s hiding him.”
North nodded. His face was intent, his focus directed on trying to pass what appeared to be a mother and four children in a mammoth Kia.
“Momma is really hauling ass,” North muttered as the Ford’s engine whined again. “Does this thing top out at sixty? For fuck’s sake.”
“Should I call Auggie back?”
“No, he already knows this car is a piece of shit.”
“No, I mean—he sounded angry.”
“He’s fine.”
“He’s not wrong. We did run out of there. We just…left them.”
“Shaw, he’s fine. He’s a grown-ass man, appearances to the contrary, and he’s got Big Papa Pump with him. We’re not attached at the hip.”
“Yeah, but—”
“And we need someone to take a look at Brey’s house. We can’t do it, I mean, we’re not supposed to because John-Henry wants to keep his nose clean. That leaves Jem and Tean or Auggie and Theo, and Jem and Tean are an hour and a half away.”
“I don’t think they’re upset about the job—”
“Jesus Christ, lady, it’s not a fucking race!”
North undermined his point, though, by dropping his foot on the accelerator again.
Their Maps app directed them to an unremarkable turnoff that carried them into a forest. Even though Shaw was a city boy, he knew enough to recognize the mix of hardwood and pine, with a surprisingly thick understory. Old trees, or old enough. Shadows dappled the car, running over the hood like a river.
At the next turn, county road maintenance must have ended: they traded asphalt for a mix of dirt and gravel. Stones pinged against the Focus’s undercarriage, and clouds of dust billowed in their wake. The smell of the dust filtered into the car, and even with the stones ringing out against metal, the world felt quiet now, and close.
“Great,” North muttered. “This is a great way to sneak up on somebody. All this fucking dust, we might as well be sending smoke signals.”
“What would be better,” Shaw said, “would be if we were in a classic muscle car that was all grumbly and growly and sometimes you don’t shift very cleanly, and it makes that really loud noise.”
“I shift just fucking fine, thank you,” North snapped. “And at least the GTO has a legit engine in it. This thing’s got four hamsters running in a cage.”
Shaw tried not to say it, but the words slipped out anyway. “I bet Parker would love the GTO.”
“Nah, Park was never into cars.”
“Oh? Really? What was he into?”
“Running, and he loved those cooking shows, and—” North must have sensed the trap too late because his head came up and his body stiffened. He looked slowly over at Shaw.
“Go on.”
“Jesus Christ, Shaw.”
