Whatever I was going to say flew out of my head. “Mayor? What about him?”
“The cabrón—your, eh, prom date?”
I blinked at Mateo. Had I told him about Stokes? I suddenly had a vague memory of grabbing perhaps one too many Palomas after one of his shifts at TGI Fridays the night Stokes had been elected mayor in the first place.
“You…” Mateo made a punching motion near my nose.
So I had told him. That really went against my policy of sharing no vital details about myself with people I got naked with.
I nodded. “Sure, him too. It’s all a problem.”
Just then a small spider scampered down the wall near Mateo’s head. In seconds, he’d smashed it flat with a balled fist so hard, he made the wall of my trailer shake.
“Die!” he growled, voice low with a menace I’d never heard from him before.
“Hey!” I protested, too late, as he swiped at the dead carcass of the spider, flicking its crumpled body onto my floor. “You didn’t have to kill it.”
“Some thingsdeserveto die.” Mateo’s voice sounded flat. His eyes, dark and emotionless.
Huh.
Maybe he did have a killer instinct after all.
“You need to go,” I told Mateo, firmer this time. Maybe Russo was right. I did need to send this man packing.
“What about the mayor?” Mateo punched his own palm with this fist. “We can take care of him together.”
“Tempting, but no,” I said. Especially not now since he’d killed Charlotte the spider and she lay in a crumpled mass near my toe. “Besides, you can’t stay. You need to get moving. To Milwaukee.”
Mateo’s face fell. I felt a small tug of guilt.
“You’re breaking my heart, you know this?” Mateo’s sweet goofy expressions were back again. “I fall for you. I give you my heart, and then you treat me like this?” He pressed both hands together in prayer. It was hard to tell if he was being serious or not.
My money was on not.
What we had could barely be called a situationship.
“Can you just let me stay?” he pleaded. “Until I get paid?”
I glanced at the crumpled spider carcass. “No. Sorry. I just can’t.”
He sighed and hung his head. “Fine,” he grumbled. “Then can I use your shower? Please?” He put his hands together in prayer. “I just need a shower and shave, and then I’ll go to Milwaukee.”
I let out a long sigh. “Okay. Fine. But then you’ll leave?”
“On Spider-Man’s honor,” he said, and held up three fingers. “Sure you don’t want to join me in the shower?” He raised his eyebrows.
“No,” I said.
Mateo shrugged, again nonplussed. He whipped off his shirt, tossed it on my bed, and then squeezed into the small Airstream bathroom with the accordion door. Seconds later, I heard the water running. I reached for my sling bag but missed the strap, knocking it off the hook to the floor. It was half unzipped, and my keys fell out.
So did a small white triangle.
A tracker tag.
I felt a shiver of unease pass through me as I glanced at the small, almost paper-thin triangle on the floor. The blocky logoTRACEwas embossed in silver on the white tag. Trace had been in the news recently as the go-to tracker of stalkers, coming under fire for not allowing transparent tracing of trackers and for being smaller than other devices, therefore easier to slip into pockets or bags.
Most other luggage trackers had apps where you could search to see if you were being traced by one. Even better, some notified phones when one might be close by.
