Page 148 of No Good Fight

Remy glances down when it starts again, then returns his attention to the road.

“If it’s bothering you, say something.”

He adjusts his grip on the wheel as we take another curve. “I’d rather you do that than decide we’d get there faster if you opened the door and started running.”

I look through the windshield at the wet road disappearing between the trees. The thought has crossed my mind enough times that denying it would be pointless.

“I’m still considering it.”

“I know.”

He doesn’t try to talk after that, which is one of the reasons I can stand being trapped in the passenger seat beside him.

The miles pass beneath us while the morning gets lighter, and I keep seeing the same image every time I blink: Alex getting into my truck alone, already injured, knowing exactly who was waiting for her at the other end of the drive.

By now, she’s with him.

I don’t know what he’s already done to her.

So I keep my hand clamped over my knee and let Remy drive.

The closer we get to Mason Ridge, the more pieces of Alex’s investigation begin lining up in my head. The old apartments. The maintenance complaints. The men with toolboxes who did not belong there. The wiring problems she kept finding. Preston had been moving through the edges of her work long before we understood he was using those places in his plan to get to her. Before I was ever really a part of the picture.

She saw patterns for a living and made it her mission to shine a light on those patterns.

I wonder how many she figured out before we did.

Remy turns off the main road early, taking us along a narrow side street that runs behind the old development. Logan follows. Casey’s truck disappears from the mirror a few seconds later because that is the plan; he and Josh are circling toward the utility side rather than joining us on the service road.

My phone vibrates with a message from Josh.

Josh: South side in position. No visible movement.

Remy reads it when I show him, then nods toward the road ahead.

“We walk from here.”

He pulls into the shadow of an abandoned commercial building nearly half a mile from Mason Ridge. Logan and Carter join us thirty seconds later, and nobody shuts a door harder than necessary.

From there, we move on foot.

The wet ground softens our steps but makes it feel like they’re impossibly louder. Logan leads through the tree line, using the map on his phone only when we reach forks in the drainage trail. Carter keeps behind us, stopping twice to check the road through breaks in the trees before waving us forward.

I hate every second of moving slowly.

The maintenance building appears through the trees as a dark block of brick and corrugated metal, older than it looked on the plans. One exterior light burns over the front entrance, throwing a weak yellow circle across cracked pavement. Most of the windows are black.

My truck sits on the service road exactly where Preston’s photograph showed it.

Seeing it in person does something the picture didn’t.

Less than an hour ago, she climbed into it with a concussion and drove herself toward a man she believes intends to kill her.

I start toward it.

Remy catches my sleeve, not enough to stop me physically, just enough to remind me I promised to listen.

Carter moves first, circling wide before approaching the passenger side. Logan watches the building while Remy and I come up behind him. The truck is unlocked.