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Victor explained that he hadn’t been to Miami since the eighties, when the city had been known as the cocaine capital of the US. Zee added that those “free and easy” times were long gone. He had friends who lived in Miami today, he explained, who claimed the city still thrived on drugs and sex, but now it happened underground.

I couldn’t tell if he meant the drug and sex clubs were all below street level, or if it was done in secret. Either way, Miami sounded risky. It would have been easier if we could lure Skrinde out to the Everglades, but according to Hooper, Skrinde senior had only visited the beach house once, years ago when he’d first bought it, after which he’d decided to buy up all the land around it. Unfortunately for Hooper and his friends and family, Skrinde didn’t much like frogs as neighbors.

As we couldn’t think of a way to lure the mob boss to us without it being obvious it was a trap, we decided we’d have to go to him.

“Miami, here we come,” Zee said from the back seat of the borrowed pickup’s cab. “Fancy cars, beach bods, all the drugs . . . Maybe this won’t turn out to be our worst stop yet.”

Victor drove, while I rode in the front passenger seat and kept an eye out for trouble.

Hooper’s friend had loaned us the truck so we could get to the nearest town and see if a gas station or rest stop had a phone. We did still have to call all this in to Leomaris, before events with my brother and his twisted truths about the Heroes of the City got any worse. Each crisis needed to get in line so we could handle them one at a time.

“Adam, do you think you may be using this latest detour into Miami and our endeavor to save Hooper and his friends as a delaying tactic?” Victor asked casually.

“Delaying what?”

“Dealing with your brother?”

“Uhm, no? We can’t leave Hooper to clean up the mess we made at the beach house.”

“Alright, my dear. As you say.”

He clearly didn’t believe me. And maybe he was right. Maybe I was grasping at anything to keep me from going back to the SOS Hotel. Could we tour the USA forever? No, of course not. I knew that. I just wasn’t in a hurry to put Victor and Zee in danger. Telling Leomaris everything that had happened so far would buy us a few more weeks on the road. I hoped. Either that, or Leomaris would arrest us. But I had faith that the SSD agent knew to ignore baseless gossip . . . Mostly baseless. I mean, people had died, but it hadn’t been intentional.

Victor pulled the truck into a gas station. The headlamps swept over a few tired buildings and came to rest on some gas pumps. The neon OPEN sign in the window of the diner next door flickered on, though I couldn’t imagine they got much passing trade in the middle of the night.

I opened the cab’s door and hopped out. “I’ll go see if they have a phone.”

“Would you like me to accompany you?”

“No, it’s fine, there’s nobody about. I got this.” I sauntered across the lot and headed into the diner. A bell above the door dinged and a few large ceiling fans barely circulated hot sticky air.

A bored server behind the counter nodded a sleepy hello.

“Oh yeah, uhm . . . do you have a phone I can borrow?” I asked, heading over. He looked at me as though only weirdos didn’t have mobile phones. “An alligator uhm . . . ate mine.”

He grunted, reached under the counter, and tossed me a greasy phone. “Gotta buy something, though.”

“Oh, sure uhm . . .” I read his name badge. “Jake. Can I get a coffee?”

“Whatever, man.” He rolled his eyes, grabbed the pot, poured me a cup, and shoved it across the counter.

I thanked him for the coffee and the phone, and chose one of the empty booths to sit at.

I’d seen Leomaris’s phone number on Victor’s phone so often that I remembered it, and dialed. What time was it in San Francisco? Wait, what time was it here? I glanced around for a clock, and spotted a TV on the wall. The volume was down, but I didn’t need to hear it to see myself, standing outside the SOS Hotel doing an interview with a reporter I’d never seen before and never met.

Wait . . . How was that me up there?

I ended the call and stared at the TV.

“Hey, that you?” Jake called over.

“I guess? Can you turn the volume up?”

“Sure, man. You famous or something?” he asked, more interested now he might have someone important in the diner. He grabbed a remote and unmuted the TV.

“Well, there’s been some misunderstandings over the past few weeks, but I can assure everyone we have events under control. There’s no need to panic.”

I was panicking. He wasn’t me.