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“But you didn’t take the first swing,” the officer pointed out. “Are you planning to press charges? Because we have the other guy’s name and info as well.”
Kyle pretended to debate this, then shook his head. “Nah. Bygones and all that.” I could tell it hurt to speak, but he bucked up. “Will you let us go now?”
“Yes. Go back to Sedona”—obviously the officer knew where we lived based on our IDs—“and don’t come back for a while, all right? Try to stay out of trouble. I don’t want to see you two again.”
We were given our cell phones back. I stared at mine, knowing it needed to be destroyed. Kyle turned his on, but I wouldn’t let him make a call.
I asked a desk clerk, “Would it be okay for me to use your phone? My battery’s dead and his doesn’t have much of a signal up here.”
She eyed me skeptically. We weren’t exactly in a box canyon or in the boonies, so of course he had a signal. Still, she pushed the phone my way. “Dial nine to get an outside line.”
I called the only person I could rely on at this point and very cryptically said, “Can you please pick me up at the police station in Flag?”
* * *
Mr. Conaway arrived an hour and a half later. Kyle and I settled into his Cadillac CTS, me in the front seat.
“This ought to be interesting,” my lawyer said by way of casual conversation. I didn’t miss the disapproval in his tone. Or the crinkling of his nose.
“Sorry for the stale-beer smell. We actually weren’t drinking,” I told him. “We were followed. Set up at first, then followed,” I amended.
He shot a look my way. “Tell me everything.”
I did, from start to finish. I wrapped up the eventful story right around the time we reached the scenic pull-off on the rim of the canyon. Mr. Conaway parked the car and we all got out.
“Give me your phone, please,” he said to me. I handed it over.
He checked it. My guess was he was curious about the text message and did the same thing I’d done—compare that number to the few others that had come through from Amano.
“You’ve been hacked,” he informed me, disgruntled.
“I didn’t think that was possible with a disposable phone.”
“Anything’s possible, my dear.” He handed the cell to Kyle. “Send it to the bottom of the canyon.”
Kyle climbed over the protective ledge and made his way carefully to the precipice overlooking the canyon. He stretched his throwing arm way back and hurled the phone like a pro quarterback into the gaping mouth of Oak Creek Canyon and the rapids running through it below.
My stomach tightened. My heart constricted.
There went my only connection to Dane, via Amano.
“Now yours,” Mr. Conaway told Kyle.
He flashed the older man a look over his shoulder. “I haven’t been hacked.”
“You don’t know that. And really, it’s only a matter of time.”
Kyle’s gaze flitted to me. I gave a small shrug. “Sorry?”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” He chucked his as well.
We returned to the car and I tried not to agonize over how all of this changed our game. Of course Mr. Conaway would tell Dane and Amano what had happened to me and Kyle. He’d likely already been on the phone to Amano. If my former bodyguard wasn’t lying in a ditch somewhere.
I shuddered. Then asked, “Are you sure Amano’s okay? No one had a gun to his head when that text came my way?”
“He’s perfectly fine. I spoke briefly with him on the drive up. He’s destroyed his cell as well.”
I breathed a sigh of relief that he was alive—and not tied up somewhere.
