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“You’re right,” she said, her fingers already sliding over the lining of her bag. “And he’d be too lazy to sew it up.”
“Let me know if you need help finding the opening. Or help getting the tracker out of the bag.”
She stared at his hands, wider than hers. His fingers longer than hers. Remembered how they’d felt on her hands and swallowed. “I’ll do it,” she said, her voice gruff.
She ran her fingers over the silky lining of her tote, looking for a hole. When she found it, she worked the tracker to the opening and forced it through. Pulled her hand out of her pocket and studied the white object. “Looks like the same brand I use,” she said.
Gideon plucked it out of her hand. “I’m going to destroy it. Then throw it outside, as far as I can. That okay with you?”
“Yeah. Get rid of it.”
He stomped his foot down on it, then picked up the now-misshapen tracker. He looked out the window, then opened the door. Leaned outside and threw it toward the barn.
“White tracker in white snow? No one will find it, even if they’re looking for it,” he said, satisfaction in his voice.
Thank God that tracker wouldn’t follow her when they left, but anxiety still hummed through Alex. If Jerry had discovered the missing files and was coming after her, or had sent someone else, the tracker would have pinpointed their location. She and Gideon needed to leave as soon as possible.
She needed to check for a tracker in the files she’d taken from Jerry’s safe, but she was pretty sure Jerry assumed they were secure. Wouldn’t see any reason to attach a tracking device to folders hidden in his safe.
After Gideon relocked the door and re-adjusted the curtain, he glanced at his phone. “It’s almost six p.m. I wonder if my car’s been towed in yet.”
As if someone had heard him ask, Gideon’s phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket and saw that it was a local call. “Someone from Boughton is calling me. Probably the car place.”
He hit answer and said, “Gideon Wolf.”
As Gideon listened to the voice on the phone, his face tightened. He scowled, then clenched his teeth. “I see,” he finally said. “When do you think it will be ready?”
Whatever the person on the other end of the call said made him scowl harder. “Okay, thanks. Keep me posted.”
He ended the call, and his fingers tightened around the phone, as if he wanted to hurl it against a wall.
“What?” Alex asked. “What’s wrong?”
A muscle in his jaw clenched as he stared at her. Finally he said, “Good news and bad news.”
“What’s the good news?” she asked.
“They got the car out of the ditch without any problems. The bad news is that when they unhitched it from the tow truck, it was listing to one side. When they tried to drive it, they couldn’t. They got it on a lift and found that it had a broken tie rod. Probably happened when it collided with the frozen ground in that ditch.”
“What’s a broken tie rod?” she asked.
“The tie rods control the steering. When one breaks, you can’t steer the car. Really bad if it happens while you’re driving. Especially bad if you’re driving at high speeds.”
Alex frowned as she studied Gideon. “It can be repaired, can’t it?”
“Oh, yeah, but they don’t have the parts they need. It’s gonna take a few days to get them here. Then a day or two to do the actual repair.”
Alex sucked in a breath. “So we’re going to be stuck in this hotel for five or six more days for your car?” She glanced at the case of water, now missing about a third of the bottles, and their dwindling supply of food. “We’ll have to get more food and water. And Jerry.” She stared at Gideon, knowing her panic would be visible. “He knows where I am now. If we have to stay here and he’s coming after me, once I-94 is open I’ll be a sitting duck.”
