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“I don’t know. I can’t tell. It could be any of them.”
“I’d look for a black SUV. Guys with guns love those.”
“Did youseea black SUV?” I take my eyes off the traffic to make sure he’s not joking because he’s been shot and is suffering the effects of blood loss.
There’s no visible blood. His expression is calm, almost nonchalant.
He must feel me looking, because he glances over. “What?”
“Did you see a black SUV? Is that what they were driving?”
“Oh. No.”
“Jameson.”
“Lilith.” He checks the rearview mirror, then pulls into the passing lane and sails by three cars.
“How can you be so—sochillabout this? Someone shot at us! Someone tried to kill us!”
“We don’t know that. They could have been shooting near us, not at us.”
“Are youkidding?”
Another glance at me, his green eyes catching the light. “It’s fifty-fifty at this point.”
“What the hell, Jameson? When are you going to start acting like—”
“Like we’re in a high-speed chase, running from gunmen who might have been hired by your grandfather?” Jameson checks all his mirrors, then puts his blinker on and exits the highway. We stop at the light. When traffic moves forward, he eases behind a red car, sticking to the speed limit. “How else should I act? Should I scream?”
My heart is about to climb out through my mouth. “First of all, this doesn’t seem very high-speed anymore, and second—”
“I feel like doing ninety down this street would draw unwanted attention.”
“Andsecond,I don’t know how you should act! Maybe with a little more urgency! Maybe you shouldn’t have gotten yourself arrested at all, because then we wouldn’t be doing this?”
Jameson narrows his eyes. “Nobody shot at us outside the jail. That only happened when you decided to go meet your grandfather for tea time.”
“There was no tea,” I snap at him. “I wanted to know if he did what you said. I wanted to see if he was that kind of man.”
Jameson doesn’t look at me. He leans back in his seat, watching the cars in front of him. “What did you find out?”
“I don’t know.”
“You found out he wanted to keep you prisoner.”
“Youdidkeep me prisoner.”
His green eyes dart to mine, and I can’t decide whether he’s skeptical or ashamed or scolding. “I let you go. Was he going to let you go?”
My throat closes up. “He would have had to eventually. You can’t keep a full-grown woman under lock and key forever.”
“You could try.”
Tears swim across my eyes, which makes it hard to see if anyone’s coming up behind us to shoot some more, so I turn back around and slide down in my seat. Jameson steers us through some more turns. We’re on surface streets, heading toward Bushwick and through. Buildings slide by, block by block. Bright flyers flutter on newsracks. Everyone’s outside in shorts and sundresses, having a day that probably didn’t involve getting grounded by their grandfathers and jumping off the roof and gettingshotat.
We leave Bushwick behind and head north toward the highway again. My throat aches every minute. It’s almost impossible to keep being terrified when Jameson’s obeying traffic laws, hiding us in the natural flow of traffic, but every few minutes I get a fresh jolt of adrenaline.
He takes the on-ramp.
