“Fled?”
“Ashton was into conspiracy theories, only his turned out not to be fictional. He found something that threatened some very powerful people. So he taught himself and us survival skills.”
“These people? They came for you?”
“That’s right. My father didn’t make it.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” She then glanced his way with an expression he deduced meant: And was the matter ever resolved?
“I took care of things.”
She seemed like a woman who would herself be inclined to take care of things too.
“My mother still lives in the cabin. My sister runs a disaster preparedness and emergency response company on the East Coast. My brother works for the government.”
“Yep. That’s a story and some change.”
“Long answer to a question about fish.”
They returned to their frustratingly slow task.
Each scrubbed through two of their allocated videos without finding any image of her SUV. This meant either she’d turned off, or it had been hidden from the camera by traffic.
Shaw and Nilsson started on their last cameras. Shaw’s showed a grainy, low-def and dark image of a gas station pump. You could see a short stretch of 55 on the far side of the apron.
After a few minutes she said, “Noticed. You haven’t taken or made any calls since you’ve been here.”
He had an idea where the inquiry was headed.
“No.”
And, sure enough:
“You’re not married.”
He thought of Margot, as close as he’d come.
“No. You said you’d been.”
“That’s right.” She shrugged. “But a waste-of-time decision. Not an oh-shit decision. You seeing anybody now?”
He thought of Victoria.
“Sometimes.”
He explained how he and the woman—a security specialist herself—occasionally saw each other, if they had jobs in the same area. “Couple of times a year.”
“That’s not seeing someone,” she said, and the keys clattered.
He said, “Youhavebeen making calls. The other phone of yours.”
She laughed. “Believe me. Nobody I date.”
Silence for a moment.
Neither of them typed.
Colter Shaw swiveled toward her. Looked into those verdant eyes and the gaze in return contained a message. He gripped her by the shoulders and kissed her. Hard. She reciprocated, and then rose. He did too, sending his chair wheeling sharply into another workstation.