Chapter 8: Decoy

We went in through the back window of our own kitchen.

Oz had left it unlatched, and he hauled us over the sill by our sleeves.

The apartment was dark except for one laptop, glowing blue on the coffee table.

"She's been out there nine minutes," Oz whispered.

"She hasn't gotten out of the car. There's a man in the passenger seat with a phone pointed at our windows."

I crept to the front curtain and parted it a finger's width.

A white sedan sat under the streetlight across the road.

Its engine ran quietly.

In the driver's seat I could make out a pale bob of hair, perfectly still.

John crouched beside me.

He looked at the car and his breath caught.

"She's waiting for a signal," he said. "There's a phone in that car that's tracking one of ours. Is your phone on, Melinda?"

"Yes."

"Turn it off. Both of yours, Oz."

"I'd rather turn off my kidneys," Oz said, but he did.

John sat down at the laptop and cracked his knuckles over the cast.

"Okay," he said, very softly.

"They think you're home. They think I'm here. Let's give them a better address."

"What does that mean?"

"Watch."

I watched.

Within a minute John had opened a map of the city.

Then came the live feed from half a dozen traffic cameras on Division Street.

Then a vacant house listed for sale on Fifty-Second Avenue.

He typed with the grace of a man tying his shoes.

"I'm sending a ghost," he said.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Cyberking Reclaims His Throne from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.