Chapter 8: Plus One

Astrid slapped the copper bag over the black board and smacked foil tape across it three times.

Vaneck's voice cut off in the middle of a word.

Ansel gasped and dropped forward off the workbench, and Micah caught him.

"I'm here," Ansel said. "I'm here. I heard him inside my head."

"He's gone. It's shielded."

"He's not gone," Astrid said.

She was already at the window, looking down into the street.

"He knows we're in Jamaica Plain. There's a grey van at the corner."

Micah's heart slammed.

"We can go out through the shop," Astrid said, and grabbed her keys. "Move."

They ran down the back stairs into the bicycle shop, past rows of hanging wheels.

The owner, a bald man in a leather apron, took one look at them and pointed silently at a door marked DELIVERIES.

Micah never learned his name.

By ten that night, they were sitting in the back of a rental car outside the Harborline Hotel with the engine off.

Ansel wore a black suit with the sleeves rolled up and pinned by Astrid's safety pins.

His hair was combed back.

Micah thought, helplessly, that he looked like a man built to be photographed.

"Here's what we know," Astrid said from the front seat. "Vaneck has seventy-two hours' legal cover. After that, he doesn't need a reason."

"And?"

"And he can't touch you in front of cameras."

She held up Micah's phone.

A message glowed on the screen from Tristan.

COMPANION LINE PREVIEW TONIGHT, HARBORLINE BALLROOM. DAD HAS SEATED YOU AT TABLE 1. BRING HIM IF YOU'RE BRAVE.

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