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time they’re starting their engines up again. Jamie shakes my hand, worry creeping across his face. We speak in hushed tones while Cade makes a phone call to let their hacker friend know what’s going on.
    “You think you’re gonna find her down there?” I ask.  
    “I have no idea. I hope so. Neither of us are going to start living until we lay eyes on her again.” He fixes me in an unwavering gaze, cold blue eyes locked on mine. “You should be careful working up here, Michael. You know that, right?”
    “I’m always careful.”
    “Good.” He nods, eyes narrowing slightly. “I don’t know anything about this guy you’re working for. What’s his deal? I’m assuming he’s the kind of trouble you should be avoiding at all costs.”
    “Maybe. He’s not someone to be fucked with. He also has morals, though. He thinks before he acts, unlike the guy he works for. I said it before and I’ll say it again: Charlie Holsan’s not going to be any help to you. I can’t tell Zeth I went there today or he’ll knock my front teeth out.”
    Jamie looks unimpressed. “You have any problems with this Zeth guy, you give me a call, okay?”
    “What he doesn’t know can’t hurt him, right?”
    Cade hangs up his phone and slides it back into his pocket, joining us. “It’s done. Tickets are organized. We leave tomorrow morning. Gotta get our asses down to LAX for sun up, though.”
    “We’d better get moving, then,” Jamie says. He throws his arms around me and pulls me into a hug that nearly squeezes the air out of my lungs entirely.  
    “Be careful. Take care of yourself,” I tell him. “I’m not entirely sure you know what you’re getting yourself into. You have to be clean certifiable or a rebellious son of a bitch to get mixed up with these guys, and I’m hoping you’re just feeling like a rebel right now.”
    Jamie grins, laughing softly under his breath. “If that’s who I have to become then so be it. Though, I’d rather be a rebel than a crazy bastard any day of the week.”

    ******

    The smell of gasoline has so many associated memories for me. I spent a summer pumping gas in Alabama when I was a teenager. That was the summer I lost my virginity to Janice White in the back of her father’s Ford pick up. And then, eight years later, I got a job working as a driver for a syndicate just south of Boston and I was doused head to toe in lighter fluid during a bank robbery gone bad. I shot my attacker straight through the heart and that, as they say, was that, but I had chemical blisters all over my arms for weeks.  
    As a result, in my head, whenever I smell gasoline these days I’m either getting my dick sucked or I’m about to go up in flames.
    Not today, though. My head’s completely empty as I toss the match into the car I’ve been driving the past three weeks. I never keep a car too long—normally three or four months at most—but this particular vehicle has outlived its usefulness a little early.   Charlie’s guys will be on the look out for a car with the same plates, which means they’ll be on the look out for me , and I can’t afford that.  
    I mourn a little as I watch the Chrysler go up in flames, eaten by smoke and the hungry teeth of the fire. It was a damn good car. Such a fucking waste. In the distance, the sun is setting over the city below me and at my back the world is growing darker by the second. It will take me a good two hours to walk from the secluded, forested area where I decided to dump the car back to the outskirts of the city. However, better a long walk than the police finding the burning vehicle too soon and putting out the blaze. Maybe lifting a print or two from inside. That would be a dire situation indeed. Besides, there’s no one out here to see the act. No one out here to see the smoke. No one out here to call emergency services and screw up my meticulously laid plans.  
    I watch for a while, making sure the fire’s well established, hungry and