Hideout by Jack Heath (iphone ebook reader txt) 📕

I used to strap down my shopping cart, back when I was homeless. It held all my stuff in, nice and firm, but when I pulled on one end the whole thing would come undone, like a magic trick.

Sirens wail on the wind. The sound is common in Houston—it might not be for us.

‘We have to go,’ Kyle says.

Donnie starts the engine and zooms out of the lot, back onto the highway. I could have threatened them with the pepper spray in Thistle’s bag. Too late now. My hammer is still taped to the wall, but against Kyle’s knife and Donnie’s gun, I don’t think it will do much good.

I finish the trick knot. The rope looks tight around Thistle’s wrists. It probably feels tight, too. But Thistle is only one careful tug away from escape, if the opportunity arises.

I have no way of communicating that to her, though. I give her a meaningful look. She doesn’t get the message. The stare that comes back is hateful.

‘You recognise her, Lux?’ Donnie asks.

I look at Thistle and pretend to think about it. ‘Maybe.’

‘That’s Reese Thistle. The lady FBI agent who was after you.’

The pieces fall into place. Thistle isn’t just connected to me—she’s connected to Lux, as well. But why was she in the motel I used to work at?

‘Are you sure?’ I ask. ‘She looks different.’ If they think they’ve got the wrong person, they might let her go.

Thistle squirms against the rope.

‘We’re sure,’ Kyle puts in. ‘We hacked her phone. She’s taken a leave of absence to run some kind of off-the-books investigation. She may not look like a cop, but she is one.’

‘What kind of investigation?’ I ask.

The sirens are getting louder. Donnie swerves off the highway onto a side road. Seconds later, a patrol car screams past behind us.

‘Kyle,’ Donnie says, ‘can you get the police off our backs?’

Kyle pulls out his phone. ‘On it.’

‘What kind of investigation?’ I ask again.

‘It’s complicated,’ Donnie says. ‘Her partner at the FBI was a guy named Blake. That’s the guy you killed, right?’

‘Right,’ I say.

Thistle looks from me to Donnie and back again, probably thinking fast. Just like me.

‘Well, Thistle and Blake were sleeping together,’ Donnie continues. I can feel myself blushing, but no one is looking at me. Donnie’s watching the road, Kyle is glued to his phone, Thistle is looking at Donnie.

‘Thistle stumbles across a dead body hidden in Blake’s freezer,’ Donnie continues. ‘So she tells the FBI, and then skips town. He must have been a scary motherfucker.’

All true so far. I can’t meet Thistle’s gaze.

‘So Thistle’s on her way to Mexico when she sees some news on Twitter. The dead man in Blake’s freezer? The cops have pinned the murder on someone else. Officially, Blake isn’t connected in any way.

‘Thistle is sure Blake is guilty. She turns around, comes back to Houston and asks her bosses what’s going on. They say the FBI has searched Blake’s house. No sign of the body she told them about. No sign of Blake, either. The place is empty. She reiterates what she saw, but they don’t believe her. They think she’s having a mental breakdown. And they’re not happy about her skipping town in the first place, so she’s suspended without pay.

‘But does she go to Mexico? No. She spends two days digging through Blake’s history unofficially. Calling in every favour she’s owed, shaking down every source she can find. And this leads her to a cold case, an apparent suicide at a motel Blake used to work at—’

‘Fuck,’ I say, out loud.

‘—where the body was never found,’ Donnie finishes. ‘She goes there, rents the exact room, and then we grab her. The end.’

I clear my throat. ‘How do you know all this?’

‘One of our subscribers works in payroll at the FBI,’ Donnie says. ‘There’s another at a travel agent and another at the phone company. We got all her emails, her reservations, location tracking, her texts …’

‘Who was she texting?’

‘That’s the best part! No one. She sent the messages to herself, hundreds of them. Keeping a record, in case something happened to her.’

‘Prescient.’ Kyle sounds like he’s proud of knowing the word. ‘We deleted them all.’

Thistle keeps her gaze steady, but I can tell this is a blow.

‘My name is Michelle Paxton,’ she says. ‘I don’t know who any of you people are, and I don’t know who Elise Thistle is.’

‘Reese,’ Kyle corrects.

‘Whoever!’ Thistle says. ‘I don’t want to get dragged into whatever this is. Please just let me go.’

I look at the others. ‘She could be telling the truth. Like I said, I don’t recognise her.’

‘No. It’s her,’ Donnie says. ‘She—shit.’

Through the windshield I see a police car heading towards us.

‘Too late to turn,’ Donnie mutters. He keeps going straight as the car gets closer and closer.

Just as it’s about to pass us, Thistle screams, ‘Help!’

Kyle lashes out at her, panicked. I catch his fist just in time.

The police car cruises past us without slowing down.

Kyle shakes his fist loose. ‘What the hell are you doing, Lux?’

‘We may need to prove she’s unharmed,’ I say. ‘You start hurting hostages, the cops start shooting.’

There are more sirens in the air. ‘Kyle!’ Donnie yells. ‘I need these cops gone!’

‘I’m doing it!’ Kyle punches some final digits into the phone and puts it to his ear. After a second, he starts yelling: ‘He has a bomb! He says he’s going to kill us all! Someone help!’

Thistle quickly shouts, ‘This is Agent Reese Thistle, I’ve been abducted by—’

‘I already hung up,’ Kyle says smugly. ‘Hello, Reese.’

Thistle glowers at him.

‘You spoofed the caller ID?’ Donnie asks.

‘Yeah. As far as the cops are concerned, that call came from City Hall.’