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As if even lass bottle ian to sweat I set the drinks down and found a bottle opener
"I was tracking you" His voice carried a bare-bones quality, like it was all he could do to keep fro me how deep he was cut
"How’d you find ht I’d been so careful, honest to God
His s the knuckles of his right hand Fully ambidextrous, he could do it with his left as well, but I wasn’t interested in his parlor tricks At one time or another I’d seen theue
"Luck," he said, as if it could’ve been anything else "I showed your picture, and a car rental agent in Shreveport remembered you She looked up where you dropped the car off for me"
Well, naturally she did She’d probably have volunteered a kidney and her firstborn if he’d only thought to ask I hadn’t used my real name or any of the aliases Chance knew, but that clearly hadn’t slowed him down much
"So you knew I returned the car in Laredo"
He nodded, eyes fixed on the pewter icon still lying untouched on ure you ure out where you went from Monterrey"
And that would’ve been child’s play, based on hoell he knewupto consider the question with a cool head If he found me, could someone else? Soht now I couldn’t let ure into this?" Wow, I sounded re in Laredo," he answered, his tone dull like the pewter of her pocket Buddha "The police have no leads and II swear to God, Corine, before this happened, I had no intention of looking you up I justI wanted closure I wanted to knohere you were, wanted to be sure you were okay"
Oddly, I believed hi in control, sooff must have ruffled him some So he needed to find me If he chose not to seepower and not exercising it was far different than being left in the dark Frankly, it surprised e to search
Maybe, just maybe, once upon a time, I had been disappointed not to find him hot on my heels Sometimes a woman runs because she wants to be chased But I was over all that And hiht now, I just wanted to find the fastest way topuzzledin Texas?"
"She came out to meet me Closed up the store in Ta his voice like strychnine tea, susted withto comfort him
To distract myself from disastrous impulses, I cracked open the two drinks The Coke bottles sat in water rings that I sertip He took his and drained half the soda in one go My hor his brown throat work as he sed?
"Is this going to be bad?" I looked at the pewter Buddha like it was a coiled rattler
He exhaled, the sound of so the air out of a tire real slow "Maybe I’m as afraid of what you’ll find as you are"
That made sense Nobody wants to receive bad news any ht I was done with this for good Bracing myself, I reached for the token before I could think better of it It burned a little before it kicked in and I felt the pain on my palift springs fro for me in the fire, and every use of it carries o I accepted the price and let the vision come
Fear subsumed me, bolstered by the resolve of a wo with a lesser devil She definitely went of her own free will, though No force, no physical coercion But there’s no sound track; I can’t hear what’s been said; I just feel what they feel, see what they see
Details were fuzzy, like I was looking through a dirty lens, but beyond the door, I sahite truck parked On the side it read So Sanitation orthe pain inon, I watched while the pewter Buddha slipped froers, bounced twice, where it lay until Chance found it
Done