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Then I swung the car around and headed for ho followed

Chapter 2

I studied the red Mazda through the rearview h back that I half wondered if I was being paranoid After all, ere on a freeway, all heading in the sa the sa idiots in their pih they were by going over the li all my movements I moved out to overtake a slower car and red re his speed

Iht Or a bad case of nerves

Exceptthe back ofout the car It reht, re

Well, I wasn’t about to ignore my instincts The last time I’d done that, a friend had died

Of course, Kade’s death was a whole lotmy instincts And besides, this uneasiness steiventhat said that Blake - the ho’d randfather to take over the leadership of the Jenson pack, and a man whoo - hadn’t finished with eance

Yet eance

Just what my already broken world needed

But by the saeance, he knehere we lived He didn’t have to shadow my movements, just hit htly, switching on the voice part of the com-link "Hello, anyone there?"

"Well, well," a sultry and altogether too familiar voice said, "isn’t it lovely to hear your dulcet tones again"

I couldn’t help s Sal and I would never be friends, but we’d moved from barbed insults to droll comments, and froood at her job - my old job - and had saved my ass on more than one occasion

"You say that with such conviction that I almost believe you," I replied, voice dry "Want to do me a favor?"

"Oh, I live for such moments"

In other words, she was bored shitless and could use so to do Either that or she was on her lunch break And likefor the Directorate in a capacity other than as a guardian, she tended to restrict her feeding to the ti breaks Me, I’d be heading out to shop, but as a vamp, Sal didn’t have that option

"You want to pinpoint rab the plate number of the red Mazda three cars back?"

"And ould we be doing this?"

I could hear keys tapping, so she was setting the satellites into motion even as she questionedme"

"Did you pick him up before or after your visit to the cri h" I really hadn’t been paying that h I wasn’t about to admit that to Sal She’d only tell Jack, and he’d probably blast uardian for up," I added, "have you had any luck with the search I requested?"

"There’s one hundred and fifty cars so far with a plate starting with BUK" Her voice was dry "At least twentythree of those are Toyotas It’s a proverbial needle in a haystack right now"

But it was a haystack that Jack would still want searched "Itwhether any of those Toyotas belong to the family of whoever Johnson eance kill?"

"It sure as hell smelled like it"

"Well, all I can say is the bastard probably deserved it They don’t slap you in jail for that long without good reason" She paused, then added, "Okay, I have a fix I’ll trace the plate, if you like"

"I like"

I flicked another glance in the rearview, then changed lanes again The red Mazda didn’tobstinately in its own lane But the distance between us neither increased nor decreased

"The car belongs to one Irene Gardener, who lives in Melton" Sal paused "She’s a little old lady of seventyfive, and there are no reports of it being stolen or anything"

"Meaning I’"

"Well, unless she’s a seventy-five-year-old who’s taken up following people, then I’d have to say yes" She paused "Then again, she ht be worth trying to shake the Mazda, just to see what happens"

I couldn’t help grinning "And if I crash, I can always say you toldrecorded, and I will deny it ever happened"

"Right Thanks, Sal"

I flicked off the co the freeway for severalthe traffic and the annoying red car behindseht, and pulled out into the other lane, keeping lance in the mirror showed that the Mazda remained where it was I pulled in front of the truck, then hit the gas The big car surged forward, the speedo I didn’t slow as the traffic increased, weaving in and out with a precision that would have surprised anyone who knewRoad overpass ca onto the on raency lane for several ap between a truck and a cab A quick glance in the mirror didn’t reveal a familiar red shadow, but I cut across to the Boundary Road exit anyway, only slowing once I’d swung left - tires squealing - onto Fairbairn Road

No red car