They ate at a picnic bench beside a netted driving range aimed out at the water. She finished fast and plunged into her second interviews, starting with a weatherbeaten man named Rolando Quiroz.
She tapped her notes. "Rumor has it you went to the bathroom right before the riders arrived, Rolando. Why is that?"
"Rumor has it I had to shit." He took such a big bite of oatmeal he had to chew for ten seconds before answering her next question.
The next name on her list was Zoe Goodwin, a round-faced woman who kept her iron-gray hair clipped an inch from the skin. She ate at a round glass bistro table.
Lucy straddled the chair across from her. "When the raiders rode in, I hear you laughed. Something funny about your friends getting shot?"
The woman picked her teeth with a fish bone. "I was relieved."
"Relieved?"
"That I was about to be freed from this hell."
Lucy smiled and got out her bag, which Kerry had allowed her to grab out of storage (though he'd refused her the umbrella). In the waning sunlight at Zoe's table, Lucy got out a baggie of shredded leaf and jogged it up and down.
"You like to smoke?"
Zoe moved her hand beneath the table. "Got any cigars?"
"Seems a bit greedy, Zoe."
She poked at Zoe's apparent lack of satisfaction with her job, but the woman provided bland non-answers about long days, a stiff back, and a limp husband.
Sunset painted the towers red and gold. When night took the island, Kerry locked Lucy in a windowless pantry off the restaurant kitchen. His footsteps receded on the linoleum, then returned. Fabric shuffled. Ten minutes later, his snores cut through the door. He was sleeping right in front of it.
Lucy wadded her blanket under her back and swore. Nerve's challenge had felt like a lock. She'd accepted it with the steel-firm certainty she could outwit these trunk-headed stevedores, gain Nerve's trust, and use his knowledge of the Distro organization to track down Tilly. But as the limits of her investigation clarified like islands in the mist, Lucy saw just how little she had to work with. These piers were just one wing of the Distro organization. What if the mole worked at another dock? Or their headquarters?
Even if there were a mole, and he was here at Chelsea, all he had to do was lie to her. She didn't know these men. She didn't have the chance to bide her time and trip them in a contradiction. Would Nerve allow her to torture them? Unlikely. Not that he seemed squeamish about the ol' ultraviolence. But if he really thought that would get results, he'd skip this game with her and unleash Kerry on the dock workers instead.
Nope. Lying in the darkness, it became very clear. Nerve had nothing to lose in sending her on this fool's quest. He didn't care if she failed and he had to kill her. She'd been the walking dead from the moment Jimmy marched her up to the rotunda.
She hadn't found a mole, but she'd found an answer of another kind. The game was rigged. In 48 hours, she would lose it and her life.
8
Ellie eyeballed her daughter. "How do you know it was stolen?"
"Because two of George's bins have been replaced with empty spaces," Dee said. "It could be that one of us is a sleep-eater. But if nobody here passes a five-hundred-pound bolus of grain, there's only one other answer."
She sighed and set the blankets by the door. "We'd better get over there before Quinn murders Sam Chase."
Dee helped transfer the contents of the bicycle trailer inside. Ellie locked up and they jogged down the trail together. She had spent hours contemplating a way to strengthen or even pave the trail, but between the leaves, the pine needles, the mud, the washouts, and constant freezing and thawing of the ice, anything she was capable of building was unlikely to last longer than the average pair of shoes.
And until the last couple weeks, Ellie had never had much need to sprint across the woods. There had been no major accidents or mysterious gunshots or unmotivated acts of violence. A few raiders,
She tapped her notes. "Rumor has it you went to the bathroom right before the riders arrived, Rolando. Why is that?"
"Rumor has it I had to shit." He took such a big bite of oatmeal he had to chew for ten seconds before answering her next question.
The next name on her list was Zoe Goodwin, a round-faced woman who kept her iron-gray hair clipped an inch from the skin. She ate at a round glass bistro table.
Lucy straddled the chair across from her. "When the raiders rode in, I hear you laughed. Something funny about your friends getting shot?"
The woman picked her teeth with a fish bone. "I was relieved."
"Relieved?"
"That I was about to be freed from this hell."
Lucy smiled and got out her bag, which Kerry had allowed her to grab out of storage (though he'd refused her the umbrella). In the waning sunlight at Zoe's table, Lucy got out a baggie of shredded leaf and jogged it up and down.
"You like to smoke?"
Zoe moved her hand beneath the table. "Got any cigars?"
"Seems a bit greedy, Zoe."
She poked at Zoe's apparent lack of satisfaction with her job, but the woman provided bland non-answers about long days, a stiff back, and a limp husband.
Sunset painted the towers red and gold. When night took the island, Kerry locked Lucy in a windowless pantry off the restaurant kitchen. His footsteps receded on the linoleum, then returned. Fabric shuffled. Ten minutes later, his snores cut through the door. He was sleeping right in front of it.
Lucy wadded her blanket under her back and swore. Nerve's challenge had felt like a lock. She'd accepted it with the steel-firm certainty she could outwit these trunk-headed stevedores, gain Nerve's trust, and use his knowledge of the Distro organization to track down Tilly. But as the limits of her investigation clarified like islands in the mist, Lucy saw just how little she had to work with. These piers were just one wing of the Distro organization. What if the mole worked at another dock? Or their headquarters?
Even if there were a mole, and he was here at Chelsea, all he had to do was lie to her. She didn't know these men. She didn't have the chance to bide her time and trip them in a contradiction. Would Nerve allow her to torture them? Unlikely. Not that he seemed squeamish about the ol' ultraviolence. But if he really thought that would get results, he'd skip this game with her and unleash Kerry on the dock workers instead.
Nope. Lying in the darkness, it became very clear. Nerve had nothing to lose in sending her on this fool's quest. He didn't care if she failed and he had to kill her. She'd been the walking dead from the moment Jimmy marched her up to the rotunda.
She hadn't found a mole, but she'd found an answer of another kind. The game was rigged. In 48 hours, she would lose it and her life.
8
Ellie eyeballed her daughter. "How do you know it was stolen?"
"Because two of George's bins have been replaced with empty spaces," Dee said. "It could be that one of us is a sleep-eater. But if nobody here passes a five-hundred-pound bolus of grain, there's only one other answer."
She sighed and set the blankets by the door. "We'd better get over there before Quinn murders Sam Chase."
Dee helped transfer the contents of the bicycle trailer inside. Ellie locked up and they jogged down the trail together. She had spent hours contemplating a way to strengthen or even pave the trail, but between the leaves, the pine needles, the mud, the washouts, and constant freezing and thawing of the ice, anything she was capable of building was unlikely to last longer than the average pair of shoes.
And until the last couple weeks, Ellie had never had much need to sprint across the woods. There had been no major accidents or mysterious gunshots or unmotivated acts of violence. A few raiders,
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