The Nightmare Thief by Meg Gardiner Page A

for herself, but not yet. Not while she was in thrall to the idea that he could love her.
    “I know cell towers are far between,” he said. “And reception’s spotty in the mountains. They should have found a landline and phoned ten minutes ago. They need to know I won’t accept sloppy work. Phone them.”
    Sabine didn’t sigh or pout. He gave her points for that. She took her sleek little phone and punched Friedrich’s number with her French-manicured nail.
    She put the phone to her ear and pinned her eyes on Haugen. She was wearing blue contacts, another part of her light disguise. With the blond wig, the startling aqua jumped out at him. Ran. Yes, with the disguise, she looked fully the Norse goddess. She could steal just about anything.
    She could stand to lose fifteen pounds, but after this weekend, he would send her to a spa. Then she should be just about right.
    After a moment she said, “Out of range.”
    The car bounced and took a turn hard. Stringer was pushing it.
    “Stay under the speed limit,” Haugen said. To Sabine: “Try again.”
    Sabine handed him the phone. “Hear for yourself.”
    As she stretched, her top gapped open and showed the tattoo.
    Haugen felt the skin around his temples shrink. “Cover that up.”
    She continued to lean forward, phone extended. He could hear Von’s number ring. She didn’t shift or make the slightest move to cover the tattoo. As she inhaled, her breast swelled and so did the snake, a sea serpent, the World Serpent of Norse mythology, blue like the veins of her breast, flowing beneath the pale white skin, so rich and fearsome. The serpent’s forked tongue protruded, flicking toward her unseen nipple. The sight repelled him.
    He grabbed the phone from her. “Button your shirt or put on a jacket. Don’t breach security, even in the vehicle.”
    She leaned back, taking her time, and glanced out the windows at the endless plains and empty farm fields and scrub pine. Then she smiled, as if she were humoring him, and buttoned her top.
    Haugen put the phone to his ear. Von’s number was ringing. But he wasn’t picking up.
    Sabine put her foot up on the center console. “We need to be within two miles to use the walkie-talkies.”
    “I know.”
    Why didn’t Von pick up? Haugen slammed the phone shut. He nodded out the windshield and said to Stringer, “Step on it.”

15
    I n the sloppy rock and grit on the side of the gorge, the cell phone rang. Von could hear it clearly. But he couldn’t find it.
    It was Haugen, he knew. Haugen, calling because he had missed his check-in. Each ring sounded angrier than the last.
    Huffing, he said to the mountain air, “I’m here, asshole.”
    He was stuck halfway down the side of the steep gorge, midway between the gravel logging road and the riverbed below. The Hummer had catapulted him free when it flipped. That had saved him. He couldn’t believe he was alive, but he would take the luck.
    Below him, dirt and vegetation were scraped away as though a crazed bulldozer had charged downhill at an angle. He hurt all over. He was covered with dust and scratched to bits and thought his arm might be busted. Maybe his eye socket too—things looked kind of crooked—and his head was screaming.
    He glanced up. The hillside, this evil gorge, looked nearly vertical. He grabbed hold of a root that had been half pulled from the hillside by some protruding edge of the limo, and he leaned forward to look down.
    He saw the Hummer.
    It was—oh, man—it was probably four hundred feet below him, upside down on top of rocks at the edge of the river, tires pointed at the sky like a fat dead turtle.
    He saw Friedrich.
    Or the smashed shell that was left of Friedrich.
    Royally screwed . No kidding. Friedrich, Friedrich—“Why’d you swerve?”
    All he’d done was kick Friedrich accidentally, and the idiot lost control of the Hummer. That’s what he’d tell Haugen. It was Friedrich’s fault.
    He heard voices. He heard a girl crying.