Just when I turned the final corner—taking me close enough to the trailer that anyone who stepped out back for a smoke would see me—and thought I was going to have to backtrack and start all over again, I saw it.

Silver truck. Candy cane. Mustard. Brown, brown, brown.

VP 111.

Jones’s license plate on a car that Luna got away in. I made a beeline for it.

Just as I reached for the door handle, my phone rang, startling the shit out of me. I snatched it out of my pocket before it could ring twice and spark someone’s attention.

“Jesus, what?” I hissed into the phone.

“I don’t know why I was surprised that you lied to me. Where are you?”

“Looking for my phone.” My voice was cool, challenging.

“Bullshit. But nicely done. It worked. I can tell I’m still off my game.”

Probably true. “I take it you weren’t successful in getting the car released.”

“How do you know I’m not sitting in it right now?”

I opened the driver’s-side door with a soft click and slid onto the bench seat, keeping myself low so nobody could see my silhouette. “Because I am,” I said.

“Damn it, Nikki. You’re in there?” I heard a distant rattle of chain link, as if he’d tapped it or, more likely, pounded it with his fist. “Do you know how illegal this is? Now I have to arrest you.”

“Can’t,” I said, opening and shutting every console door I could find. “You’re technically not on the clock. Convenient for me, huh?”

“I doubt anyone would mind if I brought in a B and E.”

“You don’t have handcuffs.” I pawed through rolls of mints and pens and a stack of fast-food napkins. Just like this was any old car.

“I can get creative.”

I stopped what I was doing. “But we both know you won’t. Plus, you’d have to catch me first, and that’s not happening on that leg of yours. So, listen, get in your car and go. There’s some sort of Laundromat or something on the street behind the lot. I saw the back side of it when I was climbing in. Go park there and wait for me. I won’t be long.”

There was a trademark Chris Martinez pause, where he wanted to appear to be mulling over his options but was actually just kicking himself for knowing that he was going to give in to whatever I wanted him to do. He may have forgotten me, but part of him still remembered us. “If you get arrested, it’s on you. I won’t bail you out this time.”

I stopped, sat up, tucked the phone tighter between my ear and shoulder. “You remember?”

“Remember what?”

“Bailing me out of jail.”