Peach looked in the back seat. She saw a pair of binoculars and realized they were made for night vision. She spotted the corner of a laptop poking out from under a Penthouse magazine, and she needed two hands to lift the machine into the front seat. The laptop was a Toughbook, made for rugged use. She traced a USB cable plugged into one of the computer ports to a digital camera.

This was a stake-out car. A spy car.

She opened the glove compartment, which was crammed with electronic charger cables and receipts. She rifled through the pile of papers but didn’t find any insurance information or owner records. She lifted the lid of the laptop and pushed the power button, but the battery was dead.

Peach flipped down the sun visor. She found a stack of more than a dozen identification cards tucked under an elastic strap. She pulled out the laminated cards and flipped through them. The card issuers were all different. State and county agencies. Trade associations. Corporations. Banks. The cards were fake, using a variety of aliases, but several of the cards included a photograph, and she recognized the man in the pictures.

It was Curtis Ritchie. Ogden Bush’s private investigator. The man she knew as Curtis Clay.

Peach slid her phone from her pocket and called Annalie, and she was grateful when the woman answered. The connection was intermittent and ripped with static, but she could hear her.

‘Peach, what is it? Are you okay?’

‘I’m fine. I’m over in Picnic Island Park.’

Annalie’s unhappiness cut through the line. ‘I told you to stay in the office. What are you doing there?’

‘The man who was following me in the red Cutlass, he’s a PI named Curtis Ritchie. He works for Ogden Bush. Bush said that Ritchie was following Frank Macy last night, and the trail led here. I found the car, but he’s nowhere around.’

‘You should get out of there,’ Annalie said. ‘Right now.’

‘There’s no one here—’

‘It doesn’t matter. Someone may be coming back to get that car.’

‘I need to see you,’ Peach said.

‘It’s not safe to travel. The storm’s getting worse.’

‘Please. I’m going to Justin’s safe house. Can you meet me there?’

There was a long pause, and she thought Annalie might say no. Then the woman replied: ‘All right. It will take me an hour. Be careful.’

Peach hung up the phone.

She gathered up Ritchie’s Toughbook and digital camera, and she grabbed the charger cables from the glove compartment, hoping they matched the devices. She shoved the equipment under her shirt, which provided meager protection against the storm. The hardened plastic shells were cold on her damp skin. She opened the door and ducked out into the rain and kicked the door shut behind her.