She swerved into the left lane, without a lot of room to spare. Marcelline hissed at the tight fit. Carly winced and saw that they looked together, automatically, to the cop ahead to see if he’d noticed. He hadn’t. They sighed in unison and Marcelline looked over. Her in-it-together smile pushed down the fear in Carly.

The story was bigger, whatever it was, but her part in it and Marcelline’s were crossed now. And Carly could deal with it. Was dealing with it. Look at me go. She could do things.

They took the left and ducked straight into the parking lot of a bustling supermarket. Marcelline turned into a spot shielded from the street by a pennant-festooned van, covered with blue and gold wildcat decals and thoroughly soaped windows urging the Cougars to game-day victory. Number Eight was apparently the star player these days. Three number-eight-wearing, blue-wigged people in gold face paint unloaded bags of groceries from a piled cart into the back of the van, filling all the spaces between the tripod legs of a grill and a massive cooler.

Marcelline ignored the sideshow and rested her lips against prayer-folded hands that were shaking. “Oh, this is crazy,” she whispered.

“Where should we go?”

“I don’t know.”

Carly tried to look at the map, but the focus was hard to catch. Her hands were shaking, too. “What do you think he would do? I mean, if he finds us.”

Marcelline swiped her hand over Carly’s forearm. “I don’t want you to worry. I just need a minute. I’m wrecked. He keeps popping up like the damned Terminator.”

A wash of chills rushed over Carly’s back and scalp in a gust of discovery. “Oh, no! I know how he’s doing it. The app!” Carly held up her phone, gripped in her fist as if it would jump away if she’d let it. “John must have Mom’s phone. The app. It’s a tracker on this one.”

“Oh, hell.”

Marcelline looked for Jonathan out of her side of the car. Carly scanned the parking lot from hers.

“Silence your phone and give it to me.”

“Turn it off?”

“No. Leave it on.”

Carly did and handed it over.

Marcelline got out. “I don’t know if you’ll get this back.”

Carly shrugged. “I don’t have bad stuff on there, so it’s all in the cloud. Duh.” She smiled bravely into her trembling cheeks.

“Right.” Marcelline smiled back.

She walked around her car, head down like she was looking at the tires. In one smooth sweep of her arm, Marcelline slid Carly’s phone into one of the tailgaters’ remaining shopping bags.

She hurried back to her seat, dropped the car into gear, and pulled away from the van. “Go, Cougars.”

•  •  •

“So what will you tell me about this?” Carly asked.

They’d caught their breath in exhausted silence.