He spared her a glance. “Hopefully a cop will pull me over, then.”
Her lips tightened. Fine, she could be annoyed at his tone. He was annoyed at . . . everything. “What the fuck just happened back there?”
“I—I don’t know.”
“Don’t lie to me. They were talking about your father.”
“I’m not lying to you. I have not had anything to do with my father for longer than you’ve known me.”
“Guess that’s why you told me he was dead when he wasn’t.”
She lowered her head, her curls hiding her face.
He slapped the steering wheel. “I’m driving, and I don’t even know where the fuck we are.”
“The loneliest road.”
“Very poetic.”
“No. I recognize this. It’s called the Loneliest Road. We’re in Nevada.”
He cast her an incredulous look. “Nevada? We’re in fucking Nevada?”
“Don’t raise your voice to me.”
He lowered it to a whisper. “How the fuck did we get to Nevada?”
“Obviously they brought us here.”
That meant they’d been out for hours. No other buildings were around them in this desert. The sun wasn’t quite gone yet, but it was still dark, no city lights to be seen.
“I think I’ve driven through here.” She shoved her hair out of her face. “Keep going north, and we should hit a hotel and saloon in about ten miles.”
A saloon? He hated this Wild West cosplay time warp already. “Great. We can contact the police there.”
“The police?”
“Yes. The police.” He spared her a glance. “What other alternative is there?”
A beep cut off whatever she was going to say. “What is that?”
She froze, then reached between them and opened the middle console. A radio sat inside, along with another gun. She lifted the radio out gingerly. It beeped again. A voice came over it, a disembodied, computer-modified voice. “Mira. Naveen. I’d like to speak with you.”
Chapter Five
Mira ran her thumb over the button of the radio. “What do I do?” That was a question she wasn’t accustomed to asking anybody. Then again, she also wasn’t used to a lot of things that had happened today.
“Answer me.”
The directive didn’t come from Naveen, but from the device.
“Might as well pick it up.” Naveen accelerated. If she squinted, she could make out the faint line of blood on his neck.
Your family is the reason I’m even here. More specifically, she was the reason he was here. Even though she’d tried to distance herself, she should have known she couldn’t escape her past.
What did you steal, Dad?
“Mira?”
Mira shook herself out of her daze and hit the button on the radio. “Yes. Hello.” That was far too polite, but she didn’t know how else to answer a call.
“You hurt my men,” came the deep, distorted voice. “And you stole their car. Not very nice.”
She tried to cling to her tattered shreds of bravado and composure. Brazen had been her father’s middle name, and, along with zip-tie escaping skills, it was something he’d taught her well. When in doubt, pretend. “He’s not dead then? Too bad.” Her gaze met Naveen’s. “Who is this?”
“I’m the one who’s been looking for you, Ms. Chaudhary. Where are you?”
He pronounced her name right. “I don’t need to tell you that.”
Naveen turned the air conditioner off. She swayed toward him, telling herself it was so that he could hear better, and not because she wanted to feel his warmth.
“I think it would be best to have this conversation with you in person.”
“I’d rather not.”
“We’ll find you.”
That was ominous. Naveen’s hands tightened over the wheel and the needle on the odometer inched up to ninety.
“I have no idea why you’re looking for me, or what you think I have. I wasn’t involved in my father’s business. We don’t have anything of yours.”
The man gave a disjointed sigh. “Well, see, that’s a problem. Because I have something of yours.”
Mira reared back when she heard the next voice. It had been so long, yet she could recognize it immediately, even with the radio’s static underpinning it. “Mira?”
“Tai?” she whispered, automatically using the title she’d used to use for her sister when she was small.
The world narrowed. It didn’t matter how many distant years it had been since she’d last heard Sejal, she would always recognize her.
Growing up, Mira had idolized her older sister. Sejal had frequently been the one who had helped her with her homework, forged their dad’s signature on her teacher’s notes, and made sure she had food on the table while their parent was off on one of his get rich quick benders. And when her dad had realized that Mira had a particular affinity for numbers, Sejal had been the one to stand between them and talk him down.
That had ended when Sejal had walked out on her eighteenth birthday with a duffel bag. She’d tried to give Mira a hug in their kitchen, but Mira had shrugged her off and choked back tears. They hadn’t been tears of sadness, but of anger. An older sister was supposed to protect, not abandon.
Mira’s dad had drafted her into his schemes full-time the next week. Only, after a while, she hadn’t played getaway driver or lookout like Sejal had. She’d been the scheme.
Her sister’s words slurred. “Long time no talk, little sister.”
Mira brought the radio closer to her mouth and spoke urgently. “Sejal, what is happening?”
Her voice was dreamy. “I was trying to go straight. That time I saw you, when you were in college. I was going to snitch on this guy who set me up. That’s why I was running.”
Mira’s fingers twitched. She didn’t remember all of the words they’d exchanged that day, only her feelings. The sharp slap of happiness and shock when she’d opened the door to find Sejal there, standing in her dorm hallway. Though she was still angry at being abandoned, part of her had been desperate for Sejal’s approval, had hoped that her sister had showed up to express her pride in Mira’s accomplishments. Both in attending such a good college and breaking free of their father.
That happiness had turned to anger when Sejal had started talking, her words running far too fast to be anything but shifty. She’d prowled Mira’s small dorm room, checking the windows. I need a place to lay low, she’d said.
Just like their father, Mira had thought, and the betrayal had hurt.
Like a switch, she shut that yearning for a parental surrogate off. Mindful of Christine sitting on her twin bed, watching with wide eyes, Mira had coldly rebuffed her sister.
And that was that. Whatever fragile thread that had bound them together was broken. Irreparably, Mira had assumed. “You didn’t say that.”
“I thought I did.”
“You didn’t.” Her voice rose. “I would have helped you. I’m—”
“Dad continues to fuck us over from beyond the grave.”
Mira swallowed. “So it seems.”