Read Online Uncaged by John Sandford, Michele Cook - Free Book Online
Authors: John Sandford, Michele Cook
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topping?”
Shay said she was sorry and that she hoped it wouldn’t cost her the job, but she had a family emergency and had to run. She did, straight to a public library three blocks away. All the computers were occupied and she had to wait for five minutes, but when she finally got on, she found a message waiting for her on Facebook.
That text was a lame attempt to mislead them. We just left Arizona, but none of the people there know we’re gone. That should screw up their investigation, for a while, anyway. We’re working with a group in Hollywood now. I’m a little worried: there are things going on that I don’t understand. Watch yourself. Ignorance is your best bet. Stay away from those two Singular guys. They are NOT cops of any kind .
Singular guys?
Did that mean West and Cherry worked for the lab’s owner? That they weren’t any kind of law officers? She understood a few other things, reading between the lines. Odin had never been good at social relationships, at understanding ordinary human traits like treachery, jealousy, and deceit. If he was in that kind of trouble, he wouldn’t get out on his own.
The next day, Shay went out the door in her work uniform, lurked outside Clarence and Mary’s house until she saw them leave, then went back and let herself in. She took the best stuff from a pile of camping gear kept in the basement and hit the kitchen for ramen noodles, peanut butter, and crackers, plus a few bottles of water.
She retrieved her carefully hoarded stash of cash—a lot of school lunches not eaten. Less the money for a bus, she’d have seventy-five dollars when she got to Hollywood. Her roommate had stashed another sixty. Shay knew where it was and was tempted to take that too, but the roommate had plenty of problems of her own.
When she’d packed, she got down on her knees, reached under the box spring of her bed, found the fist-sized hole, and took out the knife in its worn leather sheath. It had a clip on the back, and when she slipped it under the waistband at the back of her jeans, it was invisible. Fine for walking, not so much when riding on the bus; on the bus, she’d move it to her hoodie.
On the way downtown, she stopped and sent a Facebook message to Odin: she was on her way to L.A. Shay made the bus with ten minutes to spare.
Hollywood.
6
Harmon rolled into the Singular parking lot and dumped the dusty Mercedes ML550 in a reserved parking spot that wasn’t reserved for him; he had a reserved spot, but just didn’t care. The truck was equipped with the off-road package, with brush bars front and back and a winch. A Day-Glo orange circle, four feet across, was hand-painted on the roof, the better to be seen by search planes should Harmon get hung up in the desert.
Nobody would mess with the truck, in its misappropriated parking spot, because anyone at Singular who was important enough to have a reserved spot would recognize the truck as belonging to Harmon. Nobody messed with Harmon.
A tall man who dressed in jeans and cowboy boots, Harmon had a desert-weathered face and a streak of brilliant white teeth when he smiled, which he did, and often. He wore aviator glasses with mirrored lenses. People who’d known him for years had never seen his eyes.
Around the company, it was understood that he’d been a SpecialForces sergeant in Afghanistan and had served with Sync, who had been with the Central Intelligence Agency. Not much was known about their relationship, except that it was close.
It was also known that Harmon spent much of his free time in Arizona and New Mexico, scouting the desert for Indian archaeological sites, which he would document with photographs and then report to the relevant university or state archaeological departments. Why he did that was not known.
Inside the Singular building, a pleasant-looking woman in a security guard’s uniform checked him through the glass doors at the end of the lobby. Harmon gave her one of his smiles and said,
Shay said she was sorry and that she hoped it wouldn’t cost her the job, but she had a family emergency and had to run. She did, straight to a public library three blocks away. All the computers were occupied and she had to wait for five minutes, but when she finally got on, she found a message waiting for her on Facebook.
That text was a lame attempt to mislead them. We just left Arizona, but none of the people there know we’re gone. That should screw up their investigation, for a while, anyway. We’re working with a group in Hollywood now. I’m a little worried: there are things going on that I don’t understand. Watch yourself. Ignorance is your best bet. Stay away from those two Singular guys. They are NOT cops of any kind .
Singular guys?
Did that mean West and Cherry worked for the lab’s owner? That they weren’t any kind of law officers? She understood a few other things, reading between the lines. Odin had never been good at social relationships, at understanding ordinary human traits like treachery, jealousy, and deceit. If he was in that kind of trouble, he wouldn’t get out on his own.
The next day, Shay went out the door in her work uniform, lurked outside Clarence and Mary’s house until she saw them leave, then went back and let herself in. She took the best stuff from a pile of camping gear kept in the basement and hit the kitchen for ramen noodles, peanut butter, and crackers, plus a few bottles of water.
She retrieved her carefully hoarded stash of cash—a lot of school lunches not eaten. Less the money for a bus, she’d have seventy-five dollars when she got to Hollywood. Her roommate had stashed another sixty. Shay knew where it was and was tempted to take that too, but the roommate had plenty of problems of her own.
When she’d packed, she got down on her knees, reached under the box spring of her bed, found the fist-sized hole, and took out the knife in its worn leather sheath. It had a clip on the back, and when she slipped it under the waistband at the back of her jeans, it was invisible. Fine for walking, not so much when riding on the bus; on the bus, she’d move it to her hoodie.
On the way downtown, she stopped and sent a Facebook message to Odin: she was on her way to L.A. Shay made the bus with ten minutes to spare.
Hollywood.
6
Harmon rolled into the Singular parking lot and dumped the dusty Mercedes ML550 in a reserved parking spot that wasn’t reserved for him; he had a reserved spot, but just didn’t care. The truck was equipped with the off-road package, with brush bars front and back and a winch. A Day-Glo orange circle, four feet across, was hand-painted on the roof, the better to be seen by search planes should Harmon get hung up in the desert.
Nobody would mess with the truck, in its misappropriated parking spot, because anyone at Singular who was important enough to have a reserved spot would recognize the truck as belonging to Harmon. Nobody messed with Harmon.
A tall man who dressed in jeans and cowboy boots, Harmon had a desert-weathered face and a streak of brilliant white teeth when he smiled, which he did, and often. He wore aviator glasses with mirrored lenses. People who’d known him for years had never seen his eyes.
Around the company, it was understood that he’d been a SpecialForces sergeant in Afghanistan and had served with Sync, who had been with the Central Intelligence Agency. Not much was known about their relationship, except that it was close.
It was also known that Harmon spent much of his free time in Arizona and New Mexico, scouting the desert for Indian archaeological sites, which he would document with photographs and then report to the relevant university or state archaeological departments. Why he did that was not known.
Inside the Singular building, a pleasant-looking woman in a security guard’s uniform checked him through the glass doors at the end of the lobby. Harmon gave her one of his smiles and said,
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