Luanda ran down the alley carrying the bright yellow medical case, and I pursued.

  Twenty yards up the alley was a dumpster, secured to a three-foot-high bolrd by a chain. Luanda had dropped the emergency kit on it and removed a pair of EMT shears, the kind used to cut people’s clothes or seatbelts off in an emergency. When I caught up to her, she demanded, “Lose the vest and the gun.”

  “Why would I get rid of my gun?”

  “It’s dangerous dead weight unless you’re pnning to shoot more cops or hijack a car—and if that’s your py, stay the fuck away from me.” The anger in her tone was a gut punch, and I wondered if it was about me or what I had seen happen to her in my dream.

  She removed her gray canvas shoes while I unstrapped my vest and removed the phone from its pouch.

  I wiped down the gun and tossed it into the dumpster, along with the vest.

  Whisper’s voice came in again. “You two lovebirds need to get a move on. Six patrol cars acknowledged the ‘shots fired’ alert from 911, and that’s just SPD.”

  “Copy that,” I replied.

  Her eyes fixed on my earbuds as I talked to Bluewhisper, and she said, “Grab some wipes and see how much of that blood you can get off my shoes.”

  While I bent over to grab her shoes, she unceremoniously removed her baggy, blue prison-issued pants. The unexpected undressing surprised me, but I dutifully started using the wipes to try to clean the rge amounts of blood off her shoes.

  Using the shears, she cut most of the legs off the pants. She left one side longer than the other. On the longer side she cut a v-shaped slit. The effect was ridiculous when she put them back on, and I had no idea what she was even trying to do.

  The leg on one side was dangerously high. On the other side, it was mid-thigh with a V that exposed additional leg. The edges of the pants frayed, and the fit was stupidly loose. If the waist didn’t look like prison pants, it might qualify as a failed attempt at fashion. The oversized white cotton prison panties were visible in a few pces, making her whole appearance completely eye-catching in the worst way.

  I shook my head, thinking, ‘This is just making it worse.’

  Her blue, boldly-beled prison scrubs came off next, exposing an ill-fitting bra, built shapeless with wide, utilitarian shoulder straps. The institutional-white highlighted her dark skin despite its utter ck of style.

  “Give me the hoodie.”

  Without the Glock, I didn’t need it, so I unzipped it and handed it over.

  She put it on and zipped the zipper to just above her navel, letting the length cover the tops of the prison pants. Only the longer leg showed below the bottom edge of the hoodie. She left the hood down and rolled the sleeves crisply to mid-forearm.

  The whole look was crazy, but no crazier than what runway models wear. It was better than running down the street in prison colors, but I wondered if the hoodie by itself would have been enough. “This won’t get us any less attention.”

  “Yes, but if they are staring at my legs, they aren’t staring at my prison uniform.”

  I handed her the gray shoes, now free of blood. We got everything into the dumpster, and right before the lid shut, I snatched a pizza box from inside. As I did, she stepped closer to me and her right arm went up behind my head. Suddenly, I felt my left earbud pulled out, and she stepped back and put it in her ear.

  “What the everloving fuck are you doing?”

  She just turned on her heel and started making time up the alley. “If you have information coming in, we both need it. I’m not wasting time and letting you filter what you think I need to hear.

  Whisper chimed in, “Is that you, Luanda? You're on comms too now.”

  “No, she is not on fucking comms, Whisper.” I was speeding behind her as we made our way at a jog to the end of the alley.

  Luanda slowed as we approached the main street and assumed an aloof and upright posture. The transformation was from a lion coiled to pounce to a housecat zily strolling across the floor. Different in their kinds of elegance but with hidden deadliness in their grace.

  She said something I couldn’t make out, and Whisper replied, “Sorry mate. You'll have to ask Sabot about the pn. I’m just eyes in the sky.”

  The realization that if she spoke quietly, BlueWhisper could hear her, but I couldn’t, made my growing annoyance almost boil over into action. I considered muting the mic outright or changing the audio bance so she couldn’t hear, but realizing I could do it if needed was enough to bring me down a notch.

  There were a few random raindrops, but I almost wished it would start pouring down because more people were out than felt safe. It was still a bit early for lunch, but not so early that my pizza box looked unexpected. I thought, ‘just a supermodel and her pizza-box-carrying sidekick, nothing to see here.’

  When I came alongside Luanda, she asked, “What’s the exfil pn?”

  “No pn at this point, but we gotta make some distance first, no matter what.”

  “No pn, what the hell? How can you do all that and not have a pn? Are you suicidal?”

  “I pnned to get the drop on them with three other guys and then drive away with you after, but instead I had to risk everything. Sorry, if you’re disappointed.” I worried my voice had carried too much.

  Her pace stayed steady, maintaining the same upright and above-it-all look. Her silence was infuriating, and I almost turned back, let her go it alone. But something—guilt, maybe that kid in me who couldn’t walk away—kept me moving.

  Her sharp words stirred old wounds. Me at 12, riding my bike in the rain, looking for my mom. Her—muddy and unconscious, next to the bar: again. I wanted to leave her. To run away and never see her again. It took till almost morning, but I got her up and walked her back home.

  Whisper broke in, “If the winds are done blowing between you two, maybe one of you can tell me where you are and where you are going so I can make sure you both aren’t about to become the victims of excessive use of force.”

  I answered immediately with a touch of embarrassment, “We’re just exiting the alleyway at Vine. Try to find a decent-sized css B or C office space at least five more blocks from the crash. Look for ones with offices for rent.”

  “Do they have those kinds of buildings near here? I don’t know this area at all. I’ve only been in Seattle a couple of months,” Luanda said.

  Whisper answered as well, their voices overpping. “On it, mate.”

  Our pace was fast but not fast enough to appear obvious. Luanda stayed in front, and I called our location at each intersection. We were about four blocks away when BlueWhisper gave an update. “Just got a dispatch. One cop down, DOA. Another bloke in serious condition. They're calling code 3.”

  “What’s code 3?” I asked.

  Luanda answered before BlueWhisper could, “That’s lights and sirens, maximum speed.”

  “Got it.”

  I thought about what it meant, and let out an almost involuntary “fuck.”

  “Fuck is right,” Luanda replied.

  Three blocks ter, as we approached an intersection at the exit to a narrow one-way street, I had a moment of internal dread and a fsh of pain behind my eyes. I called out, “Stop! Come back this way.” Luanda and I moved back into the one-way and got close to the wall. Ten seconds ter, a county sheriff SUV blew past the alley—lights but no siren.

  “How did you know he was coming? Whisper didn’t say anything.” Luanda’s voice held surprise with no anger or scorn for the first time since getting rescued.

  Whisper responded, “Sorry, ss, I’m not omniscient. A few will get by for sure. I have to scan the vehicles in the zone and estimate their position by longitude and titude. It’s not just a screen with every cop in the city.”

  We waited for another 20 seconds before I peeked around the corner and, seeing no visible police, crossed the street.

  The rain had picked up to a drizzle, but the streets were still busy. We caught a decent number of looks. A white-haired man in a blue rain jacket going the other way was particurly keen to examine Luanda. I don’t think he even saw me.

  I couldn’t see her face, but her gait and pace never slowed or sped up, and she kept her head pointed forward.

  Whisper came back on. “They’ve identified Wellington as the dead man and our boy Nichos Renner as someone they are calling a suspect. Seems he has multiple priors for domestic violence. Nice chap that.”

  “Fucking Hollywood man of the year that asshole.”

  I shared the sentiment.

  A helicopter approached in the distance but didn’t fly overhead.

  Two more blocks brought us to a rge office building with first-story parking and double gss doors inside the parking lot. I told Luanda, “Follow me,” and got in front of her, leading her towards the building.

  When we got close, I started to break down the pizza box, pulling apart the fps and making it one rge ft sheet. We walked past the card reader designed to provide access, and I slid the pizza box through the wide gap between the two doors. When it was almost all the way in, I started to wave it up and down. There was a loud clunk as the motion sensors on the inside opened the magnetic door lock.

  We immediately pushed in and Luanda said, “There is no fucking way that worked.”

  “You’d think that, but the gap on these double gss doors is generally wide, and they almost always put the REX sensor too close because it’s easier to put them right by the door than to run the power through the ceiling.” I pointed at the open interior stairway. “Let’s go up at least a flight.” We walked up a flight, and I looked down the hallway. I didn’t see what I was looking for, so I took us up another flight.

  “What are you looking for?” Luanda asked, her tone curious.

  “A rental lock box, preferably a button one, but I can probably open a dial one depending on the brand.”

  On the next floor, she spotted what I wanted.

  We walked down the quiet interior hall. Most of the offices were dark. “A lot of people never came back to the office after the lockdowns, so there’s a ton of avaible office space,” I commented.

  We walked up to the unmarked door, and I reset the lockbox lock, then pushed down on the opening mechanism and felt the first row of buttons. Only the “1” felt loose, so I reset it again, pressed “1”, and pulled down again. After four attempts, the lockbox was unlocked, and I removed the key and let us inside.

  The interior was empty except for cubicles. It smelled like paint and new carpet. We sat behind a cubicle, hidden from view for anyone looking in the full-height window next to the door.

  As we sat, the energy visibly drained from Luanda, and she let her head press back into the cubicle wall. She sighed. “How cooked are we?”

  I leaned my head back and breathed deeply. “I don’t know, but less cooked than when Jacob and Nick had you.”

  She tilted her head my way and gave an upward nod with her chin, her thick brows raising slightly. “Thanks for that.” Her tone was still hard, but the thanks felt honest.

  Outside, the bre of police sirens had become ubiquitous.

  I thought, ‘Maybe not perfect, but—just this once—maybe good enough.’