“Interesting, then?”
“Much better word choice,” she said, watching the side mirror.
“Someone hacks our account, we head to the airport, and they’re there, waiting for us.”
“I don’t find that fascinating or interesting. I find it disturbing.”
“They knew we’d be coming here. Our jet’s here. All they had to do was wait in the parking lot, and there we were.”
Remi looked over at him. “You are going somewhere with this? Or just pointing out that we’re in trouble?”
“If they’ve hacked into our accounts, our phones, our credit cards, they have access to every charge we made. When we tried using the credit cards at Paolo’s restaurant, they knew exactly where we were.”
“Why didn’t they just follow us from there?”
“That’s what I was wondering. If I had to guess, the hack was very recent.” He checked his mirrors. The two cars were keeping apace but maintaining their distance. “If that’s the case, there wasn’t enough time for them to get to the restaurant.”
She looked over at him. “Logical guess is, we’d head to the jet for whatever we need?”
“Exactly.”
“While I think your hypothesis is nearly flawless, how is that going to help us?”
“We need to regroup. Once we lose them, we have to figure out how to stay off the grid.”
“We’re broke, Sam. We’re going to have to figure out how to survive.”
He thought about what he had left in his wallet after paying for lunch that afternoon. “Two hundred euros isn’t exactly broke.”
“Unless, of course, you’re trying to come up with something to wear to an event where you have to look like you can afford to be there. The party and auction are black-tie. With one dress between us, we’re going to have to draw straws to see who wears it.”
“Not sure I can pull off black silk.”
“Definitely not sleeveless black silk.”
He switched lanes again. “The least of our problems right now. We don’t even have the ten grand to get in, never mind the ten grand Luca wants for his invitation.” He looked over at her, then back at the road, his eye on the two cars following them. “Don’t you find it odd that they’re just hanging back? Not even worried about staying on our tail? Or speeding up when we do?”
“I do find that odd. Especially considering the way you managed to elude them on our way out of Manchester. They have to be tracking us somehow.”
“Possibly our cell phones.”
Remi made sure both phones were turned off. The two cars were still following at a safe distance even with Sam doing his best to lose them.
“We can’t go back to Georgia’s,” Remi said. “We’ll lead them right to her.”
She was right, of course. “We seem to be one step behind. Time to turn things around.”
He hit the gas, pulled off the motorway, went back the other direction, took the next exit, headed down a long stretch of road, feeling as though he’d managed to lose the tail, until he noticed a car, so far back it was just a speck, but coming closer, until the blue Mercedes filled his rearview mirror. No sign of Bruno’s black Mercedes. Still, Sam’s evasive maneuvers should have worked to lose both cars, not just the one. “We know it’s not the phones . . . Makes me wonder if they somehow put a tracking device on our car while we were at the airport.”
Remi tapped her fingers on the slide of her weapon. “I could take out one of his tires.”
“I’m not sure that’ll help. Bruno’s car is still out there. If they did put on a tracking device . . .”
“At least we can slow him down. One tail is better than two.”
Sam eyed the narrow road winding through the low foothills, the rolling slopes covered with brown grass. This far out in the country, there wasn’t a house in sight. In fact, they were the only two cars on the road. No innocent bystanders to get hurt, no witnesses—and no police. “If we’re going to do this, now’s the time.”
Remi’s green eyes sparkled with catlike anticipation as she finger-combed her red hair into a ponytail, rolled down her window, shifted in her seat to face the rear, gripping her Sig in her left hand. She braced it on the base of the frame of the open window. “Ready anytime, Fargo,” she said over the wind.