Mountain of Lies

Chapter 13

Mia wiped furiously at the tears pouring down her face. Her escape was no good if she crashed the car and killed herself and Neville. The dog was making heaving, panting noises in the back seat, and Mia realized their grief would probably sound much the same to anyone who heard them. She might just have broken Neville's heart as well as her own.

The first time in her adult life she'd ever told someone other than her parents that she loved them, and then she'd sicced her dog on him and stolen his car. She wasn't going to be winning Girlfriend of the Year anytime soon.

She pushed the thought out of her head. She'd done the best she could. This way Hudson didn't have to go back into danger. He could just make some excuse to the gang—say he'd been arrested or something—and wait until she turned herself in and gave them her evidence about Abe. His identity would still be protected, and he could keep doing the job he loved.

Besides, she was pretty sure there were rules about cops consorting with felons, which is exactly what she'd be, once she was charged for her part in the murder. It had been a foolish pipe dream to think anything could come of her feelings for him.

She wrapped her hands more tightly around the steering wheel. She couldn't afford to think of Hudson. He would have called in by now and police would be looking for her. She was a huge target wheeling around in his car, and she had something she had to do before she turned herself in.

She cranked up the radio and forced herself to start singing to the old '80s tune that came through, then rolled the back windows all the way down. Neville loved to hang his head out into the wind and she was headed in the direction Hudson would least expect, so she figured they were safe enough until she could swap out the car.

But Neville didn't move to the window. He stepped off the seat and curled himself into an impossibly small ball behind the driver's seat where she couldn't see him. She didn't bother wiping at the new batch of tears—she just kept blinking them away, trying to clear her vision enough to keep the car between the lines.

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Hudson spat out a mouthful of blood and used his tongue to test if his teeth were still intact.

"You can keep pounding me 'til you break your other 'and, Gio. I don't know where she went." His words were thick, but distinct enough. And true. Mia had taken her own phone from his pocket, but he hadn't given her password for the house's  signal so she'd had to use his.  Problem was, she'd made so many searches he had no idea which breadcrumbs to follow.

Which was, no doubt, exactly what she'd intended. She'd reserved bus and airline tickets to three different locations across Canada, made hotel reservations at six different spots—none of which matched the ticket destinations. And since those bookings there'd been not one credit or debit card transaction to track. Mia was in the wind.

Gio slammed the mallet into his thigh and Hudson grunted. He should have taken the pain shot Mitch had offered. Or he could use the code word that would bring in the listening team who were waiting to bust the warehouse. He'd known he was going to have to pay a price for showing up without Mia, but seeing Abe had cared enough about controlling Mia to risk blowing his cover by trying to take her off the mountain, Hudson'd thought there was a chance he might show up again.

It was literally the only way he could think of to try and bring Cain/Abe out of the woodwork. Because not only had Mia dropped off the radar, so had Abe Larson. He'd apparently blown off all the meetings in his diary and no-showed at a fundraiser the previous night. Hudson's gut was telling him they were running out of time. Especially as the crime analyst had discovered Abe was the president of the corporation that had commissioned the lucrative environment study that had brought Mia back to the west coast.